I gave America her gold and she melted over me
So, let’s say that while walking around my workplace I look down at the floor and found a stray envelope. I pick it up and discover that its an Academy Awards ballot addressed to one of the students in our institution’s MFA program. Were I the sort of individual who would conveniently neglect to return this document to its rightful owner, choosing instead to take the unexpected opportunity to help shape the Oscar nominations, the document mailed back to he Academy would look a little something like this… BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE 1. Kate Winslet, … Continue reading I gave America her gold and she melted over me
Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number One
#1 There are no shortage of dysfunctional families in the annals of film. Directors like Jonathan Demme–who brings an observant delicacy to his work, a commitment to emotional honesty and an abundant insight–are, on the other hand, a true rarity. … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number One
One for Friday: Guadalcanal Diary, “Always Saturday”
Throwing yourself into college radio and the music that has its most welcoming home on the left end of the dial can make you feel as if you’re in an alternative musical universe. It’s not just that you wind up listening to completely different stuff that many of your contemporaries, often baffled over their inability to understand that listening to, to use an example from my era, a hearing a new Husker Du record is a far superior experience compared to listening to the same Led Zeppelin album side played for the thousandth time. It’s that the music you love … Continue reading One for Friday: Guadalcanal Diary, “Always Saturday”
Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number Two
#2 Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, like many Woody Allen films before it, is all about relationships between men and women. Two female friends are vacationing in Spain. A charming, handsome local painter propositions them, proclaiming equal satisfaction with any … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number Two
Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number Three
#3 Arguably, the most impressive thing about Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days is its matter-of-fact tone. There’s ample opportunity for highly charged scenes given the subject. Cristian Mungiu’s film follows a woman in mid-eighties Romania who helps her … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number Three
Count down backwards from ten and everything’s okay, you can wish the world away
Coraline isn’t an especially original story, in some respects. Literature and film is filled with tales of children who escape the drudgery and heartache of their lives by throwing themselves into fantastical worlds, worlds that may or may not exist … Continue reading Count down backwards from ten and everything’s okay, you can wish the world away
Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number Four
Revolutionary Road never had a chance. Months before it ever unspooled in a theater, it was the focus of agitated hype, the reunion of Titanic co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet held up as a major movie moment. As if … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number Four
Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number Five
History is not tangible. Despite out attempts to commemorate it with statues and monuments, it’s not a piece of concrete that multitudes can look upon with reasonable assurance that everyone is seeing the same thing. Instead, it’s a collection … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number Five
Trouble keeping your head up when you’re hungry and you’re fed up
There’s more where that came from. (Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”) Continue reading Trouble keeping your head up when you’re hungry and you’re fed up
One For Friday: The Primitives, “Outside”
Most of the “One for Friday” digressions revolve around music that held special meaning for me during my earliest years in college radio. This is in part because I want to stick with material that’s clearly out of print, so looking back twenty years is a good start. But its also because this is the material that carries the most meaning for me. It’s the music I effectively grew up with. Thus far, I’ve stuck with music that I have on CD, which is a little on the tricky side because I wasn’t buying CDs back then. In fact, as … Continue reading One For Friday: The Primitives, “Outside”
