In this week’s installment of my AOL Jobs advice column: Should you allow potential employers to view your social-media accounts? Plus, how to get more “face time” with the boss.
My Internet Radio Playlist, 2/24/15
EPISODE #169: BLIND
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Bruce Springsteen — “Blinded by the Light”
Hefner — “Blind Girl With Halo”
Etta James — “I’d Rather Go Blind”
Sonny Boy Williamson II — “Born Blind”
Built to Spill — “Temporarily Blind”
Dramarama — “Goin’ Blind”
Prisonshake — “Go Blind”
Hercules & Love Affair — “Blind”
Talking Heads — “Blind”
Echo & the Bunnymen — “Make Us Blind”
Echo Lake — “Even the Blind”
The Manhattan Love Suicides — “Dazzle the Blind”
The Hive Dwellers — “Blind in One Eye”
The Incredible Casuals — “Blind World”
broadcast live from Hoboken, NJ, on “Jack’s Aquarium”
Tuesday, 2/24/15, 10:00-11:15 a.m. eastern time
The Special without Brett Davis, Episode 2
Last night I made my debut on The Special without Brett Davis on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network. This video is, as the kids say, “Not Safe for Work,” but it does include some very funny stuff and a couple of rockin’ tunes from New Brunswick’s Glazer.
Movie Review: The Imitation Game
3.5 stars out of 5
Alan Turing had entered my life twice before. In a required philosophy lecture course in my freshman year of college, we used a piece of software called “Turing’s World.” (Yep, it was such a geeky school, there were even computers in philosophy class.) Then, more than a decade later, my buddy Jerry Fuchs (R.I.P.) was the drummer in a band called Turing Machine.
And there were other drips and drabs about Turing that sunk in over the years: He was gay, he was arrested. Maybe something about World War II. Still, there was a lot for me to learn from The Imitation Game.
There is an educational feel to the movie, almost as if it was made for a high-school-aged audience. (A fairly progressive high school, anyway.) And while that means the film lacks some of the nuances that could raise it to true greatness, the straightforward style allows any viewer to fully take in a really important historical and personal story.
Benedict Cumberbatch is superb as Alan Turing. Of the nominated best actors, he and Steve Carrell gave the strongest performances, in my humble estimation. (And wouldn’t you know, the buzz is that those are the only two guys who don’t have a chance to win.) It’s a shame that Big Bang Theory exists, because I couldn’t help but think “Oh, Turing’s a bit like Sheldon.” But Cumberbatch is capable of things that Jim Parsons is not, and his Alan Turing is by turns confident and vulnerable (fragile, even), cold and caring, nasty and… well, kind of nice. And he’s a textbook awkward genius — a visionary.
Second-best actor in the movie? Young Alex Lawther as young Alan Turing! Though the film is generally “first A happened, then B, then C,” it also effectively flashes both back and forward. In the past scenes, Lawther brilliantly portrays the child-who-is-father-to-the-man: a stuttering, ashamed boy, suddenly flush with hope and feelings for a brighter future.
Keira Knightley, we all know how I feel about her, and she’s charming as ever as Joan Clarke. But more importantly — you know what, maybe I should take this movie around to high schools — Knightley presents Clarke as a wonderful role model for young girls, especially with modern society’s half-baked assumptions about teen girls’ relationship with math and science.
Other actors here do decent if unremarkable work. Charles Dance is unable to prevent his commanding officer character from being a paint-by-numbers mean guy in charge. (“Stop it with your cleverness, this is the military! I’m going to shut this program down!”)
Ooh, do you watch Black Mirror? The prime minister dude from the first episode, he’s in this, so that’s cool.
A late scene with Cumberbatch and Knightley gets a little bit too “tell” instead of “show.” (“You’ve really had a wonderful life, Alan Turing!”) But it’s rescued by some of that pre-credit text, bringing us up to date on the true story — that stuff punched me in the gut. Quite a guy, that Alan Turing. And a helpful reminder to me to finally pick up Turning Machine’s 2012 album.
Ask Jack: Awake at Work, Interview Guilt, and Job of the Week
In this week’s installment of my AOL Jobs advice column: Hints to stay awake when you’re sleepy at the office. Plus: Ever feel guilty sneaking away for a job interview?
