Clash Of The Huge Super-Media Titans

The Daily Show: This, and many other Viacom shows, may be about to disappear for a lot of cable subscribers.Comedy Central

 

by Linda Holmes

Media titans don't come much bigger than Time Warner and Viacom, and right now, the two are locked in combat in a showdown that plausibly could result in Time Warner Cable customers losing access to Viacom channels including MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon.

And it could happen tonight. As in, hours from now.

Why you might lose Dora and Stephen Colbert, after the jump...

Continue reading "Clash Of The Huge Super-Media Titans" »

9:00 AM ET | 12-31-2008 | permalink

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Marathon (And On And On)

TV marathons: Being an engaged viewer is overrated -- if you do it right, television can go on and on without attention of any kind. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

As you have undoubtedly noted, we are in the late stages of the Television Dead Zone, which lasts from about mid-December to early January -- a time in which seriously, honestly, nobody does anything interesting on television. (This is why our new Discerning Viewer is taking a hiatus: honestly, right now, discerning viewers are going to the movies instead.)

However! It's New Year's Eve/New Year's Day, and while that doesn't bring anything new, it does bring the traditional selection of marathons. They can keep you away from football, they can keep you away from your relatives (hey, I don't know your relatives, I'm just saying), and in some cases, they can help you catch up on worthy shows you might have missed.

Fortunately, the blog Interesting Pile makes a habit of digging up the list of marathons at times like this, so you don't have to. Among this year's notables:

• Rocky movies on Versus (a cable network you may or may not receive, which highlights both bull-riding and NHL hockey in the title bar of its web site, so...you get the idea). Beginning at 11:00 a.m. today (Wednesday), they'll be showing all five Rocky movies consecutively. You should, of course, watch them while working out.

More marathons, after the jump...

Continue reading "Marathon (And On And On)" »

6:31 AM ET | 12-31-2008 | permalink

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Madonna Is Your Tour Champion

Madonna: This, surprisingly, is an almost-teenager's mother. But her Sticky & Sweet Tour hasn't lost a step, ticket-wise. Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

The results are in from Pollstar magazine, and the highest-grossing concert tour of 2008 was Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour, which made more than $105 million. She's followed in the top ten by Celine Dion, the Eagles, Kenny Chesney, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Diamond, Rascal Flatts, the Police, and Tina Turner.

It's like my entire high-school class time-traveled 20 years into the future and dominated the year in ticket sales, except that the only thing we had to listen to in the time machine was contemporary country radio (you know how that happens in parts of, like, Wisconsin), so we emerged liking everything we liked back then, plus Kenny Chesney and Rascal Flatts.

3:04 PM ET | 12-30-2008 | permalink

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'The Times Of Harvey Milk,' Yours For The Asking

If the attention that went to Sean Penn's performance in Milk made you curious about the real Harvey Milk, you'll be glad to see that Hulu has gotten hold of The Times Of Harvey Milk, the 1985 documentary that not only won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, but also won a Special Jury Prize at the very first Sundance Film Festival.

Hulu has moved slowly into acquiring worthwhile theatrical films, compared to its early strength with television, but they're getting serious now.

2:31 PM ET | 12-30-2008 | permalink

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Fear Of Jonases

Run for your life: What are the New York police worried about for New Year's Eve? The terrifying Jonas Brothers. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Today in adolescent menaces: People reports that the New York Police Department is very nervous about New Year's Eve in Times Square, because one of the performances on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve is the Jonas Brothers, the Disney-driven pop trio made up of (left to right in this photo) Tall Hair Jonas, Flat Hair Jonas, and Jonas Who Looks Like Tom Hanks In Bosom Buddies.

What could happen, after the jump...

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1:02 PM ET | 12-30-2008 | permalink

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What The Success Of 'Marley & Me' May Mean For Our Collective Moviegoing Future

Is this our future?: If you're looking for a hint about recession-era movies, you may find it in Marley & Me.Twentieth Century Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

You may have heard there are a few problems with the economy.

Because many people's lives have only begun to be directly affected in the last couple of months, it's been difficult to tell what effect, if any, the grim national mood would have on popular entertainment. It's a Hollywood article of faith that movies are "recession-proof," in part because people seek out escapist entertainment when they're troubled -- an belief arising primarily from the eagerness with which Americans continued to go to the movies during the Great Depression.

But the Great Depression didn't have Netflix, Blockbuster, HBO, movies on demand, or digital thievery, all of which are highly convenient and wildly less expensive ways to enjoy a movie than going to the theater. (I am not advocating digital thievery, you understand; only acknowledging that it exists.)

As a matter of fact, the Great Depression didn't have television, and if your desire is for escapism and you have cable, you probably have a hundred channels of it already. For a variety of reasons, making predictions based on what happened during the Great Depression seems like a dicey proposition. Still, whatever effect the economic situation has on how much we go to the movies, the increasing sense that the news consists of a series of stories about how much dread it is appropriate to feel today may well affect which movies do well.

Enter Marley & Me.

Why this may be the dawning of the age of the inoffensive, after the jump...

Continue reading "What The Success Of 'Marley & Me' May Mean For Our Collective Moviegoing Future" »

9:16 AM ET | 12-30-2008 | permalink

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Say Hello To This Gorilla

It's not often I can actually say, "This made me bust out laughing," and completely mean it. But this really, truly made me bust out laughing. I don't entirely get the advertising relevance, but particularly if you were raised on '80s pop, you must see it. I have nothing further.

Hat-tip to Glark.org.

6:59 PM ET | 12-29-2008 | permalink

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Monkey See Movies Poll No. 4: The Blockbusters

You Know You Love Her: Or hate her. Either way, her trashy comedy was big at the box office. New Line Cinema

 

by Trey Graham

As a die-hard defender of the critical prerogative, I'd just like to go on record here and say that the customer isn't always right. The movies that make the most money at the box office? They're rarely the best movies. Which is why, as some of you noted, some hugely popular 2008 titles didn't show up on our main Best Movies of 2008 poll.

But though I'm a critic myself — of theater, mostly — I do have to confess that sometimes when I go to the movies, I just want to put my brain in neutral and be entertained. Sex and the City? I was soooo at the multiplex — as part of an organized outing involving nearly 150 guys, no less — on the first weekend.

So it's with a personal kind of pleasure that I invite you to vote below for your Favorite Popcorn-Delivery Device of 2008.

The poll, and how we picked this nominees list, after the jump ...

Continue reading "Monkey See Movies Poll No. 4: The Blockbusters" »

12:05 PM ET | 12-29-2008 | permalink

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"I Said, 'I Shot A Man In Reno.' Hello? Anyone?"

Johnny Cash: A new edition of a classic album has more to say about his performances at Folsom Prison than you may want to hear. Getty Images

 

by Marc Hirsh

As eagerly as music nerds await the release of collections like Johnny Cash's brand-new, probably-under-your-holiday-shrubbery-of-choice At Folsom Prison Legacy Edition, there's always a very real risk involved of shattering 40 years' worth of illusions. It's the same reason you don't look under the hood of a classic car you've always lusted after or take a gander at the inside of a sausage factory: sometimes it's just better to close your eyes and hang on to the myth.

That can be especially true of an album like At Folsom Prison, which for all its unimpeachable musical virtues owed much of its power to the combination of what was happening backstage (Cash's own career tailspin, which the original release effectively reversed) and in front of it (the release-valve rowdiness of the prison audience). But things look a little different once you open your eyes to a warts-and-all view of history. It turns out, there are warts. Let's look at some of the more surprising revelations to be found on the new two-CD/one-DVD set, which officially makes available the undoctored entirety of both concerts that Folsom hosted on January 13, 1968.

Spontaneity, sort of, after the jump...

Continue reading ""I Said, 'I Shot A Man In Reno.' Hello? Anyone?"" »

9:59 AM ET | 12-29-2008 | permalink

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'The Last Thing You'd Expect': Remembering the Spy who Fed Me

by Todd Kliman

I gave money to an Iraqi spy.

