The New Releases Shelf: In Between
When I was writing music reviews for Spectrum Culture, I sometimes felt obligated to volunteer for the new releases from bands who had banged out tunes at club shows staged before some of my cohorts were born. There was no clanging indication that I was an uncommon elder, but I felt a certain protectiveness. My own longstanding skepticism of bands who’d arguably overstayed their welcome — or, worse yet, reunited after a significant layoff — made me want to make sure that the artists I’d once played new records from on college radio were getting a fair shake. That I … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: In Between
Now Playing: Kong: Skull Island
When sitting before a modern aspiring blockbuster, I often feel like I know what the pitch must have sounded like as the filmmakers cajoled a major studio into giving them piles of money to build on vital piece of the cinematic franchise. In the case of Kong: Skull Island, I instead found myself thinking about what must have enticing the actors to sign on the bottom line, beyond the promise of filthy lucre, of course. What kind of exuberance director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and his collaborators must have brought to meetings in which they regaled the potential onscreen talent with the promise … Continue reading Now Playing: Kong: Skull Island
Great Moments in Literature
“Barrett watched the wrangling without pleasure. It all seemed impossibly dull and dreary to him, this quibbling over the phraseology of a manifesto. That was essentially what he had expected to find here; a bunch of futilitarian hairsplitters in a draft basement room, battling furiously over minute semantic differences. Were these the revolutionaries who would hold back the world from chaos? Hardly. Hardly.” –Robert Silverberg, Hawksbill Station, 1968 “SEA-BLUE AND BLOOD RED: THESE ARE THE COLORS THAT WASH PAST THE GOLDEN AVENGER’S EYES AS HE STRUGGLES, DESPERATELY, AGAINST HIS OWN ARMOR! FOR MERE HEARTBEATS AGO, BENEATH THE CHILL WATERS OF … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
Collet-Serra, Davis, Heisler, Levine, Lewis
Lion (Garth Davis, 2016). The feature debut from Garth Davis — who has major cred in my book for directing half of Jane Campion’s great Top of the Lake — looks like the same achingly earnest, self-consciously award-hungry cinema the Weinsteins have been delivering since their Miramax days. For the first half of the film anyway, it’s far sharper and more compelling than that. When five-year-old Indian boy Saroo (played at that age by Sunny Pawar) gets separated from his family after boarding the wrong train, his travails lost, alone, and unable to effectively communicate about where he’s from are … Continue reading Collet-Serra, Davis, Heisler, Levine, Lewis
CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 70 – 68
70. Public Image Ltd., “Rise” John Lydon, formerly known as Johnny Rotten, is not someone who most would instinctively refer to as a folk musician, but that’s exactly how he sees himself. “What I mean by folk is that what I sing is from the heart and soul,” Lydon explained. “I’m not trying to imitate any other genre or style of singing. I’m singing as I feel it. I’m trying to be as truthful to myself as I possibly can. And hopefully that communicates to others.” With that established, it becomes a little more clear that “Rise,” the 1986 lead … Continue reading CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 70 – 68
From the Archive: Double Impact
I know it’s not true, but sometimes my memory tricks me into believing I needed to see a new Jean-Claude Van Damme movie about every other week when I was one-half of a movie review radio program in the early nineteen-nineties. Maybe that’s in part because, on deep level of my subconscious, I count this movie twice. Double Impact is the kind of film that can frighten you just with its premise. It’s not that the film is intended to be a masterpiece of horror. It’s just that by discovering the film’s plot and reading through the credits, one realizes … Continue reading From the Archive: Double Impact
One for Friday: The Lime Spiders, “My Favourite Room”
Love at first listen is a wondrous thing. I don’t think the Lime Spiders had an album in rotation when I arrived at my college radio station in the fall of 1988. Their sophomore full-length, Volatile, might have been trailing along in the big batch of recent records that weren’t quite given the full-scale push but also hadn’t transitioned to the greater library. Even if that was the case, Volatile wasn’t the album I found. Instead, for some reason, I slipped their debut, The Cave Comes Alive!, out of its place in the music stacks. Released in 1987, the album … Continue reading One for Friday: The Lime Spiders, “My Favourite Room”
Strategic Acts Donation — March 2017
Thus far, I’ve refrained from posting about a monthly charitable endeavor my household has embarked upon, largely because — a few exceptions notwithstanding and some pretty clear viewpoints creeping into my pop culture commentary from time to time — I’ve … Continue reading Strategic Acts Donation — March 2017
Now Playing: Logan
I’m glad Logan doesn’t end with a bonus scene plopped in the midst or at the end of the closing credits. In the cinematic landscape that is slowly, steadily being engulfed by the mighty Marvel model of moviemaking, the choice is novel enough to prompt a flurry of online interviews that call upon director James Mangold to explain himself. He has a few different explanations, slightly nuanced from each other, but the crux of it is always the same, and it speaks to precisely why I so appreciate the choice. Logan is — being blunt about it — a real movie … Continue reading Now Playing: Logan
But Jesus fever’s fallin’ all over you believers and lovers
Sixty-fifth in a series…. (Source) Continue reading But Jesus fever’s fallin’ all over you believers and lovers
