November 2002

Okay, Tolkien by himself (or even filtered through the eyes of demigod Peter Jackson) generally bores me, but somehow the mythos of Middle Earth becomes completely tolerable when in the hands of a German power metal band. And so it was with great excitement that I ventured to New Jersey last night to see the triumphant Blind Guardian on the sixth date of the first ever US/Canada tour in their 15-year career. Since their albums… See more →

It’s doubtful this will be of any interest to many people besides me, but since I can think of at least one regular visitor who shares my particular fascination with 1980s über-schlock B-horror, I’ll go ahead: I watched Chopping Mall for the first time in ages last night and noticed for the first time that it shared the director, composer, and a sizable cast percentage with the 1988 remake of the Roger Corman classic Not… See more →

Last night was an inspiring Ad Club lecture at York College given by Jim Sherraden, the disarmingly charismatic head of the notoriously lo-fi poster shop Hatch Show Print. They’ve been using not only the same technology to print posters for 100+ years, but also many of the same pieces of woodblock type, linoleum and woodcut illustrations and designs, and photolythographic plates, all lovingly stored in a monstrous archive in their Nashville headquarters. Even the archive’s … See more →

I really have to start trusting my instincts. Hell, even trusting the evidence of my senses would have sufficed in this case. But some friends of mine that aren’t imbeciles gave The Ring a thumbs-up, so I followed an apparently misguided inclination to think I might agree with them. Ninety minutes into the film, I wondered if its payoff would be the most incredible cinematic redemption in history, or if this experience had merely been… See more →

Halloween was fun. The afternoon was begun with a matinee of P.T. Anderson’s pitch-perfect Punch-Drunk Love, and rounded out by a few hours of my traditional Halloween rock-a-thon, jumping around the house to an exclusively old-school Misfits soundtrack, careful not to expend too much of the energy that would be needed for the evening’s Andrew W.K. show at the Troc. Judging by the way I was able to wring out my shirt afterwards—if not by… See more →