Edward D. Wood, Jr.:"Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1956)

Plan 9 From Outer Space has been unjustly deemed the worst movie of all time. It's true that cardboard gravestones are knocked over, that scenes change from day to night at a moment's notice, and that half of Bela Lugosi's scenes are shot with a taller stand-in who has trouble keeping his vampire's cape on his shoulders. But technical gaffes...

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James Carr:"The Complete Goldwax Singles" (2001)

All 28 songs from Carr's 1964-1970 Goldwax singles are here, which is enough to make it a fair bid for a good best-of compilation, although it doesn't have everything he recorded. About half of the songs on this British import are not on the most well-known American CD compilation of Carr's work, The Essential James Carr, and those tracks are...

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Mike Figgis:"Leaving Las Vegas" (1995)

Leaving Las Vegas is the rarest of love stories that revolves around acceptance and resignation in the face of defeat, rather than salvation and emotional triumph. Bleak, morose, and doggedly determined to stick to its principles, the film was unique in its resolve to observe, rather than attempt to save, its protagonist. For this reason alone,...

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Funkadelic:"One Nation Under a Groove" (1978)

One Nation Under a Groove was not only Funkadelic's greatest moment, it was their most popular album, bringing them an unprecedented commercial breakthrough by going platinum and spawning a number one R&B smash in the title track. It was a landmark LP for the so-called "black rock" movement, best-typified in the statement of purpose "Who...

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George Pelecanos

George Pelecanos was born in Washington, D.C. in 1957.  He worked as a line cook, dishwasher, bartender, and woman's shoe salesman before publishing his first novel in 1992. Pelecanos is the author of eighteen novels set in and around Washington, D.C.: A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip, Shoedog,...

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Raymond Carver

Carver was born into a poverty-stricken family at the tail-end of the Depression. The son of a violent alcoholic, he married at 19, started a series of menial jobs and his own career of 'full-time drinking as a serious pursuit'. A career that would eventually kill him. Constantly struggling to support his wife and family Carver enrolled in a...

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Nicholas Ray:"Rebel Without a Cause" (1955)

A clenched fist of teenage alienation and cultural disillusion, Rebel Without a Cause questioned the complacent state of 1950s American society with the subtlety of a blow to the jaw. A truly landmark film, Rebel ...

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Toots & the Maytals:"Funky Kingston [Mango Reissue]" (1973)

Toots & the Maytals' first LP for Chris Blackwell was originally released in the early '70s, and it includes solid sides like "Pomp and Pride," a whacked-out restructuring of Richard Berry's "Louie, Louie," and the wonderful title track, "Funky Kingston." Blackwell reissued a bulked-up version of Funky Kingston in the mid-'70s on his Mango...

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Jean-Jacques Beineix:"Betty Blue" (1986)

Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue stars Béatrice Dalle as the title character, a mentally unbalanced and sexually aggressive free spirit who becomes involved with Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade), a repairman moonlighting as a writer. The two engage in a variety of sexual encounters, and grow more passionate toward each other. Betty finds Zorg's book...

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Rufus Wainwright:"Rufus Wainwright" (1998)

What separates Rufus Wainwright and the other second-generation singers who sprang up at the same time (Sean Lennon, Emma Townshend, and Chris Stills the most notable among them) is that Wainwright deserves to be heard regardless of his family tree; in fact, the issue of his parentage is ultimately as immaterial as that of his sexuality -- this...

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Jerry Schatzberg:"Scarecrow" (1973)

Before Scarecrow's meandering, but enjoyable, "odd couple" plot takes a melodramatic turn at the end, the film is an engrossing and delightful character study. The meandering is not a negative in this instance; the mismatched buddies are themselves drifters, wandering through their lives in search of meaning and purpose. Very much a product...

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Bad Company:"Bad Company" (1974)

Bad Company's 1974 self-titled release stands as one of the most important and accomplished debut hard rock albums from the '70s. Though hardly visionary, it was one of the most successful steps in the continuing evolution of rock & roll, riding on the coattails of achievement from artists like the Eagles and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young....

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Roger Corman:"Machine Gun Kelly" (1958)

The real-life "Machine Gun" Kelly was a clumsy, two-bit petty thief, goaded into bigger and badder things by a publicity-hungry wife; legend has it that when Kelly was finally captured by the FBI, he had a smile on his face, as if relieved to get away from the gorgonlike Mrs. Kelly. This film version of Kelly's life alters the facts considerably:...

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David Ackles:"American Gothic" (1972)

The years have only been kind to the album considered David Ackles' masterpiece when it was released. Ackles combined an early-'70s singer/songwriter sensibility with a theater music background that placed him as much in the tradition of Brecht-Weill and Jacques Brel as Bob Dylan. Not only are his songs fully realized, dramatic statements, but...

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