[7.Dec.09] :. Philip K. Dick’s fiction is a defense of the validity of video games because despite the fact that they are not real, his stories argue that there is still something valid in the artificial.
[4.Dec.09] :. Doves and Elbow register in the 9-to-5 tradition of working class Manchester, where respect is earned through hard work, and character is assessed by true-to-self authenticity and true-to-others selflessness.
[3.Dec.09] :. A scene shows Ryder blissfully tying up the manuscript and putting a rose under the string. That's rather like what Armstrong and the screenwriters did to the film: tied it up neatly with a pretty flower.
[3.Dec.09] :. With over 700 works on display spanning his artistic life, MoMA's Tim Burton career retrospective is more than a commercial appeal, but an example of art for popular culture.
[2.Dec.09] :. These two new DVDs help us take a look back at forward thinkers, and although no one will like all these films equally, the whole is an experience not only edifying but, at its most radical, even pleasurable.
[1.Dec.09] :. The first phrase to learn in Budapest has to be "Maga sokkal jobban tud angolul, mint én magyarul", or “Your English is far better than my Hungarian.”
[25.Nov.09] :. Fans are mistaken about Return of the Jedi and Luke Skywalker (dismissing the Ewoks, and Skywalker is deemed a wuss). Might they also be wrong about the prequel trilogy? And how.
[24.Nov.09] :. John Hollenbeck recombines the familiar in compositions that are startlingly new. His new Eternal Interlude is among the best jazz of 2009. Here, he explains his quirky, fresh methods.
[24.Nov.09] :. Even anglers like myself yearn for guides with fishing IQs as rich as Squanto's, a Patuxet Native American who taught the Pilgrims how to fish.
[23.Nov.09] :. Much as Ebony and Vibe crackled with the sense of discovery in their heydays, Arise feels like the magazine that’s got its finger on the pulse of today’s black pop.
[20.Nov.09] :. In the 2008 presidential election, America crossed the Henson Point -- the point where we are a post-Baby Boomer society. The Rockist calls for a champagne toast.
[20.Nov.09] :. Supergirl's summer costume change -- which included concealing shorts under her skirt as she flew about, kicking butt -- reveals a lot about our changing superheroes.
[18.Nov.09] :. What started out a back-to-basics project has turned into one of the coolest, most forward-thinking American metal bands of this decade.
[17.Nov.09] :. Hip-hop, as a culture and a musical genre, moves at lightning speed. Keeping up requires an awareness of our expectations and a willingness to revisit our assumptions.
[16.Nov.09] :. Content producers have the power to be whomever they want, but if they let themselves be dictated too much by factors like Google, page views, and ad revenue, they end up simply joining a droning, mundane chorus of mediocrity.
[16.Nov.09] :. The popularity of the “pet memoir” can be traced to a lot of factors, ranging from honest sentiment to rank anthropomorphism. But our pets, and our books about them, reflect spirit of our age, as well.
[13.Nov.09] :. Danish director Lone Scherfig spares audiences the trite clichés of a young woman's coming of age, directs a magnificent cast of actors, and defends her film against allegations of inappropriate sexuality.
[12.Nov.09] :. The Prisoner's unapologetic payoff of surrealism and absurdism heads into that artistic realm where meaning is defined more by resonance than by immediately identifiable relevance.
[5.Nov.09] :. Neil Patrick Harris is riding high these days. But in years past, if the average person sitting in his or her Barcalounger knew a TV star was gay, it would have been disastrous for both series and star.
[4.Nov.09] :. In the late '30s and '40s, Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys were the biggest stars in country music, but when he appeared onstage at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, he did so after a number of years spent toiling in relative obscurity.
[3.Nov.09] :. The Rapture may whisk the Saved up to Heaven ... leaving all of their corporeal assets untended. For the business-minded, earth-bound heathen, there’s money to be had in the leavings.
[2.Nov.09] :. More surprising than the still-impressive special effects and the jokes that hold up to modern scrutiny is the fact that there are moments throughout Ghostbusters that are legitimately scary.
[2.Nov.09] :. At a time when country music was shining like a new dime, John Hartford and his collaborators were digging into old time music to find something new.
[29.Oct.09] :. To paraphrase Nietzsche, when fighting monsters one should be careful not to become one, but that’s a major reason why many people fish: to slay the proverbial dragon.
