Songs from Musicals: #50, “The Moments of Happiness,” from Cats

Honorable mentions: “Memory,” “Mr. Mistoffelees” This is a weird musical. It’s not the weirdest musical – to me, Germany’s favorite, Starlight Express, will always be the winner of that competition – but Cats is perhaps objectively odd. It is a democratic musical, where there are certain starring roles (Grizabella, the Rum Tum Tugger, Jemima, Munkustrap) and then a… Read More Songs from Musicals: #50, “The Moments of Happiness,” from Cats

March 7, 2016March 7, 2016 Tim1 Comment

Songs from Musicals: Intro and Links

Rules: Yes, I stole this idea from my older brother. He can complain to someone else about it, because people pay him to write stuff in real life and I have a blog that no one cares about. I’ve chosen fifty musicals that mean at least a little something to me, and then picked some… Read More Songs from Musicals: Intro and Links

March 7, 2016April 1, 2016 Tim1 Comment

The Last Five Years (2014)

Dir. Richard LaGravenese. Starring Anna Kendrick, Jeremy Jordan, Natalie Knepp A list of my ten favorite musicals right now, which is depressingly conventional, and maybe the clearest possible expression of my guilty pleasure (namely, well-off white people watching their lives go to pot; one might succinctly refer to it as the “Revolutionary Road principle”): Miss… Read More The Last Five Years (2014)

March 6, 2016June 30, 2017 Tim2 Comments

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Dir. Billy Wilder. Starring Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Nancy Olson One of my favorite scenes in Sunset Boulevard, far and away the most shocking of the bunch, is the scene where Joe (Holden) has just snuck back to the Desmond estate after a writing session with Betty (Olson); Max, the butler (Erich von Stroheim), is hiding… Read More Sunset Boulevard (1950)

March 1, 2016June 30, 2017 Tim3 Comments

Let’s Stop Defending Trump, Please

It’s Sunday. Let’s begin with a parable. Paul de Man was one of the foremost deconstructionists of the 1960s and ’70s, a friend of Jacques Derrida’s and a partner in tearing down the traditional bulwarks of philosophy. De Man died of old age in 1983, only about a year before Foucault succumbed to AIDS-related complications.… Read More Let’s Stop Defending Trump, Please

February 28, 2016February 28, 2016 TimLeave a comment

Unraveling the Trump Phenomenon

We may have known, thanks to pundits and pollsters, that Donald Trump would win South Carolina’s Republican primary, and perhaps handily. It doesn’t make the night of and the days immediately after feel any less like a movie. One of the best scenes in Malcolm X, for my money, is the one where Malcolm stands… Read More Unraveling the Trump Phenomenon

February 23, 2016 Tim1 Comment

“Losing My Mind,” from Follies

(Link to the song is here) Stephen Sondheim will turn 86 in a month and change and while I’m rooting for him to be like a relatively similar 20th Century genius, Oscar Niemeyer, and live past 100, I don’t know that it’s in the cards. His musicals, especially the five from his fabulously productive and… Read More “Losing My Mind,” from Follies

February 14, 2016 Tim1 Comment

Cynical Expectations of Government

Cursory glances at America during the second half of its century evince a clear and depressing pattern: small moments of sunlight, of genuine progress, are outweighed by massive, costly, counterrevolutionary actions. An idealistic, forward-thinking president was gunned down before being able to do more than draw blueprints. Freedom Summer was followed by the assassinations of… Read More Cynical Expectations of Government

February 9, 2016February 9, 2016 Tim1 Comment

Apollo 13 (1995)

Dir. Ron Howard. Starring Tom Hanks, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise. This started because I wanted to talk about Argo. (Right now, and don’t hold me to this, the plan is to talk about Argo in conjunction with another movie of similar quality and subject matter). Argo is not a bad movie, necessarily, but I’m not sure it holds up… Read More Apollo 13 (1995)

February 1, 2016June 30, 2017 Tim2 Comments

Cavalcade (1933)

Dir. Frank Lloyd. Starring Diana Wynyard, Frank Lawton, Una O’Connor For folks who lived in the 20th Century, or for people who can remember it, even, we’re at an increasingly strange point in our history. Super Bowl L (“50,” because now it makes sense to ditch the Roman numerals) is nigh. The 88th Academy Awards… Read More Cavalcade (1933)

January 25, 2016June 30, 2017 Tim1 Comment