OPINION | REVIEW: Making connection
In this business, you ought to be careful with superlatives.
When people ask me what the "best" concert films are, I'll say it's a short list. Most rock concert films are meant as consolations or sou...
October 23, 2020
OPINION | NEW MOVIES: No screeners means we're sitting ducks
I'd never heard the term "spooky season" applied to October before this year. But Halloween is coming up, though even before the pandemic the holiday seemed to be getting stale. At least it's not like...
October 23, 2020
ON FILM
Watch Philip Martin’s OnFilm column at: arkansasonline.com/1023film/
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October 23, 2020
OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: It has happened here
There has never been a golden age when reasonable people could disagree in a civil fashion over complex issues resistant to simple-minded solutions. Politics has always been an ugly and devious busine...
October 18, 2020
OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: Managing risk — The boy making do in the bubble
Two scientists are racing
For the good of all mankind
Both of them side-by-side
So determined
Locked in heated battle
For the cure that is their prize
But it's so dangerous
— "Racing for the Pr...
October 18, 2020
OPINION | REVIEW: ‘Love and Monsters’ is summed up in its title
Michael Matthews' "Love and Monsters" is a post-apocalyptic quest comedy set seven years after a giant meteor nearly crashes into the earth. "Nearly" because, just as in "Armageddon" or "Deep Impact,"...
October 16, 2020
OPINION | NEW MOVIES: Sitting in limbo
As far as I can tell, "Sh%thouse" isn't opening in Arkansas this week.
This is fine, though the IFC comedy with the title designed to troll editors (a lot of its publicity material wallows in the fac...
October 16, 2020
ON FILM
Watch Philip Martin’s OnFilm column at: arkansasonline.com/1016film/
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October 16, 2020
OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Fast times
American fried chicken, done right, is a glorious thing.
It is, like most things we claim, a mongrel, a collision of the cuisine of Scottish immigrants who settled in the Carolinas and Virginia and b...
October 13, 2020
OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Shame, sadness and love
In November 1933, the Georgia Bulldogs, one of the top college football teams in the country, traveled to Connecticut to play their bitter rival Yale. It was during a terrible Depression, and in those...
October 11, 2020
OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: Four thoughts about '500 Greatest Albums'
I have some thoughts about Rolling Stone magazine's recently updated "500 Greatest Albums of All Time."
But I should acknowledge the dubiousness of the entire project. It doesn't matter. Any attempt ...
October 11, 2020
OPINION | ON BOOKS: Self-publishing is inexpensive, easy nowadays
Another weird bad nasty mean thing about 2020 is the ongoing disruption of the book publishing business.
The past few months have seen a relative dearth of high profile releases from major publishers...
October 11, 2020
OPINION | NEW MOVIES: What's not coming soon
The big news this week is what's not coming soon to a theater near you.
No James Bond this year. Originally scheduled to be released in April, it was re-scheduled for a Thanksgiving release. And then...
October 9, 2020
ON FILM
Watch Philip Martin’s OnFilm column at: arkansasonline.com/109film/
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October 9, 2020
OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Crime and punishment
My wife Karen had some adult stuff to attend to last Tuesday, so she made an appointment at a downtown bank.
She put on real clothes and drove the 1.5 miles downtown. She parked on the street and fed...
October 4, 2020