Rodney Crowell’s ‘Diamonds and Dirt’ at 35: A Shining Link in a Musical Chain
Rodney Crowell tapped into traditional country and country rock to create Diamonds and Dirt, which pointed forward to the future development of Americana music.
Danny Anderson
Danny Anderson teaches English at Mount Aloysius College in Pennsylvania. He has written about film, popular culture, politics, and theology for Film Inquiry, Popular Culture and Theology, The Mantle, and Sound the Sirens, among others, and fiction from Dream Pop Press and Litbreak. He also has a Substack for cultural criticism called UnTaking, which you can subscribe to. You can find him at @DannyPAnderson on Twitter.
Horror Film ‘The Empty Man’ Unmasks Internet Age Nihilism
David Prior’s 2020 horror film The Empty Man taps into a form of nihilism that might be taking over the world via social media.
‘The Dropout’ and the Vice of Virtue
Hulu’s limited series, The Dropout, uses the tragic saga of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos to expose Silicon Valley’s exploitation of virtue, an American vice.
1934 Horror Film ‘The Black Cat’ Slinks Easily into Our Time of Terror
Nazi power had already risen and Hitler was Chancellor when The Black Cat shared its laser-focus on the dangers of the rising tide of right-wing politics.
21st Century Men: The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies at 50
The Kinks’ landmark album Muswell Hillbillies turns 50 and endures as a prophetic masterpiece that anticipates our messy political moment.
A ‘Midnight Mass’ for Post-Trump American Christianity
No work has so passionately tapped into the anxieties of Christianity in the wake of Donald Trump as Mike Flanagan’s mini-series, Midnight Mass.
Remembering Chris Wall: A Cowboy Poet Passes
Remembering and appreciating the great cowboy poet, Texas singer-songwriter Chris Wall, who passed away in July 2021. God speed, cowboy.
Joe Pug’s ‘The Diving Sun:’ A Sublime Dive Into the Deep End
Joe Pug’s latest album, The Diving Sun, is filled with songs of desperate inspiration, marking some of the finest work in the singer-songwriter’s career.
Zack Snyder, Matthew Arnold, and Ancient Stories in Comic Book Films
Does it make sense for contemporary Superman to stand beside ancient Zeus in comic book films? Filmmaker Zack Snyder and 19th century poet and critic Matthew Arnold think so.