Actually, something worse than money -- a good review.

A few days ago, I opened the Washington Post to learn that a man named Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy pleaded guilty in federal court to a conspiracy charge, admitting he had been a spy for the Iraqi government for two decades -- including the regime of Saddam Hussein.

I immediately had two thoughts, and both of them made me queasy.

The first was of my mom, who opened the Post one morning after the 9/11 attacks to discover that Mohammed Atta had gone to the same medical practice she did. She didn't finish her toast.

What you find where you're not looking, after the jump...

Continue reading "'The Last Thing You'd Expect': Remembering the Spy who Fed Me" »

9:23 AM ET | 12-26-2008 | permalink

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Top Ten Lists: Slashfilm Asks Why

Top Ten lists: Why do readers like them? Why do critics bother with them? iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

There's an intriguing post up at Slashfilm in which David Chen wonders -- and asks readers to explain -- why people read critics' Top Ten lists. Jumping off from a couple of notable internet-based incidents in which critics have found torch-carrying mobs at their doors -- including David Edelstein's remarkable experience as the first high-profile critic to pan The Dark Knight and Salon's Stephanie Zacharek being attacked by commenters for her unusual choices for the best movies of the year -- Chen wonders what draws people to Top Ten lists in the first place.

He's been getting some interesting responses: people admitting they just read lists to have their own opinions validated, people saying they hope to hear about movies they haven't seen yet, and people who still want to keep arguing about why they hate Stephanie Zacharek and don't think it's possible for anyone to have valid reasons for not enjoying The Dark Knight.

There's something very down-the-rabbit-hole about asking commenters to comment on the comment culture, but it's interesting to ask, not so much why people read Top Ten lists, but why they read criticism at all. Zacharek's list of honorable mentions, in particular, certainly struck me as ridiculous (High School Musical 3? You Don't Mess With The Zohan?), but in fairness to her, these are movies she gave good reviews when they were released. There is suspicion in the Slashfilm comments that her list intentionally includes terrible movies because controversy drives readership, but if that's the case, then it's a conspiracy beyond the year-end list.

For the record, one of the reasons I really enjoy Slashfilm, on the whole, is that the writers do such a good job of walking the line between enthusiasm and criticism -- they get all "WOO-HOO!" excited about trailers and on-set photos and so forth, but they also know a lot about movies and put a lot of thought into what they write. It makes that site really the ideal place to conduct a discussion with fans about why they read critics. Definitely a blog worth adding to your daily reads if you like to follow movie news.

8:36 AM ET | 12-26-2008 | permalink

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Why Golden Ages Are Highly Questionable, As Are Their Conclusions

The Mentalist: Is it an "old-fashioned" harbinger of bad things to come, or does Simon Baker have nothing to apologize for? CBS

 

by Linda Holmes

It's hard to resist the urge to make pronouncements at this time of year: it was the year of [blank]! It was the year when everything was about [this] and we forgot all about [that]! All hail the arrival of [currently popular thing]! Next year, you will be hearing a lot more from [person]!

Unfortunately, while this leads to lots of interesting observations about the year gone by, it also leads to a lot of misfires, including Jeff Jensen's Entertainment Weekly piece about how television's "second Golden Age" came to an end this year.

Jensen's basic argument is that after an unspecified first "Golden Age" of television -- which he only says was "a long time ago," there was a long non-golden period, and then we entered a second "Golden Age," apparently with the arrival of The Sopranos in 1999, when cable allowed experimentation that was nonexistent on network television.

This is already problematic, since it ignores the entire mid-'80s uptick in quality dramas that brought Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, St. Elsewhere, and lots of other ensemble workplace shows, and it ignores the fact that experimentation with boundary-pushing substantially predates The Sopranos, dating back to at least NYPD Blue in 1993.

There's no question that The Sopranos represented a watershed moment in television -- none at all. But it was a logical progression out of escalating expectations for scripted series as the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series stopped going to things like Marcus Welby, M.D. and The Waltons and started going to things like Picket Fences and The Practice. Television was getting better at finding the spaces between warm family fare and escapist cop shows and soaps before HBO got involved.

The hazards of conflating business with pleasure, after the jump...

Continue reading "Why Golden Ages Are Highly Questionable, As Are Their Conclusions" »

9:07 AM ET | 12-24-2008 | permalink

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2008: The Year Everyone Everywhere Officially Got The Whole Comics-Are-More-Than-Just-Superheroes Thing, So Now We Don't Have to Talk About it Anymore

Liquid City: If we were making a list, which we aren't, this would be on it. Image Comics

 

It's best-of-2008 time in comics land, with smart types of all stripes weighing in with their choices for the year's outstanding achievement in the field of funnybook-making.

I have no list for you, parumpapumpum, mostly because it's taken so long to work my way through all the lists that are already out there. (You can peruse the excellent choices of several professional comic book creators here.)

Anyway, I'd pretty much be copy-and-pasting the great list(s) of NPR's own smart type, Laurel Maury. (Go read; I'll wait.)

I really like her picks, with only a few quibbles (it's been a while since I've found much new or interesting in Warren Ellis' particular brand of brutal super-nihilism, but the guy knows how to tell a story. I'd also throw in some love for Image Comics' Liquid City, an out-there anthology of southeast Asian comics that is as bracing as it is baffling, and it's often pretty darn baffling.)

Maury cleaved her list in twain, Best Graphic Novels and Best Superhero Graphic Novels, which puzzled me at first -- isn't a good book a good book, whether or not its characters happen to favor cerulean circus tights? What's up with this separate-but-equal jazz?

But I think what she's up to here -- and I invite her to correct me if I'm wrong -- is reaching out to you, the reader who still hears the phrase "comic books" and thinks "superheroes." (And, more to the point, promptly follows up that thought with, "Yeah, no thanks.")

Here's the thing, though: I'm not entirely convinced that you exist.

After the jump: Why I don't believe in you, and 2008 as comics culture tipping point.

Continue reading "2008: The Year Everyone Everywhere Officially Got The Whole Comics-Are-More-Than-Just-Superheroes Thing, So Now We Don't Have to Talk About it Anymore " »

8:07 AM ET | 12-24-2008 | permalink

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'Far Side' Reenactors Are Delightfully Odd Ducks

The Far Side lives: Contributors to a Flickr pool act out their favorite cartoons, to sometimes arresting effect. Photo illustration by The Rocketeer, via Flickr.

 

Gary Larson's The Far Side ran new strips from 1980 to 1994, but the nearly 15 years that have passed since he retired haven't quieted fans, who find their own interesting ways to pay tribute.

Currently circling the internet is the Far Side Reenactments Flickr pool, a collection of photos and illustrations from different contributors acting out their favorite Far Side panels. Above is The Rocketeer's version of this strip, in which the big, bloodshot eyeball is closer than it appears.

I am also partial to this toe-oriented effort and to this one -- who can forget the School For The Gifted?

1:53 PM ET | 12-23-2008 | permalink

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'Everybody Knows A Turkey, Handsome Mr. Soul'

The MSNBC Test Pattern blog points today to an entry over at Snopes.com on misheard holiday lyrics.

I think Gael Cooper at MSNBC correctly identified "Get dressed, ye merry gentlemen" as probably the champ, but I also like "Strike the heart, enjoy the florist" and " Barney's the king of Israel."

8:43 AM ET | 12-23-2008 | permalink

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Monkey See Movies Poll No. 3: The Documentaries

by Trey Graham

So was it just because it was Friday? Or did the comments stop working? I've got to say, I'd have thought the documentaries question would've been catnip for the NPR crowd.

Not to worry, though: We took informal poll here at Monkey Central, and between us (me, Linda Holmes, Neda Ulaby and a couple of others), we came up with a few nominees.

Vote below -- and if you need a reminder about what these docs were about, just plug the title into this here search box. I'm pretty sure we reviewed all of these ...

