Untitled Keith Phipps Project

Physical Media Dilemma #63: I know I’ve posted about this...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 15:38:36 -0500

Physical Media Dilemma #63: I know I’ve posted about this topic before and as far as “problems” go it’s nothing, but it weighs on me. This is what remains of the items in a storage locker my wife and I rent. We’re trying to pare down our possessions because it’s just impractical to own so much stuff, particularly in the city. What you see above, apart from a few other items, are tubs filled with CDs. I know I’ll listen to the music on a lot of them again but I’ll almost certainly never play the discs. I’ve been buying CDs since 1988—first purchase RATTLE AND HUM—and I know I will hold on to some favorites. But I need to winnow this down, right? By about 85% I’m thinking. Right? Help talk me into this. Also: the allure of replacing favorites with vinyl is pretty strong.

"Where do films come from? Where do they go? After a hundred years of movie, we are still not very..."

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:41:05 -0600

“Where do films come from? Where do they go? After a hundred years of movie, we are still not very adept at answering those questions. Let alone the matter of what they do to us while they are ‘here.’ We have set explanations, and we agree more or less that certain arguments apply—that the business system of motion pictures delivers (or seek to sell) these things to us; or that they may be the work of individuals, artists, auteurs, film-makers. Then, as for what they do, why they entertain us—or not. They make us laugh, cry, hide our eyes, or cultivate our souls. They move us. As if we were so important. Or is it just time that is moving? Look back a hundred years or so in your own family history, say, beyond the lives of people you knew or heard of, beyond mere names, to the notional claim that the family tree had branches then. Were those people moved by stories or plays they encountered? Does it matter? I mean ‘matter’ besides the extraordinary, anonymous but undeniable thrust of life itself. What is left of their being moved? Is that load there in our spit, our blood or our come?”

- —David Thomson, The Alien Quartet

That’s the lyrical opening to David Thomson’s otherwise prosaic book on the Alien series, the fourth in a short-lived series of movie guides published by Bloomsbury in the ’90s. I like that quote and return to it from time to time because I don’t really have an answer to its questions. Even those first two. I’ve been at this thing I do long enough to forget whole films until stumbling across an old review I’ve written about them. I’ve seen movies inflate to dominate the cultural conversation only to fade away in a month, or a year, or a decade. (In the summer of ‘89 I saw heads with the Batman logo shaved into them but it’s hard to find too many people with a kind word for that movie now.) And I’ve seen other films linger like ghosts, sometimes passed down in moments borrowed by other films, sometimes in the memories of others. To talk about movies is to talk about ephemeral things that, in one way or another, live forever. Maybe the role they play in what Thomson calls the “undeniable thrust of life itself” is reason enough to say they matter.

Late to the Movies: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) I...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:53:33 -0600

Late to the Movies: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I don’t want to spill a lot of words on this one since it’s already been talked to death (and subsequently half forgotten). I eyed this movie warily before it came out as it got passed from Guilermo Del Toro back to Peter Jackson and then expanded from one to two to three movies for reasons that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense, at least from a creative standpoint. My wariness grew as I heard reports of the 48 FPS projection and its disturbing, more-vivid-than-life-itself qualities and intensified when the less-than-stellar reviews started appearing. Nonetheless, it’s not like I wasn’t going to see it. I love Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Worst-case scenario, this would just feel like a bloated postscript with some memorable moments.

It’s good to prepare worst-case scenarios, isn’t it? Leaving aside the 48 FPS issue for the moment, it’s a slog to get to the memorable sequences. Watching it, I was reminded of how deftly Jackson and his collaborators adapted the massive Rings trilogy into three films. It took some effort to streamline all that narrative into feature-length films (longs ones, sure) while still finding room for the characters to come alive and the space for all those action sequences. The Hobbit has trouble pulling off the same trick in reverse. I knew I was in trouble when Bilbo breathlessly laid out the back story for what felt like 30 minutes and then the subtitle, An Unexpected Journey, flashed on the screen. There’s good stuff between the bloat, though. Martin Freeman’s a lot of fun as Bilbo, Ian McKellen has some fine moments, and the confrontation with Gollum is a real highlight. There’s a lot of imagination in the production design, too. (I was particularly fond of the Storm Giants, but could have done without the scrotum-necked Goblin King.)

