So This is Permanence: Joy Division and Me, Pt. 2

I never realized the lengths I’d have to go All the darkest corners of a sense I didn’t know. Just for one moment, I heard somebody call, Looked beyond the day in hand, there’s nothing at all Now that I’ve realized how it’s all gone wrong, Gotta find some therapy, this treatment takes too long [...]

So This is Christmas…–#6

I figured that for Christmas Day I would do a potpourri of sorts. See, alongside all the seasonal-related films that I adore, there are a whole bunch of TV shows, specials and songs with music videos. So this one is a little different from the others. 6) Holiday Audio-visual Mixtape The first in all of [...]

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Syndrome: Music and the Cinema

When I was in junior college, I took a class on psychology (specifically, I believe that it might have actually been biopsychology, but I’m not about to dig up those transcripts to find out, no offense!). One of the more interesting things that we learned within that class and the one thing that I have [...]

Get Into the Groove: Desperately Seeking Susan and Genre Revision

Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie… a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.             -George Orwell When Susan Seidelman received a script entitled “Desperately Seeking Susan,” in 1985, it had already been floating around Hollywood for 4 years. When she saw the title, she knew that it [...]

The Dreaming Moon: Jean Harlow and the Magnetic Fields’ Get Lost

There are a good amount of people out there who criticize the academic world, and with good cause. They say that we “reach,” that the things that we discuss have nothing to do with each other, and to put two such different items within the same paper/blog post/etc., is pretentious and an abuse of academic [...]

Forged in Fire: Heavy Metal and the Male “Bromance”

Disclaimer: I will have you know that I hate the word “bromance.” I hate it with the burning heat of a thousand fires. That said, as a writer and a pop culture participant, I will retain the use of the damn word in my title as it has become part of popular language and is [...]

G’night, Sweet King…RIP Michael Jackson, King of Pop, 1958-2009

So Michael Jackson died today. He was 50 years old. And a whole bunch of people are “not upset.” That’s fine. I understand. I get it. There’s terrible things going on in the world. Iran, the economy…I mean who can blame them for not giving a shit about a pop star, right? Well, I have [...]

This is the way, step inside: Joy Division and Me, pt. 1

The silence when doors open wide Where people could pay to see inside For entertainment they watch his body twist Behind his eyes he says I still exist This is the way, step inside And with these lyrics, Joy Division begins their album, Closer. The song? “Atrocity Exhibition.”  The aural impact? INFINITE. Released 2 months [...]

Happy Birthday Bill!!!

Right-o, since I’m still a-workin’ on somethin’ bigger, and the inimitable James Tiberius Kirk/Denny Crane/Man who had the Nightmare at 20,000 Feet/Priceline Negotiator, etc CLEARLY takes precedence ANYWAY….Have at it. Happy 78th birthday to the one…the only….William Alan Shatner. Plus I shall give you Henry Rollins on his experience recording with Bill…. And some puppets [...]

Are you down with the sickness?: In a Lonely Place and Modern Traumas

Interesting times right now, I have to say.  And the synergy of my film viewing and the world at large is not going unnoticed by this rabid cinephile. Tonight I went to the Silent Movie Theater to see In a Lonely Place, a film that I fell in love with back in college at UCSC, [...]