IN 1985, when Sally Field received her “Best Actress” Academy Award statuette for the film Places in the Heart, she turned her tear-filled eyes to the Hollywood audience and said, “I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!”
How could we not?
Field […]
RECENTLY we found ourselves intrigued by the title of a novel: Murder Your Employer. We’ve notably been employer-less for well over a decade, so we figured we could expose ourselves to this intriguing tale without developing the temptation to emulate it. Thus, we ordered a hard-copy from […]
PERHAPS YOU SHOULD think of these columns as loosely-connected chapters of a slowly-emerging magnum opus.
In our previous installment, you may recall, we recommended that you stream the latest season of the Netflix series Bridgerton, a great high-society show that we’ve noted previously. We also nudged you toward […]
ONE OF OUR cable boxes recently stopped functioning. So the cable company promised to dispatch “Someone” to perform an “analysis.”
We thought the Someone simply would replace the box. A no-brainer, right? But after inspecting the numerous cables that over the decades had been dangled from the poles, dragged across the […]
WE MIGHT HAVE suspected from the movie’s title.
It could’ve been named “Sweet Caroline,” or “Play Me,” or “Beautiful Noise,” or, for crying out loud, “The Story of My Life.” But it wasn’t. It’s titled Song Sung Blue. See the gentle yet obvious foreshadowing?
Those of you who follow this column likely […]
RECENTLY, we needed an empty box. We spotted one that looked to be the perfect size underneath a stack of other boxes in the far back corner of our garage, and thought perhaps we could cannibalize it. That necessitated moving several other stacks so we could work […]
DEAR PUBLISHER PARKER, Citizens of Jacksonville, and all the ships at sea,
As you know, we traditionally think of this column as a two-fisted (well, four-fisted, if you’re going to be picky about it) effort. For seventeen-odd (and some even odder) years, we’ve endeavored to enhance our little corner of this […]
THROUGH OUR amazing powers of anticipatory perception, Dear Readers, we already detect you muttering, “Hey, Critics—haven’t you talked about television food shows before?”
Well, yes. But in our defense, please note that we’ve only mentioned food shows in passing while filling column inches about other stuff. We’ll be more specific this […]
AS DEDICATED Entertainment Geeks, we’ve reviewed movies, music, plays, weather, books, dogs, and, of course, TV. It seems the only topic we haven’t appraised is TV commercials.
Until now.
The commercials that (unfortunately) stick with us the most come from Big Pharma, possibly because they shell out Big Bucks to create jingles […]
THE PANDAMMIT OF 2020 changed the world of entertainment. It was a tedious period, during which we stopped visiting Places and Events that we’d long relished: Restaurants. Movie theaters. Music festivals. Backyard barbecues. Family gatherings. And, of course:
OSF: The renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival located a mere half-gallon of gasoline down […]
YOU, DEAR READER, have little reason to concern yourselves with the whims that flutter aimlessly through your Unfettered Critics’ brains at those rare moments when they’re not engrossed in pictures moving across a screen, big or small. Nevertheless, we’re audaciously going to pretend that you are interested, […]
WHO DOESN’T LOVE a “cozy?”
Cozies, as mystery lovers know, involve crime-solving in a charming setting (like a historic mansion), with minimal graphic violence (so the initial crime likely happens “off-stage”). Agatha Christie, among many others, deservedly became famous for her cozies. They make great reads on […]
DOCUMENTARY/ is the first line of a poem/ known as a haiku.
Really.
It has the required five syllables. Also, it allows us to put a five-syllable word into this Lifestyle Magazine (upping the I.Q. factor). Plus, we know that by watching documentaries, we’ll be distracted from the incessant drone of “news” […]
WHEN WE HEARD that Jesse Eisenberg had written, directed, and starred in an upcoming motion picture, we were intrigued. We’d first taken note of the New York-based actor in 2010, when he wowed us as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. By that time, he’d already appeared in over a […]
RECENTLY we were drifting through Art Presence admiring an exhibit of locally-crafted artwork, when a woman looked up from a chair in a corner and calmly stated, “I’m waiting to see what you say about Wolfs.”
Really.
Let us step back for a moment. We always enjoy encountering you, Dear Readers, […]
AN INCREASINGLY COMMON TV TROPE has ripened into our favorite TV trope.
We hope that provocative sentence has prompted you to ask two questions. #1: What the heck is a trope? and #2: What favorite TV trope is that?
To answer your first question, a trope is an overused device, or stereotype. […]
WE ADMIT IT. We’ve spent the summer complaining too much about the weather. You’ve probably wondered when the heck your Unfettered Critters would get back to their primary gig: complaining about—no, no, critiquing! —Entertainment. Yeah. We wondered, too. We’ve missed it. So, what’s been stopping us?
