Beatles Rock Band – A Review I hate to admit, but I was one of those idiots who pre-ordered the Beatles Rock Band so I would have it the first day. Not sure what the real urgency was, but apparently, about 700,000 others made a similar decision to be sure they added this much-ballyhooed…
Seasons 1 – 6 of The Gilmore Girls was something close to TV perfection. Each episode served up likeable characters delivering hilarious obscure-reference-peppered dialogue at a “Bringing Up Baby” breakneck pace. Viewers had to pay close attention with a cultural dictionary by their side not laughing over the lines making fun of Charlie Rose impacting…
Great end of the year for movies. In mid December, you could stumble into a mall multiplex, pick any theater at random, and you would have a very good chance of seeing a great movie. It was that good for a couple of weeks in 2012. 2012 produced a half-dozen simply outstanding films and at…
From “Somewhere over the Rainbow” on Hollywood learned that the right song at the right time can take a film places images and dialog could not do on its own. Try not to think about bicycles when you hear “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”. It’s impossible if you saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance…
Music fans have plenty to watch. There seems to be an endless supply of documentaries about music and the people behind it. Here are four rock documentaries – all excellent. Top of the list is “Searching for Sugar Man” – out on DVD and streaming. This film won the 2013 Oscar for best documentary. Man tells the improbable…
IMDB, which I have found to be the most reliable source of movie and TV ratings, gives HB0’s The Wire an unprecedented 9.7 out of 10 rating based on over 20,000 votes. This score makes The Wire the highest-rated show on IMDB. For comparison purposes, Shawshank Redemption, the highest-rated movie, gets a 9.1. The point…
Watching DVD’s of serialized TV shows is a superior experience to watching them in their original weekly broadcast format. Watching the episodes one after another helps the viewer become more engaged in the plot, and become more sympathetic to the characters. Best of all no waiting on a cliffhanger, you can immediately find out what…
There are dozens of lists of great guitar solos on the internet. Stairway to Heaven, All Along the Watchtower, Comfortably Numb…the usual suspects. Indisputable. Here are some other equally great solos, perhaps overlooked. Some well-known players, some not so much (and unfairly so). If you play guitar or love guitar solos, they are all worth…
Top 5 Debut Albums/CD’s of All Time There have been some auspicious debuts in Rock and Roll. These have to rank near the very top. Not necessarily my favorite records of all time. These are not desert island discs -at least for me. All have been highly influential and feature great songwriting. The main…