You take a train to Penn Station, make a left onto Seventh Avenue and fight uptown through the crowds until you hit the TKTS line at 47th Street. You wait on what used to be the Howard Johnson’s side but which is now the Roxy side. You figure you’ll be on line for an hour or so and you inch forward. You and your companion take turns moving up front to check the board, which used to be narrow signs slid into slots but now is LED’s. You lament the fact that the shows you want to see the most are not up there. Too new. 

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Tags: Broadway Fred by Fred Siegel
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Elevators can be scary places, especially when that elevator music is playing.  But when the lights start flickering, the elevator gets stuck between floors and you are trapped with strangers and possibly Satan, a new level of terror sets in. Less is more in the taut 80 minute Devil, produced and based on a short story by M. Night Shyamalan. The film is tense, chilling and satisfying. And it is fun. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie by Gail D. Rosen
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I like many types of music, ranging from Russian monophonic chant to Gothic German techno-metal to screechy avant-garde nonsense. My beard, however — well that’s a different story. His tastes are very specific, quite rarefied and were formed mostly in the first half of the 1970s, ending shortly after I was born. He likes droning, ambient noise, stuff that suggests the depths of space, or a long, slow descent into madness. [Read more →]

Tags: ends & odd, music by Daniel Kalder
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The nightmare I’m about to describe starts out like any other evening: You’re lying in bed after a long day, enjoying a glass of pinot grigio and flipping channels on the television. That’s when you see one. Dark, round, and virulent-looking. And just as quickly, it’s gone. Wait, are your eyes playing tricks on you? But no, for there is another. And another. And…another. You start to sweat, you start to cry, you jump up off the bed and battle the urge to burn the whole house down. Alas, it is too late. You’ve been infested, and the innocence you once knew is now gone. No, dear readers, I am not talking about bedbugs. I speak of the Kardashians. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Meg gives advice to famous people by Meg Boyle
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I spend a lot of time trying to hide something, but I might as well come clean here. I have these slightly creepy, longish fingernails on my right hand. You can uncurl the top lip a little. It’s not like I am lounging on a gilded, wing-backed settee in a robe and grinning while scratching the top of a sleepy Persian cat’s head with three inches of talon. They’re just a little beyond the ends of my fingers. I play the classical guitar and the nails are how you get good sound on nylon strings. Still, it looks weird from the uninformed perspective. In the end, my nail issue sums up an awkward situation for the unknown artist in our society. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo by Chris Matarazzo
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A group calling itself the Jerks Who Want to Tell You How to Raise Your Kids Because Your Kids are Obviously Too Stupid to Think for Themselves Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission complaining about a new show called “Zevo-3,” which is about a bunch of superheroes who wear shoes.

They’re not complaining about the fact that the show promotes an unhealthy view of the world by suggesting that all kids need to succeed is superpowers (think about what that will do to the self-esteem of the literally thousands of children who go without superpowers every day); no, what they’re in an uproar about is the fact that these totally unrealistic superhero characters wear a specific brand of shoe. [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting, television by Ricky Sprague
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I don’t have a clue what determines if something is acceptable on television these days. Clearly wardrobe malfunctions where a boob happens to come flying out in the middle of a Superbowl half-time show is not. We know that’ll get you a hefty fine and will force live shows to broadcast on a delay.

However, clear sexual innuendo on television is, apparently, just fine. The other night I decided not to fast forward though the commercials and watched the AXE commercial below. I immediately rewound it so I could watch it again… and again… and again. I turned to my husband and asked him, “how many guys do you think are whacking off to this commercial right now?”

The 12 seconds of silence while the host of the show circulates the two [golf] balls in her hand and then says “Wow, I can play with these balls all day” had to be the most sexually charged. But below I pulled out some other highlights… [Read more →]

Tags: television by Amy Boshnack
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We’ve moved on, right? We’re not still lying in bed at night trying to figure out ways to get in with the cool kids, right? Peer pressure is just an unpleasant memory from the past. Now, we can teach our kids to avoid the riptides under popular currents and to do their own thing. Right? If this is all true, then can someone please tell me what a “guilty pleasure” is? [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, language & grammar by Chris Matarazzo
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Despite interesting characters and strong performances, Never Let Me Go is disappointing. Aside from the unoriginal and implausible plot points, this film fails to examine the issues it raises. Despite some early promise in the first half of the film, the characters (and the audience) never really take that emotional journey necessary for a satisfying film. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
2 Comments »

