2008 Woodie Awards
"Memories are suspect, naturally. They put roads in the wrong places, rearrange furniture, distort proportions of trees and rooms, put houses where they do not exist. Yet they feel as real as one's own hand. Sometimes they are shockingly right. The bridge arches as it does in the mind's eye. The remembered voice is the real voice"-excerpt from Charlotte Bacon's "There Is Room for You."
When Robert Blake is in the room, please make an effort to keep the conversation to a minimum and listen to what he has to say. You'll undoubtedly make connections to other legendary folkies such as Greg Brown, John Prine, Billy Bragg and of course Bob Dylan.
Central Station delivered heavy and vivacious jams to an undersized yet vibrant crowd at Scorpion's Bar and Grill Friday night. Vocalist and bass guitarist Jeff Cutler held down blues and funk bass lines with talent streaming out of his slap-bass solos. Drummer Chris Feather got in the zone, hitting his drums to a uniquely energetic beat that stems from classic rock, blues and jam.
Network television can be so cruel. In the fall of 1999, NBC premiered "Freaks and Geeks," an equal parts hilarious and touching dramedy focusing on a brother and sister and their respective cliques growing up in a suburb of Detroit in 1980. With only 18 episodes produced, it was able to touch on a myriad of topics relating to teen life: first loves, the politics of high school social circles, and growing up were all touched upon with touching accuracy.
Television has made quite an impact on Americans and the way we process information. It is no coincidence that more and more people have short attention spans. Storytellers, especially filmmakers, seem to play to this demographic. They feel they need to spell everything out for the audience in case they did not understand how everything in the film miraculously ties together in the end.
Comedy Central has had a faltering record with original television series. They hit huge success with the long-running, sophomoric "South Park" and the cult-favorite "Chappelle's Show." Then again, they have also produced such television series as the god-awful "Kid Notorious" and the short-lived "That's My Bush.
First, I need to apologize personally for an inclusion in last week's review. The words "I scored" that appeared in the breakout box were not mine. They were added after I submitted my article to the paper--perhaps as a joke--and slipped through the editing process.
This movie is messed up. There are other words that would describe it more accurately, but I'm not allowed to use them in this newspaper. "Snow White - A Tale of Terror" is a gruesome re-imagining of the classic fairy tale. It scrapes away the pastoral dreaminess of Disney and throws the tale in a barrel of toxic waste.
When listening to They Might Be Giants' new E.P., "Indestructible Object," the first question that came to my mind was, "How does one go about reviewing a 12-and-a-half minute record?" Here's my stab at it. The five songs TMBG crank out on this record cover a whole lot of ground in such a small amount of time.
