Features - April 2007 Browse archives by month...
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Music Open Letter to Lester Bangs By Adam Williams [30.Apr.07] :. The fearless, arrogant, and very much missed rock writer has been gone from this world for a quarter century, now. Time to drop him a note.

Music Brother Ali Has Finally Laid Down The Undisputed Truth By Chris Riemenschneider [30.Apr.07] :. The conscientious hip-hopper talks about racial identity and the new album that could blow up his career at last.

Film The 10th Annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival By Kevin Greer, Jyllian Gunther, and Isaac Miller [27.Apr.07] :. Subversive behavior is encouraged, girl-watching is indulged, Hunter S. Thompson gets some respect, and the pig-out at the wrap-up Awards Barbeque begins.

Film You Know His Name: A History of James Bond By Jack Patrick Rodgers [27.Apr.07] :. James Bond was the perfect hero for Great Britain of the 1950s, still licking its post-war wounds and eager for a champion who defended old-fashioned values like upper-class snobbery.

Film James Cagney: Another Look at Hollywood’s Tough Guy By Chadwick Jenkins [26.Apr.07] :. The Cagney features collected here are not "must-owns", but they are enjoyable "might-owns" for anyone who takes pleasure in watching a talented actor finding moments of undiluted joy in work-a-day films.

Film Short Ends & Leader Recent Highlights By PopMatters Staff [26.Apr.07] :. Day in and day out, SE&L offers up insightful and in-depth film criticism, covering a wide range of cinematic issues from the historical to the front page entertainment headlines. Here are some recent highlights...

Music Bound Stems: A Portrait in Perseverance By Andre Perry [25.Apr.07] :. As a member of Harvey Danger, Evan Sult found instant success, and just as instantly the band became a record-industry afterthought. With his new band, Bound Stems, what keeps him fighting against anomie and anonymity and indifference to make his music heard?

Music Sounding the Call for Equality: An Interview with Mavis Staples By Greg Kot [25.Apr.07] :. Staples: "What has really changed? I'm 67 years old, and I was here the first time around and it's still not fixed. We can't let Dr. King shed his blood and die for us trying to get justice and live in a world like this."

Music Found Genres: The One-Off Noise Fest By Tony Sclafani [24.Apr.07] :. When musicians go postal, the results can be fascinating: crazy, explosive works of art spring forth and cause record-company executives to cringe and casual fans to cower.

Music Branching Out: An Interview With Ted Leo By Jennifer Kelly [23.Apr.07] :. America's last remaining old-style punk rocker revisits his hardcore, pop, mod, soul, celtic and reggae roots in his fifth and latest full-length. "I knew going into it that I didn't want this record to be as concise as the last one," he says.

TV The Sopranos Is the Most Influential Television Drama Ever By Maureen Ryan [23.Apr.07] :. No one-hour drama series has had a bigger impact on how stories are told on the small screen, or more influence on what kind of fare we've been offered by an ever-growing array of television networks.

Sports Carrying Jackie’s Torch: The Players Who Integrated Baseball—and America By Steve Jacobson [20.Apr.07] :. No matter how great their RBI or batting average, neither Jackie Robinson nor the other black players could escape the racism, insult or injustice of the times.

Comics The Subversive Adorability of Lulu Eightball By Kristin Boyers [20.Apr.07] :. Unlike many mainstream comic strips that depict childhood as pure and full of happiness – such as the nauseatingly idyllic Family Circus or the benignly mischievous Dennis the Menace – Lulu Eightball is unafraid to acknowledge the dark side of growing up.

Music Ghost Stories: Masaki Batoh on Life, Death, and Stormy Nights By Jennifer Kelly [19.Apr.07] :. Japanese psych-folk master Masaki Batoh of Ghost talks life, death, improvisation and plasma balls ... and why he and his band won't be touring the US any time soon.

Film An Unnamed Chapter By Chadwick Jenkins [19.Apr.07] :. Verdict on Auschwitz goes a long way toward guaranteeing that this "unnamed chapter" in human history shall not remain unspoken; it will reverberate throughout history as a reminder of the depths of depravity into which human beings may fall.

Sports In Praise of the Internet and Spring (Training) By Ted Walker [18.Apr.07] :. Spring training is that wonderful time of year when the regular hierarchies of baseball and business are bleached out of the game, and it can all be seen on the Internet.

