It has been twelve long years since Robert Zemeckis directed a film that had real live actors in it. He would undoubtedly take umbrage with that characterization, noting that the stop-motion animation efforts he’s toiled on during those dozen years … Continue reading Turn this crazy bird around, I shouldn’t have got on this flight tonight
30. “Alex Chilton” by the Replacements I rarely pass up an opportunity to expound on my immense appreciation for Pleased to Meet Me, the fifth full-length album from the Replacements and their second for major label Sire Records. The first, Tim from two years earlier, had a false start that must have especially pained the band’s frontman, Paul Westerberg. The glum genius songwriter felt a clear, special kinship with Alex Chilton, whose own self-defeating legend was assured by his time as one of the key creative forces behind the early nineteen-seventies rock ‘n’ roll cult heroes Big Star. Chilton was … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 30 and 29
Since I was gone for a week, I intentionally withdrew from selecting new items to review for Spectrum Culture, and my editor was kind enough to refrain from assigning due date for the one or two things I had that were, frankly, a little overdue. I’ll pay for that mercy a bit in the week ahead as I’ve got a lot of writing to do. For this past week, however, the only thing I had go up on the site was my contribution to the next installment in our year-by-year survey of great comedic performances. I’m especially glad the filmography … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Of course I need to begin by thanking Holly, Phil, Phantom Third Channel, Rachel and Rhienna for their exemplary efforts last week in my absence. I’ve been trying to think of a song for this week that somehow encompasses all of them, but I’ve been unable to find a super-sad song by the Fall that’s totally bonkers in a surprisingly blissful dance remix that’s only available on vinyl. I suspect that the track I’ve described actually exists, but it’s beyond my capabilities to find it. So instead I’ll just get right back to Friday business, digging into my ancient past … Continue reading One for Friday: Mary’s Danish, “Don’t Crash the Car Tonight”
#10 — Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976) I don’t think it’s quite right to say that all great films are timeless. I do think there are broadly translatable qualities to the very best works–things such as wit, grace, intellectual heft and … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Ten
I nearly forgot that I have a Halloween tradition. For the third year in a row, these are things that I find (or at least have found) scary… Ridley Scott’s Alien was released in theaters six days before me ninth … Continue reading Two steps forward, don’t say I didn’t warn you
Harry and Walter Go to New York (Mark Rydell, 1976). A colleague of mine at Spectrum Culture wrote about this nostalgic caper comedy a while back, calling it “a delightful farce of a film.” Not really, but it’s surely an oddball relic of the era when nineteen-seventies adventurism gave way to self-defeating excess. Clearly inspired by (and given its greenlight due to) the smashing success of George Roy Hill’s The Sting a few years earlier, the film casts Elliott Gould and James Caan as a pair of hackneyed vaudevillians in the late nineteenth century who get caught up in a … Continue reading Kubrick, Kurosawa, Robbins and Wise, Rydell, Wilder
This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. I’ve been to New Orleans many times, including a trip over six years … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Abita Restoration Pale Ale
32. “It’s Still Warm” by Dramarama One of the things that has sadly been lost in the corporate consolidation of broadcast radio is the concept of the local hit, those songs and bands that maybe make only the mildest headway nationally but somehow manage to absolute enthrall one city or region. While the New Jersey formed band Dramarama had a couple minor hits on college radio and later commercial alternative radio, it was nothing like the impact they made on KROQ-FM. Their song “Anything, Anything (I’ll Give You),” their second single, had no broader chart impact, but it was one … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 32 and 31
Since I’ve been traveling the past week, I didn’t contribute much to Spectrum Culture, so I’ll actually reach back a couple weeks to note my contributions to pair of features that I had a hand in creating in the first place. There is an occasional “Playlist” feature at the site, which finds the staff combing through the entire discography of an artist to come to some level of consensus about the best track from each release. For the most recent edition, my suggestion as to who to cover won the day and we examined the collected work of The Cure. … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Coffee for Two 