A playlist for Hip Hop Day, which of course could includeanything, made in an impressionist response to my choices for films totalk about in “Hip Hop Day the Grumpy Way“. Bodied (2017) andDreams Never Die […]
My, My Ain’t That Somethin’: THE PUNK LEGACY OF ‘Stormy Weather’
Although steeped in the traditions and trappings of what could be done in 1943, Stormy Weather was an early effort for mainstream Hollywood to bring blackness to the forefront. As such, the film holds a […]
MAY 27, 1970: GODFREY CAMBRIDGE DROPS A NEW BLACK HOLLYWOOD LEGACY
Godfrey MacArthur Cambridge’s star shone very brightly in the 1960s and 1970s; in a short time, he did it all – comedy, theatre, film, civil rights activism, and more. On May 27, 1970, audiences packed […]
EVERYONE WHO LIVES HERE IS LOST: A CHAT WITH JAMES DUVAL ABOUT ‘NOWHERE’
Looking back at the Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy has been a real treat for me. While The Doom Generation is the only one of the three films I saw back around the time it was released, […]
REVENGE OF THE CHEAPIES: AN INTRODUCTION TO ‘BIG B’
Amateur street racers fire grappling hooks into the sky, take down a military cargo plane, and save the world. A zoologist whispers kindly to a kaiju-sized ape, surrounded by the complete destruction of a city, […]
Space Babes, Robots, and Disco Boogie: ‘Buck Rogers in the 25th Century’ in the 21st Century
It’s not easy being an astronaut: studying vectors, fuel consumption reports, star charts, and demonstrating fast reaction times, all while piloting a 135-ton space vehicle roaring against the unrelenting pull of Earth’s gravity. What happens […]
GRUMPIRE INTERVIEWS! SPECIAL: GREGG ARAKI AND THE TEENAGE APOCALYPSE
GRUMPIRE 22: All For the Low Price of $6.66 Justin Harlan provides us with this special interview with filmmaker Gregg Araki, and the impressions below: As I noted in my first piece on the Teenage […]
HOW TO EPITOMIZE A GENERATION WITHOUT REALLY TRYING: THE STRANGE SYNCHRONICITY OF ‘BETTER OFF DEAD’ (1985)
Is it perhaps a bad portent that I’m about to kick off my entry in Grumpire’s “Gen-X Essentials” series by quibbling over semantics? No matter. I’ve never let those stop me before. And in this […]
‘Shooting tadpoles at the moon’: Introducing the Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy
In the early to mid ’90s, I hit my teen years: the impressionable years in which many of us begin discovering the art that shapes our tastes and aspects of our personalities for years to […]
MIXTAPE: GRUMPY ’93
1993: the year hip-hop “conquered the world,” the year Britpop proved a fast grab, and the year female voices grew exponentially in a variety of genres from pop to alternative to indie. In 1993 grunge […]
GRUMPIRE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL WITH JAY ALARY
Grumpire 21, Christmas 0 Joining us for Christmas from The Great White North is Grumpire Assistant Editor, Jay Alary.
CHRISTMAS IS GOING TO THE DOGS
Earlier this week we published a piece examining the celluloid representation of the Christmas Spirit in relation to Charles Dickens’ seminal novella A Christmas Carol. The author noted that dogs often epitomize the Spirit of […]
Let’s Put The Industrialist Back in Christmas: a contemplation on ‘A Christmas Carol’ films
Every Christmas film is an autobiography of the Spirit of Christmas. Well, essentially at least. The vast majority of Christmas movies, which most likely at this point bear the Hallmark or Lifetime insignia on them, […]
Mad Tidings of great despair
The Christmas tradition is one of hope and cheer, a time for us all to come together in the spirit of peace and love and forget about our troubles in the name of fellowship and […]
BLOOD AND BUTTERFLY COLLARS: ‘DRACULA’ 1979
Dracula is one of the most popular literary characters ever conceived, a masterful synthesis of history and supernatural fiction, as written by Irish novelist Bram Stoker in the classic Victorian epistolary novel that has chilled […]