The more fantastical a movie is, the more likely it will be heaped with praise for the vivid realization of its setting. Whether it’s Peter Jackson’s J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations, the Wachowski brothers’ plunge through payphone lines to reach the Matrix, … Continue reading To them ghosts in the train yard, all them ghosts in my drink
The Flight of the Red Balloon (Hsiao-hsien Hou, 2007). Taking its inspiration from the acclaimed 1956 short film by Albert Lamorisse, Hou’s feature is ravishing in its sedate patience. It captures the little struggles in a normal life–the squabbles with a tenant neighbor, the jockeying with family members over needs and expectations, the juggling of responsibilities that comes with being a single parent–with a watchful, concerned eye. He structures scenes so that they play out without an edit. The camera slowly tilts or pans, taking it all in like a languid, quizzical animal. Occasionally, a strangely resolute and ubiquitous red … Continue reading Claudel, Hou, Towne, Truffaut, Truffaut
I’m so very tired. In lieu of pithy observations, I’ll provide something different to help occupy the time. Continue reading So stay on my arm, you little charmer
Something else to add to the Things I Thought I’d Never See file. (Due credit: I found this elsewhere.) Continue reading Never should you worry about society, the best things in the life are never free
Earlier this week I dug out an old CMJ chart and started the process of recreating the Sunday nights of my first year at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point when I and my more enlightened dorm-mates would gather around the radio to listen to our station, 90FM-WWSP, to find out the most played tracks on college radio nationwide. And now, as they say, on with the countdown… 35. Marc Almond, “Jacky” Marc Almond started his career as one half of the influential New Wave duo Soft Cell. This song came from Tenement Symphony, still his highest-charting album back … Continue reading College Countdown: Winter 1991, 35-31
#25 — Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994) Movies are fun. It’s a simple truth that doesn’t get offered up enough. As much as I might expound upon the artistry of certain directors or eagerly try to plumb the nuances of deliberately obtuse French cinema, layering on a veneer of academic rumination to my reaction, the bottom line is that movies are a draw because of the more immediate responses they elicit: laughter, chills, jumps, gasps, the swelling of hearts and libidos. I had a friend who reduced every movie-going experience to the shrugged assessment, “It was fairly entertaining.” I used to … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Twenty-Five
I never heard of the band Swamp Thing before I went to college. On the surface of it, this isn’t remarkable. There are dozens of bands and performers that I can say the same thing about, and probably every person who spend part of their student years huddled in some cramped college radio studio can make similar claims. The difference, and the disappointment it holds, is that the band was from my hometown of Madison, and they were in full swing during my high school years when I was fully invested in learning about new music. Despite the fact that … Continue reading One for Friday: Swamp Thing, “Island Song”
The Hangover (Todd Phillips, 2009). The premise is great. Four guys go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. The next morning they wake up from a blackout drunk with the groom-to-be missing, and they have to reconstruct their crazy night from increasingly absurd clues. It’s like Memento reimagined as a ribald comedy. The execution is another matter. The screenwriting team of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (who saw this turn into a box office sensation just a few weeks after their handiwork resulted in a dreadful-looking bomb) just pile on incident after incident, getting laughs from jolting the audience … Continue reading Bunuel, Frankenheimer, Phillips, Wright, Wyler
#26 — That Thing You Do! (Tom Hanks, 1996) Innocence without naivete is a wonderful thing, and that’s exactly the tone Tom Hanks strikes with his directorial debut. After a string of major successes at the box office and back-to-back Best … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Twenty-Six
I had a Sunday night ritual my first semester of college. I gather with several neighbors in my residence hall, and we’d listen to the student run radio station, WWSP-90FM beginning at 6:00 p.m. The program at that time was The College Count-Up. The esteemed host (and future horror blogging titan) took the weekly “Top Cuts” chart published by CMJ, the trade publication targeted at college radio, and tracked through the songs receiving the most airplay nationwide on the left side of the dial. At that time, he cheekily turned the Casey Kasem/Rick Dees practice of counting backwards around, beginning … Continue reading College Countdown: Winter 1991, 40-36
