I had a little spare time on my hands today. For only $10.95 I could’ve had a dandy craft project to occupy myself. There’s whole magazine attached to this ad, just in case you’re interested in downloading and reading it. Continue reading You could smell the heads festering in the backyard
Dark Passage (Delmar Daves, 1947). This passable film noir is probably most notable for a storytelling gimmick that keeps the face of star Humphrey Bogart obscured for a good chunk of the film’s running time. He’s plays a man who claims he was wrongfully accused of murdering his wife. He escapes from prison and hides out in San Francisco, eventually getting some backroom plastic surgery to change his appearance. That’s when he starts to look like Bogart, so the lead up puts the star in shadows, covers his face in bandages, and, for significant stretches, employs a subjective camera technique … Continue reading Argento, Daves, Joffe, Judge, Moses
“Actually, we hadn’t really stepped into a clearing: it was more that the thin woods we’d come through had ended, and now in front of us there was open marshland as far as we could see. The pale sky looked vast and you could see it reflected every so often in the patches of water breaking up the land. Not so long ago, the woods must have extended further, because you could see here and there ghostly dead trunks poking out of the soil, most of them broken off only a few feet up. And beyond the dead trunks, maybe … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
You think you had a rough day? Believe me, it could’ve been rougher. There’s more where that came from. (Due credit: I first found out about it elsewhere.) Continue reading I’m just a penny on the train track waitin’ for my judgment day
And now…on with the countdown… 25. Dramarama, “Haven’t Got a Clue” The title of the song is a fairly accurate representation of my reaction upon seeing this song on the list. Dramarama is definitely a band that got some decent … Continue reading College Countdown: Winter 1991, 25-21
#23 — When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996) In 1974, Leon Gast went to Zaire to make a concert film. Heavyweight champion George Foreman was scheduled to defend his belt in a bout billed excitedly as “The Rumble in … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Twenty-Three
Whenever I look back to the music exposure I had during my high school years, I’m generally dispensing laments about the inferior quality of the radio stations that could be pulled in by my humble antenna. I stand by those complaints–I think of of this time as the beginning of the end for strong, distinct, localized radio–but I should allow that there was an exception. WMAD broadcast at 92.1 on the FM dial. Their tower stood in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and the wattage was low enough that they barely covered the greater Madison area. It usually took some maneuvering, but … Continue reading One for Friday: Treat Her Right, “I Think She Likes Me”
There’s no shortage of material out there designed to pry into the personal lives of famous figures. There’s even a whole battalion of individuals who are famous for no other reason than their willingness, even needy enthusiasm, to have cameras … Continue reading I’ve been licked, washed up for years and I merely survive because of my pride
Break of Hearts (Philip Moeller, 1935). Katherine Hepburn was a mere twenty-eight when this thin romance was released, just a few films into her storied career. She already had an Oscar and at least one solid hit to her credit, but doubters were plentiful. This was one of the string of flops that famously got her labeled “box office poison.” If nothing else, the film is evidence that Hollywood didn’t really know what to do with her yet, shoving the camera into her face to capture a dewy glisten that may have been the standard of the day for leading … Continue reading Anderson, Charles, Krasinski, Miller, Moeller
The word “inception” actually means the beginning of something, that start of a journey, the first part of a major undertaking. In Christopher Nolan’s new film, Inception, the word has an additional definition in its role as a bit of … Continue reading I had too much to dream last night
