Have you ever met someone for the first time who seemed really familiar to you? Strangely, this person likely wound up being an important player in your life. This exact scenario happens to Jack in LA X when he recognizes Desmond on the plane. In What Kate Does, Kate’s parallel life is once again setting up the scene for her to have a connection with Claire and baby Aaron. What if the reason for this familiarity is because we are recognizing these people from our future, or from the story of our destiny? [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, television by Marc Oromaner
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Dear Roger Ebert,

Everyone suffers through the bittersweet pain of first love lost. Subsequent romances are never the same; are never remembered with quite the same quality of melancholic regret. Your first love is the only one to whom you can say things like “I will love you forever,” and not be lying just to get in her pants.

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Tags: books & writing, movies by Ricky Sprague
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“Someone else might want to know the point of it all one day,” says teenage Jenny (Carey Mulligan) to the stuffy headmistress (Emma Thompson) at her school. For a young woman in 1961 England, the search for meaning yields no easy answers.  But this smartly written film doesn’t try to provide any. Instead, complex characters and wonderfully subtle performances make An Education something you both enjoy and think about long after you leave the theater. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
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Ronald Colman, award-winning actor of stage and cinema, radio and television — and one of my favorite stars of the cinema — was born on this day in 1891. Colman was a man of another time and another place than those we now know, but his performances continue to capture us and move us. Maybe it was his good looks … maybe it was his charm … maybe it was that voice of his, and his wonderful delivery, which served him so well when he made the move from silent films to ‘the talkies.’ Or maybe it was all of the above, brought together in one very special package.

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Tags: movies by Jeff McDonald
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As I am a foreigner, the first I ever heard about the Super Bowl’s tradition of mid-show entertainment was the now notorious Janet Jackson nipple incident whereby Justin Timberlake ‘accidentally’ unleashed Ms. Jackson’s breast upon millions of unsuspecting Americans. I was living in Moscow at the time and even the Russians were quite obsessed by the role of Ms. Jackson’s mammary glands in a sport none of them played or cared about. [Read more →]

Tags: music, sports by Daniel Kalder
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Once you start keeping an eye out for Satan, he seems to pop up everywhere. Thanks to HP Lovecraft I now have a link to an English language report on the Satanists arrested in Yaroslavl in 2008. And here’s even more info on Russia’s cannibal Satanists. Foul stuff, indeed.

Meanwhile I was sent this video of some Black Metal enthusiasts performing a Satanic show and tell for their classmates which has to be seen to be believed. I’m a bit late on this one as it’s had over a hundred thousand hits. But better late than never: [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, travel & foreign lands by Daniel Kalder
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Lost (Tuesday, ABC, 9PM) — Who is the man in black? I don’t even remember the man in black (thank goodness for that recap hour). It seems as if the devilish man in black has the ability to take the form of dead bodies… so I guess Locke really is dead… and it wasn’t really Jack’s father following him around on the island that whole time (or was it?). Oh and the man in black is also the smoke monster.

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Tags: Lauren Likes TV, television by Lauren LaBumbard
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I can’t take it, this global celebration of American ridiculousness. Everything about it — the overdeveloped man-children “battling” on the gridiron, the “generals” on the sidelines receiving images from spies with a bird’s-eye view of the “trenches,” the pomp and circumstance, the all-too-serious “expert analysis,” the unapologetic commercialism and obedient consumption — is fucking cheap.

Fortunately, there are other options for your viewing pleasure. [Read more →]

Tags: animals, art & entertainment by David A. Brensilver
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As soon as I learned of the title of Lost’s Season 6 premiere episode last year, I immediately began to wonder about its implications. Sure, the LA X was a reference to LAX, the abbreviation for Los Angeles International Airport where Oceanic Flight 815 was suppose to land, but why was there a space between the “LA” and the “X”?  Like everything on Lost, surely this play on letters was for a reason. [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, television by Marc Oromaner
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When most 23 year-olds claim to have had a good year, “good year” usually means a college graduation, a blooming engagement or gainful employment that doesn’t involve phrases like “sweater vest” ,”deep fryer”, and “temp agency”.  With epic record sales, roof-shattering concerts, and admiration from even Barbra Walters, saying Lady Gaga had a “good year” is like saying Bernie Madoff had a bad one.   [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, music by Sarah Ameigh
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Contrary to what I feared, I was not the last person in the United States to see the 3D IMAX version of Avatar. The theater was packed and Avatar continues to rule the box office. But for me, Avatar was a first — the first time I cried at a movie while wearing 3D glasses.  It will take me weeks to process that one. I knew the special effects were, as a friend of mine said, “game changers,” but I didn’t expect the moving story and first rate performances from lesser known actors. I know this film is manipulative, but it manipulated me so well that I didn’t resent it; I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.   [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
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Pawn Stars/American Pickers (Monday, History Channel) — While the rest of America was tuning in to the NBC late-night television Conan/Leno debacle, in addition to watching the funniest late night host of them all, Chelsea Handler, I was watching my other late-night guilty pleasures… on the History channel. Uh huh, you heard me correctly. It all started one night with Pawn Stars. How I came across it, I do not know… but thank goodness I did because I love it.  [Read more →]

