There’s no getting around it: I’m a sucker for the films of Rian Johnson. I loved his debut feature and his sophomore effort, sometimes feeling like an isolated supporter of the latter. There’s a crispness to his writing and an … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2012 — Number Three
Much has been made of Steven Soderbergh’s announced intention to retire from film directing–at least for the big screen–now that he’s completed and released Side Effects. There’s a certain wistfulness to all the discussion surrounding the film, and assessments have … Continue reading Well, you burnt my house down, then got mad at my reaction
Pure audacity at twenty-four frames per second (or whatever the digital projection equivalent might be), French director Leos Carax’s fifth feature film, and first since 1999’s Pola X, is a meta examination of the art of creativity, both in the … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2012 — Number Four
2. “Girlfriend in a Coma” by the Smiths “Girlfriend in a Coma” was the first single from Strangeways, Here We Come, the final studio album from the Smiths. Indeed, by most accounts the band was in the midst of splintering apart as the track was slipping up the U.K. charts. The B-side even houses the last song the Smiths ever recorded, “I Keep Mine Hidden.” The A-side is, of course, pretty notable all on its own, inspiring countless covers and even the title to a novel by an author who never tires of clinging at references that will make him … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 2
I pitched in for both of my regular areas this week at Spectrum Culture. On the film side, I wrote a review of a new documentary on the widely protested incarceration of Mumia Abu-Jamal. I actually took this one on for a very specific reason: I’ve now spent at least twenty years hearing cries of “Free Mumia” from a certain, impassioned subsection of society, without ever hearing a corresponding explanation for why his sentence is unjust. I presumed the documentary would provide that, but it instead glossed over the particulars of the situation in much the same way I was … Continue reading Spectrum Check
As is often the case when Friday comes around this space, it’s time for another tale of the 90FM “C Stacks.” When I arrived at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, the greater music library was divided into three sections, the bands placed in them sorted roughly by notoriety: the A,B and C Stacks. Obviously the C Stacks was where the most obscure music went to live out its days at the radio station, until some college kid a generation later pulled it out, muttered, “What the hell is this?” and relegated it to the deep storage in the … Continue reading One for Friday: Cruel Story of Youth, “You’re What You Want to Be”
It is Hushpuppy’s voice, which is also (or actually) Quvenzhané Wallis’s voice, that first establishes the dreamlike grittiness of Beasts of the Southern Wild, the dazzling debut feature from director Benh Zeitlin. Accompanied by an intoxicating montage of her cheerful … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2012 — Number Five
#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
Coffee for Two 