As for the 48 FPS projection, I can’t say I wasn’t warned and I didn’t expect to like it. But my attitude was to treat it like an aesthetic choice. Jackson wanted the moive to have that look so I should give it a chance. We live in changing times. I love film as much as the next person but I’ve seen some directors find the aesthetic advantages in digital. (Che was a real turning point for me in appreciating what someone who knows how to play to the strengths of new technology can do.) And I can kind of see why he would want The Hobbit to have that look. In the effects sequences, where real actors fight CGI beasties, both realities live side-by-side seamlessly. As proof that, yes, Jackson’s effects studio knows what it’s doing, it’s extremely impressive.

On the other hand, it’s that sort of vividness is all wrong for a movie like The Hobbit, at least to my eyes. Why give a fantasy film the hard digital sheen of news footage? There’s a scene in the goblin cave when Gandalf scares off the bad guys with a flash of light and it took me a moment to figure out what the flash of light reminded me of. Then it hit me: It looked like a stage effect, as if someone were shining a spotlight at the audience. Carrying that thought a little further, The Hobbit looked like a really elaborate version of a filmed opera much of the time, a sort of Live From The Met with orcs instead of arias. I felt less transported to another world than dropped in the middle of its elaborate sets. Is that where we’re heading, toward movies that aspire to be more like a windows than a canvases? I hope not. I’m glad I had a look at what 48 FPS looks like, but I left The Hobbit hoping never to see it again.

Also, some of those dwarves looked way too tall.

Getting some nice response to my first Movie Club post in Slate....

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:27:48 -0600

Getting some nice response to my first Movie Club post in Slate. (I could have responded to the first part, but what do you say to the second?)

Keith in Chicago, IL

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 12:20:07 -0600

Keith in Chicago, IL:

jasonsimsiscallingyou:

Keith is the former editor of the Onion A.V. Club who now freelances in Chicago, IL.

JasonSimsIsCallingYou.Tumblr.com

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A shot I love: Petulia (1968) I watched Petulia again today in...

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:38:09 -0600

A shot I love: Petulia (1968)

I watched Petulia again today in advance of talking about it for a podcast on Monday. It’s one of my favorite films, as anyone who’s ever been to my place knows since a giant poster of it hangs in my hallway. I don’t think I’d ever noticed how gorgeous this shot is, with a melancholy Julie Christie leaning on a sousaphone as George C. Scott looks on, all the “kook,” to use the film’s preferred term, drained out of her demeanor. To get the full effect, you have to see the scene, which begins with Christie appearing only as a reflection in the horn’s bell as Scott walks up toward the front of the frame, and into focus, before the camera pans over for the composition seen above.

Richard Lester used Nicolas Roeg as his cinematographer, and it’s the last film Roeg shot before becoming a director himself with Performance. On a doc included on the DVD, producer Raymond Wagner takes credit for the film’s innovative use of flash-forwards, which seems a little suspect since it seems such a Lester-like (Lesterian?) device (and Wagner’s most famous producing credit is Turner & Hooch). Whoever’s responsible, Roeg was paying attention, since it’s a trick he’d use to great effect in Performance, Walkabout, The Man Who Fell To Earth, and Bad Timing (if I’m remembering that last one correctly).

This doesn’t have much to do with that device, though. It’s just a moment out of time beneath a gloomy San Francisco sky. Somewhere nearby the promise of the Summer Of Love is unfolding, but these two will only get to look on from a distance.

Vintage trailer: New Year’s Evil (1981) [Warning: Fairly...

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:48:31 -0600

Vintage trailer: New Year’s Evil (1981) [Warning: Fairly graphic by trailer standards]

This is from the crop of holiday-themed slasher films that appeared in the wake of Halloween and included everything from My Bloody Valentine to Mother’s Day (but not, sadly, Thanksgiving). I honestly can’t remember if I’ve seen it or not and from the looks of the trailer I don’t think I missed much if I did skip it. But I was thinking of this movie today for obvious reasons and because it reminded me of a time in my childhood when I became fixated on lurid newspaper ads for horror films. I was compelled to look at them and contemplate the terrifying images they promised but at the same time scared witless at the thought of actually watching one. I had a friend named Patrick at the time who helped feed my curiosity by telling me all about them having, he said, snuck into virtually any title I threw his way. It turns out he was lying, but he also had an extremely vivid imagination for a second grader. Of New Year’s Evil, I distinctly remember him recounting a plot involving a New Year’s party interrupted by vicious, tiny, furry creatures that devoured the partygoers’ feet. It was a complete fabrication, but all these years later I still kind of want to see that movie.

