You said, it’s time to get your clothes on, you said, it’s time to leave the planet
Guardians of the Galaxy is the first film that’s convinced me Marvel Studios might be able to make a go of this moviemaking thing longterm. That might seem ridiculous given the fact that the offshoot of Marvel Comics has had an enviable box office run ever since they decided to take their characters in the own hands, beginning with Iron Man, released in 2008. Though the projects are costly, their lowest worldwide gross with a film was still over $250 million, and the bulk of them have handily crossed the half-billion mark. Artistically, though, they’ve floundered just enough to cast … Continue reading You said, it’s time to get your clothes on, you said, it’s time to leave the planet
College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 1
1. The Who, Who Are You Let’s start with the bloke seated in the chair there, the one turned around backwards with the instructional message “NOT TO BE TAKEN AWAY” stenciled on it. Keith John Moon celebrated his thirty-second birthday … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 1
From the Archive: The Adventures of Huck Finn
When I decided I was going to share these old reviews, I committed to doing so with only the tiniest of alterations. No matter how strong the temptation to edit, I mentally pledged to refrain. Some Saturdays are harder than … Continue reading From the Archive: The Adventures of Huck Finn
One for Friday: Satellite Boyfriend, “Bam Bam Bah”
When I was in college, North Carolina seemed as distant as a foreign land. Hell, we were in central Wisconsin so at least one foreign land was significantly closer. But there was something else about the state that made it seem even further away somehow. Maybe it was simply that it was one of those areas that I’d never had much cause to think about before. When waves of records showed up from Georgia or Seattle, it didn’t strike me an exotic (and all the albums from nearby Minneapolis were like letters from home). A sudden influx of material from … Continue reading One for Friday: Satellite Boyfriend, “Bam Bam Bah”
Top 40 Smash Taps: “Lazy Elsie Molly” and “Let’s Do the Freddie”
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. Ernest Evans was overweight, but just a little. Just enough, in fact, that he was nicknamed “Chubby” by one the bosses at a low-level job he worked. As the story goes, Evans had just done a Fats Domino impression during an audition when he was asked his name. When he responded to a question about his name, he replied with the nickname related … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Lazy Elsie Molly” and “Let’s Do the Freddie”
Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Twenty-Three
#23 — The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minnelli, 1952) There was a time when Hollywood was all klieg lights and high glamor, at least in its calculated depictions of self. It was lucrative to preserve the myth of happy creative miracles, dreams captured on celluloid for all to enjoy. By the nineteen-fifties, some cynicism was starting to creep in, and filmmakers allowed that their chosen business had a corrosion at its heart. Some of this was surely attributable to the general social shell shock felt in the post-war years, but I think there’s also the slide of Hollywood itself to … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Twenty-Three
The hills ringing hear the words in time, listen to the holler
In a cinematic irony that its subject would surely appreciate, the documentary Life Itself is dominated by the specter of death. Sure, the film does its duty in tracing the life of film critic Roger Ebert, who is arguably the … Continue reading The hills ringing hear the words in time, listen to the holler
Beers I Have Known: Central Waters Brewing Company Sixteen
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. A generous friend gave me a bottle of this. Released to help celebrate … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Central Waters Brewing Company Sixteen
College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 2
2. Van Morrison, Wavelength I saw Van Morrison play live once, as the capper to a day-long festival of mostly Irish artists sponsored, of course, by Guinness. This was towards the end of the nineties, so Morrison was well past … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 2
From the Archive: Walk the Line
As I’ve noted before, 2005 was the year that I took advantage of the bountiful blank page afforded me by the interweb and started writing movie reviews again. I tend to to think of it as a relatively slow development process, from noodling around to full-length reviews. But it seems I got to the destination a little more quickly than I remember, as this take on the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, written just a few months after I’d recommitted to writing about movies, has a hearty word count. There are two moments in the new Johnny Cash biopic … Continue reading From the Archive: Walk the Line
