Author Archives: Joe Nolan
Priest of Protest
Daniel Berrigan died in the Bronx on Saturday night. Berrigan wasn’t a household name in every house in America. But in more progressive corners, in Catholic communities that still connect to that faith through its history of social radicalism, and in the legacy of the protests against the Vietnam War, Berrigan was a legend. Yesterday [...]
King of Kingston
Fifty years ago, in April 1966, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie visited Jamaica for the very first time. Selassie was a controversial statesman. He is also the figurehead of the Rastafari religion which views Selassie as the returned messiah of the Bible. Here’s a bit about the man… Among the Rastafari movement, whose followers are estimated [...]
Flashback: The Acid Tests
This year we look back on half a century since the first Acid Test at The Fillmore in San Francisco. The psychedelic initiations came courtesy of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters whose exploits were immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s countercultural histoire, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test… With that in mind here’s to another 8 miles-high-stone [...]
Blow-Up Again
This year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up. A movie about images, the first time I saw through the film’s most superficial layers I was in the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, TN. I think it was during a Noir Fest screening — it was a double-feature with De Palma’s Blowout. Again, this [...]
Hail, Taxi Driver
Continuing our celebration of Taxi Driver at 40, here’s 70 plus minutes of analysis by Lewis of Channel Criswell. He’s a budding filmmaker and I enjoyed his understanding of the Scorsese classic, and I wanted to share it with y’all. It’s also a great opportunity to revisit the movie along with behind the scenes bits [...]
Airplane Rising
This weekend I wrote a review of the new DVD release for Janis: Little Girl Blue. It’ll be out in The Contributor next week, and I’ll try to remember to drop it here later with some more info about the actual DVD &emdash; I had to watch an online screener as I didn’t get my [...]
Flap Flop
My review of Batman v Superman hit the streets Monday in this week’s edition of The Contributor. I saw the movie in previews a few days before its big opening weekend, but given the paper’s editorial calendar this one is merely adding a drip to the deluge of negative criticism and fan reactions that found [...]
Anita, I Need Ya
Today we celebrate the 1944 birthday of model, actress and Rolling Stones’ muse Anita Pallenberg. Pallenberg was Brian Jones’ girlfriend before he destroyed himself with drugs and she hooked-up with Keith, during which time she filmed the infamous love scenes in Performance with Mick Jagger. Performance is a landmark psycho/sexual/crime drama masterpiece by Donald Cammell [...]
No Joke
I haven’t found Alan Moore’s reaction to Batman: The Killing Joke being made into an animated feature, but given his previous reactions to cinematic adaptations of his creations I doubt he’s very excited at the prospect. I’m a fan of Moore’s and I’ve enjoyed some of the adaptations of his work more than others. I’m [...]
Fools Giving
Happy Fools Day! I didn’t have a blog post ready to share this morning when I found a notice blinking in my inbox. In the Robert Anton Wilson Group on G+ a trickster who calls himself Satyr Barbarosa gifted us this YouTube treasure of the audiobook of The Eye in the Pyramid, Book One of [...]