Late To The Movies: Les Miserables (2012) I can’t really...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 10:03:27 -0600

Late To The Movies: Les Miserables (2012)

I can’t really say I enjoyed Les Miserables, the big-screen adaptation of the beloved Victor Hugo-inspired 1980s musical, but I liked it in the moments when the material found a way to sneak around the film itself. I went into it a bit wary, and probably a bit prejudiced thanks to the Twitter chatter about Tom Hooper’s direction, but I left feeling that, if anything, the sniping had been understated. The opening 10 minutes of this movie feel like the work of someone with little command of shot composition and even less of a sense of editing. The sets look spectacular but Hooper seems determined to shoot the movie as an homage to a filmed stage production, cutting from here to there for no particular reason and pacing behind Hugh Jackman as he ponders his fate at a monastery like an overzealous dad with an iPhone. In its worst moments, it feels like a film shot on sets years in the making over the course of a long, rushed weekend.

The film calms down a bit from there and the musical itself, when allowed breathing room, has some tremendously moving moments. Here at least, they’re weighted toward the first act of the film and mostly tied to Anne Hathaway’s character who—spoiler?—isn’t around the entire film. The back half’s a slog of badly staged action, lesser songs, and thinner characters. I’d never seen the musical in any form and while some of the songs will stick with me, I suspect my most lasting memories of the film will be my annoyance at the way it was filmed: all those unmotivated, Adam West-era Batman-style dutch tilts and shots of actors positioned on one side of the screen and singing out into a frame that’s 2/3 negative space, connecting with nothing, the viewer least of all.

Will Oldham and Alan Licht, “Don’t Cry Driver”...

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:41:53 -0600

Will Oldham and Alan Licht, “Don’t Cry Driver” (from the 2003 collection You Can Never Go Fast Enough)

I may have posted something about this before but, oh well: This is a song combining “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” with a recitation of James Taylor’s dialogue (maybe every line of his dialogue) from Two-Lane Blacktop. It shouldn’t work but it certainly does, at least to he ears of this lover of that film.

40 [Warning: Reflection ahead] I can’t remember anyone every...

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 07:49:24 -0600

[Warning: Reflection ahead]

I can’t remember anyone every saying anything nice about 40. Growing up, it was always something to be dreaded, the subject of lame Hallmark cards featuring grim reapers and “over the hill” jokes. My earliest thoughts of considering about what it might be like to be 40 are all tied up with a 1980s cultural conversation about aging rockers. Wasn’t it, maybe, after all, a little embarrassing for the Rolling Stones to be prancing about the stage in their forties? What is rock and roll if not the music of youthful rebellion, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Truth is, I didn’t think all that much about turning 40 until about a year ago, when it started to feel imminent, maybe even unavoidable. My last check-up found me in great shape, having recently dropped about 30 pounds and I always look both ways before crossing the street. And today I made it to that landmark. And, you know what? It doesn’t feel bad at all. In fact, it feels pretty good. I’m going into it with a happy marriage, a cheery toddler, and a sense of possibility. My career recently took an unexpected turn, but after a few weeks away I now think of that in terms of conversations I don’t have to have, burdens I don’t have to shoulder, and opportunities I can now explore. It’s scary but exciting. I’ve spent my career watching, listening, thinking, connecting, and helping likeminded colleagues do the same. I’m confident those skills will transfer elsewhere.

And if I can take a moment to be self-indulgent—and I think the occasion warrants it, if any—I feel better than I have in a long time: loved by my family, confident in my professional abilities, secure that I conduct myself personally with care and integrity, and ready for whatever the next decade brings. I’ve heard fifty’s not so bad either.

The 10 Best Films of 2012: An Incomplete But Annotated List In...

