The best films of 1965 and 1966

1965 Repulsion (Roman Polanski) Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel) Pierrot Le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard) Le Bonheur (Agnes Varda) Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger) Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa) Help! (Richard Lester) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy) The Holy Man (Satyajit Ray) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Martin Ritt) 1966 Au

Never been a millionaire: The Best of Rod Stewart

1. Mandolin Wind 2. Only a Hobo 3. Every Picture Tells a Story 4. Young Turks 5. I Wouldn’t Ever Change a Thing 6. Tomorrow is a Long Time 7. Cindy’s Lament 8. Maggie May 9. You Wear It Well 10. Stone Cold Sober 11. Lost Paraguayos 12. The Killing of Georgie (Part I and

‘Moonlight’ knocks down the closet, a board at a time

Near the end of Moonlight, the bulked-up Chiron removes his gold grillz to eat the Cuban food prepared for him. The effect is to shrivel him if not strip him of the years. Beneath the chain and thick arms is the same boy with the unknowable face whom the audience saw in the movie’s opening

The best albums of 2016 — third quarter update

The last time I post one of these things before December. In chronological order: Pusha T – King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude David Bowie – Blackstar Anderson Paak – Malibu The 1975 – I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it Kevin Gates –

The fiction of bipartisan justice

To a layman, the FBI means the phrase “G-Men” and Bill Murray’s line “J. Edgar Hoover will appear and destroy us all” from Ghostbusters. I write often (and will again this week) about the Supreme Court without any schoolin’ besides Court history and a sprinkling of con law as spare as the arugula in the

Singles 10/28

Californian-Chilean electro-pop, insinuating house, a decent Jason Derulo rip, and, at the top, snotty canon-pillaging hip-hip — now that’s a good week. Click on links for full reviews. Rae Sremmurd ft. Gucci Mane – Black Beatles (8) Francisca Valenzuela – Estremecer (7) Kaytranada ft. Syd – You’re the One (7) Jordan Fisher – Lookin’ Like

Erotic thriller ‘The Handmaiden’ decadent fun — for a while

If The Handmaiden gets too complicated, immerse in the upholstery. Park Chan-wook’s first movie since 2013 revels in double crosses and kink, moving confidently to a conclusion that if not exactly faithful to Fingersmith honors the Sarah Waters novel’s spirit and respects devotees of Victorian interior design. The director of Oldboy and Lady Vengeance has

The best films of 1967 and 1968

1967 Playtime (Jacques Tati) La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard) Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville) Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn) Point Blank (John Boorman) In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison) Reflections in a Golden Eye (John Huston) Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski) Mouchette (Robert Bresson) Love Affair; Or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (Dusan Makavejev)

Caught in a trap: the best of Chic

To love Chic is to understand how the only thing to do with music is to get lost in it.

Lady Gaga and Leonard Cohen

Lady Gaga – Joanne Acknowledged as a failure by listeners who forgot her first two albums had tracks that sucked too, ARTPOP sounds tight three years after its release. I suspect the arena-ready electronics weren’t novel enough to mitigate Lady Gaga’s own muddled role playing. The Tony Bennett collaboration was stretch and not-a-stretch: jumping on

The grotesqueness of the GOP, part 43213

Then the GOP wonders why it has failed to score, well, any kind of black vote since 1960: On Oct. 24, Trump’s team began placing spots on select African American radio stations. In San Antonio, a young staffer showed off a South Park-style animation he’d created of Clinton delivering the “super predator” line (using audio

Going crazy just to let you know: The best of Donna Summer

Behold the wheat gleaned from the best disco singers, one of the empathetic of R&B singers, and most convincing of rock ‘n’ roll singers from 1976 to 1984. Before her death in 2012, I was fortunate enough to write about her professionally twice. 1. Hot Stuff 2. Our Love 3. I Feel Love 4. Try