Pop Culture Round Up: June 12 - 18

Ozzy Osbourne writes health column

The Dictionary of American Regional English to Be Finished—Maybe Next Year

Strike a Pose - The Function and Fiction of Punk

Movie futures trading wins regulatory approval

Writing categories perplex Emmys

'Treme': A Shouting Match
Hilarious.

With Sequels and Reboots Failing, Hollywood (Finally) Puts Out a Desperate Call for Original Material

Hitchcock's Psycho at 50, the Sounds of Violence

Antiheroes play by their own rules

Contested Will Looks at the Nuts Who Think Shakespeare Didn't Write Shakespeare

The B-movie prophet

Twilight' screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg talks Kristen Stewart, Bill Condon and Breaking Dawn

All the Dead Are Vampires

Damien Hirst in line to open his first gallery in Hyde Park

Pick up just about any novel and you'll find the phrase "somewhere a dog barked."
You'll never not notice this again.

Love Songs Linked to Receptiveness to Romance

Halifax fire bosses sue online critics

How Jaws taught Hollywood to make a killing

Battle Raging Over Age Listings on IMDb

"Saneman" - In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Michael Cera is the ultimate Canadian superhero

"The Long Decline" - Canada used to have a vibrant critical culture. What happened?

Snoop Dogg Professes His Love for Sookie Stackhouse
Snoop is just . . . it's hard not to love Snoop. He's going to buy Sookie a gin and juice down at Merlotte's.

Zach Gilford on Returning to Friday Night Lights and Making Us All Cry

How has the culture of TV (and TV-watching) changed? | Crosstalk

Pop Culture Round Up: June 5 - 11

Kind of slow news week:

Capitalism: Hollywood's Miscast Villain

Fictional Stars, Real Problems

Do you speak foreign?

Why "Glee" is this century's "Twin Peaks"

Zach Gilford Ends His Role on 'Friday Night Lights'

Movie Trailers Give More and More Plot Away

Soundcheck: Slow Down, Robert Johnson!

It's Official: 'Breaking Dawn' split into two film

Pop Culture Round Up: February 6 - 12

A Tour of 'Hell' in Evening Dress

New vote counting procedure for Best Picture Oscar is hard to follow

People Share News Online That Inspires Awe, Researchers Find

Surprise! Bradley Cooper Won’t Be Romancing Julia Roberts in Valentine’s Day

Creature feature

Magicians Speculate on Profession's Gender Imbalance

A world of Marvel

Exclusive Details on the Escape From New York Remake: Different Big Apple, Same Eye Patch

Sex Change: The Rise of the Female-Driven Blockbuster

Bored to Death? It Could Happen

Exclusive: 'Friday Night Lights' sets end date

The Wolfman’s Anthony Hopkins on Twilight, Working With Benicio, and the Problem With Mumbling Actors

Bob Dylan paintings get London gallery show

A discussion about Liz Phair, Riot Grrrls, and other '90s women in rock.

Pop Culture Round Up: April 4 - 17

I had one ready for last Friday, but I didn't have time to publish. Ah, well, I'll do better soon.

Are there still young critics? Okay, I know the answer to that, so I hope the answer is soon.

This is going to be great.

I haven't made up my mind if that's kind of awesome or just Neil LaBute's woman-hating fault.

Didn't we learn anything from Eternal Sunshine?

YAY! I will happily stay home Saturday nights for The Piemaker.

Number 10's probably my favourite even though I'm pretty sure it takes place over one day.

Mapping the Cultural Buzz: How Cool Is That?

It's like Golden Girls starring men.

I think it makes us feel like we're all hanging in there, and we're all in it together.

Heh. Yup, that's all.

I rocked it, and so can you. It may surprise you to learn that I rocked this one even harder.

I hope Harry Hamlin gets a cameo.

I am so confused by this news. It seems antithetical.

It's kind of Apocalyptic, but I like it.

More returned art!

I believe it.

We should should what, exactly? Stop making disaster movies in order to protect children's imaginations? Your point is beyond me, Lisa Kennedy.

Aw, yeah. Covering his werewolf and now his vampire bases. I hope zombies are up soon.

You're not the only ones left wondering what this means for next season.

“I’m reading it going, ‘Really, we’re going to put fucking shark in Jason’s spine and he thinks it’s going to work?’ ”

"The story is allegedly a loose retelling of the 16th U.S. president's life story — embellished with the notion that he is also a highly skilled vampire slayer." Yes. I love it.

While I'm pretty sure that Julian would be dead, I'd still watch it.

"Turns out, Milton was more rebellious and politically left than I realized. He was a risk-taker. He was arrested and imprisoned. Thanks, in part, to Andrew Marvell, he barely escaped a death sentence." Dudes, Milton. Milton. Can you believe it?

Hip-hop theatre! That excites me.

It's the movie choices that save it.

I don't know how they do it, but the tie-in products continue to be genius.

