Month: December 2013
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The Criterion Cut – Rosetta
We’ve all sat on a bench and watched as strangers pass by, simply trying to live their lives. We’ve all wondered where they came from and where they were going. We daydream of stories to accompany their appearance — stories that interest us in ways our own lives couldn’t. That’s exactly how I imagine Jean-Pierre…
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Concert Review: Brooklyn – Stars of the Lid
Show Review: Stars of the Lid w/ Wordless Music Orchestra at The Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Sunset Park Brooklyn The train ride from Poughkeepsie to New York passes the Palisades, Bannerman’s Castle, Bear Mountain (the farthest north Kerouac travels in On the Road), Indian Point. The factories and the gravel mine…
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American Hustle
American Hustle kind-of-sort-of tells the true story of the FBI ABSCAM sting that occurred in the late 70s, where the FBI contracted a conman to entrap corrupt public officials. It’s a hell of an entertaining movie, and while it’s not perfect, it makes a few key moves that elevate it beyond the Goodfellas wannabe that…
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Philomena
What would Jesus do? To a person of faith, such is the million dollar question. Everyone seems to know the answer, but in Philomena we’re shown how even the most likely of candidates can get it wrong. Our story opens with Steve Coogan, playing a journalist named Martin, whose career has been left in jeopardy…
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Goodbye Tom Laughlin: One Tin Soldier Rides Away
Actor/filmmaker/activist/amateur psychoanalyst Tom Laughlin died on December 12, 2013 at age 82. He is best known for playing the character Billy Jack in four films (so identified is he with the character that his personal website is ‘billyjack.com’). I won’t bother with all the biographical incidentals; you know how to use Wikipedia as well as…
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Good Vibrations
The 1970s in Belfast, Ireland were harsh and violent times, when a political pot boiled over in a conflict between the nationalists and the unionists over the fate of Northern Ireland’s constitutional status. Over 3500 people, mostly civilians, lost their lives. In the midst of this world, was a man named Terri Hooley, a music…
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Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
For a movie that stars Christina Applegate and has a plot that’s more strung together and loosely hung on a framework than Clark Griswold’s Christmas lights, I love the first Anchorman movie. There are so many hilarious gags and quotable lines (“choo weel eat dat catpoop!”), that you can’t help being won over. It’s credits-to-credits…
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The Feedback Society’s Top 20 Albums of 2013
As Realized by Dave Scaddan My annual Top Albums List began as a series of shopping lists of sorts, about ten years ago, when vinyl availability (my preferred format) started to enjoy a surge that hasn’t slacked off since. I would use online sources to listen to bands I’d heard about until there just wasn’t…
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Upstream Color
I was introduced to the talent of engineer turned writer/director/actor Shane Carruth in 2004 through his little seen first film, Primer, which also happens to be one of the best time travel movies ever made. It introduced Carruth as a renegade of sorts, eschewing things like easy-to-follow plot and dialogue in favour of deeper philosophical…
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Darkside – Psychic
In the echo chamber of music criticism, any halfway decent act stands a chance of being described as “important,” whether or not they deserve the praise. This year, the critics have lined up behind Darkside.[1] Thank God, the hype is justified. Ten years from now, Darkside’s ‘Psychic’ will hold up as one of 2013’s most…