Laura Nyro’s Springtime Gem ‘Nested’ at 45
Recorded while pregnant with her only child, Laura Nyro’s Nested is an unabashedly feminist and feminine work of laid-back, springtime bliss.
Matt McKinzie
Matt McKinzie is a writer and filmmaker, first published in PopMatters in 2018. He graduated from Emerson College in 2021 with a B.A. in Visual and Media Arts and a Minor in Gender Studies. His work has been featured at WickedQueer: Boston’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival, the Film-Makers' Cooperative, Millennium Film Workshop, and in the pages of EM Magazine, where he worked as Editorial Director from 2019 to 2021. In 2022, Matt was named a WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Lab and ScreenCraft Finalist.
Storm de Hirsch’s Utterly Unclassifiable Feature Film ‘Goodbye in the Mirror’
Thematically and stylistically, Storm de Hirsch’s Goodbye in the Mirror is a bizarre amalgam of films by Varda, Cassavetes, Akerman, Wishman, and a dozen other directors working across mainstream, independent, and avant-garde contexts.
Jayne Mansfield Outsmarts the “Dumb Blonde” Role In Steinbeck Adaptation ‘The Wayward Bus’
Jayne Mansfield’s dramatic performance in the John Steinbeck-adapted drama The Wayward Bus disproves the notion that she was only capable of playing a “dumb blonde”.
Ellen McIlwaine Made Music For ‘We the People’ 50 Years Ago
By combining multiple styles, playing techniques, and cultural influences, Ellen McIlwaine challenged notions of genre classification and embraced music as a “universal language”.
Joni Mitchell Went Back to the Land on ‘For the Roses’ 50 Years Ago
In 1972, Joni Mitchell traded the hubbub of the big city for nature’s quiet solitude. There, she wrote an album of unparalleled earthy wonder, For the Roses.
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The Film Adaptation of Joan Didion’s ‘Play It As It Lays’ Still Slays
There’s a danger to Frank Perry’s 1972 film adaptation of Joan Didion’s novel Play It As It Lays, and that’s why we’ve subdued it for so long. Now 50 years later, it’s time to unleash the beast.
Joan Armatrading’s ‘Show Some Emotion’ at 45
Joan Armatrading swerves from one musical idiom to the next, and yet, Show Some Emotion never feels chaotic or inconsistent. It’s a surprisingly cohesive work.
Ideological Incoherence in Films ‘3 Women’ ‘Girlfriends’ and Late ‘70s Feminism
The inconclusive nature of modern womanhood espoused by 3 Women and Girlfriends reflects and reifies the inconclusive nature of second-wave feminism.
Hard Times, Easy Listening: 10 Albums for Autumn 2020
Music has been a most necessary balm in 2020 and will remain one in the post-summer months. This list offers a brief repository of albums that gleam in ways particularly autumnal.
Jamila Woods’ “SULA (Paperback)” and Creative Ancestry and Self-Love in the Age of “List” Activism
In Jamila Woods' latest single "SULA (Paperback)", Toni Morrison and her 1973 novel of the same name are not static literary phenomena. They are an artist and artwork as galvanizing and alive as Woods herself.
Defragmenting Bodies: Yoko Ono’s ‘Fly’ at 50
In her 1970 avant-garde short Fly, Yoko Ono works within the same parameters as directors like Alfred Hitchcock or Takashi Miike. Yet, she posits the intermixture of her celluloid images as reconstructive effort, not a destructive one.
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Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ and Finding a Place to Be During Coronavirus
Shuttered inside our homes, contending with the COVID-19 outbreak, Nick Drake's third album promises rebirth and renewal: the pink moon is coming.