6:54 PM ET | 12-22-2008 | permalink

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The Slow Box-Office Weekend And More, In The Monday Roundup

The Wrestler: In a fairly grim box-office weekend, it got some of the only promising signals. Fox Searchlight

 

• This is what a slow weekend looks like: Jim Carrey's latest rubber-faced comedy, Yes Man, opens with $18.2 million; Will Smith's latest earnest drama, Seven Pounds, opens with $16.5 million; and the mouse-based kids' movie The Tale Of Despereaux opens with $10.5 million.

One of the few movies to get good news was The Wrestler, which opened in four theaters and managed a per-screen average of more than $52,000, almost exactly ten times Yes Man's average. Compare that to the $60,236 -- the highest per-screen opening of the entire year -- for the three-screen debut of Frost/Nixon a few weeks ago, after a much more visible mainstream marketing push.

Sci-fi connectivity, honoring Jeff Buckley, and the year in satire, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Slow Box-Office Weekend And More, In The Monday Roundup" »

8:06 AM ET | 12-22-2008 | permalink

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How 'Wonderful' Is It, Really?

Do they look wonderful?: Sure, the movie is called It's A Wonderful Life, but for George Bailey (James Stewart, right, with Thomas Mitchell), is it, really? AFP/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

It's nothing entirely new to see It's A Wonderful Life as dark rather than warm and happy, despite its position as a holiday classic. But today's New York Times brings one of the better dissections I've seen of precisely why. Wendell Jamieson sees little to celebrate in George Bailey's childhood, marriage, career, family life, or prospects for avoiding jail.

My reaction to the film has always been a little more mixed; I think when you come to realize how dark and scary it is (and to focus more on the rest of the movie and less on the gimmicky "seeing how the world would be without you" segment), the parts of it that are heartwarming become more effective -- which is sort of what Jamieson is getting at, I think.

10:33 AM ET | 12-19-2008 | permalink

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Tomorrow's Poll: Best Films About The Cold, Hard Truth (And Such)

by Trey Graham

Next up in our Year End Movies-Polling Marathon, a survey of the soberer sort.

And a two-fer: Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to nominate the Documentary You're Saddest Was True. Also the Documentary You're Happiest Was True. (Be sure to specify which is which -- I'd like to think I could guess, but ...)

Multiple nominations welcome, but films from 2008 only, please. And feel free to tell us what moved you about your picks.

The comments await ...

(Remember: Over at our main Best Movies of 2008 Poll, you can help shape one of NPR's year-end Top 10 lists. Vote now!)

6:22 PM ET | 12-18-2008 | permalink

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What's In A Name? And What's On That Birthday Cake?

The birthday boy: Heath and Deborah Campbell ran into a problem when they tried to get a birthday cake for their son — Adolf Hitler. Rich Schultz/Associated Press

 

by Todd Kliman

Think the story of the shoe grenades lobbed at President Bush was weird?

This is weirder.

A New Jersey couple has taken issue with a ShopRite store in Greenwich Township for impinging upon their freedom by denying their request to inscribe their 3-year-old son's name in icing atop his birthday cake.

The boy's name? Adolf Hitler Campbell. (He looks like a teeny version of Sammy Hagar.)

Little Adolf, in case you were wondering, is not an only child. He has sisters. Heath and Deborah Campbell have a daughter named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and a daughter named Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie — the latter a presumably misspelled homage to Heinrich Himmler.

Anyway, ShopRite deemed the cake request — the third such try the Campbells have made in three years — "inappropriate."

But a local Wal-Mart stepped in and agreed to take the assignment, apparently deciding it was not going to get in the way of a free-speech issue. (Of course the chain had no such difficulty, some years earlier, in banning the sale of Dixie Chicks albums in its stores).

Initially, a Wal-Mart spokesman said the company would not put anything "illegal" or "profane" on a cake, adding: "Our No. 1 priority in decorating cakes is to serve the customer to the best of our ability." In light of the controversy, it has since decided to "review" its policies.

Want more?

It gets better, after the jump ...

Continue reading "What's In A Name? And What's On That Birthday Cake?" »

2:51 PM ET | 12-18-2008 | permalink

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Monkey See Movies Poll No. 2: Movies You Really Meant to See

by Trey Graham

For today's installment of the ongoing Monkey See 2008 Movies Pollstravaganza, we asked you to nominate the films you've heard were fantastic but still haven't managed to see.

You nominations are listed below; now it's time for you all to help each other prioritize. Pick the movie you'd most want to catch up with, if you knew that after this weekend, all the theaters and all the DVD players and all the TiVos in the known universe would be nationalized by the Fed and repurposed to show only financial-planning how-to videos.

'Cause, you know, that could still happen.

(The polling continues: New polls here on the blog every weekday until Christmas. And over at our Big Serious No-Foolin' Best Movies of 2008 Poll, you can help shape one of NPR's year-end Top 10 lists. Vote now!)

11:45 AM ET | 12-18-2008 | permalink

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Jeremy Piven And David Mamet Do Not Hug It Out

Jeremy Piven: Here, at the curtain call on Speed-The-Plow's opening night, he doesn't look sick. Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

 

If you're going to get cute, don't get cute with David Mamet.

Actor Jeremy Piven started his Broadway run in Mamet's Speed-The-Plow in October -- one of the few Broadway (non-musical) plays I can remember seeing television commercials for outside New York. He was appearing with Elisabeth Moss, of AMC's critically adored Mad Men, and Raul Esparza, a respected theater actor. It sure looked promising.

But this week, Piven suddenly left the play, citing illness -- more specifically, a "high mercury count."

Now, it's important to understand the position of Jeremy Piven in the world of celebrity. He's a multiple-Emmy-winning actor for his work in HBO's Entourage (which is the origin of "hug it out," a phrase you may hear dropped now and then), but he's also probably the most popular target of "why does this person keep winning Emmys?"-style ranting every year.

He further has a tendency to appear in ridiculous stories like this 2006 gem, in which it was reported in the New York Post that he almost got into a fight over the line for the bathroom at a club. Oh, and he recently told Us magazine that he didn't know how he accidentally wound up at Britney Spears' birthday party.

He's a bit of a love-to-hate kind of guy.

So after he gave the "too much mercury" explanation for bailing out of the play, Variety went to Mamet himself for a reaction. Mamet's somewhat skeptical response? ""I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury. So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer."

And you thought only television and movies could reach that level of sophistication.

Update: We now know that the role Piven is abandoning will be taken over, beginning December 23rd, by the Tony-winning Norbert Leo Butz, and then by Mamet veteran William H. Macy. That's right: If you had your heart set on seeing Piven in Speed-The-Plow between January 13 and February 22, you will now have to settle for William H. Macy. Try to contain your grief.

Also, for all the skepticism with which this announcement was greeted, Piven's doctor says it was for real.

9:27 AM ET | 12-18-2008 | permalink

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Vote Now: NPR's Actual, Serious Best Movies of 2008 Poll

Vote Your Heart: And your head too, if you like. Everybody gets three votes in NPR's Best Movies of 2008 poll.

 

by Trey Graham

OK, so it should be plain by now that the not-so-serious surveys we're doing here on Monkey See are a kind of sideshow, for our amusement and for yours.

The main attraction? That would be it, right over there. The real deal. NPR's first-ever Best Movies audience poll -- where you, not the critics, write the Top 10 list.

How we picked the short list, after the jump...

Continue reading "Vote Now: NPR's Actual, Serious Best Movies of 2008 Poll" »

4:30 PM ET | 12-17-2008 | permalink

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Tomorrow's Poll: Best Movie You Meant to See (And Should, Immediately)

By Trey Graham

The voting continues, below, on today's Best Manic Pixie Dream Girl poll. But it's time for your nominations in tomorrow's category:

Best Movie You Meant to See (And Should, Immediately)

So let's have it? What got great reviews, but couldn't get you off the couch?

