780. China Crisis, What Price Paradise (1986) When China Crisis set out to record their fourth album, What Price Paradise, they were coming off a release that supposedly conferred upon them a sort of official endorsement from the upper echelon … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #780 to #777
As hype builds for the forthcoming release of the new big screen blockbuster Godzilla: King of the Monsters (complete with intense scrutiny of every fragment of available information), I will give over a few digital column inches to sharing anew … Continue reading From the Archive — Godzilla
Here’s the thing about working in higher education, as I did for about fifteen years: You get to feel booming pride for a whole fleet of young adults who go out and start putting dents in the world. Sometimes, that … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Emily Reo, “Strawberry”
Satire is punishingly hard to master on the big screen. It’s a tricky puzzle in any medium, but there’s an added degree of difficulty when the tapestry is so large and dynamic. Many skilled filmmakers have taken large gashes in … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Eight
Sharon Van Etten has an intimacy issue, of a sort. Her previous studio efforts (and there’s a big batch of them, including self-released material and stray demos) are filled with stark and beautiful songs. Many of them are also so … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Remind Me Tomorrow
Tully (Jason Reitman, 2018). Working with a script by Diablo Cody, the writer behind two of his best outings, and a compelling, vanity-free performance by Charlize Theron, director Jason Reitman creates a film that is almost jarring in its bleak … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Tully; Can You Ever Forgive Me; The Smart Studios Story
The instigating action of the plot is so small and unassuming that it almost seems like a cheerful memory rather than a cinematic plot point. A little bear named Paddington (voiced marvelously by Ben Whishaw) longs to purchase a vintage … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Nine
784. Aerosmith, Night in the Ruts (1979) Well before their unlikely mid-nineteen-eighties comeback, Aerosmith was band that didn’t just court disaster. It got down to one knee and gave disaster a full-hearted proposal of marriage at first sight. The Boston … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #784 to #781
A few days after the annual Oscar nominations announcement is still a time of bliss, when justice is possible. No matter how many personal favorites have been overlooked, there inevitably remain contenders imbued with uncommon cinematic beauty. Maybe those creative … Continue reading From the Archive — Brokeback Mountain
Maybe someday Phoebe Bridgers will appear on every record, or at least every record worth buying. In the last sixteen months, Bridgers released her solo debut, gave all the sad kids new treasures as one-third of boygenius, and now arrives … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Better Oblivion Community Center, “Dylan Thomas”
