Four years before America’s bicentennial: A look back at 1972

In 1972, Kurt Waldheim became Secretary General of the United Nations; President Nixon visited China and met with Mao Zedong; Pioneer 10 became the first man-made spacecraft to leave the solar system; Five White House operatives were arrested for breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee; On Bloody Friday, twenty-two bombs planted by… Continue reading Four years before America’s bicentennial: A look back at 1972

The check for all three is in the blackmail

  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) After seven months with no arrests for the violent rape and murder of her daughter, Angela, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) rents three billboards chastising the police for their lack of progress. This sets off a firestorm of controversy in her small town where people revere the local sheriff… Continue reading The check for all three is in the blackmail

When America was a young 200: A look back at 1976

In 1976, The Philadelphia Flyers played a hockey game against the Red Army team of the Soviet Union; Apple Computer Company was formed; The Seychelles were granted independence from the United Kingdom; The United States celebrated its bicentennial; The Summer Olympics took place in Montreal; The “Son of Sam” terrorized New York City; Frank Sinatra brought Dean Martin onstage at… Continue reading When America was a young 200: A look back at 1976

Best of the 1970s

  Watermelon Man  (1970) White salesman Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) wakes up to discover he’s become a black man overnight. His transformation causes problems at work, with the police, and with his neighbors. His seemingly liberal wife (Estelle Parsons) who once chastised him for not caring about the problems faced by black people in America, leaves… Continue reading Best of the 1970s

I silently killed the last guardians of the last seductive galaxy

  Kill Your Darlings (2013) Naive freshman Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enrolls at Columbia University where he meets Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and Edie Parker (Elizabeth Olsen). Carr bribes an older man, David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall) to write his papers by promising sexual favors, but when he grows bored with… Continue reading I silently killed the last guardians of the last seductive galaxy