#20 — The African Queen (John Huston, 1951) There are gateway films for everyone, those features that unlock something inside that inspires a previously absent appreciation for, say, foreign cinema or art house fare. I can’t actually pinpoint what opened … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Twenty
Fifty-fourth in a series… (Via) Continue reading But Jesus hurt me when He deserted me
20. Joy Division, Substance In the fall of 1987, New Order released a compilation entitled Substance. Designed as a collection of all of the band’s singles up to that point, including the B-sides, the album served as a means for the band to provide greater distribution for some tracks that were fairly hard to get, especially on this side of the Atlantic. It also provided an opportunity for some light revisionism, with the band remixing or even full-on rerecording several of the songs, making the album a different sort of “greatest hits” release. It wasn’t merely an appraisal of who … Continue reading College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, 20
Rest in peace, Robin. We lead off our home video segment with the release of one of last year’s most emotionally powerful films: the Penny Marshall-directed film AWAKENINGS. AWAKENINGS details the work of a doctor, played to perfection by Robin Williams, who takes on the perplexing case of several people who have been in comas for several years, but still have functioning motor skills. They’re able to catch a falling pen, or play an odd game of catch by propelling a beach ball to one another. Williams formulates a potential cure for these patients that succeeds in drawing them out … Continue reading From the Archive: Awakenings
It’s been a long time since it’s happened, but I’ve seen my fair share of Wilco shows. I have a beloved cadre of friends that has a hearty representation of Uncle Tupelo devotees, and I spent a few evening hours during the mid-nineties watching the bands built from the splinters of that seminal alt country group. At least initially, Son Volt was the group that garnered the most acclaim, and I think they were the band my friends favored too. For me, the choice was always Wilco. To be thorough in this reportage, I wasn’t especially fond of Uncle Tupelo, … Continue reading One for Friday: Jeff Tweedy with Jay Bennett, “Listen to Her Heart”
#21 — Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959) It’s entirely possible — likely, even — that Anatomy of a Murder is far better known for the design work of Saul Bass that shapes the opening titles and the poster … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Twenty-One
Understandably, there’s been a lot of attention on filmmaker Richard Linklater and the long path to his new film, Boyhood. Stories have covered the logistics of filming a story in small bursts over the course of twelve years or focused … Continue reading Toward a wisdom beyond the shelf, toward a dream that dreams itself
Her friends, it seemed, called her Betty. I believe this to be the case because I once saw Lauren Bacall make an appearance on The Tonight Show back when Johnny Carson, the only host of that program who truly mattered, presided over it. He kept calling her “Betty,” always with a level of purely smitten appreciation that I rarely saw in the preternaturally composed entertainer. It wasn’t hard to figure out why this upstanding Midwestern gentleman might find himself a little bit swoony in the presence of her. She was decades past her debut as a willowy ingenue in the … Continue reading Lauren Bacall, 1924-2014
I remember watching Happy Days on the first night that an episode entitled “My Favorite Orkan” aired. I didn’t know that was the title of the episode. I only knew it was like nothing I’d ever seen on the nostalgia-driven sitcom. It was remarkable enough that the program focused on a space alien who visits the Cunningham home, but the actor playing that extra-terrestrial was an absolutely astounding force of nature, bending off oddball jokes at a rate that raced ahead of the speed of thought. I was seven years old, and I was prepared to tell everyone it was … Continue reading Robin Williams, 1951-2014
When the task of counting down a chart is complete, I’m always left with the perplexing question of where to go next. For one thing, I don’t exactly have an abundance of options with suitable and satisfying college charts a … Continue reading College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, An Introduction
