Rachel Getting Married Directed by Jonathan DemmeSony PicturesUSA, 2008, 113 minutes Jonathan Demme seems like a cool guy, but while he makes good movies, he's never made more than one great feature film outside the domain of his obvious first love: music. His concert films - like the Talking Heads ...

In the age of the mash-up, there are many bastard children of APOCALYPSE POOH, the granddaddy of hijacked audio-video redubs. I just found these cave age ones. Raging Fred asks: "You F**k My Wife?" I always wondered if Barney had eyes for Wilma. Raging Fred (another version, longer) For He's a Jolly...

2008: A Top 20 Films Countdown Addendum: Going through my film journal (yes, I keep a film journal - I'm that much of an obsessive-complusive/anal-retentive geek!), I realized I completely missed - and hence inadvertently dissed - a number of great films I saw over the last year that I must add to m...

2008: A Top 20 Films Countdown OK, for what's it worth, here are my picks for the best movies I saw in 2008. Many of the documentaries listed here were seen at the Maryland Film Festival. 1. Slumdog Millionaire (UK, dir. Danny Boyle)2. Gran Torino (USA, dir. Clint Eastwood) 3. The Wrestler (USA, dir...

The 2009 Independent Spirit/Academy Award Shows "Poverty, Poetry, and new Titles of Honour make Men ridiculous."- Poor Richard's AlmanacIt's that time of year again, time for the film honorarium shows. So here are my reflections on this weekend's festivities, in reverse order of watching... It's Aca...

Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu Directed by Yoshihiro NishimuraJapan, 2008, 109 minutes "The Japanese have singlehandedly fine tuned the art of making freakishly bizarre cult movies that defy logic." - General Disdain, thecriticscritics.comOn the recommendation of my ex-GF Elisa (who has impeccable good ta...

Lux Interior (Oct. 21, 1946 - Feb. 4, 2009) Chris Campbell just alerted me to the sad passing of Erick Lee Purkhiser, aka Lux Interior, frontman extraordinaire of cult psychobilly rockers The Cramps. Lux was 62 and reports suggest he died from heart complications. It's hard to explain The Cramps if ...

One Librarian's Media Advisory Inspired in equal parts by my friend Chuck, a library regular who writes the music blog Pratt Songs (which features reviews of the records he checks outs from Enoch Pratt's Central Library), and my former co-worker Tyson (who ordered many of the records lauded in Pratt...

Big Fish Chokes Before Swallowing Little Fish Big Phil is done at Chelsea. All that's left for Roman Abramovich to do is fill in the blanks with the name of the next gaffer to manage his under-achieving millionaire's club. I came to this realization 15 minutes into Chelsea's FA Cup third round repla...

A Weekend Voyeur's Monday Morning Quarterbacking I did nothing but watch sports this weekend. (Well, and eat and drink - while watching sports!) Sure, the Ravens game was on everybody's radar here in Baltimore, but for those of us with GOL TV and the Fox Soccer Channel, there were some high-profile ...