Author: Robert Barry Francos
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Supercell
The weather-related movie, Supercell is a 2023 film about a young boy who runs away to follow in the footsteps of his storm chasin’ poppa. Natural disaster films are hardly new. The first I remember is Earthquake (1974), but it goes back at least until The Hurricane (1937), or arguably even Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928).…
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Anvil! The Story of Anvil! Restored and Returning Again
One of the better music documentaries out there, about metal band Anvil (Canada’s answer to Spinal Tap) is getting a re-release. It’s definitely worth seeing. I will be honest with you: when the film was first released in 2009, I didn’t see it. I was in the process of moving to Canada by sheer coincidence,…
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Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC
Writer Robert Barry Francos is the perfect person to talk about the new doc, Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC. He was there! From 1975 through its closing in 1981, I was frequently a denizen of Max’s Kansas City, a club that had been open much longer than I had been attending, right…
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Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr.
Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr. is a new documentary about…you guessed it — Dinosaur Jr. There are lots of archival footage and great interviews. An infamous story about the Western Massachusetts-based trio that formed in the early 1980s, is that the band was originally named Dinosaur and had their first album titled as such…
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In Search of Tomorrow: A Journey Through 80s Sci-fi Cinema
In Search of Tomorrow: A Journey Through 80s Sci-fi Cinema is a five-hour documentary that explores the rich history of science fiction and its heyday. Science Fiction can run from the sublime, like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or Silent Running (1972), or it can fall into the B-level category of the likes of The…
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Saul at Night
We take a look Cory Santilli’s 2019 film, Saul at Night, where a man named Saul lives in a dystopian society that revolves around sleep. Covid vaccines. Voting suppression. Conspiracy theories. In all of these, and more, there is a contingent of people who believe that the government is trying to control our lives. Of…
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Jazz in China
Robert Barry Francos takes a look at professor, pianist, and now filmmaker Eugene Marlow’s documentary about jazz music in China called, well, Jazz in China. Jazz is an oxymoron, such as is playing the sitar: there are relatively strict rules dependent on subgenre, but within those rules there is also a freedom of form and…
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The Feedback Society’s Week in Music
Robert Barry Francos goes through some of the indie singles he’s been listening to, bringing you some darn good recommendations to fill your playlists with. Haunted Shed“Umami Bomb”Strolling Bones RecordsAthens, GA, has always been a den of quirky musicians, from R.E.M. and Pylon to Love Tractor. Haunted Shed, led by Etienne de Rocher, certainly has…
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The Feedback Society’s Week in Music
Robert Barry Francos goes through some of the indie singles he’s been listening to, bringing you some hot recommendations to throw on the old stereo. Adrian Younge“Revolutionize”Jazz is DeadYounge takes a few different styles and successfully mixes them together. The song starts a bit like The First Poets, arguably the first – and I believe…
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The Feedback Society’s Week in Music
Robert Barry Francos goes through some of the indie singles he’s been listening to, bringing you some dang hot recommendations to fill your earholes with. Elise Davis“Yellow Bed”Tone TreeNashville singer-songwriter Davis released her single, “Yellow Bed,” from her third album Anxious, Happy, Chill. I have seen a few of her videos performing live in her…