#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
I have a special fondness for the music that flooded college radio in the first six months or so of 1989. That’s partially a byproduct of my position at the station at the time, still fresh in my overall tenure and gifted with an atypically early ascension to the director staff level, specifically with responsibilities that related to reviewing new music. (Lorne Michaels has mused that everyone’s favorite Saturday Night Live cast is whichever one was in place when they were in high school. Surely, there’s a corresponding truth to college radio: everyone thinks the music scene was peaking the … Continue reading Lou Reed, 1942-2013
26. Tool, Ænima The title of Tool’s second album is a made-up word. Ænima is a rough amalgam of the Latin word for soul and the word “enema.” And that sort of sophomoric, scatological brattiness masquerading as uncompromising, dirty-minded profundity … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 26 and 25
Though I was otherwise up to my Adam’s apple in cleaning, painting and other coordination involving a distant house, I still had a couple contributions go up this week at Spectrum Culture. First, I had a new film review, covering a horror flick from the director of Splice. I selected this because a certain member of my household always welcomes a new cinematic excursion into horror, even though they often disappoint. That was certainly the case in this instance, although I’ll admit that it had a promising enough premise that a few changes could have made it into something interesting. … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Coffee for Two 