Well, we’ve had an unwelcome […]
“There are places I’ll remember, all my life,
though some have changed. Some forever, not for better.
Some have gone and some remain.”
~John Lennon, “In My Life.”
WE’VE COME TO THE CONCLUSION that Jacksonville is the center of the universe. Or at least our universe. We love the fact that—assuming you […]
BACK IN THOSE HEADY DAYS when groups like The Doobie Brothers and Three Dog Night were but burgeoning hopefuls, one of us Unfettered types harbored similar rock ‘n’ roll proclivities, and wrote a lyric that went: Everybody talks about the weather/But nobody does nothin’ about it (cha, cha, cha). The […]
Britt Season!
Just entered the start of Britt Season!
It suddenly occurs
We’ve written not one word…
About it!
Britt Season!
Say it loud and there’s music playing.
Say it soft and…and…well, there’s music playing then, too.
OKAY, MOVING ON. It’s late—July already. That beautiful stage on the hill has been sweetly resonant for weeks, with the Britt […]
JUST THE OTHER DAY, one of us was saying that he’d like to see a good caper movie, like The Sting, or Ocean’s Eleven. Something with a lot of action that raises adrenalin levels and makes you think. Coincidentally, Netflix sent us an ad boasting about a bunch of “action-packed […]
IT’S NOT AS THOUGH our TV is always on.
Granted, it’s active most evenings, as we watch a movie, or a favored weekly program.
But during the daytime…
Okay, okay—it’s on then too—providing comforting background noise to our daily activities, like waves slapping a pristine shore, or soft breezes rustling leaves of forest […]
“APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH,” T.S. Elliot wrote in The Waste Land. He was right, at least about the month’s first day, abused as “April Fool’s Day.” We’re not big fans of the all-too-common practice of jokers attempting to draw attention to themselves by playing foolish pranks upon any and […]
CARTOONIST DAVID SIPRESS NAILED IT with his recent illustration in the The New Yorker, titled “Two Baby Boomers Watch the Grammys.”
Two old geezers (Hey, that’s us!) sit on a sofa in front of their telly, watching the festivities. The individual thought bubbles above their heads read, “Who?” “Who?” “Who?” And […]
(In which your Unfettered Critics attempt to convince Our Readers that meteorology can be a form of entertainment.)
“Sure hope it doesn’t rain on Ringo,” we recently took to saying. Our concerns weren’t so much for our favorite drummer as for ourselves. Sir Ringo would stay dry on the covered Britt […]
You remember M.A.S.H., right? That viewer favorite ran for eleven seasons, an unusually long run, as most shows at the time said goodbye after six or seven seasons. Eleven wasn’t the record, of course—Gunsmoke had survived a then-unprecedented twenty seasons—but producers and marketing execs took note anyway. And today, a […]
Long ago and far away, as we cheerfully informed friends that we’d purchased a home in distant Jacksonville, Oregon, a few surprised us by responding with a curious familiarity. “I once spent a whole day exploring the Jacksonville Cemetery,” recalled a dear friend in New Mexico. And from our tax […]
Ah, Masterpiece Theatre.
Since 1971, this British-produced television program has sustained us unlettered American slobs (no offense) with weekly servings of fascinating drama. Initially, Masterpiece Theatre aired adaptations of classic novels and historical biographies. Then one happy day they added compelling mysteries and police procedurals into the mix.
These newcomers proved so […]
Being that we’re comfortably relaxed into the gentle flow of Jacksonville living, the most pressing responsibility we encounter each month is the content of this column. “What the heck should we write about this time,” one of us will start. “We could take in a movie,” comes an oft-repeated […]
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future…” ~Steve Miller, 1976
Slippin,’ in fact, happens all the time.
Let’s say you come up with the most amazing, ground-breaking technology ever seen. Your awesome innovation changes everything it touches and is applauded as true magic.
Then, in the blink of a decade or two […]
Bonnie Raitt is coming back to the Britt stage. YAY!
Bonnie first “broke” into the public eye with her 1989 album, Nick of Time. It won three Grammy Awards, and is among the few CDs that never get re-alphabetized into our overstuffed library of the things. But before that heady experience, […]
We mentioned “remakes” in our last column: new movies based on existing properties that inspired studios and filmmakers to wanna do them again. Remake motivation for studio executives is obvious. If it made money before, the prospect of cashing in on the same property a second time is irresistible.
Motivation for […]
Sinking into a comfy seat in a crowded auditorium ain’t gonna happen for us—yet. The good news, however, is that we all can be entertained at home (for just a little longer).
