#10 — The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) Famously, the casting for The Graduate was all messed up. Dustin Hoffman, in only his second film role and first of any significance, was thirty years old, nearly a decade older than would be … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Ten
Escape from Tomorrow is a helluva stunt and a mediocre movie. And I’m being generous with the latter assessment. The debut feature from writer-director Randy Moore traces one family’s problematic day at the Happiest Place on Earth, marked most notably … Continue reading But listen to the color of your dreams
In only had one full-length review at Spectrum Culture this week, but it was a fairly big one. When music reviews for the week were handed out, I picked up the new album from Cults. While I think the writing sums the record up well enough, I struggled to figure out the numeric ranking. On a gut level, it felt a little lower than the 4.0 I wound up with, but aside from one blip of a song, I also couldn’t find anything particularly problematic with the album. We’ll see how it ages for me. I also pitched in a … Continue reading Spectrum Check
#11 — A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964) Is there another movie that is as inherently likable as A Hard Day’s Night Under most circumstances involving a film centered on a single rock ‘n’ roll act, I’d be inclined … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Eleven
A single scene can’t make a bad movie into a good movie, but it is possible to transform a good movie into one that’s near-great. At the very end of Captain Phillips, the new docudrama about a 2009 encounter between … Continue reading On your way to a world that others might have missed
It was a fairly standard week for me at Spectrum Culture: one film review and one album reviews. On the movie side, I covered an entry in that most woeful of categories: the genially dark indie film comedy. I’m not sure why these sorts of films are so hard to pull off, but the art houses are littered with dismal examples of underdeveloped comedies every year. And, as is the case with the one I reviewed this week, a remarkable amount of the time, the films in question are blessed with incredible casts. On the music side, I drew the … Continue reading Spectrum Check
When considering the merits of the new Alfonso Cuarón film, it’s advisable to remember the full title slapped on the front of the original script he wrote with his son Jonas: Gravity: A Space Adventure in 3-D. It’s that word … Continue reading Step up, step up, step up, the sky is open-armed
#12 — Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) I had a professor in college who took the highly contrarian position of criticizing Lawrence of Arabia. Already ensconced firmly in the cinematic canon as a paragon of epic filmmaking, David Lean’s venerated … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Twelve
There’s an interesting shift in Nicole Holofcener’s usual storytelling technique that takes place in her latest film, Enough Said. Most of her big-screen efforts have involved multiple storylines all sharing relatively equal space, sometimes overlapping in the narrative but more … Continue reading You were told to not take chances, you missed out on new dances
Now that I look at it, this week at Spectrum Culture was entirely about music for me. Even the film review I contributed was bursting with it, appropriate considering it was about the legendary Muscle Shoals recording studios that have factored into countless classic rock songs. It’s a good thing the director was able to drop in plenty of the songs (which must have cost plenty), because the film doesn’t have much else to recommend it. On the music review side, I covered one disappointment and one winner, and they didn’t fall into those categories in quite the way I … Continue reading Spectrum Culture
Coffee for Two 