#47 — Swimming to Cambodia (Jonathan Demme, 1987) The very nature of Swimming to Cambodia is fantastically, deliriously uncinematic. There’s no sweep or scope to the movie, nothing particularly dynamic to train the camera on. The action gets no more … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Seven
1-19-2. Something about that first number…just…doesn’t….look…right…. As I’ve reported in this space, I’ve been engaged in an ongoing bout for over twenty years, putting my best guess at the Oscar nominations in the six major categories up against those of my old movie review radio show colleague. Nineteen times, I’ve conceded defeat to him. Twice, I was able to call him up and note that we had tied, though those didn’t feel like accomplishments; they felt more like leaning across the ring with my face bloodied, asserting, “You didn’t get me down, Ray!” Then, this morning, for the first time … Continue reading Sell yourself short, but you’re walking so tall
It’s odd to be able to accurately use the phrase “decades of futility” about a personal endeavor. But the simple fact is that it was over twenty years ago the first time I challenged my friend and movie review show colleague to a duel, each of us taking a stab at predicting the Oscar nominees for the top six awards: Best Picture, Best Directing and all four acting categories. We’ve revived the skirmish nearly every year since. We’ve tied twice, he’s won nineteen times, and I’ve never won. Ever. In my tepid defense, we’re both quite good at this. It’s … Continue reading Predicting the Oscar Nominations, or The Definition of Insanity
54. Dash Rip Rock, Ace of Clubs For a blazing, guitar-driven outfit from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Dash Rip Rock seems a pretty fitting name. A quick listen to any of the scorchers on their sophomore album Ace of Clubs makes it seem like the band’s name might derive from the set of instructions they give themselves before manning their instruments. That may be part of the point, but the group is more specifically named after the hunky actor who spent some quality time with curvy Elly May Clampett in an episode of TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies. The real secret to … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, 54 and 53
Comics were added to the mix recently over at Spectrum Culture, which speaks directly to my woefully geeky heart. My first offering on that front is a retroactive examination of the Wolverine miniseries created by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller in the early nineteen-eighties. I well remember reading the limited series when it was first published, reveling in the aching coolness of it. He was in a tight race with bashful Benjamin J. Grimm in my own personal Favorite Character category at the time. By the end of that decade, it’d be hard to think of a character I was … Continue reading Spectrum Check
I suspect there’s a tendency to always see the time when you’re following music most closely–probably those years around high school and college–as a time of particular tumult and transformation. It’s a natural side effect of close scrutiny combined with a passionate connection with the artists. Every shift in a lineup or full-on dissolution of a band is major news, like the borders of a country being redrawn after a war. The whole landscape changes, or at least that’s what it feels like. At around the time I started at the college radio station, both Husker Du and The Smiths … Continue reading One for Friday: Antenna, “23”
Upon further reflection, it’s not actually that difficult to figure out why Darren Aronofsky chose to follow up Black Swan by presiding over the latest cinematic adventures of Marvel Comics mainstay Wolverine. The similarities between Nina Sayers and Logan are legion. He may be able to recycle whole pages of the Swan script. Continue reading It’s my turn to see what I can see, I hope you’ll understand, this time’s just for me
#48 — Roxanne (Fred Schepisi, 1987) No matter what snap judgments observers may have made about him when he rose to fame in the nineteen-seventies by making balloon animals and wearing arrow-through-the-head apparatuses, Steve Martin has classic, refined tastes. It’s not just in the acquisition of art–a topic in which Martin is extremely well-versed, although New York City audiences apparently have no interest in his insights. For example, when penning his first solo screenplay after serving as one of the contributing writers on most of his prior comedies, Martin looked to a work no less venerable than the 1897 Edmond … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Eight
Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962). This beloved film classic only had its notoriety bolstered when Martin Scorsese remade it in 1991. Though my helpless affection for Scorsese is well-documented by now, I must concede that the the original is far superior, largely due to the performance of spectacularly relaxed menace by Robert Mitchum as recently sprung convict Max Cady, who decides to terrorize the prosecutor whose testimony was instrumental to his incarceration. Mitchum is so good developing a fearsome quality out of little more than the way he glares across a room or strolls into a scene that the … Continue reading Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson
I wonder if they’ve picked out the band to provide music for the next Muppet movie yet. Lightning Bolt would be a pretty good choice. Continue reading See you in the evening, see you in the dawn
Coffee for Two 