Outside Reading — Chicken Run edition
The Popeyes Chicken Sandwich Is Here to Save America by Helen Rosner In a divided age, when every day brings a new flurry of reasons for exhausting outrage at the crumbling norms of the republic, it was nice to have … Continue reading Outside Reading — Chicken Run edition
This Week’s Model — Weeping Icon, “Like Envy”
Raw and brilliantly vicious, “Like Envy” burbles up like magma from beneath the planet’s surface, spreading out to scald anyone in its way. The new single from New York band Weeping Icon bears characteristics familiar from Sonic Youth window-rattlers of … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Weeping Icon, “Like Envy”
Playing Catch-Up — Bad Company; Abacus: Small Enough to Jail; Son of Saul
Bad Company (Robert Benton, 1972). A relatively obscure entry in the legion of films from the late-nineteen-sixties and early-nineteen-seventies that sought to strip away the romanticizing so entrenched in the Western genre. A young man named Drew (Barry Brown) flees … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Bad Company; Abacus: Small Enough to Jail; Son of Saul
Now Playing — American Factory
Documentary filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar live in Dayton, Ohio, one of many Midwestern U.S. cities that has historically counted on manufacturing to provide gainful employment for the citizenry. When the community’s auto manufacturing facility shut its doors, in … Continue reading Now Playing — American Factory
Playing Catch-Up — The Immortal Story; Operation Finale; The Blue Gardenia
The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968). Funded by French broadcasters, The Immortal Story was one of the featured directed by Orson Welles after he’d been effectively exiled from Hollywood. Under thick makeup better suited for the stage, Welles also plays … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Immortal Story; Operation Finale; The Blue Gardenia
Greatish Performances #45
#45 — Peter Fonda as Ulee Jackson in Ulee’s Gold (Victor Nuñez, 1997) For most of his tenure as a public figure, Peter Fonda was a better icon than actor. He served as the more genial familial representative of the … Continue reading Greatish Performances #45
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #668 to #665
668. The Rave-Ups, The Book of Your Regrets (1988) The Rave-Ups had the misfortune of discovering how a little taste of success could lead to nasty legal entanglements in the cutthroat music industry. Earthier rock ‘n’ roll players on the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #668 to #665
Outside Reading — Red and White and Black and Blue edition
Americans Are Sad About Politics. Who Could Blame Them? by Clare Malone Writing for FiveThirtyEight, Clare Malone explores the exhausting nature of the current culture for politically attuned citizens, defined by a cascade of norm-shredding outrages and out-and-out criminal actions … Continue reading Outside Reading — Red and White and Black and Blue edition
This Week’s Model — Michael Kiwanuka, “You Ain’t The Problem”
I’m supposed to be too cynical to enjoy a rock song that espouses uplift. Reared on the slashing defeatism of college rock heroes who wielded buzzing guitars like impenetrable shields, I am meant to feel my strongest kinship with songs … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Michael Kiwanuka, “You Ain’t The Problem”
The Unwatchables — Savages
There are many lamentable choices strewn about the history of the Academy Awards, especially when subsequent career choices of individual winners cast a dank shadow on their trophies. Although I’m loathe to offer it as a definitive conclusion, it’s possible … Continue reading The Unwatchables — Savages
