Shaping ideas
An author sits by her word in a reflective exhibition at Cranbrook….
A Deeper well
Ben Harper points to the future by internalizing musics past.
Gags to spare
Underlying the seven films made by Joel and Ethan Coen is a paradox: While showing a world ruled by chaos, their filmmaking style epitomizes methodical control. This embracing of opposites extends to the themes of their films and goes a long way toward explaining their off-kilter sensibility. In the Coens’ world, essentially different perspectives –…
Moon Safari
French duo Air makes time-warped synthesizer pop so convincingly that the full-length Moon Safari might just as well be a collection of Mooged-out French TV themes and movie sound tracks from the ’70s. This is exactly why Moon Safari is easily the year’s most refreshing record so far. Like unashamed Euro-popsters St. Etienne and the…
Gimcracks & Gewgaws
Once heard, Mose Allison’s approach to the art of jazz song is unmistakable. You can hear the influence in singers like Bob Dorough, Van Morrison and Ben Sidran, the producer of Allison’s most recent disc. The phrasing has a lurching backbeat all its own, half juke, half jive. Clever wordplay wraps around a blues riff…
Frozen
As one could glean from the pseudo-nym used by Frozen’s co-writer and director — Wu Ming, meaning “no name” in Chinese — this realist drama’s strongest trait is its elusiveness. This true story of a young performance artist driven to kill himself as a last “work” is much of the reason for Wu Ming’s assumed…
Dangerous Beauty
Has the idea of serious romantic love become so hopelessly outdated that the only way it can be expressed unironically is in period films? The romantic comedy has become the genre of choice to showcase these stories. Humor cushions the confusion that rules our post-sexual revolution, gender role-challenging times. But the old-fashioned, grand passion, heterosexual…
Senseless
Every once in a blue moon there comes a film so bad, so insulting and reactionary that, in all correctness, to not review it would be a public disservice. In these times of changing identity politics and racial sophistries, critical intervention is essential to the reception of any sick tale the likes of, say, Larry…
