A bit of news for fans of the show: Outsiders has been renewed for a second season as of March 11. Ged ged yah!
Continue reading ‘TV Review: Outsiders S1 E06, “Weapons”’
‘Tis the day of Saint Patrick, that old bastard, and as much as I would love to talk about how he single-handedly attempted to destroy Druidism and the rich heritage of Ireland’s pagan folk like the Great White Missionary he was, this is probably not the place for that.
Continue reading ‘Today In Pop Culture: St. Patrick Was A Schmuck; Here’s Some Irish Music’
It is a well-known, scientific fact that Haircut 100’s debut album, Pelican West, is the happiest album that ever existed (I just made that up, but hear me out). It’s full to the brim with sunny melodies, bold bursts of brass, and a weird but genius marriage of tropicalia and funk, with a dash of jazz thrown in. It’s a stunner of a debut, a fully-formed, exactly perfect right out of the gate album. It’s crushing, then, that by the time Haircut 100 returned to the studio to record a followup, the band was in tatters. Lead singer Nick Heyward had one foot out the door on his way to a solo career. Haircut 100 soldiered on, but it just wasn’t the same.
Continue reading ‘Music Review: Haircut 100, Pelican West’
Remember last week I asked the question “How the hell do you get the drop on Carol and Maggie?” This week answers that question, but presents others.
Continue reading ‘TV Review: The Walking Dead S6 E13, “The Same Boat”’
You can’t do a daily column about pop culture history without running into the Beatles. They are a constant. On this day, George Harrison blew his nose on Paris. On this day, Ringo Starr learned a new time signature. The entertainment calendar is dotted with such Beatles minutiae and who cares? Folks, it’s time for a stark confession.
I have always been a Paul McCartney fan, and I would rather listen to Wings than the Beatles.
Continue reading ‘Today In Pop Culture: Wings Fills The Post-Beatles Void’
You can always rely on Numero Group to unearth incredible, forgotten music. You know that music: the kind of stuff you pick up in a flea market because it costs a quarter and has a cover with a lady sporting huge hair and a necklace made of spoons. The kind of albums that were perhaps self-released or on the tiniest label. Hidden gems, for sure.
Numero’s newest compilation, Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music is a trip through the cut-out bins. Here are tracks that, despite not being breakthroughs for the artists, still have merit. It’s Americana, and it’s indie as anything. Maybe the artists weren’t signed to a big label. Maybe they made the record in one of those booths at a fair. Maybe they had a song that they really needed to record for serious reasons.
Continue reading ‘Music Review: Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music’
The new Turkish movie by Can Evrenol, Baskin, is one of the best horror movies of the decade so far. It intrigues, it horrifies, it disgusts, but it is never anything but an excellent example of how to make nightmares come to life on screen.
Continue reading ‘Movie Review: Baskin’
Odds are high that somebody will come up to you today at work and say, “Beware the Ides of March.” Yeah, that’s creepy, but if you wheel right around and ask, “What’s an Ide, Todd, and why are you in my cubicle?” they probably won’t have an answer for either question.
Continue reading ‘Today In Pop Culture: I Only Have Ides For You’
Despite watching this show every week, there are some things about the Lucha Underground product that I’ve glossed over a bit since I started writing these reviews. Lucha Underground features stories and matches that I think we can all agree give reality a pretty wide berth; all of their storylines have an outlandish quality to them. Their potentially problematic (to say the least) choice to feature intergender matches even in this unbelievable universe has earned them some flack, however. Lucha’s handling of matches and angles like this hasn’t been perfect, but it’s mostly been OK because the matches between women and men are presented in a fast-paced, more athletic style that’s not as violent as “hardcore” wrestling can be.
Tonight’s episode is different. We all have our lines, and seeing a woman–in this case, Taya Valkyrie–suplexed off the ring apron and through a table, and then again taking Cage’s Weapon X finisher onto broken glass (it is very clearly prop glass, made of sugar, but the visual is disturbing) steps way over that line for me.
Continue reading ‘TV Review: Lucha Underground S2 E07, “Death Comes In Threes”’
Calling 10 Cloverfield Lane a sequel to 2008’s found footage monster movie, Cloverfield, is kind of like calling Easter the sequel to Christmas. It is, but it isn’t. That’s what makes the second installment, in what can only be referred to as the Cloverfield Anthology, different and brave.
Continue reading ‘Movie Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane (Spoiler-Free)’