#47 — Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968) Sometimes stories from the heyday of Roger Corman’s low-budget productions–when he was regularly able to attract highly skilled filmmakers who needed a break and didn’t have the option of cheapo homemade digital production to … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Forty-Seven
There was a specific point, lost to me now, when I decided that I absolutely needed to read Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. I truly wish I could credit the periodical or person or television interview or whatever that caused me … Continue reading My Writers: Nick Hornby
One of the most rattling news stories to emerge near the end of 2012 noted that reported sexual assaults were up dramatically at U.S. military academies during the year, a rise of 23 percent. That is alarming, but there is … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2012 — Number Six
4. “Lips Like Sugar” by Echo & the Bunnymen I was still playing catch-up with college rock in 1987, so my true first impression on many of the bands that prospered there, including those that had been around for a while, was based on how fans were viewing the music they were making right that moment. So I was under the impression that Echo & the Bunnymen were some sort of perpetual disappointment. I’ll admit it: I was sort of a dumb kid. The British band’s fifth album was released in 1987. Self-titled, it was inspired a lot of agitated … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 4 and 3
I had a fairly light week on Spectrum Culture, in part because the film I chose for this week never came through. As I recall, it had something to do with Wisconsin. Sorry I couldn’t write about you, native state. So I had only one full-length review this week: Willy Mason’s Carry On. He’s one of those performers who first edged onto my personal radar because of some gushing write-ups in Mojo magazine, which contributed to my take on him perhaps becoming overly concerned with the relative success he’s had in the U.K. That’s what happens when I don’t actually … Continue reading Spectrum Check
If the tag tally on my dashboard is correct, this is the 201st edition of One for Friday. I was properly trained by my time as a fervent comic book collector to find great significance in recurring publications hitting the big round numbers, but last week’s 200th go-round with the feature is less momentous than this week’s comparatively clumsy number. The reason is simple: with this point, One for Friday officially outlives the weekly Friday distraction it originally spun off from. Back when all my digital words were dispensed exclusively via a different platform, I spent the end of every … Continue reading One for Friday: The Weeds, “Better Now”
#48 — Hud (Martin Ritt, 1963) Eight years before Peter Bogdanovich’s exceptional adaptation of The Last Picture Show, writer Larry McMurtry had his first dalliance with the silver screen when his debut novel, 1961’s Horseman, Pass By, was transformed into Hud. This film holds a defining star turn by Paul Newman and an astonishing, Oscar-winning performance by Patricia Neal. It also inspired a vital early essay by Pauline Kael in which she laid bare her own conflicted feelings about the work in such compelling terms that it was one of the cornerstones of her legend and could legitimately lay claim … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Forty-Eight
“He assigns the topic. Each writes whatever sentences his or her temperament permits. ‘Write what you know,’ Harmon apes, as if it were possible to do anything else.” –Richard Powers, Generosity, 2009 “OF ALL THE COUNTLESS WORLDS I’VE KNOWN…OF THE MYRIADS OF PLANETS UPON WHICH I’VE TROD…NEVER HAVE I KNOWN A RACE SO FILLED WITH FEAR…WITH DARK DISTRUST…WITH THE SEEDS OF SMOLDERING VIOLENCE…AS THIS…WHICH CALLS ITSELF…HUMANITY!” –Stan Lee, SILVER SURFER, Vol. 1, No. 2, “When Lands the Saucer!” 1968 Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
There is a creative exuberance to Valérie Donzelli’s Declaration of War that stands in beautifully paradoxical contrast to the smothering sorrow of its subject matter. Donzelli and Jérémie Elkaïm play a French couple with classically familiar names, Juliette and Roméo. … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2012 — Number Seven
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 band 10cc started in 1972. At least that’s when the group of British musicians who’d been writing and recording together for a while decided to formally become a band under that name. Before that, they’d operated in several different iterations, including a stint as a band called Hotlegs, as which they had a minor hit in 1970 with the song “Neanderthal Man.” … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “People in Love”
Coffee for Two 