Review: 'And in the End: The Last Days of The Beatles'

After providing so much joy for the world, The Beatles went out in a morass of misery. There were the acrimonious management disputes, the publishing problems, the power struggles, the interpersonal irritations, the hard drug problems, and the weird and disruptive romantic relationships. Also, apparently, Paul was dead. All in all, 1969 was not a happy year for The Beatles.

Review: 'The Ox: The Authorized Biography of The Who’s John Entwistle'

One of the many things that made The Who so unique is that each member of the band had such a distinct and iconic personality. Consequently, Pete the Genius, Roger the Tough Guy, and Keith the Madman have all been the topics of multiple biographies. As the Quiet One, John Entwistle had not. Had he been, the flimsiness of that oft-used label may be better known. Entwistle may have been a man of few words and the one member of The Who who refrained from leaping around on stage, but he was also the most enduring Rock & Roll animal in the group. He remained a restless, relentless partier, an incorrigible spender seemingly dedicated to materialism above all else, and a serial philanderer right up until his death in 2002.

Psychobabble’s Favorite Year at the Movies: 1968!

A somewhat recent trend in cinema studies finds writers naming their choice for the best year in movies and penning full-length arguments to back up their picks. There have been a couple of books arguing in favor of the year of The Wizard of Oz  (yay!) and Gone with the Wind (gag!). I have not read Charles F. Adams’s 1939: The Making of Six Great Films from Hollywood’s Greatest Year or Thomas S. Hischak’s 1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year, though I have read and reviewed Brian Rafferty’s Best. Movie. Year.Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen and Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan’s Cinema ’62. I enjoyed both of those books very much even though I do not share the respective writers’ opinions that 1999 or 1962 are cinema’s best years. They did get me thinking about my personal choice, though, and let’s be honest, all of these books are nothing if not expressions of their writers’ personal tastes. I’ve settled on 1968.