#11 — Nick Nolte as Lionel Dobie in the “Life Lessons” segment of New York Stories (Martin Scorsese, 1989) Of the once bankable, respectable actors who’ve fallen on hard times, typified by mediocre film role options, no descent is more … Continue reading Greatish Performances #11
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. Jamaican-born Millie Small was just sixteen years old when she had a smash hit with “My Boy Lollipop,” a cover of a song originally performed by Barbie Gaye. The track went all the way to #2 on both the U.K. and U.S. charts (held out of the top spot on the latter by the first #1 single by the Beach Boys), and insinuated … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Sweet William”
Humpday (Lynn Shelton, 2009). While I don’t always give the background on my viewing choices, I will note that this finally made its way from out queue to our screen in preparation for watching Lynn Shelton’s excellent follow-up. I’m mostly sharing that to give myself a public chastisement. Humpday is pretty terrific, providing a surprisingly plausible narrative progression to an utterly implausible scenario. Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard play old college buddies whose reunion after several years apart winds up involving an odd pledge to make a man-on-man pornographic film together, in direct opposition to their heterosexual tendencies, for Seattle’s … Continue reading Jason, Milestone, Minnelli, Scorsese, Shelton
16. Rainer Maria, A Better Version of Me Occasionally, my re-acquaintance with college radio in 2001 involved something approaching cruelty in the reminders I was given as to how detached I’d become from the music scene. As a College DJ … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 16 and 15
I had a busy week at Spectrum Culture, and one that was significantly more time-consuming than I initially anticipated. As I’ve noted before, we writers largely select exactly which films, CDs and books we want to review. When I picked out the new documentary from Goncalo Tocha, I swear I read that it was ninety minutes long. Then the screener showed up, spread across two DVDs. So on a weekend that I was already somewhat pressed for time, I suddenly had a three-hour film to watch (after I’d already committed to watching a very different one in the theater that … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Growing up is dumb. Okay, okay, so it has its rewards too: wisdom, accumulating authority, stabilizing emotions and all that junk. Whether that’s due compensation for the virtually inevitable dissipation of passion and energy is a matter of debate. Perhaps nothing crystallizes the supremacy of youth quite like the realm ruled in benevolent partnership by rock ‘n’ roll and pop music. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a great song about yard upkeep or renegotiating mortgages rates, but first kisses and tragic, heated love affairs certainly fit snugly into a three-and-a-half-minute single. That’s one of the reason that teenage … Continue reading One for Friday: Noise Addict, “Boyfriendship”
I’m glad to report that I fell for Ian McEwan’s literary sleight of hand in Atonement. I knew blessedly little about the novel when I picked it up to read it, little more, in fact, than it was earning acclaim … Continue reading My Writers: Ian McEwan
#23 — M*A*S*H (Robert Altman, 1970) Whenever I look at Robert Altman’s breakthrough 1970 film set during the Korean War, I find it simultaneously completely logical and utterly incomprehensible that it spawned a beloved television series that ran for 251 episodes … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Twenty-Three
Back when everyone simply had to know that we were in the midst of the Marvel Age of Comics, the publisher had a nifty knack for promoting their pulchritudinous periodicals with defiantly dazzling descriptors. Every adventure promised picturesque peril and … Continue reading Mighty Marvel Checklist Hyperbole Check: Fantastic Four #75
It seems too strange to write about The Dark Knight Rises while sitting on this particular square of the calendar without at least acknowledging the most grimly notorious midnight show of all time. I saw Christopher Nolan’s concluding spin with … Continue reading Low rising, ’cause I fear we’ve had enough
Coffee for Two 