My Writers: Chris Claremont
Though all of my instincts — meticulously steeped in self-consciousness and boomeranging snobbery — prod me to reserve this particular feature for scribes who convey a veneer of intellectual credibility to my reading selections, there are times when I am compelled that many of the most formative writers in my life primarily tapped out words for comic book adventures. When I was rolling my eyes at whatever English class drudgery I was assigned (my school wasn’t astute enough to realize that maybe teenagers would respond positively to the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and J.D. Salinger), I was rushing eagerly back the … Continue reading My Writers: Chris Claremont
Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Seven
Hell or High Water is sharp and funny and wise. The longer it sits with me, though, the more one quality it holds grows more resonant and true. Hell or High Water is forlorn. Taylor Sheridan’s finely honed screenplay tells the story of two brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) who embark on a bank robbing spree across the dry, aching expanse of Texas. It also follows the Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) who wearily pursue the criminals. This, then, is a cops and robbers tale, bleached with the starkness of a modernized Hollywood Western. But it moves past … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Seven
The Art of the Sell: Coca-Cola, “It’s Beautiful”
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. As the fragile flowers who cluster on the rightward side of the political spectrum spend today mulling over their precise naughty list rankings of companies who supposedly made unforgivable insinuations about the politics and character of noted second-place finisher Donald J. Trump, I will use this space to call attention to the artistry of an commercial that raised their collective ire, though it first aired three years ago and have been brought back plenty of instances ever … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: Coca-Cola, “It’s Beautiful”
CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 85 – 83
85. The Sisters of Mercy, “This Corrosion” “This Corrosion” now stands so clearly as the signature song of the Sisters of Mercy that it’s easy to overlook that, in the chronology of the band, it was actually considered a comeback single. Shortly after the group had a couple of modest hits on the U.K. charts, in the mid-nineteen-eighties, they splintered apart. Guitarist Wayne Hussey and bassist Wayne Adams quickly formed a new group called the Mission. While they were making their own headway with British music fans, Sisters of Mercy lead singer Andrew Eldritch was largely absent from the scene, offer … Continue reading CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 85 – 83
From the Archive: Broken Flowers
The latest film from writer-director Jim Jarmusch dribbles into my town this weekend. As a good little cinema devotee, I should head out to the local multiplex to take it in — especially since the film has earned strong reviews, notably for star Adam Driver — but I’ll admit that I probably won’t. Since I wrote the piece shared here, I’ve come around to some of Jarmusch’s earlier features, but he remains a distancing artist for me. I could go on, but that’s basically what I write about in this review from my former online home, so…. I suppose I … Continue reading From the Archive: Broken Flowers
One for Friday: Randy Newman, “New Orleans Wins the War”
They started to party and they partied some more Cause New Orleans had won the war There are probably songs that should come to mind more quickly for me when I think of New Orleans — something steeped in the jazz, zydeco, or blues that serve as the city’s musical pulse. But, in truth, Randy Newman’s “New Orleans Wins the War” is the track that echoes up from my memory when I head out for another visit to the Crescent City. It’s probably because this was the first song about New Orleans that I truly embedded into my head — … Continue reading One for Friday: Randy Newman, “New Orleans Wins the War”
Beers I Have Known: Abita Turbodog
This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. I was in New Orleans less than a year after Katrina. No further embellishment is needed on that name. It is its own story. It is the storm and the aftermath all in one. That’s how it felt then. To a degree, that’s still how it feels now. I was in New Orleans providing help, spending days gutting houses that had been saturated by flood and nights in a makeshift compound called Camp … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Abita Turbodog
Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Eight
The impulse to belong is powerful, especially for girls of a certain age. In The Fits, the feature directorial debut of Anna Rose Holmer, the girl trying to find her place in the world is Toni (Royalty Hightower). She regularly accompanies her brother (Da’Sean Minor) to the local community center, where he trains as a boxer. Toni half-heartedly participates in that brutish gym work until she spies the workouts of a dance troupe in an adjacent gym. Shortly after she falls in with that group, individual girls on the squad start falling victim to unexplained, seizure-like attacks, each a little … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Eight
Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Nine
There are movies that I love unreservedly, quoting them with the hopped-up reverence of a devoted Bible thumper. 13th is a movie that I wield. Since viewing Ava DuVernay’s exceptional documentary on — for starters — the perpetuation of black persecution through the establishment of a skewed judicial system and incarceration complex, I find myself continually referencing it in spirited debates about current affairs. I have operated in multiculturally mindful academia and engaged with leftward political commentary enough to be comfortably acquainted with notions of institutionalized oppression, so there’s little in 13th that is fully revelatory to me. But I … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Nine
John Hurt, 1940 – 2017
“When I say that acting is just a rather more sophisticated way of playing cowboys and Indians, it’s my way of trying to quash all the pretentious crap that’s said about acting. What I mean is, if you pretend well enough, the audience will believe you.” –John Hurt, 1990, as quoted in The New York Times I can’t honestly say that John Hurt was ever an actor whose films I actively sought out solely because of his presence. On some level, I think that might have pleased him. There was a proper retreat from ostentation in Hurt’s work. He never … Continue reading John Hurt, 1940 – 2017
Coffee for Two 