Features
Friday, January 13 2012
"Copying People I Like": A Conversation with Eleanor Friedberger
The Fiery Furnaces' Eleanor Friedberger tells PopMatters all about her breezy, gorgeous new solo effort, and also tells us why she doesn't like giving interviews, which Fiery Furnaces album she least enjoys, and how performing solo was a revealing experience for her.
Wednesday, November 16 2011
"My Humor Is Traced with Dark": An Interview with 'Drive’s Albert Brooks
Everyone is talking about Albert Brooks' transformation from funnyman to hitman in Nicolas Winding Refn's excellent Drive. The legendary comic, author and Best Supporting Actor Oscar hopeful recently spoke with PopMatters about being ahead of the curve and more.
Thursday, April 21 2011
"Fighting What's Right in the World": An Interview with Tim Heidecker
Heidecker and Wood have now turned their form-rattling attention to a strictly musical genre: soft rock. Starting from Nowhere is a hilarious and totally authentic sounding collection of songs that could have been beamed in from the 1970s or 1980s AM dial.
Tuesday, November 2 2010
'Kid A': The Audio File
Last year, Thomas Britt reviewed Capitol's "Special Collector" reissues of the band's latter-day albums. With a brand new introduction, Britt takes us back to how life intersected art for him during those first few listens ...
Thursday, September 23 2010
It Will All Be Yours: 'Natural Born Killers' and the Dead End of Allusion
On the eve of the release of Oliver Stone's new film, Thomas Britt reflects on Stone's Natural Born Killers and the mass murdering mayhem courtesy of the fabulously alliterative, famously insane characters of Mickey and Mallory Knox.
Columns
Friday, March 9 2012
Agitprop to Occupy My Time: 'In Time' for the Revolution
If fiction and reality could merge, the hero of the film In Time would benefit from listening to Real Time with Bill Maher, who said to the Occupy movement, "When you occupy anything for too long people do get pissed off."
Friday, January 27 2012
The Tabloidization of Errol Morris
By the end of this film, the line dividing Tabloid from “the tabloids” thins to the point of imperceptibility.
Thursday, November 3 2011
This Show Just Got a Little Too Real: Bravo's 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills'
Bravo’s schadenfreude is such a fundamental part of Real Housewives that every episode unavoidably concerns a tragic figure that never appears on screen and cannot defend the character assassination the show perpetuates.
Wednesday, August 17 2011
Weighing In: Fitness Films and Ordinary People
When fitness celebrities turn fat folks into fitness celebrities in their own image, self-preservation and betterment are eclipsed by the value of self-promotion. Remember the subjects undergoing these life-changing metamorphoses are “real” people.
Friday, June 3 2011
"Kill Yourself for Recognition": The Odd Future of Young Celebrity
When anticipation of death combines with the cult of celebrity, stars are pressured to literally give up the ghost -- or at least produce the effect through artistic means.
Reviews
Thursday, May 17 2012
Tenacious D: Rize of the Fenix
Tenacious D’s album number three fails to capture the comic energy of the band’s prior musical output and pales in comparison to other, much funnier rock music moments by the band's contemporaries.
Friday, April 20 2012
Stratified Society Depicted Brilliantly 'Upstairs, Downstairs Complete Series: 40th Anniversary Ed.'
The 40th anniversary DVD presentation of this highly influential drama series is an outstanding package both for viewers new to the series and for established fans that don’t already own previous DVD releases.
Monday, April 16 2012
Spiritualized: Sweet Heart Sweet Light
The album’s search for deliverance is timeless and ultimately uplifting.
Friday, December 16 2011
The Beach Boys: The SMiLE Sessions
For countless oft-told reasons -- creative, chemical, contractual and personal -- the album was shelved and officially unavailable. Newly available in 2011 as The SMiLE Sessions, this release is like a coda that took 44 years to arrive.
Wednesday, September 28 2011
Nurses: Dracula
Nurses are a band whose approach to songwriting can be practically defined as playing around in the studio and seeing what sticks. Yet with this keen an editorial sense, the results are consistently impressive.
Blogs
Wednesday, February 29 2012
The 'Wicker Man' Roundup
Nicolas Cage and Robin Hardy won't give up the ghost. The Loch Parry Players threaten to roast. The Wicker Man is still on fire in 2012.
Wednesday, December 14 2011
Bubbling Under the 75 Best Albums of 2011: Liturgy
This week we presented our Best 75 Albums of 2011. Here are several more just bubbling under the top 75...
