Congratulations, Tina Ann Forkner!
My friend Tina Ann Forkner has been waiting for this week for a long, long time.
David Kennedy on Sam Phillips's New Album
David Kennedy is rambling — no, raving! — about the new Sam Phillips album, Don't Do Anything.
Longtime fans - small in number but fierce in loyalty - will no doubt furrow their brows in concern for their beloved singer when they hear Don't Do Anything. If Boot was injected with intermittent optimism borne of fresh wounds, the new album has the sound of healed-over scar tissue. It's by no means relentlessly dark, but it is often darkly comic.
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... [T]o those for whom music - especially Phillips's music - is a treasure held near and dear, Don't Do Anything is yet another delicate miracle from an artist who is herself no small miracle.
My review will be in the next issue of Christianity Today. I was given much less space for my own rave, but my enthusiasm is just as strong as Kennedy's.
Oh, by the way, NPR's All Songs Considered features Sam Phillips today.
Will it be James "Bilbo Baggins" McAvoy?
The Daily Express may have the answer to the question that has kept the imaginations of Hobbit fans firing on all cylinders in recent weeks: Who are Del Toro and Jackson planning to cast in the lead of The Hobbit?
Read more
Happy Birthday, G.K. Chesterton!
When asked to list my ten Desert Island Books, I always include G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. So I would be embarrassed if I did not mark today's importance.
From today's Writer's Almanac:
It's the birthday of the novelist and essayist G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton, (books by this author) born in London, England (1874). He's remembered today for his detective novels about the bumbling, crime-solving priest Father Brown, but during his lifetime he was primarily known as an essayist. He wrote constantly, about politics, society, literature, and religion. He was one of the first critics to argue that Charles Dickens was a great novelist, after the decline of his reputation in the early 20th century. He was one of the first people to argue that the influence of religion on public life would be replaced by the influence of advertisements.
Here are a few of my favorite G.K. Chesterton quotes:
Looking Elsewhere: May 27, 2008
Remembering Sydney Pollack
GreenCine Daily compiles the tributes.
What's your favorite Pollack film?
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Over-praising Coldplay
What appears to be the first review of Coldplay's Viva la Vida has appeared in The Sun.
It's a review by Gordon Smart.
Now, I'm somewhat curious about the album. I've always found Coldplay moderately entertaining, but never truly inspiring, and nowhere near riveting. But I am very curious about the vast popularity of the band, and I keep going back and listening again, wondering what I'm missing. I like Parachutes best, because it's the least radio-ready. It sounds the least like an album carefully calculated to sell a bazillion copies. I'm especially befuddled by some of the superlatives that are written about the band. And Smart's review is no exception.
Smart calls Viva la Vida:
the biggest album of the year ... possibly the decade...
A bold statement. But he's not finished yet.
[Coldplay have] pushed the boundaries of what we expect from an album...
Really? Is that overstating it a bit, perhaps?
Well, wait, no... let us not forget that Paste magazine ran a review for Coldplay's underwhelming X&Y that said this:
Exhibiting a level of ambition rarely encountered these days, Coldplay’s third opus takes on the reigning champ U2, and doesn't so much dismantle Atomic Bomb as blast right through it, like a mile-wide meteor, hurtling across the heavens toward The Beatles themselves.
Whew! With that, the bar for overstating Coldplay's importance has been set impossibly high.
But wait...
No...
The Sun's Gordon Smart has that look in his eye...
He's going for a new record...
He runs...
He jumps...
This latest album — much of which was recorded in churches in Spain and and Latin America — is full of religious references. It's as heavy-going as the Bible but as ultimately as rewarding....
OH MY!!! We have a new champion!!!
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Sam Phillips's "Little Plastic Life"...
... is featured on today's "Single Minded" at Rolling Stone.
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Springsteen's gospel classic
Andy Whitman celebrates what he calls "the best damn gospel song of the '90s."
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Pop go the Christians in culture
Jennifer Harris and I had a long conversation about Christians and pop culture, and lo... a bit of it ended up in her article at The Baptist Standard.
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Notes from Through a Screen Darkly - The Lecture
Thanks to Stephen Lamb for taking notes at my Through a Screen Darkly presentation at Calvin College's 2008 Festival of Faith and Writing. I'm grateful for his kind words here. Rumor has it that Calvin might eventually make the lecture available as a free download.
Kindlings Muse at the Movies: Iron Man, Standard Operating Procedure, I'm Not There, and many more...
A couple of weeks ago, Dick Staub, Jennie Spohr, Greg Wright, and I discussed Iron Man, Standard Operating Procedure; The Visitor; I'm Not There; The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; Steel City; and the upcoming summer blockbusters that we're hoping will turn out to be worth seeing... like Indiana Jones, Get Smart, Wall-E, The Dark Knight and Hellboy 2.Read more
Has Terry Gilliam Found His Don Quixote?
Has Terry Gilliam found his Don Quixote?
Contactmusic reports that Johnny Depp is back in cahoots with Terry Gilliam as they try once again to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a movie about that greatest challenger of windmills, Don Quixote. Depp worked with Gilliam on this project once before, but the production collapsed due to various catastrophes chronicled in the hilarious documentary Lost in La Mancha. But it looks like they're ready to try again.
Alas, Gilliam's first choice to play Quixote will not be returning to the project for another try.
So who *will* play Quixote?
A Report from Over the Rhine's "Ohio" Concert
The Enquirer sums up Over the Rhine's 21-song set, the first live performance of their double album Ohio in its entirety.Read more
Remember "Saved"?
Brian Dannelly's satire about growing up in a Christian high school stirred up a lot of controversy and debate amongst Christians back when it opened. I reviewed it here and wrote more about it in Through a Screen Darkly.
Now, Saved! is coming back. As a musical off-Broadway.