Ross Langager has been contributing music reviews to PopMatters since early 2008. He has a BA (Honors) in English and a MA in English, both from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He lives in Toronto, Ontario. He also writes a blog at http://rosslangager.com/ .
Features
Tuesday, December 6 2011
The Beauty and the Horror: Peter Jackson’s King Kong - Part 2
Jackson's film is as unwieldy and difficult as it is gripping and moving, expanding upon the exotic spectacle of the original while simultaneously steering the tale into the realm of tragic lament.
Thursday, December 1 2011
The Beauty and the Horror: Peter Jackson’s King Kong - Part 1
This film is keenly aware of the myriad meanings embedded in its cinematic myth and sets about re-contextualizing and commenting upon the implied politics while offering extravagant thrills and tragic, classic romance.
Tuesday, November 29 2011
Money, Sex, and Power: Contemporary Adaptations in John Guillermin’s King Kong
The 1976 King Kong updates this modern myth’s meanings for a vastly different social, economic, and cultural milieu, but it does so with a leaden obviousness that undermines its conclusions.
Monday, November 28 2011
From Spectacle to Elegy: The Cinematic Myth of King Kong
Like many of the Hollywood blockbusters that followed in its footsteps, King Kong was a barometer for its troubled times, a clear crystallization of many lurking social anxieties in Depression-era America.
Tuesday, November 24 2009
"With Our Love, We Can Save the World": The Beatles Within and Without the Late '60s Zeitgeist
The Beatles were consistently constructed as symbolic avatars for the social and cultural shifts of their time and place, even while they were still in the midst of that time and place.
Reviews
Sunday, January 15 2012
'Napoleon Dynamite' Is Not a Delicious Bass
Yes, a Mad Max parody. This show is precisely that original.
Thursday, January 12 2012
'The Finder' Features Bromantic Repartee
Lest we are led to understand his mental perturbation as being entirely advantageous, Sherman’s condition has also turned him into a goofy eccentric.
Friday, November 18 2011
Visual-Aesthetic Porn in 'The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch'
Skyscrapers shimmer, luxury cars glisten, and a woman’s bare buttocks glow with sensual light. You might want to charge the whole damned thing to the company credit card and write it off as a business expense.
Wednesday, October 26 2011
'Whitechapel' Is a Diverting and Atmospheric Crime Drama
Whitechapel is a mystery drama that feeds into the evidently bottomless current appetite for pseudo-conspiratorial “secret history” fiction.
Thursday, October 6 2011
'Criminal Minds' Has Worn Thin
One needs to hone in on the performers to find reasons to stay engaged, because the plots and premises of Criminal Minds are worn thin as filaments by this point.
Blogs
Wednesday, December 16 2009
Slipped Disc: Doves - Kingdom of Rust
Albums that missed our Top 60 Albums list, but at least one of our writers loves.
Monday, December 7 2009
The Best Singles of 2009: Coldplay - "Strawberry Swing"
We've unveiled our 50 best singles of the year, but that's not really a lot of songs. So, here are others bubbling just under that 50 mark.
