newcritics

The Family came to town last night for their annual press preview at Radio City (which I did not attend) and for a more intimate thematic gathering at the small museum where I toil.
As the series itself is facing its final hour (or final eight episode hours) we gathered together “whacked” Sopranos—those actors whose character [...]

"The Red Sox are always winning, until they lose."—Nicky Rogan, Game 6.
For some reason I’ve been watching a lot of movies set in New York City lately.  Heights, which stars Glen Close as a famous Broadway actress engaged in a sexual rivalry with her photographer daughter.  The Photographer, a strange and annoying little independent film [...]

(#2 in a series)
Recently, a dear friend lent me a guitar he wasn’t using.
Not just any guitar. He lent me a Rickenbacker 360-12:

You can be forgiven if the words “Rickenbacker 360-12″ don’t send shivers up your spine. Guitar fetishes quickly grow tiresome to the uninitiated, and it’s hilarious to me that adult men (I’ve [...]

I’m not sure I’ve ever read a great Hollywood novel. Something always stops me after a few pages. It’s usually the characters’ names, which always sound like the monikers you bestow on a porn star or a Warhol girl. Among the classic Hollywood texts, I know I’m supposed to automatically genuflect before Scott Fitzgerald’s The [...]

[Casino Royale is now available on DVD. Warning: Spoilers linger herein.]
Like any good Brit, Bond fandom is in my husband’s blood; he’s read the books and seen all the films—and like any good Scot, he regards Sean Connery as the Best Bond in the History of the Universe. I’d never seen a Bond film until [...]

In the last six weeks, I’ve read comments by established writers declaring that “bad fiction writers” be stopped.
As a diligent but mostly unknown fiction writer, I beg to differ. The inherent quality of fiction, the pronouncement that it’s good or bad, is entirely subjective. Beyond that, fiction requires shelf-life. Many of our best writers finish [...]

I remember in high school, my mom was pressing me to write an essay for The Fountainhead scholarship. I have always been a voracious reader and had accomplished some impressive literary feats in the past (I read Gone with the Wind at eight), but I’ve never, ever liked to read for any reason other than [...]

Guitar legend Richard Thompson has released a powerful anti-war track for free on the internet: Dad’s Gonna Kill Me. (Full lyrics and Thompson’s own handwritten lyric cheat sheet are also available online.)
Thompson uses military slang to offer a grunt’s-eye view of the war in Iraq. “Dad” is a nickname for Baghdad. Thompson realizes that the [...]

An early happy birthday to Spike Lee, who turns 50 on Tuesday. He has always struck me as the most interesting modern American director, because he is so unpredictable. Indie films, big budget films, riveting documentaries, music videos, sneakers commercials. He’s done it all, and he only seems to be getting better. I’ll admit that [...]

The recent news that the Irish and the English come from the same ancient genetic stock, by and large, should be no shock to anyone who contemplates the greatest contribution of the cultural Irish diaspora: the language of their sometime enemies across the narrow Irish Sea. Now that the mitochondrial mystery has been solved at [...]

(Cross-posted at my hovel.)
It was with a hearty whinny of joy that I stumbled quite by accident recently upon a rebroadcast on The Biography Channel of “The Adventure of the Empty House,” one of the Sherlock Holmes series made by Granada Television between 1984 and 1994. The prospect of spending even the merest hour [...]

Mike Milazzo recently handed me a copy of his first solo album, The World Outside, which showcases his talents as an accomplished songwriter, singer, guitarist, bassist, and mandolin player. His songs traverse the familiar emotional landscape of destructive love affairs, artistic self-doubt, and the bitter philosophy of middle age. All through The World Outside you [...]

R.I.P. Betty Hutton. It was a long, somewhat sad life. Other than a memorable appearance on a TCM special, she spent most of the past four decades out of the limelight. She wasn’t like her screen image. Married and divorced four times. Went bankrupt. Lived in a church rectory. Underwent psychiatric care. When she [...]

A few years ago, I noticed that people started to talk about Nick Drake. I had never heard of him. I thought he was a new artist. It was odd, because his name began popping up here and there. I went to All Music guide and read this. From the AMG entry:
“He [...]

Conventional wisdom about John Ford’s The Informer goes something like this: The Informer is released, wildly overpraised, wins Oscars for Ford and star Victor McLaglen. It spends a couple of decades on everybody’s All-Time Ten Best List. Post-war, however, people look again, find it creaky, overwrought, and stickily sentimental about the ruthless IRA. Its reputation [...]

I didn’t even know I thought until I was nominated for this award. Didn’t even know that thinking was something to do. But I’d like to thank my agent, my loving wife, my wonderful children, and my mother. Also my earthly guardian angel Mary Wilkinson (also my childhood sweetheart), and my grandpa Donald who, if [...]

A few years ago, the Rolling Stones covered the greatest song in the history of rock n’ roll. No, this list isn’t about that. It’s about the guy they covered - probably the most covered song-writer in the last 45 years: Bob Dylan, of course, our national poet. And if the Stones didn’t get the [...]

Jorge Drexler successfully turned the usually impersonal, dim and cold Town Hall in midtown into a cheerful and cozy living room as he enchanted the audience with tracks from his most recent album, “12 segundos de oscuridad” (12 seconds of darkness). Opening up with the title song, Drexler’s sweetly sensual voice flowed over the intently-listening [...]

Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine…
When Van Morrison wrote the classic Gloria as the B-side to Them’s 1964 hit Baby Please Don’t Go, he couldn’t have suspected what a kid from New Jersey would do with his song a decade later. But I suspect he was thrilled. After all, Patti Smith’s cover of [...]

If you’ve had the pleasure of seeing the BBC sketch-comedy program Little Britain, you already know that it is the funniest show of that genre to come along since Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Little Britain is the brain-child of Matt Lucas and David Williams, and it took a couple of episodes for me to realize [...]

Why? was the first word that came to mind when I first started seeing advertisements for Bravo’s reality series The Real Housewives of Orange County. What could possibly be the purpose of this show? The thing is, I don’t like to form opinions about shows I haven’t seen, especially based on just the [...]

I’m writing here about a television series I have never seen, but intend to, as my schedule allows. It’s a replacement series - your garden variety mid-season fare - except that two critics I respect had completely opposite initial reactions. And that suddenly got me interested in a network series I might otherwise have ignored [...]

When Mark David Chapman pulled the trigger on that coldest night in December 1980, he robbed the world of a visionary who seemed to finally be at peace with his own inner demons. John Lennon’s anger had largely dissipated and was being transformed into a dignified wisdom. It was indeed a tragic turn of events, [...]

Conservapedia (I’m sure you can find the link) is the reaction’s reply to Wikipedia. Wikipedia, apparently, is “anti American, and anti-Christian” and the guys over at Conservapedia are going to fix that.
How? Well, this is their entry on global warming:
On February 2, 2007, an internatonal panel of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments [...]

I know it’s been a few days and I don’t mean to sound… What? Bitter? Negative? Jaded? I don’t know. Anyway, The Queen. Let’s talk about The Queen. Here in Britain – its country of origin you’ll remember (like you could forget) – The Queen was moderately well-received. Well-received like, for instance, an interesting TV [...]