I assume the creative team behind Welcome to Marwen operated with the best intentions. The 2018 film is adapted from Jeff Malmberg’s well-respected 2010 documentary, Marwencol, which centered on Mark Hogancamp and the therapeutic value he derived from developing a … Continue reading The Unwatchables — Welcome to Marwen
These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. Palmer James and Curtis Rodgers were high … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Back Up Train”
Despite the fact that I myself chose to sling my words around in the echoing void of the web wide enough to engulf the whole world, it took me a remarkably long time to land on the revelation that I … Continue reading My Writers — Molly Young
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. When it came time to create a poster for its strange new horror film in space, 20th … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Alien movie poster
640. Yes, Drama (1980) Drama, the tenth studio album from Yes, was aptly named. Already icons of prog rock and mainstays of FM radio, the English band was coming off a commercial and critical disappointment with 1978’s Tormato. The fallout … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #640 to #637
Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction by Zadie Smith Zadie Smith’s consideration of the broad field of fiction storytelling, published recently in The New York Review of Books is dazzling, provocative, cerebral, emotional, and deep as the ocean. Smith … Continue reading Outside Reading — Profound-Other-Fascination edition
I am more skeptical than most about the prospect of a new music released by the Who. I’ve long operated with an instinctual suspicion about the merits of reunited bands, and I defer to my fine friend’s judgment that it … Continue reading This Week’s Model — The Who, “All This Music Must Fade”
This series of posts covers my long, beloved history interacting with the medium of radio, including the music that flowed through the airwaves. When I first toured the university campus that would soon serve as my higher education home, I … Continue reading Radio Days — Soundstreams
Man Hunt (Fritz Lang, 1941). Man Hunt was released six months before the U.S. officially entered World War II, making its animating incident fairly remarkable. A British adventurer (Walter Pidgeon) is traveling across the German countryside with his firearms and … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Man Hunt; All I Desire; The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
#47 — Delroy Lindo as Rodney Little in Clockers (Spike Lee, 1995) Through the nineteen-nineties, there was no shortage of gangstas and drug dealers in U.S. cinema. It was partially a reflection of the fretful concerns of the time, when the crack … Continue reading Greatish Performances #47
Coffee for Two 