Media Nugget

Best of 1997

Harold Check:

Album - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, Yo La Tengo
Movie - L.A. Confidential, Curtis Hanson
Book - Believers, Charles Baxter
TV Show - Sessions at West 54th, PBS
Web Site - Internet Movie Database

Chris Hodgdon:

Book - Toward the End of Time, John Updike
Album - Imaginary Day, Pat Metheny Group
Movie - The Sweet Hereafter, Atom Egoyan
TV Show - South Park, Comedy Central
Web Site - CDnow

Gabe Weisert:

Movie - Irma Vep, Olivier Assayas
Book - A Supposedly Fun Thing..., David Foster Wallace
Album - Brighten The Corners, Pavement
Web Site - Blue Note Records

Romeo + Juliet

Various Artists
Romeo + Juliet Soundtrack, Volume 2
1996

Baz Lurhrmann's hyper-modernized version of Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed lovers was a two-hour exercise in sensory overload. As Romeo and Juliet, DiCaprio and Danes had to compete with hyperkinetic camera work, overloaded imagery, a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles setting...and a delicious soundtrack. Skip Volume 1 (the usual collection of singles) and head straight to Volume 2, where you can feast your ears on Craig Armstrong's lush score, sampled snippets of Radiohead, interwoven snatches of dialogue, and Quindon Tarver's remix of Prince's "When Doves Cry."

Tell Me a Riddle

Tillie Olsen
Tell Me a Riddle
1956-61

"For forty-seven years they had been married. How deep back the stubborn, gnarled roots of the quarrel reached, no one could say -- but only now, when tending to the needs of others no longer shackled them together, the roots swelled up visible, split the earth between them, and the tearing shook even to the children, long since grown."

--from "Tell Me a Riddle"

Eat Drink Man Woman

Ang Lee
Eat Drink Man Woman
1994

Before breaking into the ranks of indie uber-directors with Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm, Ang Lee produced a trio of films set in his native Taiwan. This is the third and best of them, featuring an amazing performance by Sihung Lung as a father trying to deal with his estranged daughters. While the film is a feast for the eyes and ears, it ultimately succeeds on the strength of its emotional heart.

They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants
1986

They got their name from a movie starring George C. Scott. They feature uptempo tunes, quirky lyrics, and a wide variety of instrumentation. (Accordion anyone?) They pack 19 rocking pop songs into 38 minutes, with titles like "Youth Culture Killed My Dog," "Hotel Detective (She Was A)," "Toddler Hiway," and "Alienation's For the Rich." What else could you ask for?

Mr. Show

Bob Odenkirk and David Cross
Mr. Show
Fridays on HBO

The comic duo behind Mr. Show have created a modern rarity: a genuinely funny sketch comedy show. By resisting the usual pat cynicism, Odenkirk and Cross manage to create free-flowing bits that rise well above the ordinary. Cable lets them get away with the dirty stuff, and they never overplay the joke.

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms
1833-1897

"One of the most beloved composers in the history of music, Johannes Brahms was perhaps the greatest symphonist to emerge after Beethoven. The composer of music of virtually every format except opera -- from chamber works to symphonies to concertos to choral pieces -- Brahms combined mastery of counterpoint with a lush and evocative harmonic sense to create music of incredible lyricism, vibrance and beauty."

Elect Mr. Robinson...

Donald Antrim
Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World
1993

"But back to the Kunkel business. I can't get it out of my mind. I keep seeing Jim's face, lit red by taillights, in the long moments before the lines snapped taut, while Bill Nixon tried and retried to start his fume-spewing, out-of-tune Celica. It was all so profoundly uncomfortable; there was nothing to do but toe the grass and stare up at the stars in the sky, and listen to that revving and choking, and, of course, to Jim Kunkel, trussed, bound, spread out and spread-eagle on his belly, weeping. Heavy nylon test, the kind sport fishermen around here use to haul in tarpon, radiated from Jim's wrists and ankles, ran across grass and Jim's beautiful Japanese rock garden to the back bumpers of cars poised to travel different directions. I wanted to tell Jim it would be over quickly, that it wouldn't hurt. In fact I suspected otherwise."

Ridicule

Patrice Laconte
Ridicule
1996

Laconte has brought us bizarre little films such as Monsieur Hire and The Hairdresser's Husband. Last year Ridicule, the story of a provincial yet quick-witted do-gooder in 18th-century Versailles, earned him the French equivalent to the Oscar for Best Director. Despite a fairly tame plotline, the movie succeeds on the strength of its theme: the currency of wit and wordplay in a world that has forgotten about accomplishment.

Stating the Obvious

Michael Sippey
Stating the Obvious

There is a practice in the publishing world derisely known as "logrolling," where authors offer effusive praise for the works of their friends who also happen to be writers. And while it's often viewed as some kind of artistic collusion, what most people don't realize is that writers usually seek out the friendship of writers for whose work they would gladly offer effusive praise. All of this is to say that the fact that Michael Sippey's words have appeared in the Media Nugget shouldn't keep you from trusting us when we say: "Sippey's one of the best writers the Net has to offer." Okay, don't take our word for it, just read his site, Stating the Obvious, which is updated regularly each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.