Few genres are as absorbent as film noir. Science fiction (Blade Runner), horror (Seven), and high school movies (Brick) have soaked up the world-weary, hard-boiled attitudes and atmospherics of Double Indemnity, The Big Heat, Kiss Me Deadly and all the rest. Steeped in French and German influences, American noir was this gun for hire further abroad as well. An excellent new set from Criterion, “Nikkatsu Noir,” shows how the darkness permeated the land of the Rising Sun.
Founded in 1912, Nikkatsu is the oldest of the country’s film studios, most noted by cinephiles for giving the great Shohei Imamura (Vengeance is Mine, The Ballad of Narayama) his start. By the mid-’50s, however, its output needed new blood, and with the success of 1956’s Crazed Fruit found it in ripped-from-the-headlines movies about the country’s causeless rebels. Nikkatsu’s answer to James Dean, Yujiro Ishihara, stars in the set’s first film, 1957’s I Am Waiting, playing a promising boxer who hung up his gloves after killing a man in a bar fight. A club owner who’s put a cabaret singer under his thumb forces Yujiro to put up his dukes as the movie reaches its punchy climax. (The content of these movies encourages you to write like this.) Mie Kitahara, Ishihara’s Crazed Fruit co-star, plays the singer. Atmospherically helmed by Koreyoshi Kurahara, the movie conveys postwar despondency with the country that extends far beyond its low-life waterfront setting; all Ishihara wants to do is leave for Brazil. (more…)
My colleague John Hughes has graciously let me take the wheel today for this edition of Lost in the ’80s.
Fields of the Nephilim were the gothedelic deathrock cowboys of the apocalypse – dressed in cobwebby dusters, cowboy hats, and spurs – they delivered a string of singles and three solid albums before riding off into the sunset. (Sorry!)
To achieve their trail-worn appearance, the Nephs famously rolled around in piles of flour. To dust their dusters, as it were. According to legend, they were late for a gig when a local constable raised an eyebrow at their suspicious sack of King Arthur all-purpose. (more…)
This week’s mixtape is Chris Hansen approved! Truly! Would Chris Hansen steer you wrong? By the way, why don’t you head into the kitchen for some sweet tea and brownies?
If you’ve ever ventured into that thicket of sweetness and stress known as Planning A Wedding, you’ve probably at least considered buying one (or five) of those awful compilations of “wedding music.” They come in all sorts of flavors – classical, country, Contemporary Christian, pop standards, classic R&B – and they’ve got icky titles like A Day to Remember, or Songs That Say “I Love You.” They tend to feature a lot of the same songs, like “Always and Forever,” and “Three Times a Lady,” and “Wonderful Tonight,” and Pachelbel’s Canon, and “The Way You Look Tonight,” and that horrible Boyz II Men song “On Bended Knee.” And, just like the Book of Common Prayer, they’re all diabolically designed to make your nuptials sound just like everybody else’s.
My wife Gwen and I wed 15 years ago today, and to celebrate that occasion – along with the onset of the June wedding season – I thought I’d give Popdose’s loyal readers an anniversary present: a mixtape of wedding songs and stories from some of our columnists, and an opportunity to share your own remembrances and ideas in the comments. These songs aren’t your garden-variety bridal standards; in fact, a few of them are downright bizarre. But even if you don’t find them suitable for your own purposes the next time you get hitched, hopefully they’ll inspire you and your betrothed to follow your own muse, and not some music conglomerate’s. Click here for a compressed file of all the tracks featured here, and read on! (more…)
(1987)
(2001)
(1981)
(2001)
(1999)
(1988)
(2002)
(2003)
(1991)
(1992)
(1975)
(1996)
(1980)
