#48 — Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958) I believe the current consensus is that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is supposed to be viewed as, at best, a compromised adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Forty-Eight
There are few things in cinema more pleasurable than a movie that manages to signal from the very beginning that it’s something special, that it’s been put together with care and honesty. Short Term 12, directed by Destin Cretton, does … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number Seven
Without exception, it was a pleasure to watch him meet a role. Even in those rare instances when the ideal dynamics of the part eluded him or there simply wasn’t enough there–not necessarily there on the page, since there’s reason to believe he was capable of bringing more than he found–for him to build a fully-realized, deeply-felt character, it was clear that Philip Seymour Hoffman took to his roles with a deep integrity designed to gain him insight. He was a character actor in the truest sense, including the predilection to disappear into roles, changing his physical appearance to suit … Continue reading Philip Seymour Hoffman, 1967 – 2014
26. Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town If there’s a single album that defines who Bruce Springsteen is, especially to his most devoted fans, it’s probably Darkness on the Edge of Town. This is partially due to … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 26
When I joined the writing staff at Spectrum Culture, I was probably most looking forward to having access to the sorts of small, independent films that either took months to get to my humble mountain town or bypassed our local … Continue reading Spectrum Check
First impressions can be a strange thing, especially when personal first impressions are out of whack with actual chronology. Those with a deeper musical knowledge than I generally greeted the 1988 appearance of the Wire album A Bell is a Cup…Until It is Struck and its immediate predecessor, 1987’s The Ideal Copy, with a mixture of surprise and confusion, perhaps joined with the adhesive of derision. For them, the reunion of this founding father band of the post-punk movement sounded so far removed from beloved early works like Pink Flag and Chairs Missing–all rawness and jagged sonic challenges–that the newer … Continue reading One for Friday: Wire, “Come Back in Two Halves”
Sometime during the making of Too True, the third full-length from Dum Dum Girls, frontwoman Dee Dee (also known as Kristin Welchez) literally lost her voice. According to her, that caused a slow-down in the creative process, giving extra scrutiny … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Too True
In some quarters, the effectiveness of 12 Years a Slave was attributed to the emotional distance director Steve McQueen had from the specter of American slavery, since he was born and raised in England. That theory ignores McQueen’s own record … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number Eight
Here is a story told to me lately by a man named John Cronin, who is the director of the Pace Academy for the Environment, at Pace University. Cronin has known Seeger for thirty years. “About two winters ago, on Route 9 outside Beacon, one winter day, it was freezing–rainy and slushy, a miserable winter day–the war in Iraq is just heating up and the country’s in a poor mood,” Cronin said. “I’m driving north, and on the other side of the road I see from the back a tall, slim figure in a hood and coat. I’m looking, and … Continue reading Pete Seeger, 1919 – 2014
#49 — The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) Flying saucers raced across the movie screen with impunity in the early nineteen-fifties. In the first two years alone, there was Flying Disc Man from Mars, The Flying Saucer, The Man from Planet X and The Thing from Another World. That doesn’t even take into account all the movies dependent on more conventional rockets to get eager youngsters into the mayhem of their weekend matinees. Most of these sci-fi offerings (and “sci-fi” seems far more appropriate a term than “science fiction” in this instance) show off their dashed-off, cash-in … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Forty-Nine
Coffee for Two 