(My nomination: Frozen River.)

Your nominations, in the comments on this post. Voting starts tomorrow, no later than noon.

3:47 PM ET | 12-17-2008 | permalink

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Monkey See Movies Poll No. 1:
Best Manic Pixie Dream Girl

OK, we'll keep this simple. We asked you to nominate the year's top Manic Pixie Dream Girls, and you came up with a good list — and one or two surprising suggestions.

Now it's time to vote. Weigh in — and feel free to tell your friends, embed this on your Facebook page, whatever. Spread the word!

(And don't forget: New polls every weekday until Christmas...)

3:46 PM ET | 12-17-2008 | permalink

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Eleven Non-Spoilery Reasons To Read "Breakfast of the Gods." Like, Right Now.

Does this man look dangerous?: Breakfast Of The Gods suggests that you exercise caution. Quaker Oats

 

by Glen Weldon

In no particular order, you will be taken in by:

1. The premise — a dark satire in which the breakfast-cereal mascots of your innocent, tow-headed youth wage a pitched and at times violent battle for their homeland.

2. "Crunchum Eternum."

3. The panel in which Cookie Crook gets referred to as a "skel."

4. The issue titles, which keep getting better and better:
Issue One: "The Last Good Morning."
Issue Two: "O Cap'n, My Cap'n."
Issue Three: "Apocalypse Yum."

5. The author's "Please, Please Don't Sue Me" page at the end of each issue. (On his blog, Jones accurately describes Breakfast of the Gods thusly: "...the series stands as both a pop culture-drenched labor of love and a minefield of serious copyright infringement." Which: yeah, pretty much.)

6. The "Lucky strikes" joke.

7. The identity of the central villain of the piece, which you've probably already guessed, but is still flatly awesome.

8. The Trix Rabbit as Mickey Spillane.

9. I say again: "Apocalypse Yum."

10. "One can do one's damnedest." Sniff. Seriously: Sniff.

11. The way you hear James Mason's voice in your head whenever you read Toucan Sam's word balloons.

Go, now.

But before you do, know this:

The navigation isn't as fluid as it could be -- once you finish the first issue, you'll have to scroll down past the comments to find a way to access Issue Two, etc.

Also, Issue Three (which -- have I mentioned? -- is titled, "Apocalpyse Yum") is still not quite finished.

And finally, fair warning: Dig'Em's dialogue ... gets a little blue.

11:35 AM ET | 12-17-2008 | permalink

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Presenting ...The First Annual Monkey See Best-Movies Poll

That's the ticket: We're launching our year-end movies polls. First up: Wanna nominate the year's best Manic Pixie movies? Kirk Radish, NPR

 

by Trey Graham

You may have seen that our overachieving friends at All Songs Considered have already finished their Best CDs of 2008 poll.

Well, good for them. However: Not to criticize, y'know, but helloooo, 2008 isn't over yet. We didn't want to rush you.

We are doing a movies poll, though, now that the holiday deluge of blockbusters is at (or near) the box office.

And we want your nominations. In all kinds of categories, too.

The details, gory and otherwise, after the jump ...

Continue reading "Presenting ...The First Annual Monkey See Best-Movies Poll" »

6:00 PM ET | 12-16-2008 | permalink

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Clint Eastwood In 'The Growler'

Sometimes, a goof doesn't need to be sophisticated; it just needs to be spot-on. Here, from FunnyOrDie.com, Clint Eastwood in The Growler.

Hat-tip to Slashfilm.

9:20 AM ET | 12-16-2008 | permalink

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The Movie Blurb Game: Holiday Classics Edition

Perhaps extra power bars next time?: Bing Crosby, as he appeared in White Christmas. And yes, we are being a little tricky. Keystone/Getty Images

 

by Glenn McDonald

The object: The "movie blurbs" below are mashups: They're invented descriptions of what you'd get if you smashed two or more well-known movies together. From the blurb, can you guess the new mash-up movie's title?

Example: Michael J. Fox stars as a time-traveling teenager in this second installment of George Lucas' space-opera trilogy.

Answer: The Empire Strikes Back to the Future

NOTE: In this round, at least one of the movies in each blurb is a generally agreed-upon "holiday classic." And remember, films can be mashed up phonetically — e.g. Nosferatu Kill a Mockingbird.

Go to it, have fun, and post your answers below. (First-time players, be forewarned: Answers may indeed be posted below — don't scroll down unless you want to cheat.)

+++

1. Irving Berlin's 1942 classic takes a tragic turn when Bing Crosby starves to death in the Alaskan wilderness.

2. Linus is emotionally scarred for life when Lucy, Schroeder and the gang join the Griswolds for the holidays.

3. Sam Jackson triples the trouble in his nascent action franchise, co-starring Steve Martin and John Candy.

4. Billy Bob Thornton's curmudgeonly Saint Nick gets his arms chopped off in director Alejandro Jodorowsky's transgressive cult classic.

5. Madcap holiday hijinks ensue when Jack Skellington terrorizes frazzled parents Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis.

6. A drunken Stanley Kowalski insists he's the real Santa Claus in Tennessee Williams' perennial holiday favorite.

7. Jimmy Stewart gets a glimpse of what his life would be like if he were in a whimsical, postmodern movie about an oceanographer.

8. All poor Ralphie wants from his parents is a Red Ryder BB gun, but he must first endure the interminable ennui of Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer's marriage.

9. Director Uwe Boll's universally detested videogame adaptation finds an 8-year-old Bob Dylan fending off the hapless burglars trying to rob his family's house. (three films)

10. Codirected by Jodie Foster and Werner Herzog, this deeply weird Christmas tale stars Anna Paquin, a flight of geese, and Michael J. Fox as a plucky little mouse trying to escape a Laotian prisoner camp. (four films)

The answers, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Movie Blurb Game: Holiday Classics Edition" »

8:50 AM ET | 12-16-2008 | permalink

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12.15.2008: 'Chuck,' 'Heroes,' and 'How I Met Your Mother'

Tonight on How I Met Your Mother, Ted's little sister comes to visit and, judging from the previews, needs to be kept away from an overly attentive Barney. (CBS, 8:30 PM)

You may not have heard, but there are "fall finales" now, where a show wraps up its fall batch of shows before taking a nice break until (at least) spring. Both Chuck and Heroes have fall finales on NBC tonight, and that means it will be a while before you see either one again. (NBC, 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.)

What's more of a finale than a "fall finale"? A complete finale, and tonight, NBC's Christian Slater flop, My Own Worst Enemy, says goodbye forever. (NBC, 10 p.m.)

10:42 AM ET | 12-15-2008 | permalink

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'Survivor,' Commercialism, And YouTube, In The Monday Roundup

Bob wins Survivor: Maybe it was the bow tie that saw him through. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

• Last night, Survivor crowned its seventeenth winner: Maine physics teacher and bow-tie enthusiast Bob Crowley, who beat out Sugar the pin-up model and Susie the mom/hairdresser. Bob, at 57, is the oldest winner in the show's history, and one of only two or three contestants cast this season who aren't in immediate and urgent need of a kick in the shins.

• Writer Tom Scocca takes to the pages of the Boston Globe to argue that an advertising mentality is now unfortunately creeping into everything, including your passport and the Army-Navy game.

• Is anybody making money by making YouTube videos? Surprisingly, the answer seems to be yes.

9:37 AM ET | 12-15-2008 | permalink

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Contagion!: The Shocking True Story of a True-Crime-Audiobook Accent Sponge

Listening to books: It's got some occupational hazards you might want to take into account. iStockphoto.com

 

by Sarah D. Bunting

I have a problem. I founded an online true-crime book club, but believe it or not, that isn't the problem -- it is highly unseemly, and bound to make my parents regret picking up the tab for my college education (I've still never read Hamlet), but the actual problem is that I prefer to consume my true crime via audio book. While it does make long trips in a teensy car without cruise control more palatable to listen to faraway detectives bungle a murder case, it has an unwanted side effect, to wit: at some point in the duration of the narrative, I will unconsciously but inevitably begin mimicking the book's narrator in my own speech.

