2024-03-26 04:00
Apologies for the lengthy gap between my previous post and this one. I had an awards ceremony to put together, an acclaimed Japanese director to host, and a vacation in Palm Springs (current… Read More
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2024-03-10 15:32
Entering my Top 5 books of last year, we find a surprise new book published by a favorite author late in 2022, and another installment of my rock ‘n roll memoirs, this time by a local… Read More
2024-02-29 12:24
As we close in my top 5 books of 2023, we revisit my rock ‘n roll memoir category, and we read the latest book of a favorites author.
#6 – The Museum of Failures by Thri… Read More
2024-02-25 13:59
Now we are firmly in the Top 10. There have been a lot of films I have enjoyed in the past few years that center on indigenous people around the world, so I thought I’d trey reading so… Read More
2024-02-18 13:47
As we close in on the Top 10, the next two titles, also works of fiction, are books that I have been meaning to read for a while, and finally got around to last year. One is a science ficti… Read More
2024-02-15 02:25
We started with two rock ‘n roll memoirs, and we move to two novels. Two novels that are very different from each other, actually. One by an author whose complete works have been read… Read More
2024-02-04 13:44
Well, it’s been a while. In fact, I haven’t posted here since I did my round up of favorite movie of 2022! I guess it has been a busy year. That is evidenced by the fact that I o… Read More
2023-03-01 12:01
And here we are at the top of my list of favorite films of 2022. What ties these films together are the broad themes of love and family… themes that go against my often-cited love of… Read More
2023-02-28 13:11
Other than the exceptional filmmaking, these two films near the top of my 2022 favorites have little in common. One is from a seasons filmmaker whose films have topped by year-end lists in t… Read More
2023-02-27 11:37
Midway through my Top 10 films of 202 we have a couple of stand-out films from Asian filmmakers, one familiar, one new to me. Both explore the mental state of the protagonist in ways that ar… Read More
2023-02-26 13:34
As we climb higher into the Top 10, it gets harder and harder to differentiate between the films as to their level of accomplishment: these are all such great films! What this pair of films… Read More
2023-02-25 14:34
My top 10 films of 2022 kick off with the return of one of my favorite directors, and a special spotlight for a character actress in a leading role. These films also highlight the very diffe… Read More
2023-02-24 12:30
Movies with child actors in leading roles are often tricky, but this pair of films is uncanny in the way children are presented. Much credit must go to the directors, Céline Sciamma a… Read More
2023-02-23 11:15
Film is such a visual medium, and the next two film in my Top 20 are shining examples of what can be done in that arena. There’s so much about cinematography that the average viewer d… Read More
2023-02-22 11:47
I love when indie films explore genre. Good horror and science fiction films can be incredibly thought-provoking and thoughtful. The problem (for me) is big budget Hollywood films tend to ta… Read More
2023-02-21 12:39
The first of only a handful of films from the U.S. makes its appearance in the Top 20, paired with an Australian film featuring a long-time favorite actress. Other countries represented in t… Read More
2023-02-20 14:07
I’m pretty pleased with my female to male director ratio in 2022’s Top 20. Eight of the 20 film to appear on the list were directed by women, with one more co-directed by a woman… Read More
2023-02-19 20:03
I know it’s February already, and the time for year-end lists is probably well past. That said, I spent the first month of 2023 catching up on some more 2022 films in preparation for o… Read More
2023-01-23 11:46
My favorite book read last year was also my only book to receive 5 stars, and it also happened to be the last book I finished last yea. It’s also notable that it;s the first book by t… Read More
2023-01-22 01:23
Three authors that are new to me in the top three this year; that’s pretty exciting, although not first novelists. Only my #1 selection got 5 stars though. The two listed here only got… Read More
2023-01-20 11:38
We dip into the Top 5 today, and we also see the return of Jennifer Haigh with a second offering on this list. We also see a book of essays (the first and only non-fiction to appear this yea… Read More
2023-01-18 13:31
What these two books have in common is that they were slim volumes with eloquent language that made it feel like I reading so much more than was there. One was a favorite writer who had last… Read More
2023-01-17 12:49
Diving into the Top 10 finds the first of TWO titles by Jennifer Haigh and a graphic novel.
