As if there were any doubt left on this point, The Hunger Games seals the certainty that studios that once rejected aspirations towards art in favor of a fervent craving for franchises are now slipping to a point where nothing … Continue reading Dressing up in costumes, playing silly games, hiding out in tree tops, shouting out rude names
#39 — Real Life (Albert Brooks, 1979) The reputation of the debut directorial effort by Albert Brooks is so bolstered by the seeming prescience of its premise that it can be easy to lose sight of the detail that the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Thirty-Nine
46. Spoon, Girls Can Tell There were certain albums I was especially excited to hear when I got to my new college radio job in 2001. While I was trying mightily to keep up with the music scene by reading … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 46 and 45
I had couple things on Spectrum Culture this week. In the Film section, I reviewed Womb, a film that continues the unexpected British trend of gentle sci-fi stories about cloning, a distinct subgenre done exceedingly well in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go and less so in the film adaptation of the same book. Womb is further proof that we all would have been better off in Ishiguro’s original work was allowed to be the sole and final work of art on that front. I fared a little better with my selection in the Music section, offering an assessment … Continue reading Spectrum Check
I remember Poi Dog Pondering’s debut album arriving at the college radio station amidst a lot of expectation. This was back when the number of outlets available to promote a new record were far more limited than in the case now, so I’m not quite sure how we got it in our heads that this was a release immediately worthy of my attention. It may have been as simple as the band’s unique gestation. Athens, Georgia and Minneapolis, Minnesota were well-represented on our airwaves, but we weren’t playing a lot from groups that got their start in Hawaii. They did … Continue reading One for Friday: Poi Dog Pondering, “Spending the Day in the Shirt You Wore”
I know the feeling. Continue reading We could be old and cold and dead on the sea
Designing Woman (Vincente Minnelli, 1957). This blithe, airy comedy about a mismatched couple is laced with some mild battle-of-the-sexes commentary. For the most part, though, it’s a procession of problematic friends and crooked boxing promoters. In other words, it’s the sort of romantic turmoil that only happens in the movies, and happened all the more frequently when the standard Hollywood product was made monumentally more colorful to compete with the hugely successful new medium of television. The film is directed with typical skill and panache by Vincent Minnelli, but the film works to the degree it does mostly from the … Continue reading Ford, Fukunaga, Green, Minnelli, Stahl
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. In 1960, the year that Jackie Wilson’s “Your One and Only Love” peaked at #40, the phenom singer had six songs that made the Billboard Top 40. That tally included “Alone at Last,” which went to #8, and “Night,” which made it all the way to #4, his career best. Wilson was known as “Mr. Excitement,” but the music he was using to … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Your One and Only Love”
“Most nights Claire disappeared into the crafts room, or had never come out of it in the morning. Technically no crafts emerged from this part of the house. We named it once with the hope that someone, sometime–a future child of ours, perhaps–would go in there and be productive, make something pretty or useful or interesting. Such were our speculations for the children we might have. They would fashion objects that glowed or spoke, and we would sit in wonder as we held their tremendous work in our hands. Our children would solve some fundamental boredom we could not escape, … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
48. The (International) Noise Conspiracy, A New Morning, Changing Weather I suppose there was room for a new band operating with fealty to an anti-capitalism manifesto after Rage Against the Machine announced their dissolution (even though it may have been … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 48 and 47
Coffee for Two 