I can't help it. It's an issue for me generally, this accent-sponginess. I grew up in Jersey, but somehow, I don't have an accent of my own -- so it's as though other speech styles rush in to fill the void. A 45-minute conversation with a Louisiana friend leaves my speech studded with chicken-fried might-coulds and my-starses for a full day afterwards (and she doesn't even use these expressions herself); a conference call with my British boss and his IT team...if I don't learn to tone down the tally-ho-guvnah, I'll lose my job.

But the true-crime speech-pattern absorption is far more ridiculous, because it's impossible to explain without appearing bonkers -- but then if I don't explain it, I seem even more bonkers.

Phony Italian accents and surprising Kris Kristofferson references, after the jump...

Continue reading "Contagion!: The Shocking True Story of a True-Crime-Audiobook Accent Sponge" »

8:09 AM ET | 12-15-2008 | permalink

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12.12.2008: 'Supernanny,' 'Say Yes,' and Sunday's 'Survivor' Finale

Another Christmas special joins the fray with The Flight Before Christmas, the animated story of a young reindeer eager to fly like his father. Punny titles never seem to lead anywhere good. (CBS, 9 p.m.)

NPR recently covered the TV nanny genre, and if you're a fan, you'll be glad to know that tonight, Jo Frost of Supernanny is taking on the children of the NBA's Mike James. I predict many jokes about the children fouling out.

I don't really believe in "guilty pleasures" (if I'm looking for entertainment, something is entertaining, and no one is being hurt, guilt seems like an out-of-place reaction), but I definitely have some puzzling pleasures -- things I'm not sure why I like. Definitely among them is Say Yes To The Dress, TLC's completely frothy reality show about women picking out their hilariously overpriced wedding dresses. Somehow, on Friday nights when the week has been long, it's exactly what I want to watch. (TLC, 10 p.m.)

Prefer things that are a little more traditional? Tomorrow night, WE is carrying the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Whee! (WE, Saturday, 8 p.m.)

Most shows, especially network shows, have rolled into reruns until after the new year, but CBS still has one big card to play: Sunday night's two-hour Survivor finale and one-hour reunion special. The way this season is shaping up, the final tribal council, in which those who vote for the ultimate winner pepper the finalists with questions, looks like it will be extra-bitter, so if you watch the show with your baser instincts fully engaged, it might be a good night for you. (CBS, Sunday, 8 p.m.)

Also on Sunday: the third-season finale of Showtime's serial-killer drama Dexter. (Showtime, Sunday, 10 p.m.)

12:22 PM ET | 12-12-2008 | permalink

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'Absolutely No Brown Ones': The Van Halen M&M Rider

Sorting candy: If you're a powerful enough band, you can get people to do it for you. iStockphoto.com

 

There's been a legend for many years that Van Halen used to have a concert rider (the document laying out requirements for everything from lighting and ticketing to backstage food for the band and crew) that required a supply of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed.

For years, The Smoking Gun has been publishing various concert riders from various bands, many of which are deeply hilarious. I enjoy Christina Aguilera's accidentally funny request for Flintstones vitamins, as well as the intentionally funny Foo Fighters rider that includes fabulous lines like, "Artist shall not be required to share dressing room with any other performer, except Supergrass, Oasis, or maybe Led Zeppelin." (Read the whole thing -- helpful red arrows point out the highlights.)

But they never had the Van Halen rider -- until now.

Thanks to the family of a concert promoter, the 1982 Van Halen concert rider has surfaced, and it does indeed ask for M&Ms with the caution, "ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES." The supposed justification is that it's a test -- if the promoter doesn't read the rider carefully, the presence of brown M&Ms is how you can tell. But of course, that doesn't change the fact that some low-paid underling winds up sorting through a pot of M&Ms to pick out the brown ones, which seems sort of...humiliating, whether it's a test of the promoter or not.

7:39 AM ET | 12-12-2008 | permalink

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DVD Boxed Sets For The Budget-Crunched, Which Is Just About Everybody

Mad Men: For less than $30, you can immerse yourself in the smoky rooms of Sterling Cooper. Lions Gate

 

by Linda Holmes

Another TV-on-DVD follow-up: When you spend a lot of time putting together recommendations of boxed sets, you can't help noticing that they do represent a big expense at a time when almost everyone, the news tells us, is looking to cut holiday spending.

Presumably, splurge gifts like larger boxed sets are likely to take a hit this year. It's not unusual for boxed sets to cost $200 or $300, which seems like an awful lot to lay out these days. Pamela Goodfellow is a senior analyst at BIGresearch, which gathers information from consumers about buying habits. She agrees that such a set is certainly going to qualify as "an expensive, splurge-like purchase." Not exactly the direction we're all moving.

But of course, plenty of sets are deeply discounted these days — even though that may mean a reduction from $300 to $200. Can a sale price like that move that "splurge-type purchase"?

Goodfellow believes that even with an expensive set, it all comes down to how well the gift fits the recipient and the giver's budget. It wouldn't fit someone who's looking to buy a bunch of small gifts for someone, but it might be an expedient way to get your presents taken care of: "If it's a guy just looking to get their shopping over with, and they've budgeted $200 for a particular person and it fit them, then that might be a great buy."

The good news is that a lot of the big sales can be found without leaving the comfort of your chair, because there's some pretty deep online discounting going on at the moment.

Finding good deals, after the jump ...

Continue reading "DVD Boxed Sets For The Budget-Crunched, Which Is Just About Everybody" »

2:35 PM ET | 12-11-2008 | permalink

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How A Taco Changed Our Thinking About Dot-Com Job Losses

The humble taco: A critical turning point in the economy, or...just a taco? iStockphoto.com

 

by Todd Kliman

How bad's the economy?

Dot-com darling Yahoo! yesterday laid off 1,500 employees (bringing to nearly 100,000 the number of laid-off tech workers this year).

Almost lost amid the exiting of the techies and the soundings of doom in Silicon Valley was this odd little tidbit: A small outfit called Tokbox parked a taco truck outside the Yahoo! compound, handing out tortas, burritos, two-ply tacos — and job applications. The video-chat start-up was looking to fill — count 'em — five positions.

But what does it mean? After the jump...

Continue reading "How A Taco Changed Our Thinking About Dot-Com Job Losses" »

1:23 PM ET | 12-11-2008 | permalink

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12.11.2008: 'Survivor,' 'CSI,' '30 Rock,' And More...

by Linda Holmes

• You can have your Rudolph and your Frosty; I wait for one Christmas special per year, and that's The Year Without A Santa Claus. Why? Because, in case all the Claymation blends together in your head, this is where you find the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser. That's good stuff. (ABC Family, 8 p.m.)

• This season of Survivor has turned into something of a free-for-all among those who would have been picked last early in the season: it's down to scrawny Kenny, the video gamer; Sugar, the pin-up model who may or may not be smarter than she seems; Susie, who got on everyone's nerves in the first week; Matty, the only young and athletic guy left; Crystal, the surprisingly ungraceful former Olympian; and Bob, the physics teacher, who sometimes seems extremely sharp and sometimes seems to gravely misunderstand the fundamentally mercenary nature of the game. Tonight's final regular episode will be followed by Sunday night's two-hour finale. (CBS, 8 p.m.)

• Tonight's episode of CSI introduces Laurence Fishburne as the new main character who will take over from the departing William Petersen (Gil Grissom). See CBS's "extended preview" at the top of the post. (CBS, 9 p.m.)

• Over on The Office, the party gets complicated after Meredith's hair catches fire. Doesn't that sound like every episode of The Office? (NBC, 9 p.m.)

• It's another appearance by Jack's mother (Elaine Stritch) on 30 Rock, and that's a merry Christmas for everyone.

