The Pixies’ heyday lasted only long enough to make five albums, but it proved enough time to make the band one of alternative rock’s most influential. Like The Velvet Underground a generation earlier, the Pixies didn’t set the commercial world ablaze, but their records fanned the flames for scores of musicians drawn to the group’s […]
Phil Bacharach
Posted inMusic
Pixies stick
The Pixies’ heyday lasted only long enough to make five albums, but it proved enough time to make the band one of alternative rock’s most influential. Like The Velvet Underground a generation earlier, the Pixies didn’t set the commercial world ablaze, but their records fanned the flames for scores of musicians drawn to the group’s […]
Posted inMusic
Pixies stick
The Pixies’ heyday lasted only long enough to make five albums, but it proved enough time to make the band one of alternative rock’s most influential. Like The Velvet Underground a generation earlier, the Pixies didn’t set the commercial world ablaze, but their records fanned the flames for scores of musicians drawn to the group’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
Things did not go according to plan. Ratings tanked for both Leno and O’Brien. After less than eight months. NBC returned Leno to the time slot, effectively giving O’Brien the boot. The brouhaha sparked a jaw-dropping level of outrage as TV viewers across the country took sides. If only wars prompted as much public engagement. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Going ape
Norman, 1973. A mother chimpanzee named Carolyn held her infant to her chest as two strangers, a man and a woman, approached her cage. The man pulled out a dart gun, turned to Carolyn and shot the mother chimp with a tranquilizer. Carolyn slumped to the floor of the cage, her hands still clutching the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Another Earth
Relative newcomer Brit Marling, who co-wrote and co-produced the picture, portrays Rhoda, an intelligent young woman with a scholarship to MIT and plans to become an astrophysicist. Those dreams disappear in an instant, however, when she causes a car accident that kills a woman and her small child. That wreck leaves a grieving husband and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
One Day
Familiarity is hardly a negative in melodrama, however, where its very predictability can be as comforting as a favorite blanket. “One Day,” which opens Friday, understands the role it plays, but it’s smarter and more polished than many of its ilk — and it soars on the appeal of its leads. Adapted by David Nicholls […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cowboys & Aliens
But in one of the pleasant surprises of the summer-movie season, this genre mash-up is lean, handsomely crafted entertainment. It works precisely because it acts as if there’s no joke. You’ve got cowboys, and you’ve got aliens. ’Nuff said. It certainly starts with a bang. A man (Daniel Craig, “Quantum of Solace”) wakes up in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Shallow pals
And if you want your film to withstand the test of time, don’t be tempted to include of-the-moment pop-culture crazes like, say, a flash mob. “Friends with Benefits,” an otherwise springy rom-com, is saddled with two flash mob scenes, an unfortunate turn given how that phenomenon is already taking on the whiff of Macarena rot. […]
Posted inNews
Accept food stamps
As a history and English major from Cornell University in 1978, Bill Maher is obviously educated, but is an intellectual joke. In Phil Bacharach’s cover story “‘Real Time,’ red state” (March 16), Maher accuses taxpayers of just not getting it. According to CNNMoney.com, “the top fifth of households made 56 percent of pre-tax income in […]