Stories by Philip Martin

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Whistler's Other WASHINGTON, D.C. -- At the tag end of a hot Monday afternoon, we entered the Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery, which focuses on Asian art. With only 30 minutes until closing time, I halfway exp... July 25, 2021

OPINION | NEW MOVIES: 'Jam' good way to get out of heat We were in Washington earlier this week and had a few hours to kill on an afternoon with temperatures climbing into the 90s. So we bought tickets and watched "Space Jam: A New Legacy" at the Regal Gal... July 23, 2021

OPINION | REVIEW: 'Joe Bell' There is a stolid earnestness to Reinaldo Marcus Green's "Joe Bell" that, in a way, inoculates it from harsh criticism. If you know the true story behind the film, I need to say no more -- we won't s... July 23, 2021

ON FILM Philip Martin’s On Film video column will return next week. July 23, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Not even sinister There is an ol' boy I follow on Facebook. He's a man of faith. He believes the Restoration of the Once and Future President is coming, and that in a year all those who were suckered into being vaccin... July 20, 2021

OPINION | ON BOOKS: Essays explore race from a mixed perspective When Savala Nolan was a student at New York University, she worked for an agency that supplied household help to wealthy families. In her first essay collection "Don't Let It Get You Down: Essays on R... July 18, 2021

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: Remembering music from 'Diner,' 'Famous' Maintaining a music library is a hobby, like collecting baseball cards or stamps. Digital streaming platforms have made music a utility, akin to water, gas and electricity. Pay your monthly subscripti... July 18, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: End of the hayride You can wear out your heart on the thin roads of southwest Louisiana amid the palmetto groves and the silvered shacks and the empty poverty of all the dying little towns. I used to live in one of tho... July 18, 2021

OPINION | REVIEW: ‘Pig' a character study, a surprising artwork People do things for money. There are reasons to believe that Nicolas Cage does a lot of movies for money; if we assume the stories about him are true (always a dangerous assumption), he needs to kee... July 16, 2021

'Space Jam,' 'Escape Room' sans reviews Pauline Kael used to take summers off. I understand the impulse. We worked hard to get a review of "Space Jam: A New Legacy" in the newspaper this week, but Warner Bros. wasn't having it. So far, the... July 16, 2021

ON FILM Watch Philip Martin’s On Film column at: arkansasonline.com/onfilm716 wLUVgd2vnhc [Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLUVgd2vnhc] July 16, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Taking the (click) bait "Ninety-five percent of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs." That's the headline on an Insider--formerly Business Insider--story that popped up on social media news feeds last week. I wa... July 13, 2021

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: On Stevie Wonder and the 'Summer of Soul' There is a perspective distortion that comes with looking backward. Stevie Wonder was 19 on July 20, 1969, when he walked onstage at the Harlem Cultural Festival, an event that would be lost to legen... July 11, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Incident on Parker Street In my younger and less settled days, I had some unlikely friends. Some of these friends enjoyed confrontation. They liked to fight. And I mean "fight," not argue. It often seemed like they looked fo... July 11, 2021

ON FILM Watch Philip Martin’s On Film column at: arkansasonline.com/onfilm79 BJiCknvQeKU [Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJiCknvQeKU] July 9, 2021

OPINION | NEW MOVIES: Making Joe Buck for 'Cowboy' Harrison Ford auditioned for the part of Joe Buck in "Midnight Cowboy." I thought about that when we rewatched 1969's Best Picture Oscar winner the other night. It might have worked, and the universe... July 9, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Summertime blues The marketers would have us believe summer is some kind of reprieve, a time for guilt-free mindlessness when we are licensed to read dumb books and watch dumb movies (as if we need their permission to... July 6, 2021

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: 'Red River' is the not-great American Odyssey Montgomery Clift looked a lot like Tom Cruise. Before the accident, I mean, before he fell asleep at the wheel after leaving that party at Elizabeth Taylor's house and slammed his car into a telephon... July 4, 2021

OPINION | ON BOOKS: Halfway into 'Francis Bacon: Revelations' It's July 4 which, the way Americans do things, is high summer. Beach time. I could get away with a throw-down summer reading column now. Maybe I should. Because I'm still only about halfway into "Fr... July 4, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Thomas and Phillis "I am human: I consider nothing human alien to me." -- Terence (Publius Terentius Afer), "The Self-Tormentor," 165 B.C. Thomas Jefferson did not like Phillis Wheatley. He was not entirely a man of ... July 4, 2021

ON FILM Watch Philip Martin’s On Film column at: arkansasonline.com/72onfilm -Z9dDUMfIJY [Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z9dDUMfIJY] July 2, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: The next normal I don't know about you, but my life has never been normal. I used to work on a typewriter, then switched to these ungainly seven-ton "word processors" that were mounted on Lazy Susans so we could swi... June 29, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Bullet time In the movies they call it "bullet time." That's when, just as the throwing stars zing and roundhouse kicks whip 'round heads, time slows down for you, the hero of your story. In this frozen moment ... June 27, 2021

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: On the Sparks brothers — our music blind spots We all have gaps and blind spots. And, like Donald Rumsfeld said, there are things we don't know we don't know. I didn't know about the Los Angeles-based band Sparks, though I thought I knew enough.... June 27, 2021

