Top Ten Movies of 2015 — Number Three
Based on Colm Tóibín’s novel of the same name, Brooklyn demonstrates the reservoirs of emotional power that can be tapped by telling a quietly compelling story unadorned by pushy narrative tricks, by letting the particulars of wisely conceived drama stand as the prevailing voice of the film. Set in the nineteen-fifties, it tells the story of a young immigrant named Eilis (Saoirse Ronan). She settles into an existence of minor yet impactful unease after journeying from Ireland to find her place in the title borough. The relatively modest scale of her challenges serves to settle the film into an endearingly realistic space … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2015 — Number Three
College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 238 – 236
238. The Jam, “Absolute Beginners” Paul Weller reclaimed the title for the The Jam’s 1981 single “Absolute Beginners” from the Colin MacInnes novel of the same name. The second book in the British author’s London Trilogy, Absolute Beginners was first published in 1958. Though already a revered work, it was experiencing a bit of a revival around the time the nineteen-seventies slipped tumultuously into the eighties, partially tied to the nostalgic interest in mod culture that followed the release of the film version of Quadrophenia, in 1979. Most of Weller’s cultural compatriots had read the book. Funny enough, Weller himself … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 238 – 236
From the Archive: Flashback Friday — 1996
When I raid the old blog for material, I tend to recycle film reviews. It’s part of my ongoing effort to get the bulk of my digital film writing swept into this corner of the internet. This week, though, the … Continue reading From the Archive: Flashback Friday — 1996
One for Friday: Jon Astley, “Jane’s Getting Serious”
I’ve featured the music of Jon Astley in this weekly space once before, quite some time ago. Interestingly enough, the cited impetus for that post was a song that wasn’t featured in it, presumably because I was convinced of its availability at the time. Or maybe I thought I’d get around to it a little later. If it was the second option, then a little later has finally arrived. Astley was a longtime record producer who took a crack at releasing his own albums, beginning with impishly titled 1987 LP Everyone Loves the Pilot (Except the Crew). In some ways, his … Continue reading One for Friday: Jon Astley, “Jane’s Getting Serious”
Top Ten Movies of 2015 — Number Four
Befitting his status as a filmmaker approaching his octogenarian years, Ridley Scott is something of a throwback. Until The Martian, I didn’t realize just how far in Hollywood’s history his creative instincts lie. Since he made his feature directorial debut in the latter half of the second, Scott was easy to plop into the categories of the other auteurs from around that era, deeply informed by the greater artistic latitude afforded to those behind the camera. That he truly made his name with a pair of films that combined harder science fiction elements with more audience-friendly directness (as if George … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2015 — Number Four
Now Playing: Hail, Caesar!
Much as I’m a devoted disciple of the work of the Coen brothers, I can admit there are all sorts of forecastable reasons to expect that a new film they’ve made might not quite work. The susceptibility to recurring flaws isn’t an automatic outcome of having such clear cinematic voices, but Joel and Ethan Coen have committed themselves so thoroughly to a bleakly comic outlook tinged with ironic detachment, a quality often conveyed with self-consciously rambunctious visuals, that certain predictable troubles can easily reoccur. Most noticeably, their viewpoint can manifest as a lack of sincerity that sets a narrative slamming into a … Continue reading Now Playing: Hail, Caesar!
Top Ten Movies of 2015 – Number Five
While I remain fully committed to only judging a movie by the material to be found in its digital frames, from the first flicker of storytelling life to the moment the closing credits complete their upward crawl to oblivion, there are admittedly time when knowing details of a creative path can bestow an added shimmer to an already shining cinematic effort. Inside Out, director Pete Docter’s follow-up to the tremendous Up, is a grandly inventive achievement all on its own, depicting the inner life a young girl as a sort of workplace comedy, with simple emotions personified and going about the … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2015 – Number Five
Top 40 Smash Taps: “Spirit in the Night”
These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. I’m going to indulge in a bit of inside information here, providing the super-secret DVD commentary track backstory on this particular entry of our long-running series. Shortly after lauching the “Top 40 Smash Taps” posts some four-and-a-half years ago, I sat down to write about “Spirits in the Night,” the second of three Top 40 singles charted by Manfred Mann’s Earth band. As I … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Spirit in the Night”
College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 241 – 239
241. The Jesus and Mary Chain, “April Skies” “April Skies” stands as a little surprise within the Jesus and Mary Chain discography. This is not because of its sound, which is right in line with the chiming pop coated in light gothy, industrial buzz that the band had established on their debut album, Psychocandy. Instead, the unexpected element was the swell of chart success that greeted it, at least in the U.K. In the broader homeland of the Scottish group, “April Skies” was their first Top 10 song, indeed one of only two singles in the band’s career (to date, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 241 – 239
From the Archive: The Player
And here we are at the top of my list of the best films of 1992, at least at the time of our broadcast. As I note in the write-up, my on air cohort and I agreed on the title that deserved to be called the top cinematic offering of that year. In fact, that was remarkably commonplace through the years. Basically every time we talked about top films of any given year on the radio, we were in complete agreement about the #1 position, a trends that persisted at least a couple years past the end of the show. … Continue reading From the Archive: The Player
Coffee for Two 