[28.Oct.09] :. No matter the vercity of the tale, The Haunting in Connecticut has just enough creep quotient to keep me engaged, especially since I grew up a few miles from the house.
[27.Oct.09] :. If the furor surrounding Limbaugh's possible entrance into the league has to do with this political disposition, it's laughable to suggest that the rest of the owners don't share his views to a large extent.
[26.Oct.09] :. Profondo Rosso, the Dario Argento store in Rome, hints at a dramatic cultural shift taking place in Italy regarding the appreciation and analysis of classic Italian horror films.
[26.Oct.09] :. Compared to the modern-day American, their dogs have the best of everything: questionable intelligence (i.e., happiness), poor memories (i.e., forgiveness), and low expectations (i.e., contentment).
[23.Oct.09] :. When the author of a sitcom-styled novel about Mexican heritage cannot resist mentioning the modern-day carnage, then it's fair to assume that the murders have become a significant part of the national identity.
[22.Oct.09] :. Two recent releases by leading saxophonists Chris Potter and James Carter raise the question of the utility—or the misuses—of virtuosity in jazz.
[20.Oct.09] :. Jack Webb's glum radio series 'Pete Kelly's Blues' is a sigh of a tribute to the roaring '20s, a melancholic parade of blistering jazz and the pointlessness of its own nostalgia.
[16.Oct.09] :. With its narrow streets and dark and hidden infoldings, there’s a distinctly feminine, mysterious, and inexplicably magnetic aspect to Japan that exists in few other places in the world.
[14.Oct.09] :. With four landmark albums this decade alone, Converge has saved its best work for last. Vocalist Jacob Bannon talks with PopMatters about his music, his art, and his insanely talented band.
[13.Oct.09] :. Reading a comic requires multiple forms of literacy and levels of interpretation. Every movement from word to image and back again so as to create a coherent, narrative whole engages the reader’s brain in distinct ways.
[12.Oct.09] :. K'naan's The Messengers series is a trilogy of episodes designed to highlight the genius of Nigeria's Fela Kuti, Jamaica's Bob Marley, and the United States' Bob Dylan.
[9.Oct.09] :. The latest craze in mini-blogging has been embraced by a variety of pro athletes to voice their opinions on everything from coaching advice to domestic violence.
[8.Oct.09] :. In 1989, I loathed the New Kids on the Block with a passion and intensity that only junior high-aged children can bring to their study of popular culture, yet when Hangin’ Tough Live hit DVD, I had to see it.
[7.Oct.09] :. Johnny Cash was a serious scholar of music, and this knowledge was reflected in his own work, which included covers of everyone and everything from Jimmie Rodgers to Nine Inch Nails, oldtime hymns to reggae.
[6.Oct.09] :. Super Metroid is unique in that it is the only game in the series that addresses something distinctly female about Samus besides her looks: motherhood.
[5.Oct.09] :. Twitter is less about disseminating information than it is about subjects trying to make themselves feel more real, ontologically speaking, in a increasingly mediated world.
[2.Oct.09] :. Manchester's working class population showed the world that trade unions can resist authority. Such solidarity and class consciousness is heard in the arrogant sneers of the Stone Roses and Oasis.
[1.Oct.09] :. Kristofferson at times evokes Leonard Cohen, with a voice that pulls the listener into the depths of darkened barrooms, whether to share a sob story or a bit of tongue-in-cheek sagacity. His 20th album is out soon.
[30.Sep.09] :. When it comes to controlling the behavior of revelers at a wedding fest -- or rather, rolling with the behavior of revelers at a wedding fest -- a live band can adapt far better than the average DJ.
[30.Sep.09] :. Trucking songs, with their heart-of-gold waitresses, foggy nights, heavy loads, and rolling tires, must hit some modern emotional sweet spot, and musicians on the road share a kindred spirit with truckers.
[29.Sep.09] :. We can debate this greatest rapper business from now until the end of time. Let's just say Jay-Z is the greatest hip-hop icon ever, and call it a day.
[28.Sep.09] :. ‘Contextual ads’ generated by Web crawlers based on private email content might provide fresh, up-to-the-second advertising copy, but these so-called geniuses are no Don Draper.