#9) American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang – Gene Luen Yang’s Award-winning graph… Read More
2023-01-16 13:10
#11) Engines of Oblivion by Karen Osborne – Osborne’s second offering in her series, The Memory War, took some time to draw me in, but ultimately succeeded in telling a complicat… Read More
2023-01-15 14:29
My next two books were a bit different for me. One came about randomly as I decided to explore reading more indigenous authors, and the other was a short story collection from a Japanese mas… Read More
2023-01-14 18:19
End of year usually people an opportunity to create an arbitrary of their favorite “fill in the blank” from the previous year. Every year, I do keep track of the books I have re… Read More
2023-01-01 23:33
As we all age, I knew we would be losing some of my favorite performers in the coming years. Earlier this summer, it was hard to hear about Olivia Newton John’s death, but the loss of… Read More
2022-10-22 04:58
The power of a written composition is undeniable, especially if it’s correctly prepared. In reality, many students mistakenly think they can just”wing it” and come up with… Read More
2022-10-22 04:54
College education isn’t affordable, and it is very important to make certain that the price of your education doesn’t exceed your financial ways. To assist you learn, provide yo… Read More
2022-10-22 04:26
Every student wants to develop into a research paper author. There are few courses which can help you in becoming one. But if you are really interested in this topic, then you should be pre… Read More
2022-10-22 04:19
When exploring a term paper issue, you will realize that many research paper authors are willing to provide their time and expertise. But the issue is that too many of them don’t have… Read More
2022-08-24 22:51
An article is, in general, a lengthy bit of composing that presents the writer’s debate, however the precise definition is somewhat obscure, frequently overlapping with that of a priv… Read More
2022-06-04 17:59
We’re almost halfway through the year, and I’m finally getting to my Top 5 films of 2021. Yes, it took me more than a couple of months to deal with the errors I was getting from… Read More
2022-04-14 10:51
First off, apologies for the lengthy gap between my last post and this one. I had some technical problems with my domain host, and then with WordPress, but everything is all fixed!
Here… Read More
2022-03-27 13:15
Relationships of all kinds are under fire in this batch of my Top 20. Whether it’s the complicated relationship that develops between a serial killer and an FBI analyst, a mother who w… Read More
2022-03-24 19:13
Wow… now that we’ve hit the Top 20, all these movies have made such an impression on me and are all outstanding films that i have no reservations about recommending. Cringe-come… Read More
2022-03-21 02:01
#25 – Nine Days, directed by Edson Oda (USA) – Creative, powerful and affecting, Edson Oda’s NINE DAYS takes a metaphysical approach to examine what it means to live. Will… Read More
2022-03-17 11:08
As we enter my Top 30, we get to the transition from 4 star movies to 4 1/2 star movies, and that transition takes place right at the documentaries, which anchor my 4 1/2 star movies. I admi… Read More
2022-03-02 21:21
It pains to see films that I thought would be in my Top 20 or even 10 when I saw them, barely make the Top 40. That speaks to the number of quality films I saw in 2021. And while the U.S. gr… Read More
2022-02-28 01:15
Entering the Top 40, it’s getting harder and harder to rank these films. #’s 38, 39 and 40 all should have been ranked higher, except for a few noticeable flaws that pushed them… Read More
2022-02-25 03:06
Still firmly in my 4 star films, this batch heading to the Top 40 has a doc from the US, and four non-U.S. films, one from the UK, one from Japan, one from Hong Kong, and one from Tunisia. A… Read More
2022-02-13 13:42
And now the real countdown begins. Here are my Top 50 films of 2021. All of these films received 4 stars (out of 5) or higher. It was very difficult to rank them, so on any given day the exa… Read More
2022-02-11 03:19
For the films I saw last year that were released in 2021, I split my list between films that got 4 stars out of 5 or higher, and everything else. I saw so many 2021 films last year that I en… Read More
2022-02-08 00:19
Before I get into my top films of 2021, I’m going to list all the films that didn’t quite make that list. Some of these films are pretty good, others I didn’t like at all… Read More
2022-02-05 22:18
The one or two of you reading this know that I run an independent film society, The Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film. Boston-based, but with national membership our mission is to teac… Read More
2022-01-09 14:16
My #1 book of the year comes from an author whose work I have followed pretty much since his debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of People in Love in 2007. That was actu… Read More
2022-01-08 12:58
Closing in on #1 we’ve got a couple of books whose authors are familiar with the Top 3, as both have appeared here before. Both books are written by women, both have a fantasy element… Read More
2022-01-07 13:35
My top five books this year are an interesting mix. With one being published over 40 years ago, one being published 9 years ago, one being published five years ago, and two being brand new… Read More
2022-01-06 11:44