May we recommend Director Peter Jackson’s perfect (we mean it) documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, streaming on Disney+. The […]
Have you ever felt as though you’re in a Twilight Zone episode?
Of course you have. Everybody feels that way these days—ever since early 2020, when we all woke to discover that our entire planet had fallen prey to a deadly viral pandemic. Suddenly everything we knew about our existence […]
Back when TVs still wore rabbit ears, rumors spread about “pay television.” Folks chuckled, “Will we have to drop quarters into a box? Who’s gonna come around to pick up the coins?”
“Streaming” was something only salmon in the Pacific Northwest cared about.
Fast forward to the twenty-first century. The streaming bill […]
Trade magazine Publisher’s Weekly reports that book sales are climbing for the second year. This news can be traced directly to the pandammit. Statistics show that people have remembered that nothing’s more comforting than a good book.
But with thousands of new books being published, how does one choose? We want […]
It began at the beginning. Literally.
You’re aware that John Wayne was born Marion Morrison, right? And that Marilyn Monroe’s birth name was Norma Jeane Mortenson until she changed it to Baker until she changed it again. Changing names has been movie star practice for so long that we’re not surprised […]
We watched a movie at a theater for the first time in eighteen months.
Really.
And yes, it felt like a big deal, because post-vaccinations, with the pandammit looking a little less fearsome, we felt an itch to go where we didn’t have to pop our own corn. Hollywood, finally, was releasing […]
Something’s in the air. Something soothing, as opposed to the scary silence that’s surrounded us for far too long.
Voices can be heard on the street, unmuffled by masks. We hear hellos. Hellos from friends we haven’t seen in a while. Hellos from friends we’re meeting for the first time.
We may […]
The recent Super Bowl halftime show (well, last February) featured music by “The Weeknd.” We’d seen The Weeknd perform on several late night TV shows, so we knew his shtick. We say “his,” because The Weeknd is one guy. In our memory, one person occupying center stage used to be […]
One evening in 1972, a folk singer ran over a skunk. When he got home, he spent fifteen minutes jotting down a tune about the accident, calling it, Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road. The singer’s name was Loudon Wainwright III.
The early ‘70s was a musically transitional time. […]
Jacksonville sat silent this summer, with a stillness settling over us like dust motes, as though a phantom orchestra on an abandoned stage performed a concert of quiescence for our hollow ears.
It was a most disconcerting sound. A sound of sadness.
Call it collateral damage. Call it a sidebar to a […]
We interrupt your regular life to bring you these reminders: Wear the mask. Maintain social distance. Stick close to home.
Don’t go to movies. Or the theatre. Just turn on the Boob Tube.
Is there anything there you haven’t seen? Maybe on the Food Network…?
After you’ve burned through “Chopped,” “Diners, Drive-Ins and […]
Have you ever felt as though you’re in a Twilight Zone episode?
Of course you have. Everybody feels that way these days—waking up to discover that our entire planet has fallen prey to a deadly viral pandemic, the likes of which has never ever been experienced on […]
You may recall that back in October we announced we were writing another book. At the time, we withheld the subject matter—but now the time has come for the Big Reveal!
Drrrrummmmm roll….
It’s a Star Trek book!
(Was there ever any doubt in your mind?)
Yes, Star Trek. Sometimes we write about other […]
‘Tis time again for animated Christmas specials to pop-up on the tube, many of them rebroadcasts of beloved classics from decades ago. We won’t waste precious space to list them all (honestly, do you really care to hear about Grandma got Run Over By a Reindeer?). Instead, we’ll touch […]
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Gratitude” as: “A warm sense of appreciation of kindness received, involving a feeling of goodwill towards the benefactor, and a desire to do something in return.”
Not bad, eh? We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, and in gratitude to the OED editors we’ll return the […]
We’re back.
And so are they.
“We” being your Unfettered Critics. “They” being. . . well, we’ll get to them in a moment.
Some of you may have noticed (and we thank those of you who’ve stopped us on the street to say you had) that our column mysteriously went missing from recent […]
With the Britt Festival’s new season just around the corner, we find ourselves jittery with anticipation. “Music,” they say, “hath charms to sooth the savage beast.” We agree, but that suggests music of the hear (see what we did there?) and now. So what, we asked ourselves, […]
We recently saw the movie Captain Marvel.
Hold that thought—we’ll get back to it in a minute. But first: a few words about “comic book superhero” history. It’s complicated. Convoluted. Confusing.
And you thought it was just kid stuff!
In the 1930s, “pulp magazines” (named for the cheap wood pulp paper they were […]