[25.Sep.09] :. Films and books strive toward a common goal: telling a story. And very few modern filmmakers are as good at spinning a yarn as the late Hal Ashby was.
[24.Sep.09] :. The Complete Monterey Pop Festival perfectly captures the dangerously unstable compound called rock music right before it exploded and permanently altered the American cultural landscape.
[23.Sep.09] :. Frontier Doctor's church-prescribing gumdrop-toting hero comes face to face with the unthinkable: a tough-talkin' hard-done bad-girl with money on her mind (gulp).
[21.Sep.09] :. Western culture’s perspective of torture is complex and paradoxical; it's considered immoral, illegal, primitive, and indecent, yet it's shocking to see that torture methods continue to be used in the interrogation of prisoners of war.
[18.Sep.09] :. Not all comic book adaptations are created equal, especially not when comparing our own imaginings with what actually happens when books are moved from print to screen.
[17.Sep.09] :. Like US football, English soccer fans observe their own ritual every weekend. I spent a weekend with fans of both sports to get a taste of exactly what drives and defines these most profitable of cultural endeavors.
[17.Sep.09] :. Williams considers how the release of Bioshock has affected the way that apprehension and terror are evoked through the little details in video games.
[16.Sep.09] :. Peggy Lee—the cellist, not the late singer—is nevertheless all about singing of a sort. She talks to PopMatters about creativity and collaboration in the beautiful city of Vancouver.
[15.Sep.09] :. Obama's four-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new kinds of political confusion; to boldly go where no rational health-care reformer has gone before.
[14.Sep.09] :. Rock music is the only art form that invites amateurs to perform along with the professionals – like an oversize version of Kumbaya -- and with predictable results.
[13.Sep.09] :. As the controversy surrounding Semenya Caster demonstrates, the sports world -- filled with statistics, measurements, and results -- is by its very nature fundamentally at odds with the chaos that surrounds it.
[11.Sep.09] :. Slapping the word 'Fiction' on the cover of a book is not a "get out of jail free" card or, more accurately, a license to kill – just because memoirs have to be true, it doesn’t follow that novels should be allowed to be false.
[10.Sep.09] :. With the greatest shake-up in network late-night television since King Carson left his throne, now is a perfect time to ponder where late-night television is today.
[4.Sep.09] :. Jump into that ’59 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz with the maxed-out tailfins, contemplate what an original Barbie doll could fetch on eBay, and enjoy this roll call of Reasons Why Everything Changed in 1959.
[3.Sep.09] :. Bill Frisell's ambient, fuzzy, meandering guitar doodles sound like they're trying to approximate the sad stillness blowing through the corridors of Keaton's mind.
[2.Sep.09] :. I'll take the wasabi potato croquettes that came with the lamb racks in the "Sheep in Wolf's Clothing" dish (inspired by TV on the Radio's "Wolf Like Me") over Hard Rock's seasoned fries any day.
[2.Sep.09] :. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is more than an enlightening tale of the racial inadequacies in the South during the Depression -- it inspired people to study law.
[1.Sep.09] :. Asexuals, also known as “aces”, have begun to assert their place as a valid and healthy sexual orientation; even SpongeBob is in on the (lack of) action.
[31.Aug.09] :. The media is too preoccupied with the funeral arrangements of the mainstream music industry to celebrate the life that is happening elsewhere.
[27.Aug.09] :. Quentin Tarantino drives critics nuts because he loves movies. 'New Yorker' critic David Denby drives The Rockist nuts because he hates movies.
[27.Aug.09] :. Where a thousand stone-faced social dramas have despaired over the decay of interpersonal relations and marital unity, this is the interpersonal angst of an Ingmar Bergman movie saved by a sitcom ending and a live studio audience.
[24.Aug.09] :. And the nominees for Best 'White' Actress on Television are… the exact same group of women who are nominated every single year by the unimaginative voting bloc.
[21.Aug.09] :. In the Digital Age, music and information sit at our fingertips. How do rappers use tools, new and old, to distinguish themselves from the competition?
[20.Aug.09] :. Discovering the first collection of duets between popular singer Tony Bennett and jazz pianist Bill Evans popped my top and buttered my bread.
[19.Aug.09] :. Country music ain’t the sole purview of the southern part of the northern hemisphere: Canada has its share of fireside soul(ful) singers, too.