12:00 PM ET | 12-11-2008 | permalink

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Golden Globes Snub 'Milk,' Love Everything On HBO

James Franco: His Golden Globe nomination for Pineapple Express (that's him in the front seat, with concerned Seth Rogen in back) is a nice surprise. Sony Pictures

 

by Linda Holmes

Golden Globe nominations are out, and there are a few surprises on the list.

Movie Nominations

First and foremost is the lack of a Best Drama nomination for Milk, which lost out to The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, and Revolutionary Road. It picked up a nomination for Sean Penn, but that's it. That gives Milk the same number of nominations as the far inferior The Duchess, which got its sole nomination for Ralph Fiennes' performance as a repressed, unfeeling nobleman.

(To be honest, Fiennes in The Duchess left me utterly cold -- to me, it was every unfeeling aristo in every "married to the king, but in love with another" story ever told, but I was in the emphatic minority on that point, so the nomination is not a surprise.)

Does this mean Milk won't get an Oscar nomination? It's hard to imagine. Not only has the critical praise bordered on outlandish, but the film is full of people Hollywood has loved in the past: Penn, Josh Brolin, and director Gus Van Sant among them. It's been a robust November-December for dramas, but look for Milk to get its Best Picture nod.

Note that not one of the Best Drama nominees has been in wide release as of nomination day, which again brings up the annoyance of shoving every award hopeful (other than summer blockbusters) into the last six weeks of the year, creating a false sense of despair for the other 46 weeks.

In any event, the other Milk news that's most interesting is that James Franco was passed over for that film, but was rather delightfully nominated for Best Actor in a comedy or musical for Pineapple Express. Milk is a more important movie, obviously, but Pineapple Express would have been in far more trouble had James Franco broken a leg and dropped out than Milk would have been.

Not so welcome is the silly nomination of Tom Cruise for his wildly overpraised cameo in Tropic Thunder, which was a prosthetics stunt, and not acting. Robert Downey, Jr. is also nominated for his supporting work in that same film, and would be infinitely more deserving. Because comedy and drama are combined in this category, Cruise's nomination comes at the expense of the aforementioned James Franco and Josh Brolin in Milk, to name just two. Badly done, Hollywood Foreign Press.

Heath Ledger did get the nomination for The Dark Knight that many expected, but it was the only recognition the film received.

Note also the strong showings for Doubt, which got acting nominations for Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, in addition to one for John Patrick Shanley's script; Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the top-nominated comedy, and Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, which received nominations for Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, and an original song from Bruce Springsteen.

What's up on the TV side, after the jump...

Continue reading "Golden Globes Snub 'Milk,' Love Everything On HBO" »

10:14 AM ET | 12-11-2008 | permalink

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Motivational Overload

by Linda Holmes

This fantastic video, in which a whole bunch of motivational speeches are cut together, may be just what you need if the world's been getting you down a little. Whether you're a football player, high-school student, warrior, or player of pee-wee hockey, you can't help but be encouraged.

Hat-tip to Best Week Ever.

8:19 AM ET | 12-11-2008 | permalink

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Midweek Blah-Buster: 'NewsRadio'

by Linda Holmes

It's got Lauren Graham! (Later of Gilmore Girls!) It's got Phil Hartman doing his impression of Andy Dick! But more importantly, it has Jimmy James (Stephen Root) promoting his book, which he wrote as Jimmy James: Capitalist Lion Tamer, but which was translated into Japanese and back into English and came out Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler. They've gradually been bringing NewsRadio to Hulu.com, and they've gotten to my favorite one.

Some days, you just need something funny, and if you head to about the fourteen-minute mark and watch the scene in which Jimmy reads from his book, you will be in a good mood for at least two minutes, no matter what the economy is doing. (That scene returns around 16:30, at which point you will hear the name of the episode: "Super Karate Monkey Death Car.")

8:59 PM ET | 12-10-2008 | permalink

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Early Award Rumblings: Good For 'Milk,' Or Good For Nothing?

Milk: It's coming on strong in early awards, but does that mean anything? Focus Features

 

by Linda Holmes

We're a bit more than ten weeks away from the presentation of the Oscars on February 22, 2009. There are no nominees yet, and some movies expected to have significant showings haven't even opened yet (The Wrestler, Gran Torino, and Revolutionary Road, to name just three). But we have now entered the hinting season, where you will begin to hear that certain other awards build momentum toward the Oscars. But is it true?

Understandably, the prognosticating about awards and nominations yet to come relies on awards and nominations already given. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awarded Best Picture, somewhat surprisingly, to WALL-E, with The Dark Knight as runner-up. Then Wednesday, the New York Film Critics Circle followed, naming Milk Best Picture.

Not unlike in politics, sometimes what's most instructive is looking at the downticket races. Not only did the NYFCC give Best Picture to Milk, it also gave Best Actor to Sean Penn, as did the LAFCA, giving Penn two big victories in what's widely believed to be a two-man race between him and Mickey Rourke of The Wrestler.

More surprisingly, perhaps, the NYFCC gave Best Supporting Actor to Josh Brolin, also for Milk, passing over Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, who won over at the LAFCA. The New York critics also handed their Best Director prize to Happy-Go-Lucky director Mike Leigh, rather than Nolan or Van Sant, or Danny Boyle, who won with the L.A. critics for Slumdog Millionaire.

An examination of the size of the grain of salt with which early awards should be taken, after the jump...

Continue reading "Early Award Rumblings: Good For 'Milk,' Or Good For Nothing?" »

4:19 PM ET | 12-10-2008 | permalink

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12.10.2008: 'Little Spirit,' 'The City,' 'Top Chef,' And More

Little Spirit: In this NBC special, a boy searches for his dog, while the entire city of New York searches for available cabs. NBC Universal

 

by Linda Holmes

• NBC introduces a new Christmas special, Little Spirit: Christmas In New York, in which a boy searches for his dog with the help of a magical helping creature. If this were real Christmas in New York, the dog would have already been dognapped by a grubby tourist, but seriously, I'm not mad anymore about what Christmas in New York is like. Danny DeVito, Lucy Liu, and NBC go-to news anchor Brian Williams provide their voices. (NBC, 8 p.m.)

• Okay, you know how there's that show on MTV, The Hills? And you know how it stars those Spencer and Heidi people who you keep seeing all over the place, getting fake-married and denying her mother's suspicions that he drugged her into getting married? Well, MTV is expanding that franchise to a new show starring tertiary character Whitney, so I'm betting you can't wait to get your TV set tuned to Whitney: From The Hills To The City. (MTV, 10 p.m.)

A Top Chef judge gets personal, and more, after the jump...

Continue reading "12.10.2008: 'Little Spirit,' 'The City,' 'Top Chef,' And More" »

1:18 PM ET | 12-10-2008 | permalink

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O Come All Ye Geeky: Comics Bloggers Count Down to Christmas

WISH Factor 5: When surly heroes meet holiday cheer, the geekdom gets a warm-fuzzy feel.

Marvel

by Glen Weldon

This time of year, some of the more evolved members of the preternaturally peevish comic book blogosphere briefly admit the holiday spirit into their hearts — and upload it to their servers.

The gratifying result: Online! Comics-themed! Advent calendars!

Of course, the Internet boasts many flavors of clickable yuletide countdowns, so why should you -- and let's assume here that your personal interest in comics might be described as less-than-ardent — choose to spend your precious mouse-clicks on funnybook-related calendrical diversions?

A fair question. But rest assured that even if your heart does not thrill, as does mine, to the wildly incongruous mashup of Christmas and comics (Hulk in a Santa Hat! Hee!), this year's batch is a strong one: a potent holiday cocktail of the educational, the adorable and the What the Hell?

Plus, the closer we get to December 25, the better the odds that we might catch a glimpse of — cross your fingers — Caroling Batman.

