The boys are worried, the girls are shocked, they pick the sound and let it drop
Sicario, the new drug war drama directed by Denis Villeneuve, is delivered with the certainty that it has all sorts of profound things to offer about the dire state of the world. It is serious and intent, a brave face with just the merest hint of a quiver. Unfortunately, despite it’s stalwart intentions and clear self-regard, Sicario is a movie without much to actually say, a problem compounded by an overly stylized approach that makes its relative emptiness become almost unbearable. Written by Taylor Sheridan, the film purports to examine the cross-border drug trade with a barbed focus on the widespread … Continue reading The boys are worried, the girls are shocked, they pick the sound and let it drop
Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirteen
#13 — The Red Shoes (Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell, 1948) I’m less likely than most who turn themselves over to cinema to become hopelessly enamored of a film strictly on the basis of its visuals. I’m not immune to such affections, and I certainly believe that striking imagery is one of the vital tasks of a great piece of moviemaking. Still, my patience is tested whenever I feel that a film is overemphasizing the scenery with a disregard for the fundamentals of narrative storytelling. The Red Shoes is something of a refutation of my prejudice. To be clear, the story … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirteen
We have just discovered an important note from space
Ridley Scott has been directing feature films for nearly forty years, doing so at a reasonably prolific rate. Included among his films are a pair of science fiction efforts (Alien and Blade Runner) that are widely considered classics and have absolutely influenced the similar genre efforts that followed with a pervasiveness that only Star Wars can rival. He’s received three Best Directing Academy Award nominations and presided over a Best Picture winner. While I think even his most fervent adherents would acknowledge that he’s signed his name to more than a few clunkers, by any fair estimation Scott has had … Continue reading We have just discovered an important note from space
Beers I Have Known: Green Man ESB
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. As I wind down my time in Beer City, USA, I’m thinking a lot about my standby beers over the eight years I’ve called this wondrous mountain town home. I’ve had plenty of beers that I’ve chased, but I’m referring to the beverages that were my defaults, always available and guaranteed to please with equal consistency. The downtown bar Jack of the Wood was one of our haunts, especially in the early days, … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Green Man ESB
College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 6
6. Juliana Hatfield, Only Everything I don’t think I was the only person at 90FM who actively cultivated celebrity crushes. At the risk of stating the obvious, boys are sorta gross when it comes to that, categorizing those to whom they’re attracted as objects of various degrees of desire in an effort to make sense of, well, mostly their own loneliness. Among my brethren, at least there was a little different set of criteria that guided our fetishizing appraisal of the singers and musicians that captured a shard or two of our desperate, addled hearts. For those of us who favored women, … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 6
From the Archive: Dressy Bessy
This review came from my days submitted big gaggles of words to the Central Florida alternative weekly The Independent Journal, a publication willed into being by one of the most creative, ambitious people I know. As you can clearly surmise, I was still smarting from the pronounced disappointment of the Liz Phair album I’d written about a week or two earlier. Hey, not every record has to change the world. There are hearts and minds for the winning by just locking onto an enjoyable sound and sticking to it. Enter Dressy Bessy. On their third album, Tammy Eaton leads the band … Continue reading From the Archive: Dressy Bessy
One for Friday: The Feelies, “Away”
Today is apparently College Radio Day. I could write at near-endless length about my time as a student broadcaster and still note properly convey exactly how much I got out of it. I value everything about my collegiate experience, but the college radio station was special, in practically every way. It was a sanctuary, an enlivening mental obstacle course, a place of spiritual renewal. It was a place of constant discovery, for music obviously, but for so many other things, especially the reserves of belief, insight, and capability I had within myself that I’m convinced never would have been tapped … Continue reading One for Friday: The Feelies, “Away”
The New Releases Shelf: Every Open Eye
(photo credit) Any question about whether Chvrches will be able to adequately follow up the arresting pop from their debut album, The Bones of What You Believe, is eradicated within the first seconds of the Swedish band’s sophomore release. Every Open Eye doesn’t roar to life or even explode into being. Instead, album opener “Never Ending Circles” simply is from the very beginning, as if a needle had been dropped square in the middle of a eternal pop epic. The track builds its extended chorus on a fantastic hook, but it feels deliriously as if it’s all hook, indeed hooks overlapping other hooks … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Every Open Eye
Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Fourteen
#14 — Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944) By the time I was paying attention, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was a holiday standard. The song, written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, has been recorded countless times, usually presented as a sentimental ode to the joys of of the Christmas season, the tender melody imbued with sedate good cheer. That’s partially attributable to finessing done to the lyrics over the year, but I still found it remarkable, even jarring, when I first experienced the song in its original context, as one of the numbers in the movie musical … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Fourteen
My Misspent Youth: Avengers #221 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie and Bob Hall
I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. When I look back at the issues of The Avengers that were released across my first few years as a superhero comic book reader, it’s clear to me that I was a fairly fickle consumer of the adventures of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” Maybe more than with any other series I read with any regularity back then, my attention was dependent on a cover that, for whatever weird reason, caught my eye. … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Avengers #221 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie and Bob Hall
Coffee for Two 