A nasty cold kept me from my advice-giving duties last week and wow, did my immune system choose one hell of a week to crash and burn like the Hindenburg. Those crazy celebrities are just running wild out there like this is Lord of the Flies! There are simply too many wayward celebs who need my guidance this week and so I give you…Meg Gives Advice to Famous People: The Lightning Round. And…go!! [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Meg gives advice to famous people by Meg Boyle
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I concluded probably the best summer concert series of my life seeing Pavement this past Friday night at the Mann Center in Philadelphia. I have gushed about the Mann before — I couldn’t be more excited that they had a string of great shows there. It’s a wonderful venue — a great tailgate area (you park in Fairmount Park), a unique building with fantastic sound, and not to mention they sell Yards Philly Pale Ale inside for a rather reasonable amount.  [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, music by Marty O'Connor
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Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson goes into previews September 20 and when it does I can proudly say I contributed to a Broadway musical. Others made bigger contributions to the show (already hailed as the best of the season by the New York Times and Rolling Stone). Alex Timbers wrote and directed it. Michael Friedman created the score. Anne Davison made countless editorial and production advisements over a period of six years. Also, there are producers who raised the millions to finance it, assorted designers who collaborated on the staging, and actors who actually perform it (notably lead Ben Walker, who is the rare man to turn down a role in the X-Men series and get engaged to a daughter of Meryl Streep before the age of 30). It features my input nonetheless and you’ll know you’ve reached it when you hear absolutely nothing. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment by Sean Cunningham
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George Clooney shines in the moody thriller/character study The American. I would have liked more background, or any background on the characters, but this film eschews those explanations. The American is quiet and intense, although some may find the pace a tad slow. But this film kept me guessing at times and jumping at other times. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie by Gail D. Rosen
6 Comments »

Lady GaGa is famous in large part because she wears provocative clothing in public. It is part of her persona, and her occupation is her persona. She is not just a singer and songwriter. She is a performer, who is “on” all the time, whose very life is a sort of “performance art.”

For instance, here she is at Heathrow airport:

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Tags: art & entertainment, ends & odd by Ricky Sprague
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This week, I am getting super nostalgic with fall in the air. And I have a quick note about the Video Music Awards, and some disgust over the HBO show Entourage. [Read more →]

Tags: music, television by Marty O'Connor
1 Comment »

The first half of this film seemed funny and promising.  When Kevin Kline appeared, the film got funnier. But at the halfway point of this 105 minute film, the plot began to unravel and by the end of The Extra Man, I no longer cared about these characters. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
2 Comments »

We don’t normally acknowledge famous birthdays here at When Falls, but we should. And today we do. September 7th is the late Eazy E’s birthday. Eazy E (given name Eric Wright) was the founder of the seminal rap group NWA, and subsequently, the founder of gangster rap music.

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Tags: art & entertainment, music by Robert O'Hara
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Do you remember the indie horror film “The Blair Witch Project”? Remember how frustrating it was to watch the three victims make stupid mistake after stupid mistake? And remember the end of the film when they found that abandoned house in the woods and, exercising no common sense whatsoever, actually went inside? Remember how by that point you were so annoyed with the whole thing that instead of shouting “Girl, don’t go in there!” you shook your head and said “They deserve whatever they’re going to get.”? If you do remember, well, then you know exactly how I feel about Kat Von D dating Jesse James. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Meg gives advice to famous people by Meg Boyle
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Ok, I am going to admit, I’ve been a naughty blogger. So I want to start by apologizing for my lack of posts.  But this summer I achieved a dream I never thought possible — I had every Friday off! But now, as we savor the last tasty tidbits of summer, I am back — and armed with a summer’s worth of material. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Marty digs, recipes & food, television by Marty O'Connor
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You have been warned. This will contain spoilers, but beyond those I plan to discuss a plot hole so massive I’ve continually tried to find ways to rationalize it, thinking, “There’s no way Stieg could have missed this.” I still have not. I have discussed it with other people — it hasn’t always destroyed the experience for them, but it certainly has damaged it.  Still with me?  Let’s forge ahead. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, movies by Sean Cunningham
3 Comments »