Mozzer’s post-Smiths solo work grew steadily less compelling through the nineties, so much so that while our fickle fanboy hearts wanted to sanctify Stephen Patrick Morrissey in 1986, by 2004 we were unaware that he hadn’t released anything for seven years. If you can make a sliding scale out of that timeline, we feel pretty … Read more
Oddly enough, this foul-mouthed, taboo-smashing sendup of racism in Westerns, co-written by Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor, made more money than any real Western ever did—which must have set John Ford spinning in his grave. Brooks shows he’s not above tooting his own horn by noting in an interview on the DVD that the infamous … Read more
A delightful throwback to the great TV detective shows of the 1970s like Columbo, Monk has inspired a great deal of affection in our mystery-loving Rakish hearts. Quite simply, a very clever show, in terms of both the creatively offbeat, yet solvable crimes (like the skydiver who somehow drowns in midair), and the quirky nature … Read more
When it comes to sketch comedy on the tube, Saturday Night Live has long hogged the limelight (Mad TV is actually edgier and funnier these days), while no one would argue the canonical importance of the Pythons (they’d dissolved before the current cast of SNL was even born). But of the three greatest sketch comedy … Read more
If you think Godzilla movies are mostly silly and puerile, well, you’re probably right. But the 1954 original is a very different monster—instead of cheeseball pro-wrestling with rubber-suited sci-fi beasts, it offered a dark meditation on the awe-inspiring power of the atomic bomb. It’s still a monster movie, to be sure, just one that actually … Read more
Lately Quentin Tarantino’s been agitating to be named the director of the next James Bond movie, which strikes us as a not-half-bad idea. As Tarantino doubtless knows, the Japanese already pulled off their version of such a feat with this movie, in which super-stylish director Takeshi Kitano revisits and updates the beloved 1960s action series … Read more
Argentinian writer/director Alejandro Agresti mined his own childhood for this sure-fire arthouse hit, a lovable cross between My Life As a Dog, The Station Agent, and Amelie. The movie’s heart is Rodrigo Noya as Valentin, a sweet-natured, old-souled little boy who comes to terms with the world, and his deep-set family problems, by resolving issues … Read more
If you’re lacking a song in your heart or a spring in your step, this series of twenty-one musicals in twenty-one days ought to give you plenty of both. This all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza includes longtime favorites like West Side Story, Singin’ in the Rain, and the classic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers vehicles Top Hat … Read more
Since Judith Guest’s inspired debut with Ordinary People in 1976, she has reigned as the Amelia Earhart of local best-selling authors. Where the hell was she? Living the high life on the grosses from the Oscar-winning film made from her book? Very little buzz accompanied Guest’s subsequent work—until now. Her new suspense novel, The Tarnished … Read more
Jim Harrison eclipsed Thomas McGuane as the tough-guy Western writer of our time because of the heart one could sense in his prose, buried just beneath all the boozing, fighting, and betrayals. He comes through again in his latest, True North, facing the old-as-the-Bible question of what a son should pay for his father’s sins. … Read more