Features - June 2007 Browse archives by month...
Jul.08 | Jun.08 | May.08 | Apr.08 | Mar.08 | Feb.08 | Jan.08 | Dec.07 | Nov.07 | Oct.07 | Sep.07 | Aug.07 | Jul.07 | Jun.07 | May.07 | Apr.07 | Mar.07 | Feb.07 | Jan.07 | Dec.06 | Nov.06 | Oct.06 Browse archives by year...
2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999

Film Grotesque Neo-Realism: Discussing Martin Scorsese’s Confounding Style By Erik Hinton [29.Jun.07] :. Obscenities, Catholic imagery, self-immolation, blood-soaked killing sprees and falling from grace: what lies beneath the surface of filmmaker Martin Scorsese's distinctive style?

Music Blondie: Eat to the Beat By Christian John Wikane [29.Jun.07] :. Almost half a million YouTube views later, Blondie's Eat to the Beat video receives a long awaited release on DVD with (yet another) remastered CD.

Multimedia Above the Sea of Fog: The New Romantic Era of Video Games By L.B. Jeffries [28.Jun.07] :. To this next generation of consoles, a challenge has been declared: that the quality of graphics or sound are not gauges for the quality of a game, that they aspire to more than mere satisfaction of a few basic human desires.

Music Cowboy Troy’s Latest… “Bland Content” Warning By Lester Feder [28.Jun.07] :. ADVISORY: Cowboy Troy's second attempt at fusing country and hip-hop contains references to minivans, grills, and strong images of suburbia that may numb office drones to the tedium of cubicle life. Discretion is advised.

Music The Unconscious Realm: An Interview With Medeski, Martin & Wood Drummer Billy Martin By Will Layman [27.Jun.07] :. With the release of Mago, an album of duets with bandmate John Medeski, Billy Martin continues to pursue a personal vision of music without many boundaries, a pop-jazz-avant-garde combination that barely acknowledges the market while still sounding irresistible.

Film Let’s Tell That Story: An Interview with Pratibha Parmar By Ellise Fuchs [27.Jun.07] :. In person, Pratibha Parmar appears calm and gracious, little like the courageous warrior woman we know her to be. She talks easily about her vision and desire to tell stories not usually told on the screen.

Film The Elusive Corpus: Jean Renoir Collection By Michael Barrett [26.Jun.07] :. This smorgasbord of "minor Renoir" encompasses and even summarizes his career from beginning to end; a bargain for the cinephile, expert or novice.

Music Reflections of a Renaissance Man: An Interview with Paul McCartney By Christian John Wikane [25.Jun.07] :. From Astaire to T-Pain, from Little Richard to de Kooning, McCartney talks to PopMatters and covers it all, including his uncertainty about what kind of send-off he'd like.

PopMatters Picks: The 50 DVDs Every Film Fan Should Own By PopMatters Staff [22.Jun.07] :. Each day this week PopMatters casts its eyes upon film history and presents 10 of the best DVDs every film lover should own. Part Five: The Return of the Auteur.

Hall & Oates, Abandoned Luncheonette (1973) By Rob Horning [22.Jun.07] :. Before their string of ubiquitous 1980s hits, this songwriting duo wrote surprisingly strange and pleasantly unpretentious soft rock.

TV Violence for Good By Elizabeth Gartley [20.Jun.07] :. The escalation of violence on television isn't merely a matter of audiences becoming desensitized. It also raises the stakes and the psychological payoffs when the violence is avenged.

Music Relinquishing This World of Brutal Music: An Interview With Jesu’s Justin Broadrick By Jennifer Kelly [18.Jun.07] :. While still in his teens, Justin Broadrick pioneered grindcore in Napalm Death, and later, with Godflesh, extended the range of antagonistic volume. Now with the gorgeous soundscapes of Jesu, Broadrick says, "I really need to explore melody in an all-out way."

Music The Cinematic Orchestra [London] By Adam Green [15.Jun.07] :. The Cinematic Orchestra's rapid evolution as one of the strongest forces standing on the wall between jazz and electronic music is even more idiosyncratic in that the band has also been steadily reducing the concoction until it's reached a crackling, steady simmer.

The Only Ones, Special View (1979) By Julia Yepes [15.Jun.07] :. The Only Ones' Peter Perrett was power pop's Baudelaire, assailing city life with delirious, love-struck curses.

Film Spartan Spectators By Andrea Tallarita [14.Jun.07] :. The earnestness of 300 assaults reality so effectively that it ends up destroying myth.

Culture How America’s Most Renowned Improv Club Stays Second to None By Sid Smith [14.Jun.07] :. Recently, Second City unveiled "Between Barack and a Hard Place" and then sat back stunned by what the gods of sketch comedy had wrought: rave reviews; talk about how the troupe is rediscovering its political edge; and box-office business like nothing the club had seen in some time.

