Speaking of Primus and drinking, I saw them open for Rush way back when Sailing the Seas of Cheese had just come out. At one point Les dragged out an electric upright bass and a bow, played the riff to 'Kashmir' and said, "The band that was here last night screwed that up," then put it away for the rest of the set.…

Weird Tori is my favorite; when I'm elected President of these United States, 'Space Dog' will be our new national anthem.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable here, but for me, after loving her first two albums, 'Boys for Pele' was the sound of Tori disappearing up her own ass. Cornflake Girl, Professional Widow (yes to running a harpsichord through a Marshall stack), and Caught a Lite Sneeze are great but the rest just sounds to me like she was…

I'm coming down on the side of "meh" right now. I think my problem is that Apocalypse (the character, that is) just looks goofy here. I wish they'd given him a less cartoonish appearance, because he looks like a cut-rate Ronan the Accuser. Still, after Llewyn Davis, TFA, Ex Machina, and this, I think it's pretty…

Funny story: I have a friend who's a bit older than me. One night in the early 80s, he was hanging around at home when his buddy called him up and asked if he wanted to see "an Irish band" at a local bar. He went along expecting some drinking songs with bagpipes and violins, and was disappointed to find out instead…

"You work it as much as you can, but you can’t put ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.”

That PJ Harvey clip was some fierce shit! I don't remember ever seeing her that animated onstage. Trivia note: the bald guitarist is Joe Gore, then editor of Guitar Player magazine and current all-around music demigod, and the other guitar player is frequent Harvey collaborator John Parrish.

I love her too, but holy hell was she awful on TV. I saw her on Conan's show way back when and she couldn't find the right key with both hands. Maybe she just had the worst sound guy on earth working for her.

It's a god-awful movie (if you haven't sat through it, it's even worse than its reputation would suggest), but there's a nice moment at the end of 'The Postman' where Kevin Costner, who's playing the same post-apocalyptic messiah character he played in 'Waterworld', faces off with the bad guy, played by Will Patton,…

Heck yeah! Children of Men was one of those perfect viewing experiences where I went in knowing nothing about the movie, and came out having seen something incredible. And my favorite thing about the scene mentioned above (when the sight of the first newborn baby in years causes a cease-fire in the massive battle…

I finally saw Deadpool; aside from being genuinely funny and entertaining as hell, I just love the fact that a movie that the studio didn't really want to make right up until that leaked footage went viral, and for which the star and the director had to fight for every inch, and which had its budget slashed due to the…

Ugh, sorry to hear it. I hope something good comes your way very soon.

I thought Spectre was just OK, but I didn't hate it; more of a missed opportunity than a total bust. I do think that, thanks to Casino Royale and Skyfall (and giving them a mulligan for Quantum of Solace), I now have unrealistic expectations for every new Bond movie. I can't help but think that if Spectre had come…

I'm of 2 minds regarding YOLT. On the one hand, it's got some of the best technical work in the entire series; the score and theme song, the cinematography (by the great Freddie Young… sorry, but Skyfall is only the second best-lensed Bond movie), and of course the sets are some of Ken Adam's (RIP) best work. The…

I don't know if I see Damon and Clooney as bad guys here; I read that Goodman quote more as a difference in personality types. Damon and Clooney are extroverts who like the spotlight (I read 'A-level' as equal to 'A-type', not 'A-list'), while Goodman comes off as almost pathologically shy in every interview I've…

Funny, that's what used to piss me off about Dickens when we had to read A Tale of Two Cities in high school; I wondered how much shorter and more direct it would have been if he hadn't been publishing it in the papers one chapter at a time; essentially, he was getting paid by the word, and who wouldn't milk that for…

Ok, fine, when Bowie, Lemmy*, Keith Emerson, Glenn Frey and Maurice White put on their big show (with George Martin at the soundboard and Alan Rickman reading excerpts from 'Alice in Wonderland' over Emerson's 20-minute organ solo), they'll be performing on the most astonishing set ever built. NOW can we go a few days…

I can dig that, but it seems to me that being pushed out of the spotlight in favor of a less-talented but juicier story is a risk any public figure runs, and there's no predicting when it will happen and who it will affect.

RIP Mr Emerson… and the Shittiest Year Ever for celebrity deaths rolls right on like that thing on the cover of Tarkus.

I'm not sure if the Taken movies needed ruining, but Deadpool ruined them for me anyway… "They made three of those movies. At some point you have to wonder if he's just a bad parent."