The world of Saturday Night Fever is at best morally ambiguous and at worst downright evil. Male friends are, for the most part, not friends at all, just people to get a ride to the nightclub from and to drink and take drugs with. Women are barely considered people, and are passed around to satisfy men's sexual … Continue reading Movie review: Saturday Night Fever (1977)
(Originally published December 23, 2008) I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I call “Fairytale of New York” the greatest secular Christmas song of all time and one of the greatest songs ever. The Pogues were at a creative peak when If I Should Fall From Grace With God was released in 1988, and while the … Continue reading Merry Christmas: “Fairytale of New York,” by the Pogues (with Kirsty MacColl) (1988)
\I'll put the summation at the top: a sure sign of a successful music documentary is that it makes you interested in its subject even if you are not a fan or even if you are not familiar with the artist at all. And, while I am a Bee Gees fan so cannot know this … Continue reading Movie review: Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (2020)
The past decade-and-change has seen a glut of remakes of horror films from the '70s and '80s. Most of them have been quicky cash grabs. Suspiria, to its credit, has a different approach, taking a few elements of Dario Argento's frightening exercise in the capacity of sound and vision to terrify and incorporating them into … Continue reading Movie review: Suspiria (2018)
Yola's debut album, Walk Through Fire, opens with "Faraway Look," a seemingly simple song about someone looking for more in life. But we don't get the full story. My interpretation is that our narrator has a secret romantic longing for a friend who works at a grocery store, and knows she will never get him because … Continue reading Album review: Walk Through Fire (2019), by Yola
Note: Yesterday, the death of horror director Stuart Gordon was announced. I'm posting this look at his 1987 film, Dolls, in his memory. Rest in peace. ---- Don't let the freaky poster art fool you--Dolls is as much a comedy as it is a horror film, and not usually the subtle, dark comedy of Stuart Gordon's masterpiece, Re-Animator, … Continue reading Movie review: Dolls (1987)
If I were associating words with The Amazing Spider-Man (the character) one of the first ones I would say is, "Fun!" Which is in large part what's wrong with The Amazing Spider-Man (the movie)--it's no fun at all. The setting is no fun. This New York City's colors don't pop like a comic book; rather, … Continue reading Movie review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
In 1988, when I first started buying CDs, a new release at Musicland (almost my only option) cost $17, or $37 in 2020 dollars*. Today, a new release on CD from Amazon costs about $12, or $5.50 in 1988 money**. In 1988, a CD single (the song you wanted plus a usually useless "b-side" and/or … Continue reading A psychology of my music listening; or, why I’m going to write a bunch of album reviews
An Indian and his white blood brother seek a hidden treasure in order to buy their way out of trouble. Manitou's Shoe seeks to be to westerns what Airplane! was to disaster movies, but it ends up not even being what Spy Hard was to spy movies. The film's only redeeming feature, aside from maybe … Continue reading Movie review: Manitou’s Shoe (Der Schuh des Manitu) (2001)
Over at The Violent World of Parker, I've got a review of the third Matthew Scudder novel, In the Midst of Death.
Trent goes off-topic 
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