One for Friday: Possum Dixon, “Emergency’s About to End”
When I worked commercial radio, toiling at a “new rock alternative” station in the mid-nineteen-nineties, I desperately appreciated those handful of artists that reminded me of my time in the woolier sonic lands of a student-run part of the FM band. I don’t really mean those major college radio bands that had decisively crossed over by that point, like R.E.M. and U2. Nor am I referring to the bevy of grunge rock bands that were the beneficiaries of Nirvana’s success, those groups that largely made college radio a mere pit stop before going on to massive record sales and monstrously … Continue reading One for Friday: Possum Dixon, “Emergency’s About to End”
I was feeling kinda seasick, but the crowd called out for more
As it takes me until late in the day to offer my reactions to this year’s slate of Academy Award nominees, expressing my own sense of disappointment-tilting-towards-outrage over the exclusion of Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo from their respective categories becomes the latest in a long line of echoes. Regardless of where the respective films will land on my own personal top ten list for the year, I think there are three 2014 movies that are true feats of directing: Birdman, Boyhood, and Selma (with The Grand Budapest Hotel very nearly deserving of that designation). That the one of those … Continue reading I was feeling kinda seasick, but the crowd called out for more
You think you’re alone until you realize you’re in it, now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit
I’ve had a couple different conversations by now which involved listing all the other filmmakers that come to mind when watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice. The director has already acknowledged a surprising influence from the early nineteen-eighties oeuvre of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, especially Top Secret!, and the film does often play like one of their outlandish comedies dragged through a heavy Anderson filter in much the same way that Punch Drunk Love is a standard Adam Sandler comedy given the same transformative treatment. There’s also the clearest echo of Robert Altman since Anderson’s Magnolia, if only in a clear resemblance to … Continue reading You think you’re alone until you realize you’re in it, now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit
Ford, Hancock, Huston, McDonagh, Robespierre
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948). Huston’s famed exploration of greed tainting a slapdash partnership of aspiration gold miners in the Mexican mountains is so deviously ingenious that the director booming cackle virtually echoes through the most feverish scenes. The best Tim Holt can do as the most upstanding, straightforward member of the trio is stay upright against the buffeting winds of Humphrey Bogart, all sweaty paranoia and flash fire intensity, and Walter Huston, delivering a just Oscar-awarded turn as the weather-beaten old-timer whose the one member of the party who’s not a neophyte. The film is … Continue reading Ford, Hancock, Huston, McDonagh, Robespierre
Just try to do your very best, stand up and be counted with all the rest
In the immediate aftermath of watching Selma, I was one of those many people who marveled at what a leap forward it was for director Ava DuVernay, considering the perceived degree of difficulty in shifting from small, intimate dramas to a period picture on a wide scale depicting a signal moment in recent American history. Then I revisited my own review for DuVernay’s prior film, Middle of Nowhere, and I realized the resounding inaccuracy of that perception. Yes, the scale of Selma is very different, most evident in the scenes recreating the various attempts at mounting a protest march the fifty … Continue reading Just try to do your very best, stand up and be counted with all the rest
College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 90 – 88
90. The Falling Wallendas, The Falling Wallendas The Falling Wallendas were a power-pop outfit out of Chicago, close enough to 90FM’s Central Wisconsin home base that there was surely a little regional affection and pride for many of the deejays that played their self-titled debut. After an admittedly cursory search, I wasn’t able to find any music from this album readily available on the interweb for open listening. The closest I got was a live version of the song “Porn,” which appears in its studio version on their sophomore effort, Belittle. That second outing was also their last. Besides having an aces band … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 90 – 88
From the Archive: The Rocketeer
With the Oscar nominations due to be announced this week, I thought about trying to find some old Academy Award speculation from the days of the radio show, but it was pretty rare that there was a script involved in discussion on that topic. The Academy Awards — the ceremony, the history, the politics of nominations — was our shared wheelhouse. We could fill a fairly polished-sounding hour with little more than a couple notes of reference. Instead, I’ll use the recent television premiere of Agent Carter as inspiration for this week’s retrospective selection. I like the show thus far (and … Continue reading From the Archive: The Rocketeer
One for Friday: The Dazzlers, “Lovely Crash”
As must periodically happen, the One for Friday space this week is devoted to carrying the baton forward for the late, beloved (by me, anyway) blog Little Hits. The online space that shared notably obscure songs from a certain era — basically the power pop, post-punk, modern rock tsunami from the late nineteen-seventies to the late nineteen-eighties — was one of my favorite destinations when I first started assembling a pile of music onto a hard drive, building the automated radio station of my most blissful dreams. Besides admiring the taste of the blog’s creator, his selections spoke to a favorite … Continue reading One for Friday: The Dazzlers, “Lovely Crash”
Besson, Clooney, Gilroy, Jarmusch, Jones
Lucy (Luc Besson, 2014). Though based on a half-baked idea from the rambunctious mind of its director rather than anything that originally appeared on a printed page, Lucy can make a claim on being one of the best comic book movies of the past year, in that it establishes and locks in on its own suspicious and imaginative logic and then lets all other rules fall away in favor of what’s most thrillingly entertaining in any given moment. Scarlett Johansson plays the title character, a young woman whose scruffy boyfriend gets her ensnarled in a situation in which she’s an … Continue reading Besson, Clooney, Gilroy, Jarmusch, Jones
Top 40 Smash Taps: “All I Really Want to Do”
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. During the decade of their first iteration, the Byrds had seven Top 40 hits. Their first charting single went to #1, as did their third. In between the two, the band had another trip to the Top 40, although one that stalled out at that special number. Like many of the band’s songs (including that initial chart-topper), “All I Really Want to Do” … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “All I Really Want to Do”
Coffee for Two 