Good black comedies are hard to come by. Perhaps it is because any book, television show, or film that is both funny and includes something universally viewed as ‘bad’ is immediately relegated to the ranks. Someone dies? Black comedy. Someone gets dumped? Yeah, that’s probably black. Oh wait, does it include the government or anything […]
Haddon Heights, NJ, where I grew up, had a non-ironic thing for the ’70s. A dry town; Schlitz in the park. Cheerleaders in letterman jackets hanging out the windows of Camaros on the way to all-night diners. Cops and kids knew each other by their first names and called each other by their last names. […]
“It just makes sense to me. It’s the language that I most naturally speak…” –Joseph Bishara* Last week saw the release of The Conjuring to surprising critical praise. Writers who have previously, and adamantly, proclaimed James Wan a hack of a director have suddenly termed him a horror auteur; dramatic turn for a man whose […]
“Mother dumped my father,” a friend of my wife’s was saying one day, “all because of a pair of shorts.” …is how Murakami’s “Lederhosen” starts out, and from the title and beginning it appears like it will be in Murakami’s signature style: unsettling, deadpan, ridiculous. Like Kafka drawn in crayon. It isn’t, however, it is […]
“If your art is done, Johnny get your gun” -Sleater-Kinney, “Entertain” In 2005, Sleater-Kinney released their magnum opus The Woods. Before Portlandia, Wild Flag, and The Corin Tucker Band, Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss crafted one of the greatest albums of all time. Certainly the highest achievement of their career as Sleater-Kinney, it would prove […]