Pop Culture Round Up: March 28 - April 3

Sometimes the headline says it all: Cheese book wins over monkey manual for oddest book title prize

Thanks for coming. Now eat some popcorn!

Two more years! Two more years!

Initially all I saw was "Sweeney Todd co-star," and I got so excited for pretty much any one in that movie doing anything. Do you think he'll sing?

Sad.

Secret face!

I think this might be worse than the time they gave away my passport. Oh, man.

"He was quite lecherous. But he was lecherous to all the girls." One would hope!

Will it star Dan and Chuck? Don't you think it should? Well, I suppose they're a bit young.

Criticism in crisis continues: An orchestra gets a critic fired for not liking their conductor.

That's punacceptable!

Want you back, want you back, want you back for good.

"The findings support a neurobiological hypothesis for why impoverished children consistently fare worse than their middle-class counterparts in school, and eventually in life."

Oh, I'm so surprised by who he's sitting next to.

Pop Culture Round Up: March 7 - 13

Because they feared Liam Neeson coming after them?

I rocked this thing.

That would be cool, but how would you find out about new shows? Channel surfing is still important.

Yay! I think I am okay with this. You`re welcome.

Wow, do I ever want to read this now. There`s so much I`m missing out on! This, too!

While I am quite excited that David Edelstein is blogging again, this addition so threw me that I don`t recall even finishing the sentence. What?

I finally got around to watching this, and it looks great.

Let`s go!

I hope so!

This is beautiful.

Is it me, or is there something wonky with Lenin`s eyes?

Why must this be so ridiculous?

Ha!

Really? Okay.

Is there?

This is the best thing I read all week.

Heroes (2006 - ?)

First I saw Sarah's DVR Break-Up, and I thought, "I didn't think it was that bad." Then the rotation of TV Clubbers have been (not unfairly) hating. Couch Baron even outed the show as a soap opera. Last Monday's episode was the final straw for me.

SPOILER (ish) Alert: If you haven't already watched the episode that aired on Monday, October 13, 2008, read no further, as I intend to discuss it at length.

I talked up Heroes to pretty much everyone I knew when it premièred two ago. It was the one new show you had to watch. When it went off the rails in season two, I stuck by it, sure that it could pull itself out of its funk. When Tim Kring apologized and promised that he could do better in season three, I took him at his word. As it turns out, that was a mistake.

Last week, Hiro and Ando dug up not-at-all-dead Adam Monroe's (the always welcome David Anders) grave, thereby undoing the coolest thing that Hiro has ever done on the show (other than be Future Hiro, of course). This week, Hiro spends several of my viewing minutes popping Adam in and out of the coffin during their negotiations. Why, pray tell, did Hiro and Ando have to dig up the grave in the first place then? It's time consuming and difficult, and, as Hiro just proved in the very next scene, completely unnecessary. Exactly how brain-addled are the writers that they can't establish internal logic for a single subplot?

This development also goes against the graphic novels that have never have (and probably never will) tie into the show on air. Early this summer, back when I used to read them, an entire issue was devoted to Adam's many wives over the years, and it ended with his conviction that his current wife, whoever she might be, would rescue him. Since he was still down there when Hiro went to pick him up, that didn't happen. No doubt, we will never meet this mysterious wife nor will she be mentioned again. She can live on the Beach of Dropped Plots with Micah, Monica, and Caitlin, the girlfriend Peter is content to abandon in the future. Her family's dead, too!

Adam leads Hiro and Ando to a bar and shakes them off his tail. So Daphne shows up. Alright, fine. We've had a quite of bit of Daphne in this episode, but I don't care. I don't know a damn thing about Daphne, and I don't care if that ever changes. I liked Brea Grant on Friday Night Lights last year, but there writing's not there to back her up when it comes to Daphne. She's a construct, a cardboard cut-out, and she'll probably stay that way.

Somehow, this latest confrontation between Hiro and his "nemesis"* leads to Hiro killing Ando. For real. Hiro murdering his best friend for the greater good has the emotional devastation of a paper cut. No one stays dead on this show. If they do die, the actor just comes back as another character (hey, Ali!). That's what makes this show a soap opera. It's not that I don't loves me a soap. It's that I don't love a soap that takes itself so seriously yet never pays out.

What happens every season, really? Someone goes into the future, sees something terrible, and heads back to prevent terrible thing (explosion/world ending, virus/world ending, formula/world ending) from happening in the first place. It ends with Peter going nuclear. Maybe Peter will destroy a lab full of the formula in nuclear explosion come May sweeps.

The problem with characters changing personalities and loyalties to fit the episode's needs has been around a while and well covered elsewhere (from Monday, for example - Claire wants to take bad guys down, Claire wants to help them reunite with their families, Claire hates Sylar and wants to kill him, Claire doesn't want her dad to kill Sylar. Huh?). Let's move on to the final moment: Arthur Petrelli lives.

