#10 — Bull Durham (Ron Shelton, 1988) I believe in the church of baseball. There’s something magical that happens between those white lines under summer skies. It’s a sport in which two full teams face each other other, but the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Ten
“I come to my journal as a Catholick to a confessor. My bruises insist these extraordinary past five hours were not a sickbed vision conjured by my Ailment, but real events. I shall describe what befell me this day, steering as close to the facts as possible.” –David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, 2004 “HE STRIDES INTO THE THREATENING DARKNESS…AND NEITHER THE DARKNESS NOR THE CHAOS THAT IT CAUSES KEEPS HIM FROM THIS MIDNIGHT STALKING! THE FIRST FULL MOON OF WINTER PRESIDES OVER THE CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION. FIRECRACKERS SHATTER THE DARKNESS, EXORCISING THE EVIL SPIRITS OF THE PAST YEAR. AND YET, … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
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. Allan Sherman’s recording career came about because of a performance at a testimonial dinner for an outgoing label president. Jim Conkling was stepping down as the top man at Warner Bros. records in 1961, when the label was still something a fledgling upstart, largely getting by with comedy albums. Sherman worked in broadcasting at the time, most notably as the creator of the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Crazy Downtown”
Unstoppable (Tony Scott, 2010). There are few funnier things a Tony Scott movie can offer than a “Inspired by True Events” credit at the beginning. Scott isn’t a director completely devoid of charm and panache (like his rough American equivalent Michael Bay), but a reasoned approach to preserving the integrity of a story that has its grounding in real life is simply not something that’s going to happen with the director of Top Gun and Days of Thunder at the helm. At least his usual camera jitters are toned down a bit, although he maintains his penchant for the shock … Continue reading Cassavetes, Corbijn, Fellini, Lumet, Scott
10. The Dictators, Fuck ‘Em if They Can’t Take a Joke Trouser Press wrote: “Our first cassette-only selection. Rock will never die as long as bands like this are around to give it a swift kick in the pants.” Thirty … Continue reading College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, 10
This week, I reviewed a fairly abstract, experimental movie that, were I a little more ambitious, could have being the starting point for an assessment of the very nature of cinema that could have run thousands upon thousands of words. I may actually get around to that take on it someday, as the film raises more questions than it’s really interested in answering. It strikes me as one of those efforts I might want to specifically revisit someday. I mean, why wouldn’t I, since I’m clearly willing to do something crazy, like watch Kevin Costner’s The Postman multiple times. Once … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Yesterday, I wrote about Jennifer Jason Leigh’s acting in The Hudsucker Proxy as part of the ongoing Greatish Performances series. As I noted when I first cooked up (okay, stole) that recurring feature, the inclusion of a specific performance doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m declaring it the very best work of the thespian in question. In fact, in the case of Leigh, there’s a very different turn that I instinctively invoke in those rare occasions when I might be asked to name her best screen performance. I don’t think Leigh was ever better than she was in the 1995 film … Continue reading One for Friday: Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mare Winningham, “If I Wanted”
#9 — Jennifer Jason Leigh as Amy Archer in The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 1994) To the degree that Jennifer Jason Leigh is pigeonholed, it’s as the dark, damaged character whose rolling displeasure probably helps drive the … Continue reading Greatish Performances #9
When last we left the Mighty Marvel Checklist Hyperbole Check, the scintillating surprises of Captain America #131 had been illuminated and explicated. Still, there remained a clamorous cliffhanger as the star-spangled Avenger was trying to determine if the impish impostor … Continue reading Mighty Marvel Checklist HyperboleCheck: Captain America #132
There’s a wholly earned stereotype surrounding British films, best encapsulated by Eddie Izzard, who referred to the standard as Room with a View and a Staircase and a Pond type movies. These are the sort of efforts that reach their … Continue reading Take a left, a sharp left, and another left, meet me on the corner and we’ll start again
Coffee for Two 