Then Playing — Salaam Bombay!; Found Memories; Along Came Jones
Salaam Bombay! (Mira Nair, 1988). Director Mira Nair’s first fiction film owes a lot to her preceding documentaries. In depicting the plight of children living on the streets of India, Nair worked largely with amateur actors, many of whom were … Continue reading Then Playing — Salaam Bombay!; Found Memories; Along Came Jones
Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Four
The Lost Daughter, the feature directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal, is dense with the anxiety of simply living. Adapted, by Gyllenhaal, from a 2006 novel by Elena Ferrante, the film follows Leda (Olivia Colman), a college professor who is on … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Four
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #227 to #225
227. The Mighty Lemon Drops, Happy Head (1986) In 1985, the Mighty Lemon Drops formed in the West Midlands city of Wolverhampton, playing gigs here and there as the Sherbert Monsters whenever they wanted to work through new material. Around … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #227 to #225
Outside Reading — Things That We Knew But Would Rather Forget edition
Who’s Afraid of Ketanji Brown Jackson? by Sherrilyn A. Ifill Writing for The New York Times, Sherrilyn A. Ifill, the brilliant and insightful president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, draws from the historical record to … Continue reading Outside Reading — Things That We Knew But Would Rather Forget edition
This Week’s Model — Wet Leg, “Angelica”
“Angelica,” the new single from Wet Leg, feels very current in a way that sometimes eludes modern music. There’s not a lot of reinvention in the music itself; it’s splendid indie pop with a well-deployed wash of chunky guitar on … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Wet Leg, “Angelica”
The New Releases Shelf — Laurel Hell
For Mitski, everything’s different now. Or rather, everything clearly started to feel different for her at some point during the long post-release promotional and support cycle for her fifth full-length album, the exceptional Be the Cowboy. Somewhere in there, this … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Laurel Hell
Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Five
Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman is made with a refined elegance so pristine that it can give the impression that the filmmaker simply landed upon it, despite ample evidence that painstaking craft was employed. For instance, the film is reliant on … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Five
Then Playing — The King of Staten Island; The Way We Were; Licorice Pizza
The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow, 2020). This film represents a new nadir for director Judd Apatow’s exhausting tendency to develop a container ship’s worth of individual scenes with only the vaguest concern of how they might fit together … Continue reading Then Playing — The King of Staten Island; The Way We Were; Licorice Pizza
Radio Days — Then and Now: February 27, 2022
I once again returned to the radio airwaves at my beloved alma mater last night. Thanks to a substitution call from longtime pal who holds down a regular Sunday slot — not to mention current student leadership’s continued kind accommodation … Continue reading Radio Days — Then and Now: February 27, 2022
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #230 to #228
230. Concrete Blonde, Concrete Blonde (1986) When bassist Johnette Napolitano and guitarist James Mankey decided to form a band together, in 1982, they chose the name the Dreamers. They played a few gigs around Los Angeles and elbowed their way … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #230 to #228
Coffee for Two 