Now Playing — BlacKkKlansman
Across thirty-plus years of commercially released feature films, director Spike Lee has rarely lacked for ambition. Near-perfect or fatally flawed, his efforts are routinely packed with ideas, manifesting as narrative deconstruction, wildly inventive manipulations of cinematic technique, or heated social … Continue reading Now Playing — BlacKkKlansman
Laughing Matters — Saturday Night Live, “Common Knowledge”
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Saturday Night Live long … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Saturday Night Live, “Common Knowledge”
Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be”
These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. Whitney Houston’s mother was a highly lauded … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be”
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #880 to #877
880. Billy Idol, Don’t Stop (1981) The bloke born William Michael Albert Broad was exceedingly comfortable returning to promising material until it finally turned into a hit. Taking the stage name Billy Idol because his school teachers routinely derided his … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #880 to #877
From the Archive — Pineapple Express
The arrival of the tenth anniversary of the release of Pineapple Express has led to a small batch of articles reflecting on the comedy-action film as if it’s some significant artifact. I guess. For me, it’s just another entry in … Continue reading From the Archive — Pineapple Express
One for Friday — Hunters & Collectors, “You Can Have It All”
Thirty years ago, in the summer of 1988, Hunters & Collectors released the U.S. edition of their fifth studio album. The Australian band was a reasonable commercial force in their homeland, routinely delivering albums that charted in the Top 20 and singles that made — or at least approached — the Top 40. Stateside, they had recently signed with I.R.S. Records, the independent label that made dominance on college radio their model through much of the nineteen-eighties. The album What’s a Few Men?, released in Australia in 1987, was determined by the executives to have too strong of a Down … Continue reading One for Friday — Hunters & Collectors, “You Can Have It All”
Greatish Performances #38
#38 — Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis, 1988) Bob Hoskins had to invent an entirely new style of acting when he was recruited to play the lead in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The … Continue reading Greatish Performances #38
Bait Taken — The Academy Awards Shake-Up
Not that long ago, the Academy Awards spent one of their annual ceremonies giving practically every trophy they could to The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Directed by Peter Jackson, the film was the concluding feature in a trilogy of films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnum opus. It won in every category in which it was nominated, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Directing, and — the top prize — Best Picture. It became one of three films in Academy Awards history to tally eleven total wins. It was also the highest grossing film of the year, by … Continue reading Bait Taken — The Academy Awards Shake-Up
Great Moments in Literature
“Anna drew on the cigarette, enjoying the dry heat inside her mouth, and let the smoke scatter into the wind. It was dirty, but a dirtiness she liked — akin to the girl welders eating their lunches sitting on the … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
Now Playing — The Spy Who Dumped Me
If the main problem with modern studio comedies is a tendency towards unwieldy narrative sprawl in the name of cramming in every mildly amusing aside captured on set, director Susanna Fogel should first be credited for her uncommon discipline with … Continue reading Now Playing — The Spy Who Dumped Me
