From the Archive: Indecent Proposal
This was one of the last reviews I wrote for my college newspaper. Indecent Proposal was released in the spring of 1993, when I was weeks from graduation. For some reason, my partner-in-all-things had a scanned copy of this nestled deep into the hard drive of one of her computers and passed it along to me this week. I’ve seen probably no more than a minute of this film since watching it for the review. I’ll bet all the material that I describe as “provocative” seems tame as can be now. The new movie “Indecent Proposal” has a terrific beginning. Woody Harrelson … Continue reading From the Archive: Indecent Proposal
One for Friday: The Darling Buds, “Burst”
I’ve featured the Darling Buds in this space once before, writing about the way my affection for the band was compounded by their recording life cycle synching up exactly with my tenure as an undergraduate student who basically set up camp in the college radio station. At that time, I included a track from the band’s swan song. Today, it’s time to consider their debut. I don’t recall with certainty when I first encountered Pop Said… but online sources suggest it was released very early in 1989. That would certainly help explain why it locked in so solidly with me. … Continue reading One for Friday: The Darling Buds, “Burst”
The New Releases Shelf: I Love You, Honeybear
Though I suppose it doesn’t matter so much on record, Father John Misty definitely looks the part. The identity adopted by Josh Tillman, at least as far back as the exemplary 2012 album Fear Fun, calls to mind some odd and mildly lackadaisical man of the cloth, which is roughly what the singer-songwriter presents with his lanky frame, propensity for bargain suits, and a beard so thick and bodacious it looks like the merest provocation could send it scuttling off to begin a new life as an especially posh footstool. He looks like he’s comes in from a gnarly forest after … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: I Love You, Honeybear
That Championship Season: Seinfeld, Season Four
Aside from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” perhaps no other sitcom has such a clear single-episode high-water mark as Seinfeld. Airing right in the middle of the show’s fourth season, “The Contest” find the four main characters engaged in a wager inspired by one of them, George Costanza (Jason Alexander), recently suffering the humiliation of being caught by his mother while he was masturbating with a copy of Glamour magazine. Each of the quartet puts up a hundred dollars that says they can go the longest without engaging in that particular activity. Actually, Elaine … Continue reading That Championship Season: Seinfeld, Season Four
Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Six
#46 — Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946) Jean Cocteau’s presentation of the classic French fairy tale La Belle et la Bête begins with a plea. In a written introduction, Cocteau invokes the intertwined sense of ready belief and excited wonderment with which children meet stories. He then calls upon all viewers, regardless of age, to engage his film with a similar openness to enchantment: “I ask of you a little of this childlike sympathy.” Cocteau then introduces the story in only manner suitable: “let me speak four truly magic words, childhood’s ‘Open Sesame’: Once upon a time….” This entry into the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Six
Burton, Limon, Melfi, Segal, Tyldum
The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum, 2014). One of the great frustrations of the Oscar season was watching Selma and, to a lesser degree, American Sniper battered by criticism over supposedly terrible transgressions in their depiction of historical record while The Imitation Game, the “true life” story receiving the phoniest treatment among the Oscar contenders, sailed along unperturbed. The story of Alan Turing’s secret, indispensable contributions to the Allied effort in World War II is fully deserving of big-screen veneration, just as his own government’s cruel retribution against him a decade later because his “lifestyle” was considered illegal is the stuff of … Continue reading Burton, Limon, Melfi, Segal, Tyldum
College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 71 and 70
71. Big Sugar, 500 Pounds Wikipedia describes Big Sugar as “a Canadian blues, reggae band,” which is about as terrifying of a description as I can imagine. They had a decent run in their homeland, with a couple platinum albums. 500 Pounds, their sophomore effort, was the first to go gold, a promising enough turn of events that it was released in the United States. The album was something a slow build, with the group generating a good chunk of those sales on the basis of their live show (you know, the place where blues/reggae outfits prosper, if only because … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 71 and 70
From The Archive: Burn After Reading
This is a thing I wrote a while ago that’s never been published in this space before. (I’m very ill, so the pithy retrospective commentary is truncated this week.) I doubt there was a single knowing film fan out there … Continue reading From The Archive: Burn After Reading
One for Friday: The BellRays, “Pinball City”
My favorite story about the BellRays doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to my friend Jon. As I remember it, he was attending one of the rare but wondrous music festival catering to trashy garage rock and rockabilly-tinged punk that were a little more prevalent a decade or two ago, when the concept of a band like Southern Culture on the Skids having a minor radio hit wasn’t entirely absurd. As one does at festivals, my friend wandered a bit, a little aimlessly and a little attuned to finding the good beer on what was surely a hot day. He … Continue reading One for Friday: The BellRays, “Pinball City”
Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Seven
#47 — The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1948) Even though he was consistently billed as James Stewart, we call him Jimmy. He is one of the classic movie actors who represents a nostalgic view of America as a land of benevolent geniality. In the collective imagination he is stalwart and kind, always prone to doing the right thing, even when terrible beset by circumstance. It’s part of the reason his overtly twisted turn in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is heaped with praise; critics are eager to reward Stewart for playing against type. While Stewart’s placement on a pinnacle of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Seven
Coffee for Two 