My Internet Radio Playlist, 2/17/15
EPISODE #168: BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2015 (BLACK & BLUES)
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Charley Patton — “Shake It and Break It”
Bessie Smith — “Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair”
Son House — “Preachin’ the Blues” (pt. 1)
Robert Johnson — “Cross Road Blues”
Mississippi John Hurt — “Avalon Blues”
John Lee Hooker — “Boogie Chillen”
Memphis Minnie — “Pig Meat on the Line”
B.B. King — “You Upset Me Baby”
Sonny Boy Williamson II — “Nine Below Zero”
Blind Willie Johnson — “If I Had My Way I’d Tear the Building Down”
T-Bone Walker — “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)”
Lightnin’ Hopkins — “Katie Mae Blues”
Muddy Waters — “I Can’t Be Satisfied”
Howlin’ Wolf — “Moanin’ at Midnight”
Willie Dixon — “Walking the Blues”
Elmore James — “The Sky Is Crying”
Buddy Guy — “First Time I Met the Blues”
broadcast live from Hoboken, NJ, on “Jack’s Aquarium”
Tuesday, 2/17/15, 10:00-11:15 a.m. eastern time
Ask Jack: Veto Valentines, Application Tweets, Job of the Week
In this week’s installment of my AOL Jobs advice column: Is it OK to give someone a Valentine in the office? Plus, from our ever-growing Annoying Application Requests file — “sell yourself” in Tweet length!
Movie Review: Whiplash
3 stars out of 5
This is a movie that thinks it is much better than it is. And I have to imagine that everybody heaping praise and awards on J.K. Simmons just never saw him as Vern Schillinger (hard G, thank you!) on OZ. Not that he doesn’t give a great performance in Whiplash, but come on, playing a sadistic motherfucker is a walk in the park for Simmons.
It happened with American Sniper and happened again here: I expected a different movie than I got. Sure, I’ll take a lot of the responsibility for that. But the movie that I wanted would’ve been better.
What I anticipated from Whiplash: the tale of a musician stretched to the absolute limits—and then some—to achieve genuine greatness, and the deep psychological wounds endured in the process. Ooh, and then we could apply this story to anyone’s chosen field, when perfection becomes obsession, at the expense of all else. And so, while we’d get the unique ins-and-outs of being an academically-trained musician, a lot of other people could relate to the movie as well. Hooray!
“Now wait a #^$&@&*@ second, Jack,” you might be thinking, “I saw this movie, and what you described is exactly what takes place, you stupid moron. And also, how come YOU get to swear in the opening paragraph, but all I get is a string of keyboard symbols?”
Here’s the thing: Just as Simmons’ teacher character wants Miles Teller’s drumming-student to really PUSH through to a whole other level, I wanted the movie to also break on through to the other side. But that doesn’t happen. And why? Because writer/director… hmmm, I want to say Dave Chapelle? Nope, that’s not it… doesn’t trust his subject matter! Maybe he was worried it would be too boring. So, onto this seemingly smart, little film (I mean, come on, it’s a “Sony Pictures Classic” fer crissakes), he melds a mind-bendingly dumb thriller. Simmons becomes a total cartoon character. And two thirds of the way through (thanks a #^@&@!*@ lot, Syd Field) (oh great now I’m doing it too), there is a RIDICULOUSLY IDIOTIC scene that completely took me out of the story. Goodbye, believability! Au revoir!
Simmons, solid. Teller, solid. Paul Reiser as the dad? Hey, he was fantastic in Diner but at this point he’s a bit too sitcom’d out to seem very real.
Also unfortunately missing: the absolute, always reliable joy of music. Or if that is here, it’s buried way too far down in the mix.
My Internet Radio Playlist, 2/10/15
EPISODE #167: VALENTINE’S DAY 2015
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Elvis Costello — “My Funny Valentine”
Liz Phair — “Valentine”
The Replacements — “Valentine”
Nils Lofgren w/ Bruce Springsteen — “Valentine”
The School — “Valentine”
David Bowie — “Valentine’s Day”
Steve Earle — “Valentine’s Day”
Elton John & Leon Russell — “I Should’ve Sent Roses”
Sleater-Kinney — “Buy Her Candy”
Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers — “Please Be Mine”
The Hive Dwellers — “Baby Be Mine”
The Spinners — “Cupid/I’ve Loved You for a Long Time”
Deena — “I Will Never Be Your Valentine”
Tom Waits — “Blue Valentines”
Billy Bragg — “The Fourteenth of February”
broadcast live from Hoboken, NJ, on “Jack’s Aquarium”
Tuesday, 2/10/15, 10:00-11:10 a.m. eastern time
Ask Jack: Time Burglars, Interview Waiting, Job of the Week
In this week’s installment of my AOL Jobs advice column: Are coworkers stealing your precious time? How about hiring managers?
Jack Silbert, curator