newcritics

There are so many marvelous things about Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There.” How does it feel? The Shamus is still soaking it in. Thinking about it. Dreaming about it. Marveling anew at what Bob Dylan has given us over the years. It’s time for another Shamus List:
20 REASONS TO BE STUCK INSIDE A MULTIPLEX WITH [...]

Why is life worth living? It’s a very good question. Um, well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what…OK, um for me, I would say laughter. Um…comedy. Pure, funny moments. Groucho Marx singing “I’m Against It,” for one thing. Uh, um, Cary Grant screaming, “No, no, leave the rooster [...]

The Shamus confesses: I have a fondness for My So-Called Life. It only lasted a single season, 19 episodes, but its influence can be felt in shows from Buffy The Vampire Slayer to Gilmore Girls, Freaks and Geeks and Veronica Mars. On Tuesday, Shout Factory releases on DVD, My So-Called Life: The Complete Series. [...]

The Shamus has listened to Bruce Springsteen’s “Magic” a couple of times now (praise be to free streaming at AOL) and I don’t want to write in terms of a review, but just offer a few impressions. All artists (or all worthy ones) go through phases. Springsteen lost me, for the most part, in the [...]

“I still like to go out on a Saturday night and buy the popcorn and watch things explode, but when that becomes such a major part of the choices that you have, when you have 16 cinemas and 14 of them are playing almost exactly the same picture, you feel that something’s going wrong here. [...]

The Shamus has crunched the numbers and realized that it’s been 25 years since I graduated from college. I feel little nostalgia or romance toward my university years. My English degree was the biggest scam I ever pulled off, especially since I rarely went to class or wrote a paper before the night it was [...]

Every once in awhile, when The Shamus is in a ruminatin’ mood, he likes to pull down from the shelf the colorful oral musings of Mr. Ulysses Everett McGill, the disgraced lawyer, Parchman Farm convict, old-timey singer, dedicated Dapper Dan user, a damn paterfamilias and a man with the capacity for abstract thought, although he [...]

The Shamus watched Elvis Presley’s King Creole last night, or as my inner auteurist might put it, Michael Curtiz’ “King Creole.” It’s pretty sad that I’ve seen Clambake and Spinout and Harum Scarum, but never Elvis’s best movie.
Last year, as the annual Aug. 16 Elvis death date approached, I watched Jailhouse Rock. In that film, [...]

D’oh? No. The Shamus has a tip for you: Forget that big-screen version of The Simpsons. A genuine comic marvel hits the DVD shelves on Tuesday: Popeye The Sailor: 1933-1938, Vol. 1.
For anybody remotely interested in animation and film history, this is news of the highest order. For years, fans have traded crappy VHS versions [...]

The holy trinity of modern music, according to Mrs. Shamus, is Johnny Cash, Al Green and Stevie Wonder. But the Mrs. and I have always disagreed on which Stevie Wonder. I prefer the ’60s singles and the “Innervisions” album. She is a hardcore “Songs In The Key of Life” fan. I’ve always [...]

Cameron Crowe turns 50 today. I think he’s generally underrated as an American filmmaker. He makes old-fashioned Hollywood movies with new-generation Hollywood stars, full of witty lines and endearing characters. Some complain about the dream-like quality of his women, but I see it as a gentle man’s nod to an earlier era. Some see the [...]

The key line in The Candidate is supposed to be the final one in which Bill McKay (Robert Redford), having just beaten the incumbent to become the new Senator from California, turns to his manager, the wily Lucas (Peter Boyle) and says, “What do we do now?” But for me, the key line comes a [...]

We’re halfway through 2007: What new songs have you been listening to? Here is The Shamus’ Top 11 of 2007 (So Far), which leans heavily toward rock and pop of the old-guy-trying-to-stay-current variety. Praise it, rip it, I can take it. And tell us what’s on your playlist.
1. “Rehab,” Amy Winehouse. I’m not enamored of [...]

Tearing Down The Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector is nothing if not timely. The biography by British journalist Mick Brown has been released just as Spector’s murder trial is a daily focus of Court TV. Brown got the last major interview with Spector mere weeks before he allegedly shot B-movie [...]

I don’t even remember when or where I heard it first. It was probably at home, on my FM radio, or maybe on a car radio driving somewhere with my parents. But I can remember the chugging strains of the piano keys, and Blondie Chaplin’s insistent vocals and the odd lyrics about “restful waters and [...]

The last time I visited New York, before 9/11, a colleague directed me through the narrow streets of the Village off Washington Square. After twisting around several blocks, we found what we were looking for: a small plaque marking the spot where 146 workers perished in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It’s one of [...]

The Shamus was out waxing his board and almost missed the latest crest of the surfing wave in pop culture. This weekend begins a two-pronged assault, with the animated flick Surf’s Up and the HBO show about a surfing family, John From Cincinnati. Then next weekend comes a long rider from deepest space. Time for [...]

Path to War was the last film in the topsy-turvy, up-and-down, but never dull career of director John Frankenheimer. He made it for HBO, which was the only outlet that could back a three-hour film of suits around desks discussing the buildup and bombing patterns of the Vietnam War. In a career of amazing highs [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]