Tuesday, February 7 2012
Film Archiving: The Importance of Enlightening Those Audiences Sitting in the Dark
Special programs devoted to cinematic greats like Alfred Hitchcock or Deborah Kerr might be the flashiest part of an archivist’s job, but fiction curator Jo Botting also enjoys tracking down rare films and ensuring the next generation gets to see them.
Monday, February 6 2012
‘Nebraska’: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Heart of Darkness’
In 1982, with the charts ruled by “Physical”, “Don’t You Want Me” and “Eye of the Tiger”, along came a low-tech record about killers, small-time thieves and other forgotten souls -- and it's still one of the best albums in American music.
Friday, February 3 2012
Kafka Noir: ‘The Sickroom’ and ‘A Country Doctor’
Serge Marcotte's The Sickroom compresses Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor into a nightmarish rush of hard-boiled film noir cynicism that, like all the best literary adaptations, is simultaneously faithful and unique.
Thursday, February 2 2012
Prime Time Larceny: It Takes a Thief
Al Mundy (Robert Wagner) enjoys a reputation as a world-class thief, a glamorous burglar, a pickpocket's pickpocket. Too bad he landed in prison.
Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt
I'll Be There in the Morning offers an affectionate but hardly rose-colored view of Townes Van Zandt and his influence on other songwriters.
Wednesday, February 1 2012
The Gay Ole Countryside
As challenging as it can be to grow up gay or lesbian in an area where the next closest homosexual is 50 miles away, it's often not the sad existence that an urban dweller might assume it to be.
A Tale of How Great Journalism Became Revisionist History: Grambling State U Football
Yet for all of the good will and good information generated by focusing on Grambling, there is still a deeper story to be told about the other great black college football programs and coaches.
Tuesday, January 31 2012
Jazz Triumphs of 2011 That Only a Fool Could Miss
Critics can be fools, particularly in their own eyes. Here are five jazz discs from 2011 that should have been on my top ten list but slipped from view, then. It's not too late to dig them.
Monday, January 30 2012
The Mythical Country
Where are these towns and neighborhoods that Montgomery Gentry sing about? The Mythical Country; the country that exists in the collective imagination of Nashville songwriters and singers, and that of the audience.
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.
‘Library After Air Raid’: On the Survival of Culture Amid the Barbarity of War
War is a science, science is an art and art, as Library After Air Raid attests, is everything.
Thursday, January 26 2012
Batman Is Boring in ‘Arkham City’
Batman is a bit player in his own story, and I think a lot of that stems from his desire to save everyone.
Wednesday, January 25 2012
‘How to Make It in America’? Well for Starters, Don’t Make Hopeful Television
The HBO dramedy How to Make It in America, despite being one of television's best programs, could not make it because it was too hopeful and joyful to survive a culture of cyncism.
Tuesday, January 24 2012
Navigating the SOPA Soap Opera
The most frustrating thing about the controversial new copyright legislation making its way through Congress? It lacks creativity.
The Not-So-Global Globes: International Tensions in the Film Industry
Now that The Artist gave the Golden Globes a distinctly French flavor, and Meryl Streep fueled the controversy in the British camp, a simultaneous rapprochement and tension defines the relationship between the European and American film industry.
Monday, January 23 2012
A Joy to Experience: Neo-Soul Singer Bilal Oliver
Bilal Oliver belongs to an elite class of late '90s Neo-Soul singers, but his guest appearances may be the true gems of his career.
Riding Into a Nightmare: ‘A Train in Winter’
Caroline Moorehead's A Train In Winter, like Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost, leaves nothing to the imagination, a decision that makes reading it simultaneously engrossing and deeply disturbing.
Friday, January 20 2012
Stand-Up! America’s Dissenting Tradition Part One: Trailblazers Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce
Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce were more than just maverick dissenters; they were the founding fathers of what would later coalesce under the umbrella of the “counter-culture”.
Thursday, January 19 2012
Doing The Worst Things Well: What We Can Learn from Anthony Burgess
The 50th anniversary of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, along with the recent discovery of a vast archive of the author's unpublished work, should shine fresh light on one of the 20th century's most prolific, daring and underrated writers.
Wednesday, January 18 2012
Gleeks and Beliebers Rejoice: In Defense of Pop
Pop music makers like Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry may get the kiss off from critics, but really, what's the harm in getting your pop groove on to their style of music?
