Thursday, January 24 2013
In Defense Of… The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson
With Jimmy Kimmel's recent jump to the 11:35PM time slot in mind, one has to wonder why CBS' late late guy isn't being considered among the best after-hours television America can offer.
Violence Unchained
There’s a fine line between showing violence and fetishizing it. Have we crossed it?
Wednesday, January 23 2013
New Zealand Metal 101: Filth, Squalor and Noise from the Antipodes
New Zealand has some very pretty scenery, but don't let that fool you, the nation is replete with filth and squalor. In this month's Ragnarök we look at the best of that corruption, with New Zealand Metal 101.
The Conscious Materiality of Chris Ware’s Building Stories
If the digital ereader has made anything clear, it's that the physicality of the book is, for most practical purposes, incidental, an accident of time and place. Building Stories, by contrast, is deliberately material in a way that most books are not.
Tuesday, January 22 2013
Chicago—The Other Black Renaissance
The biggest difference between the Black Chicago Renaissance and the Harlem Renaissance is brand awareness. The fact is, from roughly the early ‘30s to the ‘50s, Chicago was black America’s most fruitful cultural capitol.
Acting Class, Ohana Style: Sherilyn Robertson Teaches More than the Basics
Hawaii Five-O, LOST, The Descendants, Fifty First Dates, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall are just a few movies filmed in Hawaii. Sherilyn Robertson of the Film Actor's Studio teaches ohana (family) to help actors cope in an increasingly competitive industry.
Monday, January 21 2013
No More Words Nowadays: ‘The Qatsi Trilogy’
The Qatsi films are artistic ways of raising perceptions in the Irwinian sense: to change the world, we first must know what the world has become by our doing.
Friday, January 18 2013
Your Mission, Should You Decide to Accept It, Is to Watch ‘Mission: Impossible: The Complete Series’
As a window into the Cold War-era pop-culture past, Mission: Impossible is as entertaining as anything you're likely to find. If you can manage to suspend your disbelief, it's a worthy entry into the pantheon of espionage thrillers.
Songza: The Thinking Listener’s Playlist App? or Another Reinforcer of the Same Old Taste?
Part party starter, part music discovery engine, Songza employs a cadre of “music experts” rather than an algorithm. This is strangely comforting.
Thursday, January 17 2013
I Shall Be ‘Bref’: France’s New Empire, the Shortcom
The best show on French TV is only three minutes long. And it only aired for one year.
Wednesday, January 16 2013
Anonymous and the New Religion: Data
As the world is increasingly filtered through computers there is emerging a reliance on data as a belief system. Groups like Anonymous are pushing us further towards data, as they highlight the divide they see between belief and information.
Tuesday, January 15 2013
More Than Any Other New American Director, Francis Ford Coppola Reminds Me of Orson Welles
Lifted from over a 40-year period, the Francis Ford Coppola: 5-Film Collection showcases the director's flexibility under circumstances dire and ideal. It also confirms his auteurist consistency.
In Defense Of ... Justin Bieber Smoking Pot
The cautionary tales of too much success coming too soon are endless. In the Canadian heartthrob's case, however, we should be a little more forgiving when considering his recent indiscretion.
Monday, January 14 2013
More Murders Are Committed for Love Than for Hate: ‘Hawkins’
Both Billy Jim Hawkins and Perry Mason are defense lawyers, but the resemblance ends there.
Is Hero Worship All There Is to Country Music?
All of the albums that critics/fans who fancy themselves “pure” country defenders have praised as the best of 2012 carry a heavy aura of the past about them. But how much can country music progress if it’s spending all of its time looking back?
Friday, January 11 2013
In America, Imagination is a Third Party: The Presidency in Fiction
Fiction lets us to explore our weirdest speculations and darkest fears about the person who sits in the White House. Is reality, under America's current president, worse than fiction?
Thursday, January 10 2013
Movie Time Travel and the New Nostalgia
The new nostalgia signals the ultimate rejection of millennial anxiety, postmodernism, irony and the future. It longs for a post-industrial, green world. Of course, that suggests a vague and painful longing for something that never was.
Wednesday, January 9 2013
In Defense Of ... Being Fed Up with Irony
At what point did it become so important for us to be ironic and sarcastic? More importantly, when can we finally move past our judgments and witticisms and just begin to play things straight? Maybe when it becomes ironic to not be ironic.
Tuesday, January 8 2013
2012: Another Year the World Should Have Ended
The end of the year is a time for festivities, joy... and naysayers to lament the end of cultural artifacts. The naysayers needn't fear. The world hasn't ended, again. It's just different, now.