Tags: Lauren Likes TV, television by Lauren LaBumbard
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I keep forgetting that it is winter for most of you… as it is amazing here. However, I am not gloating because I know it will be God-awful come summer. God-awful.

Let’s see, what else has been happening on this fun extravaganza known as Africa? Oh, ummm, have any of you ever heard of some movie called Avatar? I hear it’s pretty big right now. We don’t get any commercials here and I don’t watch any news so I have no clue what is happening back home. In fact, I hear there is some big event happening next Sunday… some kind of bowl game or something? Anyway, they showed the movie here yesterday and are showing it again tonight. I wasn’t able to see it yesterday as I had two final papers to write… I know… war is hell.

Oh and Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, some older actor guy, and some older producer guy all came here. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, terror & war by Jeffrey Maryak
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We need to come together to face a plague of addiction more tragic than any in recent memory. It’s even worse than drug addiction; even worse than nicotine addiction; even worse than food addiction; even worse than gambling addiction; even worse than shopping addiction; even worse than sex addiction; even worse than Jane’s Addiction.

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Tags: games, his & hers, television by Ricky Sprague
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I haven’t seen When in Rome, but I am disgusted by the flack it’s taking for its promotional campaign. Rome has been critiqued for ads that read, “From the studio that brought you The Proposal.” This is unusual because the plug doesn’t involve any people specifically working on the film, and as a result is the equivalent of saying, “There’s no one of particular note involved with our movie…but we know people who did something you might have enjoyed.” This attack strikes me as hopelessly ignorant, for every film studio has a very distinct style, once a filmgoer learns to recognize it. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment by Sean Cunningham
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300 of these Filipino inmates are awaiting trial for murder and the others have been incarcerated for three years or less. Sure… why not make them famous. I understand that this formalized recreation has improved conditions in the prison ten-fold, but I am not sure I like the fame attached to it all. Still… the video is kind of amazing.

See more videos (oh, and there are a lot more videos) and explanations about how this all started on Byron Garcia’s You Tube channel.

Via PopEater

Tags: art & entertainment, on the law by Amy Boshnack
1 Comment »

I’ve always been a fan of British television programs that have made the jump ‘cross the pond to the United States. Among those currently at the top of my list is Top Gear, an imaginative and finely-crafted celebration of car and driver that is at times pointed and passionate … and sometimes downright hilarious. [Read more →]

Tags: television by Jeff McDonald
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I was about to write the words, “Nothing shocks me on television anymore” when I realized that if that was true I wouldn’t be writing this. I get annoyed, mostly, by network television, but it’s been a long time since my breath was taken away. I’ve accepted without protest the most recent public spectacle of NBC’s regard for the reputations of Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, two richly rewarded good guys in a sea of counterfeit crap peddlers, who were forced to cannibalize each other publicly in the aftermath of a panicky decision following a corporate blunder. This doesn’t shock me. But I try to imagine Johnny Carson in a similar position.

This is what network television in the year 2010 does to its mega-mega-million dollar stars. But that’s the business of television. The programming is worse. [Read more →]

Tags: television by Clark DeLeon
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There is nothing sadder than a teenager succumbing to external pressures to conform. I mean that literally, and taking into account everything that has ever happened in the history of recorded time. Teens who give in to pressure are the saddest things in the world.

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Tags: art & entertainment, his & hers by Ricky Sprague
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“I never was very fond of waking up,” states George (Colin Firth) in a voiceover at the start of A Single Man.  If I were George, I would feel the same way. But when the subject of a film is the dreary life of a grieving and suicidal man, the film itself is sometimes a bit dreary, and in this case, slow. Despite a brilliant and nuanced performance from Colin Firth, and mostly strong supporting performances, A Single Man ultimately fails under the weight of poor direction and a script with too many holes. [Read more →]

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