Gus Van Sant:"Drugstore Cowboy" (1989)

Like the best outlaw movies (Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider), director Gus Van Sant's breakthrough sophomore film seeks neither to legitimate the junkie's life nor to moralize against it. The film avoids glib portrayals of its "cowboys" as fun-loving free-spirits; indeed, they're anything but free. Though it paints a corrosive picture of drug abuse,...

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Le Tigre:"Le Tigre" (1999)

The debut effort from Le Tigre sounds like the best new wave album not to come from the 1980s. Here, frontwoman Kathleen Hanna expands on the lo-fi sounds she tinkered with on her debut solo album, Julie Ruin. Le Tigre melds punk, new wave, and hip-hop into a seemingly cute package. Each song is hummable, and Hanna's "valley girl intelligentsia"...

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Happy Mondays:"Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches" (1990)

At their peak, the Happy Mondays were hedonism in perpetual motion, a party with no beginning and no end, a party where Pills 'N' Thrills and Bellyaches was continually pumping. The apex of their career (and quite arguably the whole baggy/Madchester movement), Pills 'N' Thrills and Bellyaches pulsates with a garish neon energy, with psychedelic...

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Billy Wilder:"Sunset Boulevard" (1950)

Tackling the kind of movie "that never quite worked," Billy Wilder made one of greatest films about Hollywood. In his pungent satire of the industry's sordidness, Wilder turned Hollywood history back on itself, with the presence of silent film star Gloria Swanson as aging silent diva Norma Desmond and great silent director Erich von Stroheim as...

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Woody Allen:"Annie Hall" (1977)

One of the greatest pleasures of Woody Allen's early work is his ability to skewer himself while skewering the conventions of the comedy genre. Annie Hall is perhaps the best example of this: a blend of slapstick, fantasy, and bittersweet romantic comedy, it is not so much about two people falling in love as about two brains trying to negotiate...

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Mott the Hoople:"All the Young Dudes" (1972)

Just at the moment Mott the Hoople were calling it a day, David Bowie swooped in and convinced them to stick around. Bowie spearheaded an image makeover, urging them to glam themselves up. He gave them a surefire hit with "All the Young Dudes," had them cover his idol's "Sweet Jane," and produced All the Young Dudes, the album that was designed...

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Ethan Coen,Joel Coen:"No Country for Old Men" (2007)

No Country for Old Men, the darkest, bleakest film yet by Joel and Ethan Coen, manages to be both an unsettling thriller and a statement of great concern for the future. As has always been the case with Joel and Ethan's work, the movie is cast to perfection....

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Isaac Hayes:"Hot Buttered Soul" (1969)

Released at the tail end of the '60s, Hot Buttered Soul set the precedent for how soul would evolve in the early '70s, simultaneously establishing Isaac Hayes and the Bar-Kays as major forces within black music. Though not quite as definitive as Black Moses or as well-known as Shaft, Hot Buttered Soul remains an undeniably seminal record; it stretched...

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Michel Gondry:"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004)

At once scathingly unsentimental and thrillingly romantic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the perfect date movie for smart couples. The film offers further evidence of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's amazing talent for generating intense emotional investment from seemingly absurd situations, and visual fantasist Michel Gondry shows here (as...

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The Make-Up:"Save Yourself" (1999)

Save Yourself, the Make-Up's sixth album in just over three years, reflects not only the group's prolific nature but the corresponding growth spurt in their sound as well. Though it's not as eclectic as their singles compilation I Want Some, Save Yourself's nine tracks include rave-ups like "White Belts" and moody, psychedelic pieces like the...

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J. Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on 11 May 1895 in Madanapalle, a small town in south India. He and his brother were adopted in their youth by Dr Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society. Dr Besant and others proclaimed that Krishnamurti was to be a world teacher whose coming the Theosophists had predicted. To prepare the world for this coming, a world-wide organization called the Order of the Star in the East was formed and the young Krishnamurti was made its head. In 1929, however, Krishnamurti renounced the role that he...

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Mr. Freeman – an online cartoon character that deconstructs offline reality

Mr. Freeman is a character of a series of black-and-white cartoons. The first episode [RUS] of a “Grim Fandango” [EN]-like animation appeared on Sept. 21, 2009. Since then, 11 episodes have been published and the total number of views surpassed 6 million. Mr. Freeman has its own blog on LiveJournal, a website and numerous representations...

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Nicolas Roeg:"Walkabout" (1971)

Arguably director Nicolas Roeg's most enduring success, Walkabout is a complex, poetic cinematic experience. Roeg's overactive sense of symbolism is well-suited to the films themes of loneliness, alienation and social consciousness. Walkabout retains the director's offbeat style -- very little dialogue, shifting points of view, graphic, often shocking...

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The Afghan Whigs:"Gentlemen" (1993)

The Afghan Whigs' sound was growing larger by the release during the days on Sub Pop, so the fact that Gentlemen turned out the way it did wasn't all that surprising as a result ("cinematic" was certainly the word the band was aiming for, what with credits describing the recording process as being "shot on location" at Ardent Studios). While Gentlemen...

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Neil Jordan:"The Crying Game" (1992)

The Crying Game was heavily marketed based on its story's "secret" -- "the movie no one is talking about," quipped one news magazine about the burden of knowing the big revelation. The hype helped fill a lot of seats, but it's still a good twist -- if it hasn't been spoiled for you -- in a challenging, daring film. Writer/director Neil Jordan...

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dEUS:"Worst Case Scenario" (1994)

About the only thing wrong with dEUS' full-length debut is that the band put its best foot forward right at the start with the great "Suds & Soda." A tense, energetic rip with Klaas Janzoons' violin the final touch that sends everything over the top, it has all the wired energy of early-'90s rock, but with its own arty edge. The only thing...

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