Greatish Performances #29
#29 — Bill Murray as Frank Cross in Scrooged (Richard Donner, 1988) It is entirely reasonable to disagree about the pivot point that moved Bill Murray from an engaging presence to a shrewdly effective actor. Enjoyable as he is in the various onscreen turns in the first portion of his film career, Murray got by on attitude and scampish charm more than honest immersion in his roles. It was a fitting enough extension of his foundational work with Second City, The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and Saturday Night Live, but it also confined his talent. Rather than stretching, he was … Continue reading Greatish Performances #29
The Art of the Sell: Pizza Pit, “Let It Snow”
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. Last year, my first winter back in Wisconsin after about fifteen years away from America’s Dairyland was surprisingly mild, as if my native state was trying to gently welcome me home. Early signs point to a very different — and, it should be typed far more characteristic — experience across the winter months of 2016-2017. As the snow piled up these past two weeks, my mind immediately drifted back to the most ubiquitous commercial of my youth, running … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: Pizza Pit, “Let It Snow”
CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 106 – 104
106. New Order, “Bizarre Love Triangle” When New Order got down the business of creating their fourth full-length album, Brotherhood, they wanted it to have a sonic schism. That approach naturally had an impact on the songwriting and recording process for every track, including the album’s sole official single. “‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ is a brilliant track, but it was kind of done in a schizophrenic mood that we were trying to do one side synthesizers and one side guitars,” drummer Stephen Morris later explained. “I don’t know. It didn’t quite work.” Built around one of the band’s very best hooks, … Continue reading CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 106 – 104
From the Archive: All I Want for Christmas
As I felt compelled to note when I dropped my old review of the dreadful film Dutch in this space, the actor named Ethan Randall noted here eventually adopted the stage name Ethan Embry instead. This was review on a mid-November edition of The Reel Thing, the movie review radio show I co-produced and co-hosted in the early nineteen-nineties. While we were reading about the amazing, artful films that were opening on the coasts to make a run at the Academy Awards, this was the kind of glop that we had to sit in front of and generate a reaction to … Continue reading From the Archive: All I Want for Christmas
One for Friday: The Beloved, “Hello”
Occasionally during my tenure at the college radio station, a song arrived that was so very, very, very, terribly British. Given that our station was largely populated by staff members who defaulted more to the angry blasts of Hüsker Dü than the artful, lolling heartache of the Smiths, a decidedly U.K. feel to a song was no guarantee of such on our charts. I was one of those who craves loud guitars more than intricate synths, but there were times when a song proved irresistible. “Hello,” the breakthrough 1990 single by the Beloved was one of those. Even if the … Continue reading One for Friday: The Beloved, “Hello”
Now Playing: Nocturnal Animals
There are many flares of ingenuity in the sophomore directorial effort of Tom Ford, but perhaps the most important and telling is the title he chose. In adapting the 1993 novel Tony and Susan, written by Austin Wright, Ford opted for the title of a work of fiction within the fiction: Nocturnal Animals. Not only is that a far more elegant name to hang on a film, it offers an intriguing insight into the darkness that exist in and around the characters that move across Ford’s meticulous images. The film stars Amy Adams as Susan Morrow, an art gallery director … Continue reading Now Playing: Nocturnal Animals
White dopes on punk staring into the flash, lookin’ for baby Jesus under the trash
Sixty-fourth in a series…. Continue reading White dopes on punk staring into the flash, lookin’ for baby Jesus under the trash
Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok
Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016). And so we’ve reached the point in the superhero era of cinema that allows for a caustically deconstructionist take on the genre to become one of the biggest hits of the year. There might be no better methodology for tracing the chronology of the genre’s takeover than measuring the comparative impact of Mystery Men (a dud in 1999) to Kick-Ass (a solid hit in 2010) to Deadpool (a sensation in 2016). Technically, Ryan Reynolds first played Wade Wilson in the dismal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, release in 2009. Besides the smirking countenance of the actor, that iteration … Continue reading Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok
Laughing Matters: Steve Martin, “Billie Jean”
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. NBC programmed a lot of disasters on Friday nights in the fall of 1983, including a show about a talking orangutan and the notorious Manimal. And yet it was a show that arrived as a mid-season replacement on that night which proved to the biggest dud of them all. Amazingly, it was produced by Lorne Michaels, the creator and current producer of Saturday Night … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Steve Martin, “Billie Jean”
College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 109 – 107
109. Heaven 17, “Let Me Go” While many bands are dogged by comparisons to other acts while they try to make their way in the wild of the music business, Heaven 17 endured an especially sharp version of that burden. Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, two thirds of Heaven 17’s most enduring lineup, were both founding members of the Human League. They left that band and ceded the name to lead singer Philip Oakey after the creative relationship became unendurably fractious. “Sometimes it’s hard to give us something that appears to be your entire life, but we all knew … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 109 – 107
Coffee for Two 