By Stuart Myerburg
Endlessly, the follow-up to Duffy’s hugely successful debut Rockferry, finds the Welsh singer in a bit of an identity crisis. Still mining the retro-sixties vibe that made her popular, Duffy this time collaborates with veteran writer and producer Albert Hammond.
Continue reading ‘Duffy, Endlessly‘
By Matt Keeley
Man, the Grim Reaper sucks. I know, I know, he provides a valuable service and when he gets stuck up a tree, all sorts of bad stuff happens, but sometimes his aim sucks. Like seriously, Mister Rogers? Talk about all-time candidates for immortality. Anyway, here’s a list of the Ten Least-worthy Folks to have kicked the bucket this year.
Leslie Nielsen was awesome. Sure, he made a lot of crappy movies, but he also made ones so awesome that no one minded! Yeah, Mr. Magoo exists, but so does The Naked Gun. And, really, Spy Hard wasn’t that bad. But the cool thing is that Nielsen was also a renowned dramatic actor and even—in his youth—a heartthrob, which kinda messes with folks of the younger generation, just because we think of Lt. Frank Drebin. But, honestly, Frank Drebin was pretty hot.
Continue reading ‘Bottom Ten: 2010 Deaths’
Brass Eye
Band: The Elwins
Albums:
Women, Public Strain
Mantler, Monody
Songs:
Hooded Fang, “Straight Up The Dial”
Marvin Gaye, “Anna’s Song”
Steven McKay, “Ignite”
Bad Yoga (Neil Fuckin’ Quin), “A Saturday in the Cold Sun”
Craziest comedy show of all time: Brass Eye
Musician: Sandro Perri
TV: The Walking Dead (first episode)
Doctor Ew, a.k.a. Drew Smith, has just released his first solo album, Gadzooks. He is also a member of The Bicycles.
The Runaways
Underwhelmed by most things in film this year, but here’s a few things I enjoyed.
Movies:
The Runaways (Floria Sigismondi)
The Social Network (David Fincher)
Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright)
8: The Mormon Proposition (Reed Cowan)
Still waiting to see:
I Love You Phillip Morris (Glenn Ficarra & John Requa)
Casino Jack (George Hickenlooper – RIP)
Waiting for the DVD:
Machete (Robert Rodriguez)
Piranha 3-D (Alexandre Aja)
The Kids Are Alright (Lisa Cholodenko)
TV:
Mad Men
Breaking Bad
Dexter
The only CD I bought all year:
Kill City (reissue) Iggy Pop & James Williamson
David Markey is a musician and filmmaker, who has most recently directed The Reinactors.
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Issue 019—Three Of A Perfect Pair—Q&A with Dr. Richard Doyle; Least Fave TV Love Triangles, Seinfeld; Season Three of Curb Your Enthusiasm; Smokey and the Bandit II; Stir Crazy; Used Cars; Private Benjamin; Billy Joel; Pylon; INXS; Bauhaus; Three Bittersweet Songs To Walk Down The Aisle To; Bowie, Iggy, and Lou; Duran Duran’s Three To Get Ready; The Matrix; Pop Music in The Balkans; Trio; Sleater-Kinney; and Post Punk Trios.
Back when I was 12, liking a certain band could get you in trouble. I remember that my classmates were almost violently divided between who was better: Adam Ant or Ozzy Osbourne. As a fan of the former, I was frequently the object of considerable disdain.
Continue reading ‘Time, See What’s Become Of Me’
By Emily Carney
The original Voyager Golden Record
Recently, Popshifter reviewed the release Scrambles of Earth from Seeland Records. This recording consists of sounds from The Voyager Golden Record (sent into space on Voyager I and II in 1977 as sort of a message to extraterrestrials and as a space “time capsule”) allegedly remixed by some sort of extraterrestrial beings. The original record consisted of songs from all over the Earth, greetings from various then-contemporary world leaders, greetings in assorted foreign languages, and 116 images of Earth life.
I recently conducted a brief Q&A with Dr. Richard Doyle, English faculty member of Penn State University, about the various transmissions which comprise this audio recording. Dr. Doyle has been described as a “Rhetorician of Alien Communication,” so I had no doubt that his answers would be enigmatic and curiosity-arousing at best. Dr. Doyle did not fail to surprise me with his answers from our brief interview.
Continue reading ‘Communications With Aliens: Q&A With Dr. Richard Doyle, Penn State’
By Maureen
I’m not a fan of love triangles. I’ve never been involved in one, and neither has anyone I know. The modern television writer, however, seems to think that love triangles are so commonplace a situation that shows feature them frequently. Usually I am able to ignore them, but three particular examples in recent memory come to mind as especially aggravating. In the spirit of the “power of three,” here they are.
Continue reading ‘When Three Is Neither Company Nor A Crowd: Least Favorite Love Triangles On TV’
By AJ Wood
Comedy duos are always the front of our minds, as though funny only happens in pairs: Lucy and Desi, Burns and Allen, McCain and Palin. For me, as typified in that first sentence, three is the funniest of numbers: one and two set up the pattern and three knocks them down. Works every time.
What becomes even funnier is using the same structure on top of itself: having three different series of three gags which are each funny on their own, but funnier still when they come together to form something greater. Something like a comedy turducken: nothing is left to idle stuffing; it’s just meat on meat on meat. Or perhaps as a vegetarian, I should say a comedy Voltron, with powerful parts coming together to make something more. Or maybe I should stop giggling over the fact I just wrote “meat on meat on meat” and “powerful parts coming together” and move on to the next slide.
One of the best examples of seamless tripartite comedy writing comes from an unassuming source: the show about nothing, Seinfeld. Running from mid-1989 through the 1997 TV season, this sitcom created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David offered something fresh and different from more typical sitcom formats. While “about nothing,” it was still quite unlike anything else on the air. One well-known episode from the early years setting this show apart was “The Chinese Restaurant” (Season 2, Episode 11): a continuous 22 minutes of Jerry, Elaine, and George waiting for a table in a restaurant. Pretty standard fare for a one-act stage comedy perhaps, but definitely not the realm of the typical sitcom.
Continue reading ‘Seinfeld: You Got To Have Three’
By AJ Wood
Season Eight of Curb Your Enthusiasm will be starting soon, and I will of course be watching. No matter what it brings, it will be difficult for it to reach the brilliance of the third season, which aired in 2002.
Not that episodes from seasons before and after the third one have not been great in their own regard: Porno Gil’s dinner party, opening night of The Producers, and of course, a wrestler named Thor. But as a whole, the third season brings the best mix of those three things that make CYE such a comedic goldmine: impossibly bizarre situations, a wonderful supporting cast, and some great insights into the mind of Larry David.
Continue reading ‘Terrorists, Tours, And Tourette’s: Season Three Of Curb Your Enthusiasm‘