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Books

'Lie With Me': Beauty, Love and Toxic Masculinity in the Gay '80s

How do we write about repression and toxic masculinity without valorizing it? Philippe Besson's Lie With Me is equal parts poignant tribute and glaring warning.
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Music

Locked and Loaded: Super Lover Cee & Casanova Rud Discuss Their Classic 1988 Hip-Hop Debut

Super Lover Cee & Casanova Rud's Girls I Got 'Em Locked exuded the right amount of urban flair, boyishly sly humour, and club appeal when it was released back in 1988.

Film

On Susan Seidelman's Film of Aimless Desire, 'Smithereens'

The experiences you have in NYC are not the best experiences to be had, the sex you have is not the best sex, the friends you make are not the best of all possible friends—but they ought to be.

Music

Bass is Loaded: Kid Sensation on His Bass Music Classic, 'Rollin' With Number One'

Electricity and simplicity are the two prime characteristics which drive Kid Sensation's debut.

Music

New Wave Noir Meets Technicolor: An Interview with the Motels' Martha Davis

On the eve of the Motels' first new album in ten years, The Last Few Beautiful Days, founder Martha Davis talks "Hollywood 101", the machine of celebrity, and why the Motels are like a thrift store treasure.

Television

Mustaches Run Amok Throughout Mickey Spillane’s 'The New Mike Hammer: The Series'

WARNING: This review may disturb, nay, trigger recollections for Gen X'ers that grew up watching TV with adults in the '80s.

Reviews

Lady-Killer: Exploring Coming-of-Age Through Horror in 'Lady in White'

Lady in White is a patiently-crafted example of how setting and atmosphere can supersede character and action in a story.

Music

Phil Collins: Singles

The main question with Singles is this: does Phil Collins really deserve all the critical revilement he's gotten for decades?

Games

Best of the Moving Pixels Podcast: Our Top 5 Arcade Games of All-Time

This week we consider the place of the arcade machine in the history of gaming culture.

Reviews

Defining Spiritual Sequel in 'Everybody Wants Some!!'

The powerful timing of Richard Linklater’s take on '80s competitiveness in Everybody Wants Some!!

Music

Always Cry 4 Love, Never Cry 4 Pain: Prince's 30-year 'Parade'

On Parade, Prince allows an openness to ideas and collaboration to a degree he’d never experienced before, and it brings out the best in him.

Film

Boston Underground Film Festival 2016: 'The Lure'

There's no denying the worthiness of The Lure's experimental qualities, but its characters get drowned in the music and never really find their way out.

Games

Why the Arcade Matters

The arcade snatched video games from the rarefied spaces of industry and academia, making playing video games into a truly populist pastime.

Books

Crossing the Troll Bridge With 'Marvel Comics in the 1980s'

It’s almost as if Pierre Comtois is trolling the reader, treating the printed page as a message board on which to make fans go crazy.

Television

'The Facts of Life' Is the Ultimate '80s Comfort Food Sitcom

Almost 30 years after its conclusion, putting The Facts of Life on the TV feels like hanging out with an old friend.

Music

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks 32 and 33

The Grateful Dead's most exciting stuff is born of some pretty daring work on the high wire. They certainly fall from time to time, but not nearly as often as they might.

Music

Cherub: MoM & DaD

Despite Cherub's best intentions, their sound still strikes as schtick. MoM & DaD's closest relative is probably The Electric 6.

Music

Aretha Franklin: Knew You Were Waiting: The Best of Aretha Franklin 1980 - 1998

Despite too many duets and a lack of variation, Aretha's voice still shines on her '80s hits.

Music

Human Switchboard: Who's Landing In My Hangar? Anthology 1977-1984

Velvets-worshipping Ohioan post-punks get their day in the sun on this long-over reissue.

Reviews

'Maxwell Street Blues' Is a Toe-Tapping Time Capsule

Viewing Maxwell Street Blues paradoxically stirs simultaneous emotions of melancholy and elation. Much like what happens when singing the blues.

Music

Ford & Lopatin: Channel Pressure

A work of heroic heritage -- reorganizing an era that is too often dismissed as sterile.

Books

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: Two Guys With a Shared History Engaging In Some Witty Bar Talk

There are moments that make me realize just how self-inflated my initial notion of engaging in "bar talk" may have been. I never would have been able to keep up.

Reviews

'Hot Tub Time Machine': Jump In, But Hold Your Nose

If you liked The Hangover, are a fan of any of the leads or enjoy the kind of humor associated with Apatow-style films, Hot Tub Time Machine may be for you.

Reviews

Night Court: The Complete Third Season

There were 193 episodes taped during Night Court's run from 1984 to 1992; the third season is when the show began to hit its stride and is arguably the best.

Reviews

Helmut Newton: Frames From the Edge

Helmut Newton and his models are undressed for us in this reissue of the superb 1988 documentary.

Reviews

Adventureland

A hugely enjoyable blend of humor and agony that captures the confused, painful, but open-ended state of late adolescence.

Books

My Name is Will: A Novel of Sex Drugs and Shakespeare by Jess Winfield

Have you ever wondered what William Shakespeare would have been like if he had been a graduate student at Santa Cruz in 1986?

Music

Black Sabbath: The Dio Years

Ronnie James Dio's tenure in Black Sabbath was brief, but it resulted in some of the greatest songs in heavy metal history.

Comics

Truth, Justin and the American Way #1-5

'70s and '80s nostalgia trend in comics? This series is soaking in it!

William Gatevackes
Games

Super Paper Mario

It is Super Paper Mario's quick wit, above all, that makes it such a joy to play.


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