But listen to the color of your dreams
Escape from Tomorrow is a helluva stunt and a mediocre movie. And I’m being generous with the latter assessment. The debut feature from writer-director Randy Moore traces one family’s problematic day at the Happiest Place on Earth, marked most notably … Continue reading But listen to the color of your dreams
College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 28 and 27
28. Barenaked Ladies, Born on a Pirate Ship Being cult heroes to chipper nerds can be highly lucrative. Even before that bit of cultural cachet undoubtedly helped Barenaked Ladies land the job of providing the theme song to The Big … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 28 and 27
Spectrum Check
In only had one full-length review at Spectrum Culture this week, but it was a fairly big one. When music reviews for the week were handed out, I picked up the new album from Cults. While I think the writing sums the record up well enough, I struggled to figure out the numeric ranking. On a gut level, it felt a little lower than the 4.0 I wound up with, but aside from one blip of a song, I also couldn’t find anything particularly problematic with the album. We’ll see how it ages for me. I also pitched in a … Continue reading Spectrum Check
One for Friday: The Wonder Stuff, “Closer to Fine”
As I’ve acknowledged previously, I and my college radio brethren shared a certain susceptibility to cover songs. That weakness increased immeasurably when the song getting the cover treatment was something that already fit into our alternative music format, a track we’d played exhaustively in its original derivation. It’s not like the Pixies had trouble getting airplay on their own, but covering a Jesus and Mary Chain song could make even their most skeptical fans in college radio (that would’ve been me) swoon. At my station, it was also sort of a stealth means to get around programming policy designed to … Continue reading One for Friday: The Wonder Stuff, “Closer to Fine”
Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Eleven
#11 — A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964) Is there another movie that is as inherently likable as A Hard Day’s Night Under most circumstances involving a film centered on a single rock ‘n’ roll act, I’d be inclined … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Eleven
Programming note
This is how I’m feeling today. Words tomorrow. Continue reading Programming note
My Writers: Nicole Krauss
I have a dear friend who prefers her fiction sad. That’s my interpretation, anyway. She might say she simply prefers it to be truthful or poignant or even ruefully funny. All of those are true too, I suppose, but I … Continue reading My Writers: Nicole Krauss
On your way to a world that others might have missed
A single scene can’t make a bad movie into a good movie, but it is possible to transform a good movie into one that’s near-great. At the very end of Captain Phillips, the new docudrama about a 2009 encounter between … Continue reading On your way to a world that others might have missed
College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 30 and 29
30. Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans, Upstroke for the Downfolk Paul Cebar, like his band, is a Milwaukeean. His band’s sophomore release, Upstroke for the Downfolk, came out in 1995 and, like a lot of the music that fell in … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 30 and 29
Spectrum Check
It was a fairly standard week for me at Spectrum Culture: one film review and one album reviews. On the movie side, I covered an entry in that most woeful of categories: the genially dark indie film comedy. I’m not sure why these sorts of films are so hard to pull off, but the art houses are littered with dismal examples of underdeveloped comedies every year. And, as is the case with the one I reviewed this week, a remarkable amount of the time, the films in question are blessed with incredible casts. On the music side, I drew the … Continue reading Spectrum Check
