Month: February 2014
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Beck – Morning Phase
Beck’s music has always been an important part of my life. At family gatherings, my brother Max and I would show off our memorization skills by rapping ‘Loser’ in its entirety. While hanging out with my unusually cool parents, we would have music nights: a tradition that consisted of each of us playing a song…
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The Past (Le Passe)
In Asghar Farhadi’s The Past (a.k.a. Le Passe), a family tears itself apart, not because of anything anyone does, but rather by the secrets that they keep and the promises that they break. Throughout the film, there is an ominous feeling of something gone horribly wrong. But until the end, no one seems to realize…
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Book vs. Movie! Get Shorty
You know how most movies don’t measure up to the book? The Feedback Society’s ‘Book vs. Movie’ looks at both properties to see how they measure up to each other. The late Elmore Leonard was the hip king of crime fiction, a prolific writer that turned hustlers and other sleazy street types into fleshed out…
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The Pixies – EP1 & EP2
Before you listen to The Pixies’ ‘EP 2’ prepare to have your heart broken. It confirms what ‘EP 1’ led everyone to suspect: The Pixies we once knew are no more. Yesterday’s darlings of indie music are today’s cautionary tale of the dangers of chasing past glory. Fortunately, with a runtime of fourteen minutes, ‘EP…
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The Criterion Cut: Divorce Italian Style
On a train in Italy, a man peers over his newspaper out the window. Is he looking for something? He covertly scans the room. Is he hiding? The answer to both of these questions is, in a way, yes; yes, he is looking for something, albeit something he will never find. And yes, he is…
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The Squared Circle – David Shoemaker
The world of pro wrestling is overrun with more than its share of historians, documentarians, biographers, and all manner of bargain bin mythmakers. On the other hand, from an academic side, one can only imagine all the painfully pedantic scrolls that have been dedicated to the mat game in the name of cultural studies. But,…
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Divergent – Veronica Roth
As I waited for Catching Fire, the second installment of The Hunger Games franchise, to begin playing on the big screen, I sat through the usual sprinkling of movie trailers. One preview in particular began with characteristics that were all too familiar, and I was certain the movie had started. Only, it ended up being…
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Five ‘Blue’ Valentine Movies for Valentine’s Day
Bust out the pinks and reds, it’s Valentine’s Day! Sure, we all know that V-Day is about selling cards, chocolates, and over-priced roses, but I still like it. I don’t know why. I just do. This is the first year in a long time that I’m celebrating the day of love as a single person.…
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Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem – A Klok Opera
I am not a fan of rock operas or musicals. The effort of trying to fit songs into a script — or writing scripts around songs — never seems to please both masters, and those who’ve tried have often been adept at one of these skill sets, but inept at the other. This is why…
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The Lego Movie
One of the highest grossing movies of 2014 was also one of the most imaginative mainstream movies of the year; is the Lego movie art, a toy commercial or both? The Lego Company almost bit the dust a few years back, after a period of over-innovation led them to hemorrhage money. But they bounced back…