Going back to basics with Johnny Ryan’s breathtakingly crass comics
Author Archives: Noah Berlatsky
Posted inArts & Culture
America After Dark
If you want to understand racism in this country, you need to look at the places black people don’t live.
Posted inMusic
The Shame of Fame
There’s no reason classic gospel shouldn’t capture the imagination like classic jazz and blues. But there is a reason it hasn’t.
Posted inArts & Culture
Wishful History
Mother Jones founder Adam Hochschild wants very badly for the legacy of the abolitionists to belong to the left.
Posted inArts & Culture
Man and Supersweater
Mark Newport’s creations are cute as all get-out, but not much more.
Posted inMusic
Not His Father’s Country
Bobby Bare Jr. pushes the genre forward by embracing its tangled roots.
Posted inMusic
Fade to Black Already
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky Question: What would you say to a band that’s just starting out on the rock scene today? Cliff Burton, former Metallica bassist: Quit! Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, a new documentary currently showing at 3 Penny, teaches us that heavy metal isn’t just […]
Posted inFilm
Where Myth Meets Copyright Law
Superheroes belong to everybody. Or rather they should—and Warner Brothers’ new Catwoman is a great argument for why.
Posted inNews & Politics
Kill Bill’s Fatal Flaw
Quentin Tarantino’s a genius when he twists the tropes of genre films. But when it comes to the subject of motherhood he’s as hamstrung by convention as the next guy.
Posted inFilm
Kill Bill’s Fatal Flaw
Kill Bill Vol. 2 *** (A must-see) Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino With Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, and Daryl Hannah. What a rip-off artist this guy is–secondhand plot, secondhand characters, and secondhand themes, all tossed together with a healthy dose of gratuitous violence to please the groundlings and no regard whatsoever for […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Them Hillbillies Are Mountain Williams Now
In their new exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center, Jon Langford and Rob Lentz romanticize the National Barn Dance for all the wrong reasons.
Posted inMusic
In Love With a Past That Never Was
Jon Langford & Rob Lentz The Rise & Fall of the National Barn Dance at the Chicago Cultural Center, through May 30 Don’t bury me on the lone prairie Take me where the cement grows Let’s move down to some big town Where they love a gal by the cut o’ her clothes And you’ll […]
Posted inMusic
Cash Value
Johnny Cash Unearthed (American) Unearthed, last fall’s five-CD collection of outtakes and unreleased material from Johnny Cash’s ten years with the American Recordings label, comes in a box as black as Cash’s tormented soul. The sleeves are made of CD-scratching cardboard, as unbending as Cash’s famous raised middle finger. The shrink-wrap is tenacious, as tenacious […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Read This One Carefully
Dear Reader, Kudos to Effie Mihopoulos for her courageous, eloquent poem in the March 28 Reader. It is no doubt a comfort to grievously wounded Iraqi civilians everywhere that–despite the very real burdens of lack of skill, lack of imagination, and lack of support from naysayers like Neal Pollack [“Everybody Shut Up!” February 28]–American poets […]