Music Going Balloon: An Interview with Forro in the Dark By Lyra Pappin [13.Jun.07] :. Mauro Refosco of Forro in the Dark chats with PopMatters about music, keeping his cool, and Brazilian cooking.

Film Rory Kennedy Reveals the Ghosts of Abu Ghraib By Bruce Dancis [13.Jun.07] :. Kennedy's film provides a history of the Abu Ghraib scandal and places the events that took place there within the context of the Bush administration's attempt to redefine torture.

Film Is Apted Keeping Up? By Boyd Williamson [12.Jun.07] :. Filmmaker Michael Apted's Up series of documentaries, which record the lives of a diverse selection of Britons at seven-year intervals, is unique and universally praised. But recent installments have lost their spine when confronting the class issues.

Music Closer, Still: Reflections on Joy Division By Chris Catania [12.Jun.07] :. To some, Joy Division's music is depressing. To others, who've trailed along where the music takes them, it's cathartic.

Film PopMatters @ Cannes 2007: This Growing Body of Artful Human Expression By Hannah Eaves [11.Jun.07] :. It's a long road from that little glimmer of an idea to a film's acceptance for screening at Cannes. For those that scored distribution, they must next endure the critique of the movie-going, ticket-paying public.

Music Scud Mountain Boys: How to Burn a Silo By Matthew Fiander [11.Jun.07] :. Matthew Fiander rediscovers the Scud Mountain Boys with his own move south, and realizes that stories are rightfully entangled in their settings.

Music Très Sheik: An Interview with Duncan Sheik By Adam Besenyodi [8.Jun.07] :. Songwriter Duncan Sheik talks with PopMatters about the musical Spring Awakening, nominated for 11 Tony Awards, and writing music that's relevant to a larger cultural argument.

Boz Scaggs, Silk Degrees (1976) By Paul Pearson [8.Jun.07] :. The former Steve Miller Band sideman teams up with the musicians who would become Toto to enact the birth of the smooth.

Music Magazine: A Band from Under the Floorboards By Michael Keefe [7.Jun.07] :. Call them post-punk, new wave, or art-rock, these remastered versions of Magazine's four studio albums reveal the Manchster quintet to be one of the best and most creative bands of their era.

Film Occupy, Resist, and Produce By Chris Robe [7.Jun.07] :. By revealing the intricate links that connect the personal with the political, The Take deftly reminds us how our psychic geography is intimately shaped by our socio-economic landscape.

Culture The Night After the Poker Party By Evan J. Mandery [6.Jun.07] :. Online poker playing is one part skill, one part chance -- and one part gambling. Some players want unrestricted access to real payoffs, no matter if they'll likely lose more than they'll win.

DVDs Kids’ DVDs: June 2007 By Roger Holland [6.Jun.07] :. Given that babies and young children love nothing more than repetition, repetition, and... um.... repetition, I can't understand why even the pointiest of heads would think children between the ages of six months and three years could possible need 23 different Baby Einstein DVDs.

Music “I Don’t Have Any Regrets”: An Interview With Avril Lavigne By Evan Sawdey [5.Jun.07] :. Lavigne balances the need to stay hands-on with the desire not to overthink while pounding out her best damn album.

Film PopMatters @ Cannes 2007: La Belle Communauté Internationale By Hannah Eaves [4.Jun.07] :. The forgotten Bulgarians, the misunderstood French, the resentful Italians, the arrogant Americans... the international experience at Festival de Cannes captures such frustrations we of varying nations experience with one another. But the films we come for help us overcome our differences... right?

Music Pete Doherty: Unstrung By Julia Yepes [4.Jun.07] :. Babyshambles? More like shambles, judging by Pete Doherty's public buffoonery and substance abuse. Yet beyond that façade lies a poet deliberately testing limits.

Music Sgt. Pepper at 40, from A to Z By Bruce Dancis [1.Jun.07] :. It was 40 years ago today -- to be precise, June 1, 1967, in Britain, a day later in the former colonies of America -- that the Beatles changed the world.

Film Independent Film Festival of Boston 2007 By Jake Meaney [1.Jun.07] :. PopMatters took a seat in dark spaces to explore the shadowy places of the human mind, as brought to light via the filmmakers at the Independent Film Festival of Boston.

Browse archives by month...
Jul.08 | Jun.08 | May.08 | Apr.08 | Mar.08 | Feb.08 | Jan.08 | Dec.07 | Nov.07 | Oct.07 | Sep.07 | Aug.07 | Jul.07 | Jun.07 | May.07 | Apr.07 | Mar.07 | Feb.07 | Jan.07 | Dec.06 | Nov.06 | Oct.06 Browse archives by year...
2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999