#8 — To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) The film adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird arrived about two-and-a-half years after the novel’s original publication. Both are so firmly ensconced in the American canon that it can … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Eight
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 scared of Marvel magazines. That’s not quite true, but … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Bizarre Adventures #27
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. Eddie Floyd started at Stax Records as a songwriter. In the mid-nineteen-sixties, Floyd partnered with guitarist Steve Cropper to write something for Otis Redding, emerging with the song “Knock on Wood.” After hearing it Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records (then deeply connected to Stax) was convinced that Floyd didn’t need to loan the song out. He had a hit on his own if … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’ve Never Found a Girl”
#9 — West Side Story (Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961) When I watch the portions of West Side Story over which Jerome Robbins had sole authorship, I wonder if completing the film even would be possible had he been … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Nine
24. Victor, Victor As I noted somewhere around the lower seventies, there was at least one Rush super-fan on the 90FM Director Staff in the first half of 1996, meaning he probably had a little bit of sway and influence … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 24 and 23
This week at Spectrum Culture…I didn’t write anything. Given my recent travels, I deliberately steered cleared of picking up stuff to review, and the editor-in-chief was also merciful (there were certainly music reviews I could have had deadlines this past week). So this is one of those rare instances when I have nothing new to share. My olleagues filled the site with good stuff, so do follow the hyperlink and click around. Continue reading Spectrum Check
We have an uncarved pumpkin on our front porch. Initially, there was a little regret about that in our household. However, a different sentiment quickly overtook it, defined by a simple, direct statement: every day is Halloween. There’s not exactly an abundance of holiday cheer in our residence, most of the special days of the calendar coming and going with, at most, cheerfully unorthodox commemorations. There is one that is held more dear than the others, and that’s Halloween. That reverence for October 31st means I’ve long gone out of my way to make sure I have a small surplus … Continue reading One for Friday: The Postmarks, “Every Day is Halloween”
This does not mean a Jesus O’Lantern series will be the ever-popular balloon animal Jesus series. Well, it doesn’t automatically mean that. Continue reading Happy Halloween!
Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic (Marina Zenovich, 2013). Richard Pryor had a life that was singularly amazing (deeply troubled childhood, an impact on the art of stand-up comedy like no other, and a personal life fraught with peril and bad decisions), so much so that it seems almost impossible to contain it within a single film. He couldn’t do it with the thinly fictionalized Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling, and Marina Zenovich–inadvertently, no doubt–does her level best to prove that the documentary feature format similarly has no hope of containing the man’s unbalanced magnificence. She clicks through the … Continue reading Ozu, Polley, Sullivan, Tourneur, Zenovich
#10 — The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) Famously, the casting for The Graduate was all messed up. Dustin Hoffman, in only his second film role and first of any significance, was thirty years old, nearly a decade older than would be … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Ten
Coffee for Two 