Listen, it's not that I don't want to more about Pa Petrelli. I'm sure that it would be interesting to know more about the early days of the Company, what Pa's power(s) might be, how he was with his sons, and what they know about him. There was an arc over several graphic novels way back in the day about how the elder Petrelli and Linderman met (short answer: Nam), which was probably my favourite. It's just that . . . reviving a character that established to be dead in the pilot? What's the point? Let's bring back the elder Suresh while we are at it. I bet he could find an antidote.

I'm probably not at the breaking point just yet; I am getting very close. I have lost any confidence that the show could take a development like that and make it exciting. They've already used it poorly: paralyzing Angela. She's one of the good (read: interesting to watch) characters! Maybe Elle can come back and zap her out of it. Sigh. I miss Kristen Bell.

*Which, Hiro is supposed to be my age, if not older, right? Adults do not talk this way. The time gap between Hiro and Future Hiro is closing, but the personality gap remains vast.

Speed Racer (2008)

Short: A decade or so after his older brother's (Scott Porter) death in a race, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is taking the racing world by storm. His parents (John Goodman and Susan Sarandon) are proud but wary, his girlfriend (Christina Ricci) feels neglected, and big corporate sponsors (Roger Allam) are calling. Speed turns down a lucrative deal, and he puts his career and his family in jeopardy as a result. In the end, he hooks up with a similarly hogged tied racer (Rain) and the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox) to clean racing up.

For reals, you guys. I've seen both "Go, Speed Racer, Go Away" and "No, Speed Racer, No" as review headlines, and they're both warranted. This movie sucks. Sadly, the writing-directing Wachowski brothers don't seem to realize what a turkey they've made.

It's too bad, really, because it has the makings of a great midnight/cult movie if only they would just let the bottom fall out already. Between Trixie's get ups, the insanely deliberate cartoon calibre acting, and all the serious arms, it at least has the makings of a great drinking game. Drink if everyone completely overreacts to the situation! Drink every time you notice a dropped plot! Drink every time a gent with serious arms wears a sleeveless ensemble for no good reason! You'll be drunk pretty quick, which is probably the best way to watch this movie anyway. Come to think of it, I was a little bit buzzed when I saw this, and it was still interminably boring. If I hadn't been Colbert-ly cursing Rain every few scenes, I don't know what I would have done.

Hirsch has reportedly already fired his agent, and the film is busy tanking, so I suppose there's no reason to beat a dead horse. The only person I really feel bad for, to be honest, is Scott Porter. He works those arms, he makes racing seem downright sexy, and he's a fantastic actor to boot. The first season of Friday Night Lights should have been his Emmy season, but the Emmys hate shows that are good, so that wasn't going to happen. Now this movie is obviously not going to be his big break. Hey, casting directors! Look over here! Call up Porter's agent and get his reel, okay? You'll thank me. And the rest of you? Don't bother with this movie. You'll also thank me. D-

Victory in our time!

YES! Yes, yes, yes! The greatest show on television finally has the greenlight for a third season. Will that waitress keep Jason's baby? We'll find out! Will Matt and Julie ever get back together? We'll find out! Will Taylor Kitsch take his shirt off? Probably repeatedly! Best! Show! Ever!

I was brought in to leverage your synergy

The WGA and HFPA were kind enough to announce their nominees on the same day, so I suppose I should get with the synergy and tell you about them.

WGA: I can't begin to tell you how excited and pleased I am that Flight of the Conchords is getting so much attention. "Sally Returns" is an excellent episode, although I am kind of at a loss to figure out how you could choose any one episode of the season and say, "Yes, that's the one." What about "Drive By" or "Bowie"? Oh, show. Also glad to see attention for Friday Night Lights(a.k.a. the best damn show on television) and Pushing Daisies (a.k.a. the sweetest show on television). Otherwise, pretty standard stuff.

Globes: I'm thrown right away in the first category because I haven't even heard of The Great Debaters*, and I'm also a little underwhelmed. Wasn't this supposed to be a great year for movies? I swear I heard that somewhere. Everyone in Michael Clayton was amazing, but the movie wasn't. I have no desire to watch Atonement, and now I am starting to feel awards season pressure to see it. I think I am supposed to be excited or at least surprised to see nods for Eastern Promises or Juno or John C. Reilly for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I'm not, though. I'd rather see more attention for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford or Gone Baby Gone or, for the love of pete, any frickin' song at all from Once.

Their TV nominations, on the other hand, are something to write home about. We've got the soft core insanity that is The Tudors; Sally Field and Holly Hunter for their great shows; Michael C. Hall going up against Hugh Laurie; Lee Pace, Anna Friel, sadly no Chenoweth, and Pushing Daisies on the whole; and James Nesbitt for Jekyll. He plays four different characters, two of which are so physically different its unnerving. Being Mr. Hyde must be such fun.

And, while we're here, check out the New York Film Critics Circle 2007 Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association 2007 awards, the New York Film Critics Online 2007 Awards, the DC Area Film Critics Association 2007 Awards, and the TIFF Canadian Top 10.

*Oh, no, wait. I think I've seen that poster before. Even so.