When sleigh bells meet spandex: We rate your (implausibly plural) comic-book advent-calendar options, after the jump ...

Continue reading "O Come All Ye Geeky: Comics Bloggers Count Down to Christmas" »

1:10 PM ET | 12-10-2008 | permalink

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'The Proposal' And The 'Art' Of The Trailer

by Linda Holmes

Let us take a moment and digest the sheer number of movie and movie-trailer clichés present in this one trailer, for the summer release The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock (who hasn't been in a standard-issue romantic comedy in the six years since 2002's Two Weeks' Notice, believe it or not) and Ryan Reynolds (whose misadventure in the weak-performing Definitely, Maybe didn't cool him off too much).

• She is a businesswoman; she therefore is ice-cold with no personal life.

• Being from Canada is hilarious.

• The trailer music cuts out for the punchline "Every single day," which is supposed to make it seem like a more effective punchline than it really is, which is to say: not very much.

The rest of the little show, after the jump...

Continue reading "'The Proposal' And The 'Art' Of The Trailer" »

10:47 AM ET | 12-10-2008 | permalink

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Ten Surprising Wholesome Values Discovered In Old Episodes Of 'Little House On The Prairie'

by Linda Holmes

While preparing the TV On DVD 2008 wrap-up that went live yesterday, I had the opportunity to check out the entire series run of Little House On The Prairie on DVD. I went strolling through the set, pausing here and there to watch things I remembered and, in some cases, things I didn't. And you know what I learned? They taught some deeply strange lessons on that show. I now present a partial list of the values advanced at least once during the run of Little House On The Prairie.

1. Vigilante justice.

Vigilante justice is very popular on Little House, probably because there is no law enforcement to speak of. Occasionally, a visiting judge appears to put someone on trial for burning down a barn, but for the most part, the citizens of Walnut Grove are on their own.

And they know how to take care of themselves. In the episode "The Bully Boys," three mean brothers come to town and begin swindling and intimidating the townspeople. The youngest is still in school, and because the boys are all off helping with the harvest, he's left alone in school with the girls, who eventually get fed up with him and set upon him in the schoolyard, where they commence flattening him. Later, the rest of the town attends church and is informed by the reverend (!) that the children's mob violence has taught them all an important lesson about standing together (!!), so the reverend throws one of the brothers up against a wall (!!!) before strong-arming all three into leaving town with the assistance of the town's entire population of men. Which brings us to...

2. NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).

Nothing is really done about the brothers except that the men march them right out of town while the women stay behind in church and sing a hymn. Presumably, the ne-er-do-wells simply move on to Sleepy Eye or wherever, where they will choose new children to bully and citizens to defraud. Apparently, as long as the marauding criminals stay away from your particular mercantile, you've solved the problem.

3. Home remedies, up to and including amputation.

In one of the show's most famous episodes (shown in the clip above), Ma is left at home alone for a weekend, and she scratches her leg on the fence outside, resulting in a terrifying infection that causes her hair to get very messy. In her feverish despair, she happens upon a Bible verse that instructs that if your leg offends you, you should "cut it off," and she focuses over and over again on the words "cut it off" while she (honest!) sterilizes a giant butcher knife. Oh, the family-friendly television of the 1970s! In the end, Ma does not cut her leg off, but she does slice her infection open, which the doctor later explains is the only reason she survived. While it does not straightforwardly portray an amputation, the episode clearly suggests that Ma would and could have cut her own leg off if she'd needed to. And that's what makes her brave and strong.

Even more of all this, after the jump...

Continue reading "Ten Surprising Wholesome Values Discovered In Old Episodes Of 'Little House On The Prairie'" »

8:30 AM ET | 12-10-2008 | permalink

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Robert Prosky, 1930-2008:
RIP, Sgt. Jablonski

Robert Prosky The veteran actor died Dec. 8, just five days shy of his 78th birthday.

 

by Trey Graham

If you ever watched Hill Street Blues, you probably have fond memories of Robert Prosky, who played the endearing, avuncular Sgt. Stan Jablonski in later seasons. (And you probably regretted it, a little, when he turned up later on the feeble NBC sitcom Veronica's Closet, playing the Kirstie Alley character's father.)

Those weren't his only credits, of course, not in a stage and screen career that spanned more than 35 years. He played a pro-bono lawyer in Dead Man Walking, and a TV-studio boss in Mrs. Doubtfire, among many other parts.

But Prosky, who died yesterday in the wake of emergency heart surgery, was best known as a theater actor, and a fine one. He earned his second Tony nomination in 1989, playing a gregarious Soviet negotiator — opposite Law & Order's Sam Waterston — in the glasnost-era arms-control drama A Walk In the Woods.

The first had come just a few years earlier, when he played an aging salesman in the Broadway premiere of David Mamet's brutal Glengarry Glen Ross.

And in Washington, D.C., where Prosky was a longtime company member at Arena Stage, he'd played that other, most iconic salesman, Willy Loman, in a Death of a Salesman that Arthur Miller himself reportedly called "unforgettable."

I can believe it. Prosky was an easy, unfussy actor, but he sure knew how to inhabit a character. I saw him in fine form a couple of years back in an Arena production of the Depression-era drama Awake and Sing!, playing the curmudgeonly Marxist grandpa of a squabbling Bronx clan.

"If this life leads to a revolution, it's a good life," that cranky old character growls, famously — "otherwise it's for nothing."

The D.C. theater community, from what I'm hearing today, would probably beg to differ. He may not have started any big revolutions, but as the news of Prosky's death spread, on Facebook and via e-mail, the stories came back, affectionate and warm. Everyone, it seems, had a Bob Prosky memory, and in so many of them he seems to have been an inspiration.

4:30 PM ET | 12- 9-2008 | permalink

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The Discerning Viewer: 12.09.2008

Dr. Scrooge to Tiny Tim: "Stop complaining": It may seem incongruous for a show like House, which is about a genuine misanthrope, to get into the holiday spirit, but tonight is the show's Christmas episode. Collapsing teenagers, special gifts, the continuing story of Thirteen's degenerative disease...what could be more festive? (Fox, 8 p.m.)

Purely aesthetic appeal: I don't recommend you watch it, I don't even recommend you pay attention to it beyond this paragraph, but once a year, I pause to salute the best name of a Christmas special in history: Olive, The Other Reindeer. (My Network TV, 8 p.m.)

Terrifying economic coverage and the even more terrifying Jim Belushi, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Discerning Viewer: 12.09.2008" »

1:26 PM ET | 12- 9-2008 | permalink

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How Mainstream Is NPR Music?

by Linda Holmes

If you like good music, good chatter, or vigorous nerd fights, you will surely enjoy the All Songs Considered show featuring NPR Music's 2008 Year In Review. It's a funny, lively discussion that will remind you of some of the best music of the year.

But how many people listen to that stuff? Last.fm, as it happens, has released its "Best Of 2008" lists, which aren't so much "best of" lists as "most listened to" lists. The way Last.fm works, its software (if you choose) can make a note of what you listen to on your computer, in order to improve its understanding of what you like. They can also use the data to come up with these aggregations of what artists, tracks, and albums people actually listened to the most in 2008. Not what they said they listened to, but what they actually listened to.

So how did Last.fm users line up with NPR Music? You can look for yourself, and you'll see that among Last.fm's top ten artists are Santogold, Fleet Foxes, MGMT, and -- yes -- Bon Iver, The Official Bearded Mountain Band Of NPR Music, all of whom got mentions in the piece. Bon Iver is also featured in the clip above, performing "Dance, Dance, Dance" with Lykke Li.

Among the top albums, in addition to those from the artists already mentioned, are the records from Coldplay and Death Cab For Cutie, which were sort of the NPR Music flag-wavers for more heavily played music that was still good.

All in all, not a bad alignment between what was good and what was popular, although Bob Boilen will have to wait a little longer for the inevitable resurgence of Sparks.

