Top 40 Smash Taps: “Crazy Downtown”
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. Allan Sherman’s recording career came about because of a performance at a testimonial dinner for an outgoing label president. Jim Conkling was stepping down as the top man at Warner Bros. records in 1961, when the label was still something a fledgling upstart, largely getting by with comedy albums. Sherman worked in broadcasting at the time, most notably as the creator of the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Crazy Downtown”
Cassavetes, Corbijn, Fellini, Lumet, Scott
Unstoppable (Tony Scott, 2010). There are few funnier things a Tony Scott movie can offer than a “Inspired by True Events” credit at the beginning. Scott isn’t a director completely devoid of charm and panache (like his rough American equivalent Michael Bay), but a reasoned approach to preserving the integrity of a story that has its grounding in real life is simply not something that’s going to happen with the director of Top Gun and Days of Thunder at the helm. At least his usual camera jitters are toned down a bit, although he maintains his penchant for the shock … Continue reading Cassavetes, Corbijn, Fellini, Lumet, Scott
College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, 10
10. The Dictators, Fuck ‘Em if They Can’t Take a Joke Trouser Press wrote: “Our first cassette-only selection. Rock will never die as long as bands like this are around to give it a swift kick in the pants.” Thirty … Continue reading College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, 10
Spectrum Check
This week, I reviewed a fairly abstract, experimental movie that, were I a little more ambitious, could have being the starting point for an assessment of the very nature of cinema that could have run thousands upon thousands of words. I may actually get around to that take on it someday, as the film raises more questions than it’s really interested in answering. It strikes me as one of those efforts I might want to specifically revisit someday. I mean, why wouldn’t I, since I’m clearly willing to do something crazy, like watch Kevin Costner’s The Postman multiple times. Once … Continue reading Spectrum Check
One for Friday: Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mare Winningham, “If I Wanted”
Yesterday, I wrote about Jennifer Jason Leigh’s acting in The Hudsucker Proxy as part of the ongoing Greatish Performances series. As I noted when I first cooked up (okay, stole) that recurring feature, the inclusion of a specific performance doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m declaring it the very best work of the thespian in question. In fact, in the case of Leigh, there’s a very different turn that I instinctively invoke in those rare occasions when I might be asked to name her best screen performance. I don’t think Leigh was ever better than she was in the 1995 film … Continue reading One for Friday: Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mare Winningham, “If I Wanted”
Greatish Performances #9
#9 — Jennifer Jason Leigh as Amy Archer in The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 1994) To the degree that Jennifer Jason Leigh is pigeonholed, it’s as the dark, damaged character whose rolling displeasure probably helps drive the … Continue reading Greatish Performances #9
Mighty Marvel Checklist HyperboleCheck: Captain America #132
When last we left the Mighty Marvel Checklist Hyperbole Check, the scintillating surprises of Captain America #131 had been illuminated and explicated. Still, there remained a clamorous cliffhanger as the star-spangled Avenger was trying to determine if the impish impostor … Continue reading Mighty Marvel Checklist HyperboleCheck: Captain America #132
Take a left, a sharp left, and another left, meet me on the corner and we’ll start again
There’s a wholly earned stereotype surrounding British films, best encapsulated by Eddie Izzard, who referred to the standard as Room with a View and a Staircase and a Pond type movies. These are the sort of efforts that reach their … Continue reading Take a left, a sharp left, and another left, meet me on the corner and we’ll start again
Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Eleven
#11 — Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981) Warren Beatty has been credited as the sole director of exactly three films, two of which can be used to demonstrate how admirable ambition can turn into plain mediocrity. And yet, every time Beatty … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Eleven
College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, An Introduction
When I was a student treating the college radio station as a second home, one of the music magazines that loomed the largest for me was Trouser Press. And yet, to the best of my recollection, I’d never seen an issue of the publication. After all, it had ceded publication five years before I ever crossed the threshold of the station. Trouser Press co-founder and co-editor Ira Robbins presided over a fat paperback slab of incredibly thorough artist biographies and album-by-album reviews of their respective discographies (it’s the fourth edition of the book that sits proudly on the bookshelf in … Continue reading College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, An Introduction
