The French romantic thriller “Diva” dashes along with a pellmell gracefulness, and it doesn’t take long to see that the images and visual gags and homages all fit together and reverberate back and forth. It’s a glittering toy of a movie... This one is by a new director, Jean-Jacques Beineix... who understands the pleasures to be had from a picture that doesn’t take itself very seriously. Every shot seems designed to delight the audience. - Pauline Kael, 1982
[more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Sep 16, 2011 -
33 comments
Pop quiz! What do these musicians have in common: Lou Reed, E Street
Band keyboardists Roy Bittan and Danny Federici, rhythm section Andrew Bodnar and Stephen
Goulding of The Rumour, dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, erstwhile
SNL bandleader G.E. Smith, session horn section the Brecker Brothers, LaBelle alum Nona Hendryx, guitar virtuoso Adrian Belew, and David Johansen of the New York Dolls? Answer: they were (most of) the studio band on the 1981 album
Escape Artist by
Garland Jeffreys. Which raises the question,
"Garland who?" [more inside]
posted by FelliniBlank
on Jul 19, 2011 -
22 comments
Smash Hits! was a UK music magazine, first published at the end of 1978. It charted the progress of pop styles, including
the rise of 2-Tone, and
included a number of freebie discs, first as
flexi discs, and later on CDs. The magazine faltered in the 1990s, and
closed shop in 2006. Since then there have been a few one-off "special editions," first
a 2009 tribute to Michael Jackson, and then
a Lady Gaga special in 2010. 30 years after the first issue went on sale,
a fan posted the first issue online. So far,
new scans have been posted fort-nightly, following the original release schedule. 73 issues are online to date, each three decades after they first were sold. (
via MetaChat)
posted by filthy light thief
on Jun 14, 2011 -
20 comments
Threads (1984).
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) Testament (1983).
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 25, 2011 -
66 comments
I'm Remembering has pics of things that people aged 30-40 will remember from their childhood and adolescence. Who could forget
Tiger Handheld games,
Hypercolor shirts,
Paint With Water books,
Surge soda,
Scholastic Book Club,
Slice cola,
Madballs,
Ring Pops, and, last but not least,
Zack Morris's cellphone?
posted by reenum
on Oct 3, 2010 -
136 comments
io9 decided that
Firefly needed a "tight-ass killer 1980s intro." So they cut one together:
the article, or just
the intro itself.
A fan's end-credits, even with a nice slight soupçon of
MTM at the end.
Firefly fans might find it more interesting, though, that io9
noted a little later in the day that Nathan Fillion had
tweeted on Wednesday night a
picture of Joss Whedon, Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion, and Adam Baldwin all looking upward into a bright light, with the text "Together. Again." But ...
no, it doesn't mean
that, unfortunately. [Still, if you need your Simon or Kaylee fix, look to
Warehouse 13 next Tuesday, as Maher and Staite are guest-starring together in "Mild-Mannered" (
trailer).]
posted by WCityMike
on Jul 9, 2010 -
213 comments
From 1979 to the end of the '80s,
Sam Hurt produced a strange and wonderful little
comic called
Eyebeam. I'm very happy that the
entire archives are up, as well as
later additions. About the drab but sometimes very weird life of the eponymous character, the comic addressed a wide range of topics, including
the decor of Chinese restaurants,
wearing the wrong clothes to work,
beach gidgets,
job security,
male answer syndrome,
not-quite-vegetarianism and
time travel. It managed to be pretty
wise while still being
funny. Just don't take it too
literally.
posted by jiawen
on Jun 18, 2010 -
20 comments
"
As a child, there was nothing to me more fantastic than than the M.U.S.C.L.E. toys. I don't know if it's just my love for the weird, or the fact that I like pro-wrestling that makes it so special to me, but there's something about a guy from outer space with a fin on his head who would fight against a walking, talking urinal.
That's right, a urinal." In the US, they were known as Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere, or
M.U.S.C.L.E., but they were
basically bendable plastic duplicates of
Kinkeshi, a line of
collectable erasers from Japan. More than peachy-salmon colored minifigs, they were based on the world of
Kinnikuman, which started as
manga in 1979, then
an anime series, and
more, and
more, and
more...