#7 The Guncle by Steven Rowley (2021) – 76ers I find grief to be one of the richest subjects for storytelling, whether that be books, movies, TV, music, etc. Everyone reacts to grief i… Read More
2022-01-05 11:49
#9 Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album by Ken Caillat and Steven Steifeld (2012) – As we move into the Top 10, we’ve got a pair of musical books m… Read More
2022-01-04 17:10
#11 – Memorial by Bryan Washington (2020) – Washington’s first full-length novel, was an interesting read. There were times throughout the book where I grew impatient and w… Read More
2022-01-03 14:04
#13 – If I Knew Then: Finding Wisdom in Aging and Power in Failure by Jann Arden (2020) – Jann Arden is a Canadian pop star, and an accomplished writer, who has written a memoir… Read More
2022-01-02 13:58
#15 – The Odd Sea by Frederick Reiken (1998) – Reiken is a New Jersey-born author who now teaches at Emerson College. He has published three novels, the most recent of which, Day… Read More
2022-01-01 13:28
I feel good about the amount of reading I did in 2021. It has still been a strange year, with a pandemic still raging, but we did head back to working on site in June, and that meant commuti… Read More
2021-08-29 14:12
As we explore my five favorite Happy Rhodes songs, it becomes evident as to why Building the Colossus is my favorite album. In some ways it is Happy’s more accessible album, but I gues… Read More
2021-07-22 13:32
Sorry for the lengthy since my last post. Back to work in person full-time, pandemic restrictions starting to lift, a recent project where I’m filling the gaps in my movie viewing hist… Read More
2021-06-06 13:50
Closing in on the Top 10, we kick things off with a couple more songs from Equipoise, before mining Happy’s latest work, Many Worlds Are Born Tonight and Find Me. I think this is a rea… Read More
2021-05-22 12:04
As we crack the Top 20 we’re seeing a lot of Equipoise. Three songs from that album appear in this batch, with several more still to come! Not much else to unite these five songs, othe… Read More
2021-04-24 14:14
Sorry the longish break, but welcome to the newly migrated Justgiblets.com! Had to change my webhosting platform, but fortunately everything seems to have gone just fine. So we’re back… Read More
2021-04-04 12:57
It’s funny. Each time I sit down to write an entry for the next five Happy Rhodes songs on my list, I end up rearranging them a bit. It just goes to show how difficult it is to rank he… Read More
2021-03-27 15:34
As we close out the bottom ten of the Top 40 songs by Happy Rhodes, her penultimate album to date, Many Worlds are Born Tonight starts flexing its muscles with three more songs appearing. In… Read More
2021-03-13 15:16
And now we begin the list of my Happy Rhodes Top 40. I again must share who difficult it has been to rank these amazing songs, and I shift them around even as I write these descriptions. I m… Read More
2021-02-28 16:30
People occasionally ask me why I m ake lists of my favorite songs by particular artists. It’s not because I think it’s particularly interesting to anyone but me, although I do ho… Read More
2021-02-21 14:35
So many great movies were released in 2020 that I had to create a Top 40! I already posted #’s 21 – 40, and #’s 11 – 20. Now we get to my Top 10 films of 2020!
#1… Read More
2021-02-10 13:14
So many great movies were released in 2020 that I had to create a Top 40! I already posted #’s 21 – 40… here are #’s 11 – 20, and I’ll finish up with the… Read More
2021-02-07 22:31
Perhaps it’s due to the pandemic and quarantine that are forcing people to stay home, but it sure seems like there are way more really great movies that were released in 2020 than usua… Read More
2021-01-16 14:34
Perhaps it’s a little unfair to N. K. Jemisin to rank her #2 behind Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. After all, It’s my second reading of Parable, and The Obelisk Gat… Read More
2021-01-10 16:17
My #4 book of the year, hasn’t technically even been released yet. I got an advanced reader’s copy of it from Random House, and it should be released in early March of 2019. I de… Read More
2021-01-07 13:13
A couple of big literary names are featured in this entry. David Mitchell is an English author of nine novels. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Lana Wachowski, of the movie adaptation of… Read More
2021-01-05 12:38
In an effort to read more science fiction, which I hadn’t really done for a while, I asked for recommendations, and got Becky Chambers. Fun, character-driven space opera; a little diff… Read More
2021-01-03 17:22
As we enter the Top 10 books read for 2020, we’ve got an season writer, and a newcomer for me. Jo Walton has impressed me with her unique takes on science fiction, fantasy, and the cre… Read More
2021-01-01 22:34
Well, 2020 was quite a year, one like no other. In terms of my reading, I thought perhaps the the social isolation would be a boon to the number of books I read throughout the year. Unfortun… Read More
2020-12-27 14:53
And here we are, my favorite Heart songs of all time. It’s a more interesting and varied batch from multiple time periods that i would have expected. It’s also a bit mellower tha… Read More
2020-12-20 23:35
My Top 10 Heart songs. Some of the big ones… the classics… show up here. A coupe of lesser known cuts as well, but from here on out, we’re is the company of really specia… Read More
2020-12-13 14:48
