#19 — Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965) Repulsion is the first film in what is loosely termed as director Roman Polanski’s “apartment trilogy,” a series that continued with 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby and culminated with The Tenant, release in 1976. Connecting the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Nineteen
I’m calling, “Uncle!” on today. Words tomorrow. Continue reading Seconded!
I checked out quite a few plays from the campus library where I went to college. This wasn’t a result of budding theater fandom or idle curiosity, but stemmed directly from the movie review radio program I co-produced and co-hosted. As much as I reasonably could, I tried to consume the source material of films adapted from other mediums before sitting before the newer works as they flickered on the movie screen. Given the limited time I had–I did have assigned text that I was supposed to be reading, after all–I often decided to trying to read plays was a … Continue reading My Writers: Terrence McNally
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 Chiffons came into being when Ronald Mack heard three girls singing together in a Bronx high school lunchroom. A fourth member was recruited and Mack wrote them a batch of songs, including “He’s So Fine,” which the group recorded with the Tokens as their backing band. The Chiffons kept experimenting–including the release of two charting singles as the Four Pennies–but it quickly … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “A Love So Fine”
48. Cowboy Junkies, Lay It Down During my years as a student in college radio, I offered some fairly unkind assessments of albums by Cowboy Junkies. When I arrived in 1988, the Canadian band was just starting to experience some … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 48 and 47
This was a typical week at Spectrum Culture for me: one movie, one album. On the film side of things, I reviewed the Kid-Thing, which has inspired other critics to all sorts of quasi-surreal interpretations but which I found to be a middling drama with a virulently indie sensibility. As I alluded on Twitter, I was inordinately pleased that I worked in the term “dirtbag kitsch” in writing about the film. I wrote about the debut album from Rose Windows for the music section. I’m not certain what inspired me to raise my hand for this one in the first … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Maybe my memory is selective (it’s definitely faulty), but I don’t remember there being such anxious discussion around identifying the official song of the summer way back when. It could be that the consensus was formerly reached with greater ease, though I suspect it has more to do with a modern desire to create shared pop culture experiences. In Spotify’s world, how relevant is the biggest radio song of the summer unless we make it so? Best as I can tell, the current debate is between the genius of Daft Punk and some Robin Thicke track which I haven’t knowing … Continue reading One for Friday: The Cost of Living, “Could Be Mine”
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. At the peak of my devotion to Marvel Comics, in the … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: The New Mutants by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod
Sarah Polley has directed two prior feature films, but Stories We Tell represents her first foray into the documentary form. It’s not hard to fathom what led her to explore this particular story as a non-fiction effort. A skilled screenwriter, … Continue reading And if you ever wonder why you ride this carousel
#20 — Pierrot Le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) I suspect the average French New Wave classic is exactly the sort of thing a casual moviegoer pictures when considering the sorts of painfully arty fare that film critics usually champion, the material … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Twenty