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jun 8, 2010 -
45 comments
Hydorah is a delicious shump inspired by the likes of
"Gradius, Castlevania or R-Type, but also from other classics treated worse by the time: Turrican, Enforcer, Space Manbow, Hellfire, Guardian, Hydefos, Armalyte and many others...". Also,
"There is a single dificulty level, based on the 80's standards." Translation: try not to cry on your keyboard.
[Windows] [via Destructoid]
posted by threetoed
on Jun 7, 2010 -
35 comments
Michael Jackson penned and recorded
lots of songs, many of which
remain unreleased. Perhaps the most infamous, and rarest recording, is his version of
Behind the Mask. Legend has it that upon hearing
Yellow Magic Orchestra's original track, somewhen around 1979, Quincy Jones fell in love with the track, and he and Michael worked together on their own version. Jackson wrote
new lyrics for it - adding to those of
Ryuichi Sakamoto and
Chris Mosdell - and eventually recorded it during his
Off The Wall sessions. For unknown reasons the track never made the final cut of, arguably, Jones' and Jackson's greatest work. Not long afterwards
Greg Phillinganes, Jackson's keyboard player, released his
own version of the song, which was later taken up and
re-recorded by Eric Clapton for his 1986, Phil Collins produced album,
August. The track has since been recorded/remixed by
Human League,
Senor Coconut,
Orbital and
others. Does an original Jones/Jackson recording of the song
even exist? Perhaps, as the world
continues to mourn the star's
sad death, someone
will finally allow us a listen.
posted by 0bvious
on Jul 1, 2009 -
31 comments
A handy rating guide to 1980s saxophone solos --
"I realized about 5 years ago that at some point in the 80s, lots of the popular music started incorporating saxophone solos into their songs. Some of them are fine, but most of them are ridiculous to have in the songs. I have attempted to separate the quality and appropriateness of the solos from what I think of the song as a whole..."
posted by miss lynnster
on Jun 26, 2009 -
140 comments
Artist
Stephen R. Bissette dissects the making of Saga of the Swamp Thing #20, the first American comics appearance of writer Alan Moore (um...
previously), in a series of blog posts that feature much original artwork (by Bissette and others), as well as a sampling of Moore's apparently absolutely ginormous script for the issue. (Warning: Parts of Bissette's site are NSFW.)
Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3,
Part 4,
Part 5,
Part 6.
posted by kittens for breakfast
on Apr 13, 2009 -
14 comments
Not all groups with synthesizers in the 1970s and 1980s were lame Top 40 acts with
keytars. Some groups of the era used synths for spastic keyboard bleeps, herky-jerky tempos, and angst-ridden aggression in a style now classified by record collector geeks as
synthpunk,
minimal synth, or
minimal wave. Several famous New Wave acts dabbled in the style before providing soundtracks for Molly Ringwald movies (
OMD, Electricty) or singing about waitresses in cocktail bars (
the Human League, Being Boiled), but vintage videos from synth punk acts all over the world can be found all over YouTube.
[more inside]
posted by jonp72
on Mar 14, 2009 -
29 comments
The Stone Roses are set to reform. It's almost 20 years since they released their extremely fine album creatively titled
The Stone Roses. The
band that was a big part of the
Madchester movement have been bumping into each other at Manchester United games and no doubt seeing the money that the footballers are making decided it was time to regroup. The rumours are not certain, but some say it is
75 percent likely and media reports
everywhere indicates it is probably happening.
[more inside]
posted by sien
on Dec 15, 2008 -
54 comments
Gary Owens (
previously) and
Eric Boardman on dinosaurs: "More Dinosaurs,"
1,
2,
3. "Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs,"
1,
2,
3. "Son of Dinosaurs," (featuring
Jimmy Stewart)
1,
2,
3,
4,
5. Not dinosaurs, but still cool: "Prehistoric World,"
1,
2,
3.
[more inside]
posted by brundlefly
on Sep 13, 2008 -
5 comments