As we close in on my Top 10 Heart songs, we really start cookin’ with fire (true Heart fans will get that reference.) This upper half of the Top 20 really starts to illuminate the powe… Read More
2020-12-05 18:16
As we enter the Top 20, we get an interesting mix of songs from all different points of Heart’s career. Nancy reaches her highest point on the chart with one of the songs on which she… Read More
2020-11-28 22:32
This batch is a pretty interesting mix, including a classic, a new song released on a live album, a Heart song that they re-recorded themselves, a cover song originally performed by another… Read More
2020-11-21 19:21
#30 – My Crazy Head, Desire Walks On (1993)written by Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Sue Ennis
Blending the acoustic with the electric in true Heart fashion, My Crazy Head… Read More
2020-11-15 15:28
#35 – Alone, Bad Animals (1987)written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly
For many, this is Heart. This is the band that ruled the videowaves with a power ballad that topped the Billb… Read More
2020-11-07 16:06
As we dip into the Top 40, we’ve got a bit of a mix from the 70’s, 80’s and a peek into the 90’s. We also see Nancy’s first appearance as a lead vocalist (one o… Read More
2020-10-31 14:19
Okay, now that I’ve got all my Avengers ranked it’s time to turn back to music. Like Fleetwood Mac, I discovered Heart in the 70’s, thanks to my older brother Chris. Also l… Read More
2020-10-25 22:50
In a way it’s only fitting that my Top 2 Avengers kind of came to prominence around the same time. Perhaps that because writer Steve Englehart was writing the Avengers in the 70’… Read More
2020-10-13 13:30
Here we go, down to my Top 5 Avengers, but I’m only giving you three at the moment. I will save the last two for another post. The three Avengers listed here are all characters who hav… Read More
2020-10-04 23:33
#10 – Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)Joined Avengers vol. 4 #1 (May 2010)Creators: Marie Severin; Archie Goodwin
There have been several Marvel characters who have borne the name, Spide… Read More
2020-09-20 17:07
The Avengers appearing in this group, leading up to the Top 10, are an interesting batch. We’ve got our last male Avenger to appear, and he was romantically involved with one of the wo… Read More
2020-09-06 16:39
What’s going on here? Four guys and only one woman on this section of the list? As we enter my Top 20 Avengers, that is absolutely true! I do like a lot of guy Avengers… but we… Read More
2020-08-30 12:27
Back in what I consider the Avengers hey-day, in the 70’s and early 80’s, when George Perez earned his chops and grand sagas rather than events were the driving force of this gre… Read More
2020-08-23 13:48
Keeping busy during a socially isolating pandemic means finding things to do other than watching TV. While I have been doing a lot of that, I’ve been trying to spend some time doing ot… Read More
2020-08-15 17:47
Here we are, my favorite Fleetwood Mac tracks, and it’s no surprise that this list is dominated by Christine McVie songs. I so admire her as a songwriter, as a singer, and as a musicia… Read More
2020-08-08 17:45
And here I find myself exploring my Top 10 Fleetwood Mac tracks. A couple of surprises for me, many are not surprising. The winning album is 1975’s Fleetwood Mac which scores three of… Read More
2020-08-01 23:36
As we close in on the Top 10, it’s the last time we’ll see all three of our songwriters appear. One of them is going to be locked out of the Top 10. We’ll also see a surpri… Read More
2020-07-24 15:01
It’s all about Lindsey and Christine in this batch, as we really start to explore the cream of the crop. The Top 20 is just packed with amazing songs, and it was really difficult to ge… Read More
2020-07-18 14:46
A couple of Stevie’s big hits show up just before we crack the Top 20. It seems they should be higher on this list, it’s just that Fleetwood Mac has recorded so many damn good so… Read More
2020-07-11 15:47
As we crack the Top 30, Lindsey Buckingham has a strong showing, with three songs in this next batch. The first song from 1997’s live album, The Dance also makes its first appearance i… Read More
2020-07-04 14:07
#35 – Book of Love (Buckingham; Dashut, Richard) Mirage (1982)
“Book of Love” is a pretty straightforward song about having to deal with a broken heart while your former… Read More
2020-06-27 14:21
We crack the Top 40, and after this batch, with the exception of some co-writers and non-Fleetwood Mac songwriters, we’re down to the Mac triumvirate of Buckingham/McVie/Nicks. Still… Read More
2020-06-20 15:19
As we close in on the Top 40, we have a nice assortment of songs from various eras, including Bob Welch’s sole entry in the Top 50.
#45 – Can’t Go Back (Buckingham, L.)… Read More
2020-06-16 15:22
Launching into my Top 50 Fleetwood Mac tracks, we’ve got a variety of songs from five different Mac albums. It’s a fairly diverse group, which will probably be the case all throu… Read More
2020-06-14 14:40
Fleetwood Mac from the Rumours period: John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVieYou know I like my lists! As a way to dive deep into the catalogs of one o… Read More
2020-05-25 17:19
And here we are, my favorite X-Men (or, more appropriately, X-Women.) It’s a blend of a couple of fan favorites, a long-time second-stringer, and a little used pseudo-X-Man. I tell you… Read More
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