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:56:32 -0600

The 10 Best Films of 2012: An Incomplete But Annotated List

In my experience, no best-of list is ever done. No matter how diligent one is in trying to watch everything of note throughout the year, the end of the year is always a crush, always an exercise, to borrow a term from Dan Kois, in triage. There’s simply no way to see everything, particularly if you have other professional responsibilities, as I did in 2012 and in the 15 years prior. Since turning in my top 10 list to The A.V. Club, the Chicago Film Critics Association, and the polls for Village Voice and Indiewire (think I missed the deadline on the last one) I’ve already seen one film—Only The Young—that might have made my list and spent a lot of time thinking about another—Not Fade Away—that might easily creep on the list if I were to revise it in a year or so. Then there are all those movies that Scott Tobias insisted I watch, like Miss Bala and Once Upon A Time In Anatolia, that I never quite got around to seeing—but which I’ll spend some time with next week in advance of another project in which I’m involved that I’ll be talking about soon. Oh, and I wasn’t in town for the preview screening of Django Unchained, which I’m finally seeing tomorrow. Tarantino’s a favorite. This list didn’t even give him a chance. If nothing else, it’s incomplete because of that, in addition to all the other reasons. Nonetheless, here’s a list.

——

10. Holy Motors

I’ve tried to explain the concept movie to others and it’s like trying to describe a particularly vivid dream that blurs at the edges. Then again, that’s more or less what it feels like watching Leos Carax’s comeback feature, which doubles as a grand statement on the power of movies and illusion, a collection of ideas that are brilliant on their own but pick up cumulative power as they’re gathered together here.

9. The Loneliest Planet

Nothing and everything happens in Julia Lotkev’s long trek through the Caucasus Mountains, wherein one moment upends the relationship of a young couple. The scenery is breathtaking, the moment in question shocking and troublingly plausible, and the film’s deliberate pace allows gives both the room they need.

8. Beasts Of The Southern Wild

I don’t think there were two more divisive films this year than Zero Dark Thirty and this tour through the far ends of the Louisiana bayou sometime after civilization has begun to collapse. Both worked for me, this one thanks to director Benh Zeitlin’s eye for offhand beauty and the performances of first-time actors Dwight Henry and Quvenzhané Wallis.

7. The Deep Blue Sea

Squint and it actually is a remake of the Renny Harlin shark movie—it’s desire that emerges seemingly out of nowhere to devour the unsuspecting victims.

6. The Kid With A Bike

Shocker: The Dardennes deliver a moving drama about moral choices and their consequences. Is it just that we’ve started to take them for granted that this didn’t show up on more lists?

5. Amour

Michael Haneke’s depiction of age ravaging an elderly couple is as unblinking and true of any of his films, even though it deals with a more everyday sort of devastation. (Or at least those I’ve seen: I’m not a timid viewer, but—true confession—I’ve bailed on Funny Games twice after 15 minutes.) That there’s no irony to makes it all the more powerful.

4. Wuthering Heights

Never mind Anna Karenina: The real breakthrough in offering a fresh take on familiar literary material this year came from Andrea Arnold, who dug into the Yorkshire soil for a raw take on Emily Bronte’s novel. Her vision perfectly captures the book’s oppressive romantic gloom and accentuates some of its key scenes by casting two black actors as Heathcliff (one as a child and the other as an adult).

3. The Master

Sure, it was inspired by Scientology, but Paul Thomas Anderson’s remarkable film is also the bigger story of a generation confronted with new freedom, deep doubt, and the maw of unknowing in the wake of World War II.

2. Moonrise Kingdom

It was a good year for Andersons. Wes Anderson’s melancholy picture book sensibility found a beautiful outlet in this coming-of-age story, in which children and grown-ups alike struggle with disappointment and receive just enough hope to make the struggle seem worthwhile.

1. Zero Dark Thirty

When the smoke clears on this one, it will be recognized not just as a stunning procedural about the hunt of Osama Bin Laden but as a psychic snapshot of a decade spent in the moral wilderness. Yes, the torture is there, and yes, the characters operate as if it’s necessary to do their jobs. (Whether it is useful or necessary remains an open question, at least in the version of the film I saw.) Would it be honest to depict the process any other way? Would it make us so uncomfortable if we didn’t feel some collective guilt for wondering if maybe, in the thick of those dark years, it was necessary? What’s also been lost in the discussion: The rest of the film, which is stunning, tense, upsetting and, in the end, offers no real sense of relief, only the possibility that the cycle will repeat itself.

Need to see again: Lincoln

I liked it and wrote as much. But this is one of those reviews I filed thinking I might have missed something and the reaction of others tells me it’s definitely time for a second look. (It’s the converse of last year when I begged everyone to give War Horse another look.)

Also:

Flight, Argo, Declaration Of War, Bernie, and Oslo, August 31st. And more, no doubt, when I revisit this even a week from now.

Christmas Comes To Pac-Land (1982) Why do I have the feeling...

