In Lost‘s “Everybody Loves Hugo,” Richard complains that Jacob “never tells us what to do.” Richard’s frustration echoes clearly into our world. For most of us, Jacob, aka God, never seems to tell us what to do. He just sits back and lets us make our own mistakes, leading to countless horrors and suffering. For many, this is a major argument as to why there is no God. Yet, when watching Lost, we see that Jacob does in fact tell the Losties what to do — sometimes directly, sometimes through his lists or clues, and sometimes through messages that he passes on through his emissaries. But certainly this doesn’t happen in our world. Here, there are no ghosts of Michaels past, otherworldly whispers, or visits from dimension-hopping Desmonds to guide us on our journey through life. Or…is there?
[Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, television by Marc Oromaner
No Comments »

Britney Spears released photos of herself — without airbrushing! Jessica Simpson appeared on the cover of Marie Claire — with no makeup!

I say: why stop there?

[Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, photography by Neil Verma
2 Comments »

Yes, The Square has an adulterous affair, a bag of money, a construction site and teeming rain — all the de rigueur components for noir thrillers.  But Aussie filmmaker (and former stunt man) Nash Edgerton directs his first full length feature with crisp pacing, effectively placed shocks and just the right amount of humor. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
No Comments »

Today, kids, we’re going to talk about the pregnant clusterfuck that is the Internet.

It used to be that buying concert tickets was part of a larger experience that began with the release of a new album and ended in the parking lot of a smoke-filled arena.

The experience, for all intents and purposes, began and ended in a parking lot. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, music by David A. Brensilver
4 Comments »

Once upon a time, you believed that you were very special. That you’d grow up to make a difference in the world, be paid handsomely for doing so, find true love, have some equally special children, and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, life hasn’t worked out quite as good as the fairytale. So, were we all lied to? In Lost’s “Happily Ever After” Desmond discovers that there is a reality where all his dreams can come true. So where is this reality and do we need to be as special as Desmond to get there? [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, television by Marc Oromaner
No Comments »

Thanks to Netflix being available on Wii now, I have been checking out shows and movies I have passed over or never given the chance. One such show is Weeds. It’s about this attractive widow who sells pot to make ends meet — she would have been the woman of dreams to my roomate in my freshman year of college. I watched one episode the other night, then two, then seven episodes and a bag of Fritos later, I was passed out asleep on the couch. To me, this is the way to get into a show. I can’t stand watching it week by week — I am doing that now with How To Make It In America, and in true HBO fashion, it’s only a half hour long and the first season is something like 6 episodes. My two-year-old will be driving by the time that and Eastbound and Down have a second season. Back to Weeds — I am loving the fact there there are 4 more seasons left for me to watch. Better buy more Fritos! [Read more →]

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

“I’m trying to do nothing for a while,” Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) tells his ex-girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh) at an L.A. party. Greenberg does not have to try very hard. But Noah Baumbach’s character–driven film about an inactive and neurotic guy is both compelling and funny. Its strengths are the pair of strong lead performances and Baumbach’s subtle and witty script. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
No Comments »

As we draw near the end of Holy Week, a week where the two biggest Christ-related news stories involved sex abuse in Europe and Christian militia in America, with breaks devoted to ads for Easter candy and holiday sales events, it’s good to remember the biggest news story of all …
He is risen …
Christ is risen, indeed …
[Read more →]

Tags: music, religion & philosophy by Jeff McDonald
No Comments »

Every Easter, after our dinner guests have gone or we return home from a restaurant or another’s home, my wife and I watch our DVD copy of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

We watch the DVD copy as it is unlikely that Gibson’s controversial film will be played on TV in the way we see The Ten Commandments each year.

I note this and offer an old column I wrote when Gibson’s film was released in 2004 on my most recent post  on my blog, http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com.

Tags: art & entertainment, religion & philosophy by Paul Davis
13 Comments »

This week I am digging Starburst jelly beans.  We are making a basket for our two year old son Jack, which means we are picking out candy we like since he can’t really have much of it.  I was happy to find my favorite Easter candy- the elusive Starburst jelly beans. The Holy Grail of beans made of hardened jelly.  Each year is different, sometimes you can’t find them, sometimes they seem to be raining from the sky. (At least in my dreams) The O’Connor house is on bag number three and they may be the reason I have had trouble sleeping lately.   [Read more →]

Tags: Marty digs, movies, travel & foreign lands by Marty O'Connor
No Comments »

During the Bronze Age, a number of publishers attempted to mimic the mainstream success of “the big two,” Marvel and DC. The largest of these — companies like Charlton, Archie, Harvey, Whitman, and Atlas — were able only to make a small dent in the big two’s market share. But one company that popped up in the mid-1970s, Hues Corporation, didn’t necessarily need to grab a big share of the comics market.

That’s because Hues Corporation existed primarily as a way for the “publishers” to launder money made from illegal drug sales in Miami and New York.

