Top 40 Smash Taps: “Watch Out For Lucy”
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. This may seem an odd statement, but Eric Clapton was so firmly entrenched as a full-fledged rock ‘n’ roll legend by the time I started paying attention that I found it easy to forget how successful he was on the Billboard charts. This is partially because I rarely think of straight-ahead rock songs as having a significant place on the Top 40 chart. … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Watch Out For Lucy”
Arteta, Bergman, Howard, Newman, van Heijningen
Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972). This intricate, cerebral, elusive drama from the acknowledged master of intricate, cerebral, elusive dramas takes place at stately mansion at the end of the 19th century. A woman named Agnes, played by Harriet Andersson, is on her deathbed and is seen to by her two sisters, both returned home due to their sibling’s terrible need, and the loving household maid. Each character gets their own individual segment, usually devoted to a flashback to some terrible emotional incident in the past, Bergman scraping at their existential agony like a merciless physician slicing at a poisonous … Continue reading Arteta, Bergman, Howard, Newman, van Heijningen
Almost ready, almost there, or is it already over?
I absolutely love the first and last shots of Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. Each of them encompasses everything I like about his work in their straightforwardness, their simplicity, their understatement and their quiet, careful wit. These shots don’t push an … Continue reading Almost ready, almost there, or is it already over?
College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, 3 (tie)
3. The Clash, Sandinista! Trouser Press wrote: “Overblown, overambitious and only this bunch could pull it off. Still the only band that matters?” How in the hell does a band follow-up a double-album that immediately got tagged with wholly justifiable … Continue reading College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, 3 (tie)
Spectrum Check
The first thing of mine that went up on Spectrum Culture this week was an attempt to write on a new music release that was outside of my normal wheelhouse. Punk music speaks to the inner part of me that still craves the opportunity to descend into a basement somewhere and turn the stereo playing the angriest music I can find with the volume turned up as loud as it will go. Another challenge: the whole EP is less than ten minutes long. Writing a full-length review about something like that is a challenge. I think I did all right. … Continue reading Spectrum Check
One for Friday: Thelonious Monster, “Lena Horne Sings Stormy Weather”
I’ve haven’t meticulously combed through all the One for Friday entries meticulously to verify this assertion, but I believe today’s song represents the first time I’m featuring a track from someone who utilized his skills as a drug counselor to help out Drew Pinsky on Celebrity Rehab. Apparently, Bob Forrest, the chief songwriter and frontman for the band Thelonious Monster, went on to a career in drug counseling, even as he occasionally kept his various musical outfits going enough to put out the occasional album and play one-off gigs. Not only is that totally unexpected, I never even would have … Continue reading One for Friday: Thelonious Monster, “Lena Horne Sings Stormy Weather”
Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Four
#4 — Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986) It’s perhaps foolhardy to make any sort of definitive statements about a favorite film in a directorial career as lengthy, prolific and studded with great works as that of Woody Allen. … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Four
My Misspent Youth: Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck
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. As Marvel Comics announces their next major crossover event, because the … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck
Top 40 Smash Taps: “See the Lights”
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. I wonder if Simple Minds would have been chosen to record the song “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” for the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club if they had still been operating under the name Johnny & The Self-Abusers. Of course, that outfit was more of a distant relation than a direct ancestor of the Scottish band that favored the lush and the gently … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “See the Lights”
Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Five
#5 — Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985) Sadly, it will happen no more, but everyone should have an Akira Kurosawa masterwork show up new in theaters at precisely the time when they’re crossing over from seeing movies as entertainment to viewing … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Five