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 21:20:08 -0600

Christmas Comes To Pac-Land (1982)

Why do I have the feeling this would make even less sense as an adult as it did when I first saw it?

“You just can’t stay interested.” One more Die...

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 15:06:44 -0600

“You just can’t stay interested.”

One more Die Hard thing: The original Siskel & Ebert review.

A few thoughts on Die Hard (1988) • Cigarettes: I hadn’t seen...

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 13:57:15 -0600

A few thoughts on Die Hard (1988)

• Cigarettes: I hadn’t seen the original Die Hard for years until I rewatched it again last night with my wife, who’d somehow never seen it, and a few friends. One of the first things that struck me, having not really watched any older action film in a while is John McClane is one smoke-happy action hero, pulling out a cigarette the moment he gets off a plane and smoking every chance he gets until the end. Typical of the film, which doesn’t let any element go to waste, his habit plays into the plot, allowing him to learn a bit about the bad guys based on the brand they smoke, and providing another way for the film to show the passing of time based on the number of smokes left in his pack. Bruce Willis smokes beautifully, too, letting his attitude toward the butt in his hand express his mood. It all plays into the film as a whole without drawing too much attention to itself. There’s a reason this movie got ripped off so much in subsequent years: It’s a model of how to make a tense thriller without losing sight of the characters, or why we should care about them.

• McTiernan: That efficiency’s there in the direction, too. There are a number of John McTiernan films I haven’t seen, including The Hunt For Red October, which people seem to like. But I don’t think too many object to the statement that this is finest hour. (Predator never impressed me that much, but I guess an argument could be made for it.) I’ve seen enough of his later films to know he lost the flair on evidence here, becoming just another competent-enough action hand who directs like he’s seen Die Hard a few times. What happened? Was it having Jan DeBont as his DP that made the difference? If nothing else, DeBont captures some the most apocalyptic-looking L.A. sunset I’ve ever seen.

• California: One trick the film pulls off with the same sort of efficiency is the way it slowly adds to its cast, bringing in cops, reporters, and FBI agents until it becomes a real Los Angeles movie. That all the action—and most of the movie—takes place in a single skyscraper helped make Die Hard stand out in 1988 but the way that location becomes the focus of the entire city over the course of the film makes the canvas feel much broader. So does MacClane’s New York-born distaste for casual California culture. It’s little more than a collection of eye roll-inducing California clichés floating through the ’80s (though, oddly, no sushi jokes), but Willis makes it work.

• Women: The background business of the movie is MacLane’s attempt to repair his marriage and I’d never noticed before how the first act of the film keeps throwing attractive women in his path only to have him notice them and pass them by. He’s got other business, not that the thought doesn’t cross his mind. (Even once the action starts, there’s still that nudie calendar posted in the back passageways that he uses to mark his place.

• The towering inferno: It’s not as easy to watch Nakatomi Plaza explode the as it was before 9/11. All those falling bodies and office paper floating against ash and smoke doesn’t quite look the same.

• The way of the gun: MacLane’s walkie talkie exchanges with LAPD Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) provide the film with some of its highlights. So do his talks with Han Gruber (Alan Rickman), and between the two ongoing conversations the film seems to be trying to work out some ideas about what an action hero was supposed to be in 1988. Gruber taunts MacLane with comparisons to John Wayne and Roy Rogers, but the taunts don’t stick. He digs those guys and the film posits him as a contemporary equivalent of their heroism, in contrast to Gruber’s effete, cerebral villain. As for Powell, he explains his humiliating desk duties as an ability to shoot his gun—this might be symbolic—after accidentally killing a teenager. At the tail end of the climax, he guns down a bad guy and McTiernan shoots the barrel of his gun with almost erotic affection. It’s, frankly, a little gross. Or maybe this film would find my machismo wanting, despite my deep affection for it.

• The end: I’m mostly okay with the Die Hard sequels. I remember Die Hard 2 as being a fun cartoon of a movie and dozing off during the fourth one, which was part of drive-in double feature. (The first part was Transformers. It wore me out.) I didn’t really care for the third one but it’s not terrible. None, however, are necessary. This is an almost-perfect self-contained action film that didn’t have to become a franchise. But such is the way of the times. Yippie-kay… I forget the rest.

Late to the movies: Only The Young, Hitchcock I’ve been laid out...

