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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

‘Burroughs in London’ by Heathcote Williams

February 19, 2014 by Jan Herman

Transatlantic Review 14

Now that the Burroughs centenary has moved into high gear, it suddenly dawned on Heathcote Williams that he’d known the man on and off for more than half a century.

Liam O’Gallagher’s Psilocybin ‘Chinatown Trip’

January 21, 2014 by Jan Herman

Liam O'Gallagher's 'Chinatown Trip' (CLICK TO WATCH AND LISTEN)

My staff of thousands came across an old movie that Michael McClure once made of Liam O’Gallagher taking psilocybin, in 1962, on a San Francisco rooftop.

How a Brilliant Writer Got in His Own Way

January 2, 2014 by Jan Herman

'Humpty Dumpty' [1924]

I’m told Ben Hecht was recently inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. That could be why I was asked to write a piece about him for a special “Chicago Issue” of the Chicago Quarterly Review, but something tells me it was pure coincidence. I also have a feeling the Hall of Fame won’t […]

Sight Unseen, a Plug for Godfrey Reggio’s ‘Visitors’

September 30, 2013 by Jan Herman

2002: “Naqoyqatsi,” meaning “life as war,” was the third in Reggio’s qatsi trilogy. 1988: “Powaqqatsi,” meaning “life in transformation,” was the second. 1982: “Koyaanisqatsi,” meaning “life out of balance,” was the first. Reggio’s latest, “Visitors,” with another score by Philip Glass, will be released in 2014. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

An Amazing Act of Filming

August 5, 2013 by Jan Herman

CLICK FOR VIDEO

I’m late on this, but I can now say that the widespread praise for this revelatory documentary is deserved. It is not — yes, NOT — an exploitation flick, but if you’re innarested in kinky you MUST see it. “The Act of Killing” is kinky to the 10th power. Not sex kinky but life-and-death kinky […]

This ‘Auteur’ Made Some of Hollywood’s Best Films

July 15, 2013 by Jan Herman

I just caught a screening of “Dodsworth” at the New York Historical Society, where Catherine Wyler mentioned in a pre-screening interview with AMERICAN MASTERS creator Susan Lacy that there are two new Wyler books due out soon: one by Gabriel Miller, the other by Neil Sinyard. She hoped it signals renewed interest in her father’s […]

Typography Meets Country Music

June 17, 2013 by Jan Herman

CLICK FOR THE VIDEO [Steve Martin & Edie Brickell: "Love Has Come For You" ]

Hat’s off to the designer whoever that is. The kinetic typography put me in mind of the clever card sequence in D.A. Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary about Bob Dylan, “Don’t Look Back.” The design is more ingenious now, and of course the technology is far more sophisticated. But you get the idea. As to the stylish […]

Two Artists, Two Video Trailers: Ungerer and Mc Neill

June 14, 2013 by Jan Herman

'Observed While Falling,' a memoir by Malcolm Mc Neill

Here are two video trailers, totally different from each other — one for a new movie about the peerless Tomi Ungerer, “Far Out Isn’t Far Enough,” the other for a dance inspired by Observed While Falling, a spellbinding memoir by the incomparable Malcolm Mc Neil. Many years ago Burt Britton kept a self-portrait by Ungerer […]

Death of a Mensch, Roger Ebert, R.I.P.

April 5, 2013 by Jan Herman

Once Upon a Time at the Chicago Sun-Times

Rick Kogan has written a fine obituary, “A film critic with the soul of a poet,” with a beautiful lede: It was reviewing movies that made Roger Ebert as famous and wealthy as many of the stars who felt the sting or caress of his pen or were the recipients of his televised thumbs-up or […]

They Called Him ‘Mister Mooch’

February 8, 2013 by Jan Herman

An elegy on film for Carl Weissner … … by Signe Mähler and Cody Maher. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Who Is Heathcote Williams? Not for Sale, That’s Who

December 12, 2012 by Jan Herman

“He is one of a few of genius who did not sell out and who peaks in (relative) old age. That’s quite something nowadays.” — Gerard Bellaart +++ “Fame is the first disgrace because God knows who you are.” — Heathcote Williams, “The Local Stigmatic” +++ The videos comprise Parts 1 and 2 of a […]

Godfrey Reggio’s Vision of ‘Life Out of Balance’

October 27, 2011 by Jan Herman

A day in February, 1983. Godfrey Reggio is standing in front of the old Reichstag in Berlin. A tall, gaunt man with pale blue eyes and a graying beard that looks like stubble, he has just presented Koyaanisqatsi at the Berlin Film Festival. The notices have been gratifying. One critic called it “a masterpiece . […]

Paul Newman, R.I.P.

September 28, 2008 by Jan Herman

Paul Newman, who died at 83, once told me in an interview, “There’s a part of me that has always wanted to win an Oscar when I’m 83, so I could say, ‘So there!’” The interview took place in Boston, at the Meridien Hotel. Newman was 57 then and in top form, promoting “The Verdict.” […]

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED

May 5, 2005 by Douglas McLennan

Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. “This book is merely a fan’s notes,” Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you’re […]

My Checkered Career

August 10, 2003 by Jan Herman

I’ve been a staff writer covering arts and culture at the Los Angeles Times, a reporter and movie reviewer at The Daily News in New York, a reporter and columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, a senior editor/producer and the theater critic for MSNBC.com, and a fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. […]

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Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

My Books

Several books of poems have been published in recent years by Moloko Print, Statdlichter Presse, Phantom Outlaw Editions, and Cold Turkey … [Read More...]

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

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