Sequels invariably inspire comparisons, weighing the merits of what’s flickering on the screen against the adventures that came before. This seems to be especially true for superhero sequels, maybe because there’s an echo of the comic reading experience, where every … Continue reading Everything you say is like iron; it smashes me up but it’s brittle inside
There are a few things that will always entertain me. Continue reading My eyes have seen the years and the slow parade of fears without crying
#37 — Shall We Dance? (Masayuki Suo, 1996) Part of the appeal of foreign films is the glimpse they can provide of a different culture. There’s a distancing angle to this as a film-goer, a sense that perhaps having a … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Thirty-Seven
Some days I’m fully prepared and excited to string together a whole bunch of words. Some days all I want to do is post a picture of a monkey reading a comic book. Okay, it looks more like a magazine … Continue reading I know that Saturday’s got what it takes, babe
Paul Kelly was one of those artists that I arrived at the college radio station determined to find. He had received laudatory reviews in Rolling Stone, one of the few sources for music information that I had in the mid-to-late eighties. Despite the Australian troubadour’s relative obscurity on these shores, the publication reviewed his records, approvingly quoting the lyrics and generally describing his songwriting capabilities with the same sort of unabashed enthusiasm they usually reserved for more sainted figures like Neil Young. His music clearly wasn’t going to get played on the commercial radio stations I could access during my … Continue reading One for Friday: Paul Kelly & the Messengers, “Under the Sun”
And now an offer from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man: I think this particular offer has expired but Marvel seems to have a similar one ongoing at this point replacing “riddles and jokes” with “story ideas.” (Nicked from a classic epic … Continue reading When you asked how I was doing was that some kind of joke?
“The judge was a tall big man with blue eyes and a brown billy-goat beard and he seemed to me to be old, though he was only around forty years of age at that time. His manner was grave. On his deathbed he asked for a priest and became a Catholic. That was his wife’s religion. It was his own business and none of mine. If you had sentenced one hundred and sixty men to death and seen around eight of them swing, then maybe at the last minute you would feel the need of some stronger medicine than the … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
#2 — Judy Davis as Caroline Chasseur in The Ref (Ted Demme, 1994) Judy Davis radiates strength. There’s an edgy intelligence in her eyes and forthright authority in her manner. She comes across as someone who will never quite get backed into a corner, but could manage to shove someone else into that position with a little more than a few withering glances. She’s imposing in the brittle exactitude of her domination of a scene. That is not, however, the entirety of who she is onscreen. She’s just as lucky to use that personal potency to heighten the vividness of … Continue reading Greatish Performances #2
So apparently Megan McArdle came up with this nifty meme today (though, to give proper credit, I found out about it on Ezra Klein’s Interweb space). Go to your personal account history at Amazon.com and figure out the first you … Continue reading I went shopping with a list from A to Z, everything I needed for a happy family
#38 — Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1995) Richard Linklater’s earliest films are all very verbal. The people onscreen unleash their varied opinions and theories with a barrage of words. The writer-director had so much to say that he concocted small … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Thirty-Eight
Coffee for Two 