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:34:00 -0600

Late to the movies: Only The Young, Hitchcock

I’ve been laid out flat with some kind of stomach virus all day, which I’ve treated as an opportunity to watch some of the screeners I’ve had laying around the house. First up was Only The Young, which snuck to the best films list of the publication I used to edit unexpectedly. Watching it, I can see why and wonder if it would have snuck on to my own list, too. A lyrical documentary co-directed by Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet, it follows a year in the life of some Christian skate punks living on crumbling edges of the north L.A. suburbs. It’s beautifully shot, delicately observed and I’m pretty sure I’m going to wonder about the goodhearted kids at its center for the rest of my life even though the film’s very much about a specific moment in their lives. Filmed across the year leading up to their high school graduation, it finds them making choices about who they are, who they want to spend their time with, and what one means to another as they wander a landscape filled with broken-down miniature golf courses and abandoned buildings. The setting is particular but the feeling of childhood drawing to an end feels universal. (I’m not sure if it’s still in theaters, but it’s worth catching on the big screen if you can. If not, as an Oscilloscope release it will likely turn up on Netflix at some point.)

Hitchcock, on the other hand… yeesh. I’d heard bad things but I didn’t expect this account of the making of Psycho to feel so thin. Hopkins’ impression is uncanny but it feels like the sort of thing that a good actor could put together just by studying Alfred Hitchcock’s old TV intros. (And, indeed, the film uses that as a framing device.) One scene—Hitch conducting the screams of an audience seeing Psycho for the first time—almost redeems it but this is otherwise a pretty half-assed attempt at Hollywood history.

Louis Armstrong, “I Will Wait For You” (1968) As I...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:45:05 -0600

Louis Armstrong, “I Will Wait For You” (1968)

As I mentioned on Twitter last night, last night my wife, as a surprise early 40th birthday present, rented out Chicago’s beautiful Music Box Theatre for a screening of my favorite movie, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, and invited a bunch of friends (including some who came in from out of town). It left me speechless in appreciation. I could wax poetic about that but I don’t want to get blubbery, so for those who were there or those who weren’t I thought I’d just share a sweet Louis Armstrong take on the movie’s most famous song, “I Will Wait For You.” (Accompanied, unfortunately, by a weird image of a woman holding a rose.) Thanks again, Stevie.

Goodbyes and hellos

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:31:39 -0600

After 15 years of employment at The A.V. Club, eight as editor, Onion Inc. and I have come to a mutual parting of the ways. I’m proud to have worked there and proud of the work I did and the role I played in making The A.V. Club what it is today. I’ve loved the opportunity to serve as its editor, guide its direction, and contribute to it as a writer and relished working with many talented co-workers and contributors over the years, too many to name here. I’m sorry to go but no party’s too fun if you stay too long and this is my time to leave the party.

And so, moving on: Veteran writer and editor seeks new challenges. I have, as mentioned above, many years of experience, most of them spent shaping the direction of The A.V. Club as a print and online publication. I’m passionate about all things pop culture. Film is my first love, though television’s been awfully enticing of late and I probably know more about Guided By Voices b-sides, the different line-ups of James Brown’s band, and Superman than most people, to name a few areas of interests. Would you like to look at some of my writing clips? Here are a few you might enjoy:

A film review of Flight.

A look back, with some affection, at the least-loved version of King Kong.

A look at Elvis at the end of his comeback.

A Slate piece on the strange path to the film version of Howard The Duck.

A long piece for Slate retracing the path of Easy Rider.

How to reach me? That’s easy: kphipps3000 [at] gmail.com. Or via Twitter: @kphipps3000. Facebook, too.

"Opened in the early 1960s as a Hyatt before changing hands several times, the once upscale hotel..."

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:58:20 -0600

“Opened in the early 1960s as a Hyatt before changing hands several times, the once upscale hotel boasted guests such as Roberta Flack, Perry Como and Barry Manilow. It was also the site of the January 1983 murder of insurance executive Allen Dorfman. In its declining years, police presence became more frequent.”

- The best paragraph from a Chicago Tribune piece on the hotel where my wife and I housed guests for our wedding in 2002

zoomar: David Lynch meets Vincent Price via

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 16:53:49 -0600

zoomar:

David Lynch meets Vincent Price

via

“Crispin Glover as the Wolf Man” Not real. But, of,...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:06:20 -0600

“Crispin Glover as the Wolf Man”

Not real. But, of, if it were.