newcritics

Watched a rather odd double feature over the weekend: Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim and Steven Okazaki’s White Light Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a random pairing, as I came across Okazaki’s film on HBO while channel-surfing, and the wife brought home Hartley’s sequel to Henry Fool from the library. Although [...]

Saw The Simpsons Movie with my son over the weekend, and though we both enjoyed it, this isn’t the best Simpsons effort to date. There are a lot of truly funny and clever bits, inescapable when the likes of George Meyer, John Swartzwelder, Ian Maxtone-Graham, and Jon Vitti are contributing. But as a film, it [...]

Here’s something that has lifted my spirits — “The Ronnie Horror Show” from the December 12, 1980 edition of Fridays, the old ABC late night comedy show that remains one of my favorites. I haven’t seen this since it originally aired, and it only aired once, due to the protests of The Rocky Horror Picture [...]

Cluck ‘Til October by Devilshampoo.
Cymbals hit with ball peen hammers mesh with a bullet-riddled saxophone and a trio of dented fuzz guitars to create an unsettling wave of sound that can send chimps into murderous rages. Lead singer Lamont Means brings some texture to the mix, when he isn’t trying to swallow the mike or [...]

(Been working on various things, and since most of you haven’t read my earlier criticism, I thought I’d post some of it here. The following was written in ‘05, and still stays crunchy in milk. Enjoy.)
The local public library and HBO conspired in the same month to grant me a chance to compare the two [...]

The longer a TV series runs, the tougher it is to end. I can’t think of a Last Show that was at all satisfying, that tied together loose ends, that left me feeling wistful or wanting more. M*A*S*H, Cheers, thirtysomething, Seinfeld — none of these shows ended artfully or even memorably. Each in its own [...]

Last weekend, various online elders celebrated the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper, recalling their youthful joy upon first hearing the Mop Tops’ conceptual break-through. Very nice, I thought. Music is as good a marker as any, and Lord knows I have my own faves from Back When, though my Sgt. Pepper was Never Mind The [...]

Time travel, by its very delicate and potentially destructive nature, can never be a democratic practice. If everyone had access to the space/time continuim, the world would be destroyed within seconds, or at best, our “reality” would be in constant flux, fates instantly changing, lives enhanced, broken down, or wiped out, though none of us [...]

Several people of my acquaintance were thrilled to see Jerry Falwell die, spitting out “Good riddance!” and hoping that his passing was a painful one.
While I understand the anger, even hatred, for this dreadful man, I cannot join the celebration, partly for karmic reasons, but also because it’s pointless. Falwell was a tent revivalist clown [...]

Hi New Critics crowd. Some of you may know me, many of you probably not. But Tom Watson apparently does, and he has graciously invited me to ramble and shout at this esteemed site. Thanks, Tom. And hello again, everyone.
Like you, I enjoy all manner of creative expression. By way of introduction, allow me to [...]