Entertainment Archive

Bob Dylan: The Philosophy of Modern Song - GUEST BUTLER CHARLES WARNER is a retired college professor, author, and blogger at MediaCurmudgeon.com.  He is the Goldenson Chair Emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and taught for

HeadButler.com: The 100 Essentials - A book? It was time. Also probably time for a coffee mug and a t-shirt. What stops me? I just can’t imagine running into someone on the street wearing my

Kevin Costner: As he was then, so he is now. - SUPPORTING BUTLER: You can become a patron of this site, and automatically donate any amount you please — starting with $1 — each month. The service that enables this is

Life isn’t everything: Mike Nichols, as remembered by 150 of his closest friends. - “Men are divided into two groups,” a friend of Mike Nichols says on the first page of this book. “There are guys who want to be Babe Ruth, and

Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra - "Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra,” is my favorite tell-all. George Jacobs was Sinatra’s live-in valet from 1953 to 1968. He wrote his memoir with the help of veteran

Prine on Prine: Interviews and Encounters with John Prine - John Prine was hanging out at an open mic in a Chicago club, more or less minding his own business, maybe heckling just a little, when someone turned and asked

Snow Day Reading - The Kindle was made for Snow Days. Many will work from home today, and all praise to those good souls. But at some point even the obsessively dedicated will be

The Big Goodbye: ‘Chinatown’ and the Last Years of Hollywood - Several readers have asked if there's an American film I value as highly as the films of the Iranian Asghar Farahadi or the Italian Bernardo Bertolucci or....but you get the

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music - I want you to stop your life and watch what is easily the best video of the year. The scene is a tribute concert, honoring Taylor Hawkins, who was the

The Sun & The Moon & The Rolling Stones - You don’t care about The Rolling Stones? Read this book anyway. Were you sentient when Kennedy was assassinated? Then you watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and, later, the

The Vintage Guide to Classical Music - My early memories of classical music are of scratchy wool pants and of throwing up before --- and after --- my violin lessons. Then we moved to another state. My

The World of Downton Abbey - Americans loved the first season of “Downton Abbey” so much you would have thought it was on HBO. Seriously. The four episodes of Season 1 drew, on average, 4.9 million viewers; PBS

Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives - Until 2013, there was a separate category for female country singers. Now the award is gender-free. And for the first time, all of the nominees were female. You would not