THE TOUCHABLES (1968, directed by Robert Freeman, 89 minutes, U.K.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC As part of The Philadelphia Art Museum’s “Pop Goes the Museum” exhibition The Secret Cinema will be presenting a rare screening of Robert Freeman’s 1968 Pop-tastic film, The Touchables in 16mm. Set in and around “Swingin’ London” The Touchables was dismissed by Renata Adler at the New York Times as “a sort of fidgety mod pornography, ” perhaps understandable in its time. Yet to modern eyes the film looks like a 60s fetishist’s catalog of groovy fashions, beautiful people, and Playboy Magazine-derived titillation, off-set […]
CRITICAL CONDITION: An In-Depth Q&A With New York Times Senior Film Critic A.O. Scott
Artwork via collageOrama BY JONATHAN VALANIA A.O. “Tony” Scott has been the New York Times resident film critic for going on 16 years. He has a razor-sharp intellect, unimpeachable taste, the chops to formulate persuasive, deep-end-of-the-pool aesthetic arguments and advance them in elegant and indelible prose — no matter what Samuel L. Jackson says. His new book, Better Living Through Criticism, mounts a robust defense of the necessity of professional arbiters in the age of Yelp and Metacritic. In advance of his reading/signing at the Free Library tonight, we got Mr. Scott on the horn in Seattle during a rare […]
SIMON & GARFUNKEL: Blessed
Just announced: Paul Simon @ The Mann June 25th. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM, click HERE for the deets.
BEING THERE: Audio Social Dissent Tour @ JB’s
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ I arrived at Johnny Brenda’s to meet my blind date — the three-band triumvirate of Jack White’s ‘Third Man’ record label’s Audio Social Dissent Tour. I guess all I had to go on as far as looks and personality is that Jack White is all about and a promise of ‘revolutionary punk rock.’ ??It sort of made sense to me when the first band, Regression 696 took the stage. A dudely duo took the stage behind a guitar and a music stand fitted with a board of switches, and a harmonica. The harmonica was a […]
ART: People In Jail Drawing People Who Should Be
THE GUARDIAN: The Koch brothers, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and BP’s former boss Tony Hayward have had their mugshots drawn by a group of inmates as part of an art project entitled “Captured: people in prison drawing people who should be”. None of the executives have been convicted of a crime, but the two New York City-based activists behind Captured have listed the “offenses” they claim the companies the executives oversaw perpetrated alongside the actual crime of the convict who drew them. Goldman Sachs, for example, is accused of “mass deception” and “stealing taxpayers money”. Last month the […]
INCOMING: Bang A Bong
Ty Segall plays the part of indie rock jester well: he sports mismatching clothes, seems preoccupied at all times, and thrashes around on stage like a bagful of kittens. He plays post-grunge for a generation of hungry fans not alive for the Nevermind owned the airwaves, while simultaneously garnering the respect of those who were like Henry Rollins, who is reportedly a big fan. After laying low for a bit, Segall emerges once again from the dive bars of Los Angeles to tour his new album, Emotional Mugger (Drag City). For the record, an “emotional mugger” is someone in […]
CINEMA: Fight The Power!
Just as it was shocking that it took till 2014 to get a major fictionalized film of Martin Luther King Jr. it is surprisingly that the explosive story of The Black Panther Party would not have a major documentary until now. Stanley Nelson Jr.’s documentary Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution assembles all the important people and footage to tell this story of a revolution’s rise and its government-engineered fall with power and insight. It may have arrived late but in light of the Black Lives Matter movement the film has appeared right on time. — DAN BUSKIRK
FICTION: Jesus Was Naked When He Was Crucified
By BLAZE ARCHER “You don’t think much of my question,” the therapist said. Mark dug his heels into the carpet and glanced sideways through the window into the gleaming car-filled parking lot. “I just don’t get why it’s important. It’s stupid.” “‘Do you have a girlfriend’ is stupid?” “Yes,” Mark said, gripping the edge of the chair in his thin fingers. “Of course I don’t.” “Why ‘of course’?” “Because…” Mark’s silence swelled and engulfed his two dark eyes. “Because I’m gay.” The therapist watched Mark gaze in silence at his shoes. His mouth was a trembling fault line threatening […]
KILLER MIKE: Reagan
Word.
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR On April 20, 1999, when Sue Klebold heard about a shooting incident at Columbine High School, her thoughts immediately turned to her 17-year-old son, Dylan, who was a senior there. “In the very beginning, I didn’t know what to think,” Sue tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “I was aware that there was a shooting incident occurring at the school. I didn’t know if Dylan was in danger, if someone was trying to shoot him, if he was doing something.” Gradually the truth emerged: Dylan and his friend, 18-year-old Eric Harris, had gone on a shooting rampage at […]
INCOMING: Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock
THIRD MAN RECORDS: In 2015, Third Man Records was blessed to the bone to round out their year by releasing three records of articulate American punk, rock and noise. The media had Third Man Record’s back and agreed that they were onto something. Pitchfork commented that on Wolf Eyes’ I Am a Problem: Mind In Pieces “each track oozes with eerie tones and seat-edge momentum, such that something terrifying seems to always lurk around the corner.” New Noise Magazine said Timmy’s Organism’s Heartless Heathen “merges psyche, hard rock and proto-punk into one ripping sound, ” and Brooklyn Vegan called […]
KENDRICK LAMAR: The Roof Is On Fire, We Don’t Need No Water, Let The Motherf**ker Burn
NEW YORK MAGAZINE: What followed was a Biggie-invoking, glow-in-the-dark, Fela!-inspired event fit for Broadway. True to Kendrick’s lightning rod stage presence, it ended with the debut of a searing new verse about modern slavery, in memory of Trayvon Martin: “On February 26th I lost my life, too.” MORE
Win Tix To See Best Coast + Wavves @ E-Factory
There are two kinds of bands: the ones that write all kinds of songs, some great, some good, some not so much. Think the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac. And then there are the bands that write the same song over and over again, but we are willing to overlook that fact because it’s a great song. Think the Ramones or the Jesus and Mary Chain or Metallica. Best Coast, the blog-famous Cali fuzz-pop duo fronted by indie-rock It Girl Bethany Cosentino, fits into the latter category. I’m not the first one to point this out, which may […]