Arts & Entertainment
Top Ten Movies Snubbed by Oscar
Nominated, but robbed: 1. Citizen Kane (1941) Lost to: How Green Was My Valley 2.
Point/Counterpoint: The Oscars
Hell, yeah! The Best Picture is awarded to the movie that has mastered all of the individual elements of film-making — musical score, direction, casting, script, acting and more — making them work together to produce a real piece of motion picture art.
Guilty Pleasures: For Richer or Poorer (1997)
How would the Academy have received Witness minus Harrison Ford and all that murder mystery stuff?
Street Leads The Vote
Not to knock the Oscars or anything, but it’s been 81 years — we think it’s about time the Academy got a little more innovative with its categories.
Campus Cred: DJ Newby
Street: What’s so new about DJ Newby? Matt Newberg: Everything is new about DJ Newby because I am hip-hop.
Defibrillator: TLC, "Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip" (1992)
Six years our senior and fresh off the middle school bus, my best friend’s sister Ali was the unquestioned arbiter of cool.
Bad Seed
Despite wandering into Explosions in the Sky’s territory, the epic (post-rock) fail that is Sagarmatha won’t land the A-Cast a spot on the Friday Night Lights soundtrack anytime soon.
Pop Punk Pity Party
Three years after the critically acclaimed The Ringleaders of the Tormenters, Morrissey returns with more wrist-cuttingly good times.
Taking Names
Looks like bank failure isn't the only thing to worry about in the financial world. In The International, one of the world's most successful banks gets its dough from the small arms trade, prompting Interpol agent Clive Owen, doing his normal shtick as the rugged, intense hero, and Manhattan ADA Naomi Watts, foregoing her natural Aussie accent, to go after the bad guys (do the filmmakers really expect us to think that forces from completely different jurisdictions would work so well together?). Thankfully, for the first time in recent movie history, our two leads do not hook up, but they do kick some serious ass.
Class is in Session
The critical darling of last year’s Cannes Film Festival, The Class snuck in under the radar and screened on the last night of the competition, surprising many and deservedly taking home the illustrious Palme d’Or.
Defibrillator: Charade (1963)
Director Stanley Donen is remembered, when he’s remembered, for films like Singing in the Rain and Arabesque, big-budget musicals designed to be instantaneous crowd pleasers.
The Pros and Con-fessions
A recent headline from The New York Times read: "Stocks Slide as New Bailout Disappoints." Okay, so the economy is at an all-time low.
Preview: Human Rights Film Festival
It’s tough to think of people other than your love du jour over Valentine's Day. But if you prefer the Peace Corp to petunias, check out this week’s selections from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
Guilty Pleasures: Saves the Day, "Through Being Cool" (1999)
Maybe big boys don’t cry, but this week has left me dwelling on the long-gone days of puppy love and unanswered Disney Valentines.
This is What It Sounds Like When Gods Cry
Four years after “Catch My Disease” ran rampant through hospital dramas everywhere, Ben Lee is back with The Rebirth of Venus. “I’m a woman too,” Lee claims on track 11, as though anything could validate this failed attempt at a girl power concept album.
Monkeys & Maraschino Cherries
Street: You guys are often compared to artists of the ‘70s, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Were these the bands you grew up with? Eric Earley: Those are the bands we grew up on and our parents listened to.
This Week in Music History: February 5-12
1957: Bill Haley, a star among Comets, arrives in Southampton on the Queen Elizabeth II, becoming the first American rock star to tour the UK.
Defibrillator: The Beach Boys, "Pet Sounds" (1966)
My parents are, in the simplest of terms, ex-hippies. There are more pictures of my father wearing bandanas than there are of us together and my mother still dances like a girl on Haight Street.
Tongue Thrashing
Two Tongues starts off somber, with a quiet, almost innocent, guitar solo. Then there’s a lurching stop, a screaming “Wait!” and a massive power chord followed by the crash of cymbals.