Music Grappling with NIN’s noise at Year Zero By Ben Wener [18.Apr.07] :. Trent Reznor is becoming a very narrowly defined auteur. His entire output could play like one long album, and Year Zero is no exception.

Culture Nine Wives By Claire Litton [17.Apr.07] :. In the modern day, much like the archaic harems, there is no better way to show off a wealthy and important man than to show him surrounded by subservient women: observe James Bond or 50 Cent.

Music Fountains of Wayne: Too Smart to Be a Rock Band, Too Smart to Be Anything Else By Will Layman [16.Apr.07] :. A self-aware songwriter, Adam Schlesinger still finds a way inside everyone else's head. PopMatters talks to the ingenius popsters about their new album and more.

Music The Beautiful & Damned [Los Angeles] By Jon Garrett [16.Apr.07] :. Embodying the labyrinthine decay and assured swagger of their Hollywood home, the Beautiful & Damned are fueled by a bit of literary pretension and a drive to expose the grandeur in the intimate and ugly.

Culture Don Imus: The Character of the Content By David Swerdlick [13.Apr.07] :. It would be easy to "get over" a disparaging remark about one’s race or gender (or religion or sexual orientation) if one could confidently believe that one's thus ridiculed identity would never be the cause of denied fair treatment, or extended common courtesy, in society at large.

Sports A Great Day for Hockey By Ross McGowan [13.Apr.07] :. The Penguins' future in Pittsburgh wasn't the only thing on the line when a deal to build the team a new arena was announced.

Film Aronofsky: A Shockingly Talented and Aggressive Filmmaker By Chadwick Jenkins [12.Apr.07] :. Aside from being the early efforts of a shockingly talented and aggressive filmmaker, Requiem for a Dream and Π -- while relating quite different stories -- share an underlying narrative structure and a profound concern for the individual's deeply embedded need for the patterns that inform his/her life.

Music A Long Way from Wonderland By Christian John Wikane [11.Apr.07] :. In 1980, Donna Summer walked away from disco's strobe-lit boogie wonderland on The Wanderer. Critics embraced her bold statement; audiences less so. Where exactly was Summer going?

Music Brazilian Minister of (Counter) Culture: Gilberto Gil By Evelyn McDonnell [11.Apr.07] :. Tropicalia fused nationalistic interest in native cultural forms with the heady changes of international pop culture -- it mixed samba and rock. As Gil said recently, it was "the last modernist movement and the first postmodernist one."

Film Children of the Revolution By Chris Robé [10.Apr.07] :. While the government gradually abandoned the Revolution, Mexican cinema rewove its sundry and complicated histories into a singular, nationalistic spectacle filled with valiant leaders, easy morals, stunning imagery, and catchy songs.

Music Fun Is an OK Thing: An Interview With LCD Soundsystem By David Tatasciore [9.Apr.07] :. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and DFA Records talks corporate sponsorship, German pronunciation, and why the kids who don't dance aren't alright.

Books Long Zoom: Interview with Steven Johnson By Jason B. Jones [6.Apr.07] :. "My editor said, 'Yeah, it's like Emergence if the slime molds started killing people in chapter four.' And that became my mantra as I was writing it: 'Just think Emergence with killer slime molds and you're golden.'" PopMatters talks to Ghost Map author, Steven Johnson.

Film Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez Talk Grindhouse By Steven Rea [6.Apr.07] :. The celebrated directors discuss their new double-feature, a salute to the grindhouse film era, and offer a hit list of grindhouse classics for your viewing pleasure.

Music Springsteen’s Other Tracks By Derek Weiler [5.Apr.07] :. In 1998 Bruce Springsteen released Tracks, a four-disc set that you'd have thought had cleared his archive of the best unreleased studio material. But that barely scratched the surface -- here, the best of the rest

Music Since He Last Recorded: An Interview With RJD2 By Steven J. Horowitz [4.Apr.07] :. The former hip-hop producer explains the evolution of his sound and his inability to be like Steven Tyler.

Film Wim Wenders: Merging the Infinite Via the Enigma of Cinema By Bill Gibron [3.Apr.07] :. Like an abstractionist who refuses to discuss his inspiration, or an avant-garde artist who renders his icons through a vague and untouchable design, Wim Wenders can be both fascinating and frustrating.

Music Sly’s the Limit By Zeth Lundy [2.Apr.07] :. Sly & the Family Stone, a group that riddled pop music's consciousness with a concentrated dosage of exploding possiblity, finally get the expanded reissue treatment from Epic/Legacy.

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