Despite the fact that the company had little interest in creating quality comic books, they did manage, during their three-month publishing existence in 1974, to release some interesting and eccentric titles. There was SuperWulf, “The Werewolf with super powers!”; there were The Base Ballers, a professional baseball team that won every game they played, because, of course, they had super powers (which they used to fight crime): there was Senator Secret, a United States senator from New Orleans who had “the power of the Magick,” and managed to fight supernatural crime while still finding time to serve as the ranking minority member of the Senate sub-finance committee; there was The Ochinaut, a man who shrunk himself down to microscopic size and entered people’s bodies to fight “the crimes within us all”; and there was my personal favorite, the hero with “the stomach of steel,” The Gormandizer. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, ends & odd by Ricky Sprague
4 Comments »

In “The Package” Jin is distraught over having his $25,000 confiscated at the airport, Sun is panicked that her lavish bank account was emptied by her father, Widmore is angry that events aren’t going according to plan, and Desmond didn’t seem particularly happy about being drugged, stuffed in a sub, and brought back to the island. But if there’s anything that life and Lost teach us, it’s that our plans aren’t always in our own best interest. They say that man plans and God laughs. The question is, is God laughing with us, or at us? [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, television by Marc Oromaner
No Comments »

Sometimes you sit in the dark and think, “Why can’t it always be like this?” Well, that is what happened to me when I watched the delightful gift that is City Island. This film is funny, smart, moving, packed with great performances and set in a fascinating place. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
1 Comment »

A month or so back via my connections in the nefarious literary underground I was offered a pre-publication copy of the first Lady Gaga biography, Behind the Fame by Emily Herbert. Not the kind of thing I usually read I must admit, but that’s why I wanted to read it, because there was no reason to read it. Follow me? [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, music by Daniel Kalder
2 Comments »

How To Make It In America (Sunday, HBO, 10PM) — Is it me or is TV reeeeally boring right now? You haven’t heard from me in a while, mostly because I’ve been busy, but also because TV is just very uninspiring right now. American Idol is lame, the CW is worse than ever, and ABC is a complete snooze. The only exciting show on television lately has been Lost (and that’s because we dedicated the last 5 years of our lives to watching it and all it’s done for us is make us feel incompetent and stupid… apparently, the last 7 episodes will make us think we’re smart again), until a show called How To Make It in America came along. [Read more →]

Tags: Lauren Likes TV, television by Lauren LaBumbard
1 Comment »

Forrest Gump — 1994

“My mom always told me life was like chocolate. Chocolate box. Wait…no, that wasn’t it. What the heck did she say? It was a box… chocolate… uhm… hang on, let me call my mom.”

The Wizard Of Oz — 1939

“Toto… where the heck are we?”

Frankenstein — 1931

“Whoa… hang on… hey Igor… is that thing… wait… is that thing alive? That is so weird. [Read more →]

Tags: mostly kidding by Matt Scottoline, movies by Matt Scottoline
8 Comments »

First of all, check this out: Movie ticket prices are going up.

Many movie theaters across the country plan to raise ticket prices this weekend, particularly for premium-priced 3D tickets, The Wall Street Journal reported today (Thursday). It noted that 3D IMAX tickets in Boston for How to Train Your Dragon will rise to $14.50 versus $11.50, the price charged last weekend in the same theaters for Alice in Wonderland. Ticket prices for the 2D version of the movie will rise 3 to 4 percent.

Wow. That is a big jump. Three bucks for 3-D tickets. I’m not much of a mathematician, but that is at least, um, a 20% increase. This is coming at a time when movie studios are increasing their 3-D movie output. Warner Bros, for instance, is releasing all of its “tentpole” releases in 3-D. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, movies by Ricky Sprague
No Comments »

I am currently digging Say Anything — the 1989 Cameron Crowe movie starring John Cusack. If you live under a rock and never saw it, surely you have seen the image of Cusack holding the boombox over his head. Cusack stars as Lloyd Dobler, the most unrealistically cool, laid back, and interesting teenage boy that ever lived. Since I was the heavyweight champion of having crushes on girls in high school, it’s good to see that Lloyd gets the girl. But beyond all that — the soundtrack is ridiculous. Cameron Crowe never goes wrong — Singles is in my opinion the best movie soundtrack ever, and even Elizabethtown is a rather legit soundtrack. I have been driving my girlfriend insane with all my Say Anything references and recently serenaded her Cusack-style and adapted to the times by holding my ipod over my head. She didn’t think it was as funny as I did. 

[Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, Marty digs, movies by Marty O'Connor
No Comments »

In “Ab Aeterno,” Richard Alpert loses his faith after discovering that the plan he’s dedicated so much of his life to, may in fact, not exist. From the very same episode, some Lost fans began feeling the same. For six years, Lost viewers with an insatiable hunger for answers have anxiously waited to find out what the mysterious island actually is. At the writer’s strike a couple years ago, Carlton Cuse held up a picket sign that read: “Do You Want To Know What The Island Is??” Thousands of fans have dreamed up imaginative theories, all in an attempt to solve the show’s complex riddle. And now at last we have our answer! According to Jacob himself, the island is…A CORK!!! (crickets) [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, television by Marc Oromaner
6 Comments »

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is in its fourth edition (but fifth incarnation) since 1974. I’ve played three incarnations: 2nd, 3.5, and 4th. I’ve got to say that the fourth edition does one thing very well.

For anyone unfamiliar, a table top role-playing game (RPG), like D&D, uses a pen, character sheet(s), a series of books, and a set of dice. The set of dice consists of: 1 four-sided, 1 six-sided, 2 ten-sided, 1 twelve-sided, and 1 twenty-sided die. Dice are also abbreviated “D” as in D20 for a twenty-sided die. You might laugh at this now, but one day you’ll be in a comic shop on the wrong side of the tracks and knowing what a D20 is might help you make a saving throw against a band of asthmatic angry nerds. [Read more →]

Tags: games, just fantastic by Steve Mazzeo
1 Comment »