I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. I was always on the lookout for things that were true … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Marvel and DC Present by Chris Claremont and Walter Simonson
#24 — Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958) Search “Touch of Evil” on Google, and the info box that pops up on the right side of the screen lists its release date as September 11, 1998, even as the synopsis … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Twenty-Four
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. Back before he became the poster boy for Branson, Missouri milquetoast schtick and one of the more famous doddering parrots of Fox News petrified nonsense, Andy Williams was a velvet-voiced singer with a string of hits, a sort of safe alternative to those who were were likely to clutch their metaphorical (or, indeed, actual) pearls whenever they heard the raw, reckless sounds coming … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Ain’t It True”
The Impossible (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012). At the very core of The Impossible is the commonplace sin of depicting a real-life tragedy in an Asian land through the experience of well-to-do, white, European travelers. The devastating tsunami that struck countries on the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004 killed approximately a quarter of a million people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, but its obviously rich vacationers played by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor whose story whose story needs to be told. This could be acceptable–albeit begrudgingly so–if the film still carried the sort of emotional weight that should … Continue reading Bayona, Lang, Moore, Sturges, Webb
3. Yes, Tormato The very first lyrics heard on the Yes album Tormato are “In the fountains of the universe: Set time in accord/ Sits the boychild Solomon: Every turning round and round,” sung over electronic trilling that sounds heavily … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 3
We started our movie review radio program, The Reel Thing, in the fall of 1990, which meant that we had to contend with the still expanding market of home video. That was how a significant number of people did their movie viewing, and the home video release of a film could be as important of a story as its first sojourn through theaters. Besides, doing home video reviews helped us fill a few more minutes in an hour-long show. Now, I wish we’d more often used the opportunity of another review a few months later to find a way to … Continue reading From the Archive: Edward Scissorhands
I’ve featured a selection from Firewater’s Psychopharmacology one before in this space. As I noted at the time, the album was one of the first I bought from the finest local, independently-owned record store in my new hometown at the time. Even though I owned it and it was circulated through my CD player with some regularity, I was still reminded of the way that being involved in a college radio station had the blessing of prolonged, collaborative discovery. The Firewater album did all right for us, with most deejays (myself included) gravitating to the snaky, catchy title cut. Then … Continue reading One for Friday: Firewater, “She’s the Mistake”
When we arrived for a screening of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, my partner in all things requested two tickets to “Angry Monkeys.” It took the ticket seller a beat or two to catch on, but once he … Continue reading I reached the top and had to stop and that’s what bothering me
#25 — An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 1951) As far as MGM was concerned, there was an element of risk to letting director Vincente Minnelli team up with Gene Kelly for the musical An American Paris. Though proven commodities, they’d … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Twenty-Five
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. The quartet comprised of Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon, and Pete Townshend, known collectively as the Who, first reached the Billboard Top 40 with their 1966 single “Happy Jack.” They made it into that portion of the chart a total of sixteen times, doing so as late as 1982, by which point dearly departed drummer Keith Moon (who, as much as anyone … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Call Me Lightning”
Coffee for Two 