Home movies column evolves to streamers There's no OnFilm video this week because I look terrible. I am perfectly fine, but I wrecked my bike and landed on my face. That cost me about seven hours of working time, but otherwise I'm all stit... June 25, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: To catch a 'Thief' On Nov. 3, 1994, police in Oak Brook, Ill., outside Chicago, were called about a vending machine break-in at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. An employee said he'd seen two men running from the hotel with sus... June 22, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: A total of 13,476 days My father died at 8:27 a.m. on Friday, July 28, 1984. I know it was a Friday because normally it would have been one of my days off, but for some reason I was working that morning. I had made my roun... June 20, 2021

OPINION | SPIRITS: Taking a shine The Drinkies Desk lost its authentic moonshine source in November when Dave Bowen — Eagle Scout, licensed United States Coast Guard captain with an Assistances Towing Endorsement, television pro... June 20, 2021

OPINION | ON BOOKS: 'Panic'— Slanderous anecdotes Fred Otash, the protagonist (not to say hero) of James Ellroy's latest novel, was a real guy. He was an infamous Hollywood fixer, the sort who brokered deals between agents of movie stars and gossip ... June 20, 2021

'Gaia' The opening shot of South African director Jaco Bouwer's "Gaia" is stunning. We are given a god's -- or drone's -- view of a primordial forest canopy cut by a river. The drone descends and follows th... June 18, 2021

Dent's life great idea for a film If you follow football to any extent at all, you've probably read some of Harry James "Jim" Dent's work. For years, he was a sportswriter; he covered the Dallas Cowboys for the Fort Worth Star-Telegr... June 18, 2021

ON FILM Watch Philip Martin’s On Film column at: arkansasonline.com/618onfilm 3lI2Z4U1bnk [Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lI2Z4U1bnk] June 18, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Sticking to surface roads We were warned. Some friends had made the trip to and from Bentonville a few days before we left; they told us about the construction starting around the 45-mile marker on Interstate 40 eastbound and... June 15, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: A great-granddaughter tends to memory Americans are not by nature a backward-looking people. The past is not a place you can go or a sensation you can experience; it's as fragile as memory, and if you have no memory of an event, it simpl... June 13, 2021

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: Ringo — from man to myth, back again Johnny Ringo was sick of it. In 1864, when he was 14 years old, his family moved from Indiana to San Jose, Calif. On July 30 while crossing the country by wagon train, his father, Martin Ringo, had a... June 13, 2021

'Rabbit 2' finally out, now what? There's a place for inoffensive family films that rarely rise above a sort of baseline cuteness I suppose. Or maybe not. In any case, I can't work up any sort of rancor over the release of "Peter Rab... June 11, 2021

ON FILM Watch Philip Martin’s On Film column at: arkansasonline.com/611onfilm wUPIeEYqz58 [Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPIeEYqz58] June 11, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Want to be happy? I've just read this year's "World Happiness Report," which is "written by a group of independent experts acting in their personal capacities." Which means that "any views expressed in the report do n... June 8, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Naomi Osaka's beautiful pain We don't know anything about tennis champion Naomi Osaka's pain. Being famous and having money and living what people who don't know you believe is an enviable life doesn't insulate you from misery. ... June 6, 2021

OPINION | NEW MOVIES: As theaters reopen across U.S., studios release their big (and small) films to moviegoers Summer, with its usual array of superhero films, putative blockbusters, sequels and star vehicles, has never been my favorite movie season, but I sure missed it last year. Normality is flooding back,... June 4, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: About a girl We don't know much about the girl. Reports say Sarah, which may or may not have been her name, was 17 years old, but she might have been as young as 15. She had only recently arrived in Tulsa; maybe ... June 1, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: A town of our own There's only one good thing about a small town You know that you want to get out. -- Lou Reed, "Small Town" Some people like to go on about small-town values. They talk about how people in small t... May 30, 2021

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: Bob nod — Dylan is now 80 and we can't believe it Bob Dylan turned 80 years old last week. Some people will tell you they are astounded by this, because just yesterday (when they were young) he was a-snarlin' and a-smirkin' and changin' the times. H... May 30, 2021

The results of what we have seen We got hooked on the HBO miniseries "Mare of Easttown." We are, as they say, "highly anticipating" Sunday night's finale. (Of course, in our case, highly anticipating probably means we won't see it u... May 28, 2021

ON FILM Watch Philip Martin’s OnFilm column at: arkansasonline.com/528onfilm Bw095w8_HiA [Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw095w8_HiA] May 28, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Terminal velocity Time is different when you're old. They say it moves faster, as each moment represents a smaller and smaller part of the whole. And that's true, she thinks; the past 20 years have gone by in a rush. ... May 25, 2021

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: John Wayne film collection worth the price On May 11, Paramount Home Video released a product called "John Wayne 14-Movie Collection," which consists of movies from 1953's "Hondo" to Wayne's last performance in Don Siegel's "The Shootist" (197... May 23, 2021

OPINION | ON BOOKS: 'Strength' is to let go of the self We are divided, all of us. You are in my head, attending as I write these words. You have traveled back in time a few days, or maybe months or even years if you have come upon this piece in an electr... May 23, 2021

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: How to fix baseball It's become a familiar mantra: Major League Baseball is becoming unwatchable. For a baseball traditionalist, the game reached an Aristotelian ideal around 1970. There were just under nine hits in a g... May 23, 2021

OPINION | REVIEW: ‘Final Account’ documents now-elderly Germans’ memories of the Holocaust Luke Holland died last June. He was a 71-year-old maker of documentaries and so obscure an artist that, unlike his namesake (a 27-year-old metalcore drummer who plays in Jeremy Renner's band) he does... May 21, 2021