A United Kingdom (Amma Asante, 2016). It’s almost jarring to see a modern movie as staid in its dramatization of noble societal perseverance as A United Kingdom. Based on real history, the film follows the heartbreaking travails of Seretse Khama … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — A United Kingdom; Downsizing; Girls Trip
Steven Spielberg is the dream director for the film adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One. He’s also arguably a terrible choice for the near-future cotton candy dystopia of a puzzle quest across a virtual landscape of pop culture … Continue reading Now Playing — Ready Player One
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. In 1966, Dean Martin appeared in four … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “A Million and One”
956. Velvet Elvis, Velvet Elvis (1988) Velvet Elvis formed in Lexington, Kentucky, largely because aspiring singer-songwriter Dan Trisko needed an outfit to deliver the tunes he was cranking out with admirable efficiency. The band played through the reasonably robust club … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #956 to #953
By now, I’ve shared most of the reviews I still have from my days as the co-host and co-producer of the early-nineteen-nineties radio show The Reel Thing. This represented a rare instance of tying the weekly home video segment into … Continue reading From the Archive — The Hard Way and Doc Hollywood
I remember it as a slow, melancholy dimming of the lights for a certain kind of record collecting — or, being precise about the era, CD collecting, I suppose. Paul Westerberg was just a few years into his solo career, … Continue reading One for Friday — Grandpaboy, “Psychopharmacology”
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Recent days have been … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Abbott and Costello, “Who’s on First?”
#35 — James Gandolfini as Winston Baldry in The Mexican (Gore Verbinski, 2001) I wonder if it’s all but inevitable that a proverbial “role of a lifetime” brings with it as many hardships as benefits. No matter the pleasures of … Continue reading Greatish Performances #35
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. This commercial includes a remarkably accurate depiction of how I eat pizza. I mean it sincerely when … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Tabasco “Mosquito” commercial
This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. It is probably beyond my command of words — regardless of where I … Continue reading Beers I Have Known — NOLA Brewing Company Revivalists American Pale Ale
Coffee for Two 