poptransmission

Author: DSquared

  • New Music Alert: Ten Songs to Sink Your Teeth Into

    Time for some new music. As usual for these posts, the new songs are a mixture of old bands, new bands, bands I’m familiar with, and bands I’ve never heard of. Punk rock, shoegaze, synths, hard electric rock, and melodic acoustic rock are all represented. Let’s get started… – “Scapa Flow” by Drop Nineteens: Have…

  • The Diplomat: Netflix’s Surprisingly Delicious Political Drama

    Career diplomat, Kate Wyler (Keri Russell, The Americans), reluctantly accepts reassignment to the U.K. as U.S. ambassador. Her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell, The Man in the High Castle), also a diplomat, accompanies her to London. He’s got swagger, a high profile, and a penchant for the limelight. Their roles have reversed; she’s driving the relocation…

  • A Million Miles Away: The Insightful New Documentary of Troubadour Peter Case

    A Million Miles Away paints the rich tapestry of the life of Peter Case. Street musician. Punk rocker. One-hit wonder. Singer-songwriter. Folk troubadour. The film makes clear that the Plimsouls, and their signature song, “A Million Miles Away,” are not representative of Case’s 50-year career. At heart, he’s always been a tireless writer who tells…

  • Dark Winds: AMC’s Crime Drama Set on the Navajo Nation is Back for Season Two

    “Backup. What backup? We have 50 tribal officers for over 27,000 square miles.” That captures the isolation of the Navajo Nation in 1971, the setting for AMC’s crime thriller, Dark Winds. The series is based on the Leaphorn and Chee books by Tony Hillerman. Zahn McClarnon (Longmire, Fargo #2) stars as Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. It’s…

  • The Fearless Trailblazer Sinead O’Connor Dead at 56

    Sad news yesterday. Tragic, but not surprising. That just makes it sadder. I’m re-sharing my post from last November about the Sinead O’Connor documentary, Nothing Compares. I had a mix of emotions while watching it: heartbreaking, inspiring, and frustrating. It’s the life story of a courageous, complicated woman. Showtime documentaries are now streaming on Paramount…

  • Justified: City Primeval: Marshal Givens is Back, This Time in the Big City

    Reboots continue to be the go-to for many a television studio. You name it – comedy, drama, reality, animated – no genre is safe from revisiting the well of a hit TV show. Night Court, Dexter, Beavis and Butthead, Will & Grace, and Party Down, just to name a handful, have been brought back to…

  • Neil Young’s Solo Acoustic Tour: An Intimate Evening of Deep Tracks

    “Better late than never.” Most of us have had this situation when it comes to concerts. I finally saw a lot of bands years (decades) after their heyday: Joe Jackson, Elton John, Van Halen, Rush, Aerosmith, and the two biggies, David Bowie (2004) and Rolling Stones (2005). Time to add another to the list, Neil…

  • A Small Light: Another Remarkable Untold Saga of WWII

    I’ve marveled in previous posts about the number of unknown and unbelievable stories from our history. World War II is particularly full of heroic human accomplishments (see one example in a previous post Operation Mincemeat: Netflix’s Absurd, Extraordinary, and True WWII Drama). We all know the basics of Anne Frank’s life during wartime thanks to…

  • The Covenant: An Unbreakable Bond in War Time

    I’ve never been a big fan of Guy Ritchie movies (The Gentleman, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels). His zany gangster films, with cockney slang the dialog of choice, have been a struggle for me. So, it was with some trepidation that I took the plunge with his newest film, The Covenant. (You’ll see it…

  • 1993: The Best Albums Through a 30-Year Lense

    Let’s keep the decade anniversaries going by harking back 30 years. Here are some music headlines from 1993: There were some good albums in 1993, but were there some great ones? I’m not sure. Several of my favorite bands put out excellent songs in ’93, but the albums as a whole fell short of their…

  • Black Mirror: The Dystopian Anthology Returns for Season Six

    I was late to Black Mirror, Netflix’s anthology based on the Twilight Zone. My wife and I caught up on the show during the pandemic. It launched in 2011 on the British network Channel 4 and ran for two three-episode seasons. (I’ll stick to calling them “seasons,” not the confusing term “series,” that Netflix uses.)…

  • Never Have I Ever…Imagined Liking a TV Show With John McEnroe Narrating

    (This is a re-post from 2021 to recognize Never Have I Ever’s fourth and final season which Netflix just released on June 8th. It’s a cute, satisfying show if you haven’t checked it out yet. Season four is ten episodes, each running about 30 minutes. As with some other high school shows (Sex Education, for…