#18 — Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) One of my favorite moviegoing experiences occurred in the fall of 1996, when I saw the restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in Chicago. Handled by the team that previously provided similar touch-ups to Spartacus … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Eighteen
These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. “1999” was the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “1999”
18. The Smiths, Rank Here is the sound of contractual obligation in the college rock world. By the fall of 1988, the Smiths were over as a going concern, the longtime fractious relationship between lead singer and Morrissey and guitarist … Continue reading College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, 18
This another of my contributions to the central Florida publication The Independent. I’ve had such a difficult time lately finding the time and energy to write full-length record reviews (despite very different ambitions, I’ve only managed two reviews in the past three months) that I may need to employ some variation on this hit-and-run kind of take. Just over 200 words, and I really did say everything I felt obligated to say about the album. Super Furry Animals is one of those bands that tries to do a little bit of everything and winds up doing nothing particularly well. There’s … Continue reading From the Archive: Phantom Power
There was a stretch during the mid-to-late-eighties when I gently transitioned myself from the sort of stuff played on album rock radio stations to the material that had a more comfortable home at the left end of the dial. It helped that I had a hometown radio station that was a weird hybrid of the two, embracing select college radio artists (R.E.M. chief among them, but also the occasional Camper Van Beethoven or Robyn Hitchcock song) even as it leaned most heavily on the rootsy classic rock likes of Bruce Springsteen, Little Feat, and the seventies output of the Kinks. … Continue reading One for Friday: Peter Wolf, “Can’t Get Started”
#17 — Michelle Pfeiffer as Ingrid Magnussen in White Oleander (Peter Kosminsky, 2002) This might be a good time to reiterate a central tenet of this series: highlighting a certain performance isn’t intended to anoint it as the best ever … Continue reading Greatish Performances #17
#19 — Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) Seven Samurai is an unassuming epic. It may seem a strange description for the three hour tale of a band of misfit warriors recruited by a desperate rural town to stand up … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Nineteen
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. I’m quick to heap scorn upon those who ignore the time-tested adage “Life’s … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Blatz
Sleuth (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972). This first film version of Anthony Shaffer’s play made it to screens a mere two years after the original work’s New York premiere. Given the cunning narrative duplicity at work in the story, it’s no wonder there was a rush to adapt it before the many secrets contained therein could ripple too far from the theatrical community. But deceptions that work onstage don’t necessarily bear up to the closer scrutiny of the camera, and that itself can intrude upon the necessary suspension of disbelief given the characters are able to investigate with even greater intimacy. … Continue reading Cromwell, Helgeland, LeRoy, Lupino, Mankiewicz
19. That Petrol Emotion, End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues In my memory, End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues sounds a little different. That’s because I have one particular track off the album that I faultily use to define the … Continue reading College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, 19
Coffee for Two 