Wednesday, November 25 2009
Re-Meet the Beatles: PopMatters Salutes the Still Fab Four
Where do you begin? How do you encapsulate the legacy of a media myth that is still rewriting and refining its legacy some five decades after the fact? The influence is undeniable, entire generations of musicians and songwriters stumbling through their archive, marveling at the achievement and strident originality. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr set the benchmark for lasting pop stardom, a standard that to this day has the four lads from Liverpool earning the endearing tag of greatest rock and roll band ever.
Friday, November 20 2009
Director Spotlight: Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar is one of the most important directors currently working in film, a true legend. What is it about the great Spanish director that resonates so profoundly with spectators worldwide? His signature, colorful visual style? His keen awareness of and sensitivity to the issues of women? His audacity when portraying a large cross-section of sexuality in new, thrilling ways?
Friday, October 23 2009
PopMatters @ 10
It is this very week that PopMatters passes a milestone and celebrates our 10th Anniversary in existence: ten years of interviews, reviews, thorough features, and smart, analytical cultural commentary. From all walks of life with a wide sampling of global perspectives, PopMatters writers have spent the last ten years picking apart just about every aspect of popular culture and how it fits in -- and reflects -- with our modern-day society.
Friday, September 25 2009
Rest in Pieces: Eulogies of the Past, Present, and Future
Just visualize yours for a moment. Just listen to the radio that announces their death. Stop for a minute, and image if you can a world without that person, no more interviews, no more books, no more living legend. Perhaps you’ve never met your character in person, and yet you’ve pulled your vehicle over to the shoulder, crippled with existential dread, furious and suffocating, the inevitable suddenly announced to the world as reality. Can you feel that pang of grief for those beloved figures now gone? Can you remember that afternoon drive when the reporter broke the news, breaking your heart in the process?
Friday, September 11 2009
Feast or Famine: The 2009 PopMatters Fall Movie Preview
Today: December 2009: The big guns -- James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Peter Jackson, Terrence Malik -- are still putting the finishing touches on their over the top treats. As usual, it looks like the Hollywood heavyweights are once again saving some of the best for last.
Friday, August 28 2009
Hellboy Sweet Sixteen
PopMatters offers an in-depth cultural analysis of the Hellboy phenomenon. Today: "The Devil You Know: Mignola's Hellboy in the Chapel of Moloch and the Old Debate" AND "The Horror of Science and Magic in Hellboy".
Friday, August 21 2009
Casablanca Records: Play It Again
Thirty-five years ago, KISS and Parliament debuted on Casablanca, a label that influenced generations of music listeners and defined an era in popular music. Join PopMatters and more than 50 artists and executives for our exclusive, five-part oral history of Casablanca.
Friday, July 31 2009
100 Essential Male Film Performances
Part 1: Life Support
Part 2: The Dark Side
Part 3: The Classics You Should Have Seen By Now
Part 4: From Page to Screen
Part 5: Under the Radar
Friday, July 24 2009
Pixelated Brains and New Media
In Pixelated Brains, a four-part section spanning June and July, we consider: R WE UNABL 2 THNK & COMMUNIC8 N MENINGFL WYZ NE MORE?
Thursday, July 9 2009
The Love You Save: A Tribute to Michael Jackson
Today: The MJ Top Ten Tribute | The Fawn in the Burning Forest: Our Beloved Monster | The Teflon King: Ronald Reagan and the Death of Michael Jackson | Artomising MJ | 'Thriller': The First in Meta Horror | Michael Jackson Forever.
Monday, June 29 2009
The Edge of Change: The Most Memorable Albums of 1999
PopMatters turns 10 this year and to celebrate we are looking back at the popular music that defined the year of our birth. [Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5]
Friday, June 5 2009
Let’s Go Crazy: Celebrating 25 Years of Purple Rain
Some 25 years after it was released, PopMatters proudly celebrates Purple Rain in its entirety, looking at the album and film from every angle.
Thursday, April 30 2009
Summer of Same: The 2009 PopMatters Summer Movie Preview
It will be a Summer of Same: same old franchises seeing multi-million dollar updates; same old actors in rote roles; directors digging deep into their cinematic bags of tricks, hoping they can find meaning out of one more mainstream paycheck. [May | June | July | August]
Wednesday, April 1 2009
Wham!‘s “Make It Big” Turns 25
An April Fool's Day special: When Wham! named its second record Make It Big, is was a statement of purpose and a prophecy. Wham! reshaped our understanding of what a pop song could achieve and produced an album that became the definitive musical statement of a generation.
Friday, March 27 2009
Decade-Dense: The 60 Most Memorable Films of 1999
On this final day of PopMatters' 1999 overview, awards season hype gives way to pure acting prowess and definitive directorial flair. Day Five: Toy Story 2 to Titus (November - December 1999)
Monday, February 23 2009
100 Essential Female Film Performances
PopMatters concludes our 100 Best Female Film Performances feature with extremely insightful, generous anecdotes from Liv Ullmann about three of the performances on this list, one of her personal choices, and a once-in-a-lifetime addendum by the glorious Bergman super trouper Bibi Andersson herself.
Friday, January 30 2009
Calling Out Around the World: Motown Turns 50
PopMatters concludes our week-long celebration of Motown at 50 with Diane Leach's essay on living in the Detroit of the '80s in What It Was Like and a couple more album gems with Needles in the Haystack.
Thursday, January 22 2009
Slipped Discs 2008
From AmpLive to Xiu Xiu, PopMatters presents our two-part selection of Slipped Discs, 80 great albums that didn’t quite make our year-end list in 2008, but which our writers thought belonged there. [Part 1 | Part 2]
Friday, January 16 2009
PopMatters Picks: The Best TV, Film, and DVD of 2008
PopMatters concludes our week-long special highlighting the best TV, film and DVD of the past year with the 30 Best Films of 2008 and Best Complexities in 2008.
Friday, January 9 2009
Best Music Scribing Awards 2008
The sloppy arrogance and search for ideas in the music scribing world. Gross presents the seventh annual edition of his picks for the year's best music writing sans PopMatters.
