Subscriber Exclusive
OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Retiring thoughts
Someone asked me the other day if I had plans to retire.
Stories by Philip Martin
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Subscriber ExclusiveONBOOKS | OPINION: Maybe I’ve been unfairly judging baseball novelist Tunis
There is a book I'm hunting -- "Buddy and the Old Pro" by John R. Tunis, originally published in 1955.
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Great Movies essays return to past reviews and updates them
I'm planning on occasionally turning this space over to essays about Great Movies, for the same reasons that Ebert found time to write his biweekly series.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Can’t stop, won’t stop
SHREVEPORT -- My mother is 87 years old.
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Subscriber ExclusivePINION | PHILIP MARTIN: So long, Joe
Back in 2020, I said newly elected President Joe Biden should do two things. First, announce he was a caretaker president who would not seek a second term.
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Subscriber ExclusiveFIVE QUESTIONS | OPINION: Five questions with impresario/front man Danny Grace
Rock performers are never merely musicians. They are to a greater or lesser extent also actors playing characters they have invented. Rock audiences do not com…
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: ‘Presumed Innocent’ gets second season so no cliffhanger here
"We do a little justice, rather than none at all."
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Where are you, Mrs. Robinson?
Last week I screened Mike Nichols' 1967 film "The Graduate" for my LifeQuest of Arkansas class.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Playing the margins
I am a casual tennis fan. I know the big names who win major tournaments, but don't spend much time watching matches. I haven't paid much attention to the spor…
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Subscriber ExclusiveCRITICAL MASS | OPINION: James Baldwin at 100
If love will not swing wide the gates, no other power will or can.
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Lennon’s ‘Mind Games’ gets treatment on 50th anniversary
It has been 51 years since John Lennon's fourth album "Mind Games" was released, but I imagine the people behind the just-released "new remixed and expanded" e…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: As American as cherry pie
"History is not the past. History is the present. We carry our history with us. To think otherwise is criminal."
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: The passion of Mattias Behr
In the very early '80s, a coach who'd seen me playing intramural basketball recruited me for his fencing club.
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ONBOOKS | OPINION: Kevin Barry’s word-drunk and woozy ‘The Heart in Winter’
I am a language guy.
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Workplace comedy ‘The Bear’ shows us compromise is necessary
Television shows aren't necessarily meant to make us think about our lives.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Rikki’s paws
What Karen says is true: Rikki adores me.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: The end of shame
In retrospect, it wasn't difficult to understand what happened.
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Subscriber ExclusiveCRITICAL MASS | OPINION: Talkin’ ’bout my generation: ‘Purple Rain’ 40 years on
"Purple Rain," which introduces Prince, the rising young rock performer, to theatrical films, is probably the flashiest album cover ever to be released as a mo…
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: 2024 could be a good movie year after all
The idea is that by the end of the year, when I vote in the Southeastern Film Critics Association poll and write my end-of-the-year essay on the year in film, …
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: What’s become of goat tracks?
We drove past the old War Memorial golf course the other evening on our way home from fetching some restaurant take-away.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: The necessity of failing better
A couple of weeks ago I sat on my couch and watched golfer Rory McIlroy choke away the U.S. Open.
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Subscriber ExclusiveONBOOKS | OPINION: Eli Cranor’s latest crime-thriller novel violent but nuanced
He writes a lot about craft and process, and understands that what he's done with his first three novels, "Don't Know Tough," "Ozark Dogs" and the about-to-be-…
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Robert Shaw, Lincoln Kirstein and ‘Glory’
One of the greatest war movies of all time, Edward Zwick's "Glory" has just been released, for the first time, in a "limited edition, 4K Ultra HD edition."
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OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: One of us
The lie is that it’s hard.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: When Prince didn’t open for the Stones
A DVD copy of Prince's "Purple Rain" arrived in the mail the other day, an UltraHD Blu-ray prepared for the film's 40th anniversary next month. I was happy to …
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Subscriber ExclusiveCRITICAL MASS | OPINION: Ann Powers goes looking for Joni Mitchell
In this business, which is given to recurrence and seasonality, it is easy to fall into hackdom, an occupational hazard that some of us wear lightly.
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Jeff Nichols’ ‘Bikeriders’ investigates the twilight
I first encountered Danny Lyon's book of photos and essays -- more soundbites than essays -- "The Bikeriders" shortly after it was published in 1968.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Mr. Clutch
I peaked as an athlete when I was in sixth grade.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Shortstop’s Son Redux
I don't believe blood is destiny.
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Subscriber Exclusive‘Best books’ picks 2024: So many books, such low energy
We are halfway through 2024, and as usual, I am far behind in intended reading.
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES: The splendid isolation of singer James Taylor
I didn't review James Taylor when he last played here in August 2014.
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OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Missing the parade
I missed the SoMa Pride Street Festival and Parade at the beginning of the month.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Our history with history
When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school,
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Subscriber ExclusiveCRITICAL MASS | OPINION: ‘Drops of God’ is about more than a wine-fueled contest
I'm very much enjoying the Apple TV+ series "Drops of God," which, while it's been out for a year, popped up on my recommended list. In a time when some people…
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POPNOTES | COLUMN: You better, you better, you best
I've recently read a couple of columns in other Arkansas newspapers that struck me as strange; the writers lamented the shortcomings of other writers of newspa…
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REVIEW | OPINION: In ‘Hit Man,’ Richard Linklater mixes screwball comedy with more serious matters
"Hit Man" might be characterized as a romantic comedy with some dark overtones, with a rising young star (Glen Powell) falling for a damsel in distress (Adria …
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Facing reality
In October 2016, I was trying to get Bill Pruitt to go on the record.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Small repair to justice
I've talked to a few men who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948: Riley Stewart, a coach and vice principal at my high school; Buck O'Neill, whom Ken…
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Subscriber ExclusiveONBOOKS | OPINION: Summer reading comes with rise of summer vacations
In early 1868, William Henry Harrison Murray, the 29-year-old pastor of Boston's Park Street Church, began a series of Sunday evening lectures in a local music…
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Summer’s here and the time is right for squirmin’ in the seats
A lot of us have had our lives changed, if not saved, by a song or a book or a movie, by some made-up story that plays out in our minds. Most of us know how ha…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Good cop, bad cop
It bothers me when people talk about certain jobs like they are holy vocations.
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: ‘Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior’ is pure spectacle and motion
My life fades, my vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. Most of all, I remember the man we c…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Lyrics, poetry, and prose
a song is anything that can walk by itself/i am called a songwriter. a poem is a naked person ... some people say that i am a poet
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Suit yourself
"Clothing is a wonderful doorway that most easily leads you to the heart of an individual; it's the way they reveal themselves."
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | CRITICAL MASS: It’s not Taylor Swift … it’s me
I dutifully downloaded a copy of Taylor Swift's latest album "The Tortured Poets Department," intending to write about it.
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POPNOTES | OPINION: ‘Sugarcane’ a witness to atrocities of genocide at mission schools
Warm, elliptic and sad, Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat's 2023 documentary "Sugarcane" is an artful film made in the shadow of genocide.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: To the class of 2024
It looks like a lot of members of the class of 2024 will be denied commencement pomp and foolery. I don't see much wrong with that. So you miss the opportunity…
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Subscriber ExclusiveFIVE QUESTIONS: Bill Jones, keeper of the flame for Classics Illustrated
For more than 30 years, Little Rock writer William Bryan Jones, Jr. -- known to friends and in early bylines as "Bill" -- has been embarked on a work of cultur…
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