19. The Rolling Stones, Some Girls Some Girls is the best-selling Rolling Stones album in the United States, by a healthy margin. The 1978 release has been certified platinum six times over by the RIAA, with only 1981’s Tattoo You … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 19
Reviewing films in a small, Central Wisconsin community led to some strange situations. It was always a bit of a crapshoot as to what would actually come to town, not just on opening weekend but at any point during its run. We spent a lot of time with our weekly radio show trying to figure out how to handle it when only one new release came to town, or other things that we were actively excited to cover dragged their way in well past the point when the national media was covering them. Given that, I’m sometimes amazed at the … Continue reading From the Archive: Rush
I’d like to say that I grabbed a hold of Fountains of Wayne after seeing That Thing You Do!, but that’s not quite accurate. Fountains of Wayne songwriter Adam Schlesinger penned the title cut to Tom Hanks’s directorial debut, miraculously creating an instantly catchy number that never overstayed its welcome despite being circled back to repeatedly in the film (and then there are those of us who’ve watched the film countless times and still never gotten sick of it). That introduction should have reasonably been enough to convince me that this was an artist made for me, particular since his … Continue reading One for Friday: Fountains of Wayne, “Utopia Parkway”
Right now, I feel a little like Godzilla’s logo up there. So limited words tonight. “One for Friday” will be here at it’s regularly scheduled time tomorrow. Continue reading Programming Note
#42 — High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952) Beware the film critic who has stumbled upon a thesis. This isn’t automatically a problem, but it does lead to an overvaluing of certain films over others, sometimes for fairly questionable reasons. For example, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which we will get to before this feature has run its course (although more quickly than most writers about film would consider prudent), has been elevated to the consensus pinnacle among The Master’s works perhaps as much because of how neatly it fits into pre-existing narratives of the his predilections and obsession than of any exhibited … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Forty-Two
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. The perennial. The standby. Mother’s milk. What one drinks for strength. Hell, what one drinks for glory. It is a meal. It actually may be healthier than most meals. It’s famously a booster of strength. And it’s a full-bodied brew for able-bodied men. Of late, it’s been on the right side of history. It’s an amazing elixir: creamy, rich, and hearty. It’s difficult to get it to the proper temperature, which is mildly … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Guinness
I once posited in this space that Veronica Mars was one of the unsung (or at least under-sung) creations in the long transformation of the television series model from collections of loosely connected episodes to the mythology-heavy novels divided into … Continue reading Now she walks through her sunken dream to the seat with the clearest view and she’d hooked on the silver screen
20. Joe Cocker, Luxury You Can Afford In the late nineteen-seventies, Joe Cocker was going through one of those rocky stretches that were the accepted territory of raspy-voiced rock ‘n’ roll singers. He spent a decent portion of the decade bouncing around different managers and cultivating a reputation as a self-destructive alcoholic with an occasional penchant for vomiting mid-set onstage. In 1978, he was further trying to rebound by some significant commercial disappointment, and he had to prove himself to a new label. Luxury You Can Afford was his first for Asylum Records, after a long stretch with A&M Records. … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 20
It’s girl detective weekend at the movies, isn’t it? The main thing that strikes me about this review from an August 1991 edition of The Reel Thing is the rapid way that certain film careers can crumble away, especially for actresses of, shall we say, a certain age. When we started doing the radio show in 1990, Kathleen Turner was a performer of great significance and acclaim. By the time we were done, three years later, her career was reeling from a series of commercial missteps. Her wonderfully wicked and wackadoo turn in John Water’s 2004 film, Serial Mom, was … Continue reading From the Archive: V.I. Warshawski
I have enough invested in the idea of perfect artistic finality that occasionally I can drift into the mental parlor game of selecting the best last album for an individual artist. This doesn’t necessarily mean identifying their very best work under the theory that everyone should go out at their absolute peak. Instead, it’s about finding those releases that feel just right as a sort of summation, a proper closing statement of artistic identity and intent. To shift the topic to movies for a useful illustration, Robert Altman probably made at least a dozen movies that I consider plainly better … Continue reading One for Friday: Lyle Lovett, “Step Inside This House”
Coffee for Two 