One point I forgot to make in yesterday’s Oscar post… I hate that the Academy passed up their best chance to honor two of America’s most talented and unique auteurs — Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater.
A Best Screenplay Oscar for the former and Best Director Oscar for the latter were so tantalizingly possible. And given the alchemy of luck and timing involved in winning an Academy Award, it’s quite possible neither will ever be that close to the prize again.
The reviews are in on the 87th Academy Awards telecast, and it ain’t pretty. Neil Patrick Harris is receiving the worst reviews of his rather charmed career and the show’s ratings dropped 6 million from the previous year, when Ellen DeGeneres snapped her famous selfie.
Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ video generated some controversy from those who thought an 11-year-old girl dancing in a nude body suit was catnip for pedophiles.
That controversy died down pretty quickly, though, as people realized how friggin’ good the song was, and what a talented dancer little Maddie Ziegler was. It clearly wasn’t a stunt but a real work of art on both of their parts.
2009’s Relapse is Eminem’s second-worst album, but it has its moments. ‘Beautiful,’ on the whole, is one of them.
Much of this album is bogged down by silly accents and cartoonish violence even more cartoonish than the violence on Eminem’s best albums. But a few tracks aim for something deeper.
Elliott Smith’s New Moon was released posthumously in 2007 and contains outtakes and discarded tracks from the recording sessions of his second and third albums.
Given that those records, Elliott Smith and Either/Or are two of his finest, this is a solid collection, all the more effective for being released after his suicide.
Meet Me In Montauk 