This is the year everyone is celebrating, or at least talking about, the fiftieth anniversary of the first screening of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster, Jaws. And sure, why not? This summertime shark saga is probably the ultimate film portrait of communal fear. Composer John Williams’s throbbing soundtrack of lurking, lumbering, low strings is probably more […]
The 50th anniversary of the first public screening of Steven Spielberg’s film Jaws will be celebrated on June 20, 2025. For many, this anniversary will trigger the return of sub-rational fears of swimming in the ocean. For me, I am left thinking about a private lunch I shared with Roy Scheider, who played the police […]
A year ago I wrote a review of a documentary about comic/actor Steve Martin, which I said portrayed his “lonely art and happy life.” “What emerges is a portrait of an anxious introvert acting like an extreme extrovert for fun and profit,” I said. “Martin seems to have been separated emotionally […]
There is a strange panic that sets in when you discover, to your abject horror, that someone you disapprove of likes—even adores—an artist or work of art dear to your heart. Perhaps we could compare it to the disgust of seeing your worst enemy date or marry someone you just broke up […]
Peck of Dirt just played a record release show of a unique kind. The band previously had released a record of the same material—also titled “Peck of Dirt”—eighteen years ago, so a baby born on that release date was graduating from high school when the second version of new recordings was released […]
The documentary Joel Meyerowitz: The Pulse of the Street (2016), directed by Philippe Jamet, is available on the streaming platform The Darkroom Rumour. As I suggested in a previous post, Darkroom Rumour has aggregated 100 films on photography, with categories ranging from major figures in the art to “emerging,” reportage, architectural, […]
The Darkroom Rumour is a streaming platform that “aims to be a sanctuary for all photography lovers.” The site says it is the “brainchild” of director Thomas Goupille, “working with…a film historian, a producer, a web professional, graphic designers and teachers” to aggregate documentaries and ancillary materials about well-known photographers. I […]
The first episode was over, but I stayed on the edge of the ottoman, where I had moved to make sure I heard every word. My arms were folded tightly against the pain. Yet the next evening, I was eager to watch the next episode. I had waited to watch Adolescence, put off […]
PBS posted the 2024 documentary Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse on their site this week as an American Masters episode. It is available until May 14. If you have never seen something on Spiegelman or his most famous creation, Maus, it is an excellent introduction. Maus was the first (in 1992) […]
April 5 is a date to conjure with for fans of R.E.M., the post-punk pioneers from Athens, Georgia (fronted by Michael Stipe, a military child who attended high school in Collinsville, Illinois, and moved to the University of Georgia from Granite City, of all places). On that date in 1980, the […]