9:43 AM ET | 12- 9-2008 | permalink

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Weird Doings At NBC, Part 2

by Linda Holmes

David Letterman told Rolling Stone earlier this year that he didn't get why NBC was pushing Jay Leno out of The Tonight Show as of 2010 in favor of Conan O'Brien, saying, "I'm not quite sure why they would do that, so much so that one wonders if that's actually what's going to happen." The more desperate things became at NBC, the more implausible it seemed that the network would simply wave goodbye to Leno.

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Leno, I have never been a fan of Leno, it is not my kind of comedy, and it doesn't make me laugh, ever. The monologue above, with its "What kind of a name is Plaxico?" jokes and continuing fascination with erectile dysfunction advertising is simply not my thing. I can't stand "Jaywalking," and I can't stand the Andy-Capp-ish jokes about Hillary Clinton/Janet Reno/whatever powerful woman is currently in the headlines.

But NBC, as we've discussed, has very little left. A couple of critical-darling comedies, but what else? For a while, it had something percolating with Heroes, but that seems to be over, at least for now. It has Deal Or No Deal, but that's nobody's long-term plan, and it's not...it's not television, you know? It's a game show.

So now, NBC has decided to go ahead with Conan at 11:30 p.m., beginning in 2010, but to -- get this -- put Jay Leno on every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. Essentially, NBC is shifting an hour five nights a week out of prime-time-style programming into late-night-style programming. More interviews, more monologues, more skitty business.

Why this move might be less foolish, but no less depressing, than it first appears, after the jump...

Continue reading "Weird Doings At NBC, Part 2" »

10:08 PM ET | 12- 8-2008 | permalink

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The Discerning Viewer: 12.08.2008

Chucked: It was pointed out to me during last week's discussion of NBC's apparent suicidal tendencies that one show I'd given short shrift was Chuck, a show I often wind up catching up on in large blocks, partly because it's one NBC has been good about keeping available. For instance, the entire season is still up on NBC's site. But tonight's new episode features an appearance by Gary Cole (a classic Hey! It's That Guy!), and that can only be good. (NBC, 8 p.m.)

Awesomely legendary: Tonight on How I Met Your Mother, Ted and Barney get into a fight. It's very easy to imagine either of those guys being beaten to a pulp -- let's watch! (CBS, 8:30 p.m.)

Shatner takes a powder and Heroes keeps it up, after the jump...

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2:21 PM ET | 12- 8-2008 | permalink

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The Long Line Of Heroes Grievances Gets Even Longer

by Marc Hirsh

There are some days where it seems like all I do is complain about Heroes. Those days are usually Tuesdays, by which point the previous night's episode (with all of its attendant frustrations) has had some time to percolate in my brain overnight. At this point, coming up with new reasons to loudly roll my eyes at the now-exasperating show -- whose first season was fun, mildly thoughtful (if overly, goofily ponderous) and, on a handful of rare occasions, exemplary television -- just seems redundant.

But last week's "Eclipse -- Part 2" episode featured a development that drove me bats. It wasn't the realization that Brea Grant's strained and twitchy portrayal of the fleet-footed Daphne makes me long for the acting firepower of season one's notoriously wooden Nora Zehetner, whose Eden McCain looks like a marvel of expressiveness by comparison. Nor was it the fact that the indestructibility of Sylar and Claire means that even if they die during a brief period when everyone's superpowers vanished, they'll come back to life once everyone's powers return. (That's right: even if they died.)

What caused all the trouble, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Long Line Of Heroes Grievances Gets Even Longer" »

11:00 AM ET | 12- 8-2008 | permalink

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Looking Beyond Ratings, And More In The Monday Roundup

by Linda Holmes

• In the Los Angeles Times, Scott Collins takes a look at the idea of networks basing management decisions on factors other than ratings -- not the quality of programming, of course, but DVD sales, DVR viewing, and online attention. Collins winds up sort of punting on that debate in favor of advocating for quality. A viewpoint we can all agree with, of course, but encouraging networks to think less about making money isn't as likely to improve programming as encouraging them to think about additional ways to make money.

Furthermore, what exactly does a network do with a show like Arrested Development, which Fox still takes guff for canceling, in spite of the fact that they kept it on for three seasons and couldn't get anybody to watch it? (But you'll find it among the most popular shows on Hulu, even now, and in the clip above, featuring Michael Cera shortly before he became a movie star.)

Book club strife, Austen humor, and a Ralphie update, after the jump...

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8:26 AM ET | 12- 8-2008 | permalink

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The Discerning Viewer: 12.05.2008

by Linda Holmes

The pickings are so slim tonight that it's even bad even for a Friday. But we soldier on, because you might be stuck at home alone with a broken leg, and you can't do crossword puzzles all the time.

Christmas doesn't look so cheerful now:: Turner Classic Movies brings you "Musical Christmas," a set of three Christmas-themed musicals: Meet Me In St. Louis with Judy Garland; In the Good Old Summertime, also with Judy Garland; and Scrooge, which does not have Judy Garland. But it does have Albert Finney. As shown above, the original "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" was a little sadder than you might think, although it was nice of them to cut it off before little Margaret O'Brien murders the snowmen. (TCM, 8 p.m.)

Surviving in the wild and training the pets of circus performers, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Discerning Viewer: 12.05.2008" »

11:04 AM ET | 12- 5-2008 | permalink

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CNN Hates The Holidays

by Linda Holmes

Okay, that might be unfair. But not that unfair. CNN's report on the most annoying holiday songs is pretty grouchy.

As for me, I do not truck with people who hate "Jingle Bells." And I'm not sure I ever hear the Chipmunks anymore, except in the context of pieces about the least enjoyable holiday songs. If I did, I'd definitely vote for that.

For what it's worth, this is my current favorite holiday pop song: Barenaked Ladies' "Elf's Lament," in which we learn about bad labor conditions at the North Pole. What? Social justice is festive! On the record, they perform this with hokey crooner Michael Bublé, which makes it even more absurdly great.

So I'll throw the question out there: What's the most annoying song December inflicts upon you? Go.

10:59 PM ET | 12- 4-2008 | permalink

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For Your Last Meal, Would You Choose The Whopper?

Appetite suppressant? A crime-museum survey of last-meal preferences turns up a sizzling favorite. iStockphoto

 

One of the things chefs do for fun is to sit around at the end of service, knock back lots of red wine and ask each other: What would you want for your last meal?

(When they're not smiling it up for cooking shows and pitching non-stick skillets, chefs can be a morbid lot.)

Engaging in a little morbid fun itself, Washington, D.C.'s
The National Museum of Crime and Punishment (yes, there's a museum for everything) recently posed that last meal-question to its visitors.

In hopes of provoking thought, the museum's questionnaire offered a few examples, listing the actual last suppers of four mass murderers:

• Saddam Hussein, brutish even in his selection of food (boiled chicken, rice and hot water with honey)

• Ted Bundy (he declined a special meal and was given the traditional breakfast)

• Timothy McVeigh, obsessive to the end (two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream)

• and John Wayne Gacy (a bucket of KFC original recipe chicken, french fries, a dozen deep-fried shrimp and a pound of strawberries)

More than 500 people took part in the survey. And as might be expected, pizza, ice cream, lobster, hamburger and steak all rated highly.

But none of those foods was the winning meal.

What took the end-of-the-line trophy? After the jump ...

Continue reading "For Your Last Meal, Would You Choose The Whopper?" »

3:59 PM ET | 12- 4-2008 | permalink

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Thursday, December 4: The Discerning Viewer

by Linda Holmes

Welcome to the jungle, Mom!: Tonight is the night the loved ones visit on Survivor. That means hugs, kisses, crying, and the possibility that someone's poor mom or dad will have to eat worms or wrestle blindfolded in the sand, and there's nothing that's not good about that. The season has perked up a bit in recent weeks after a very slow start, and the recent departures of a string of unpleasant jerks have made watching the show a little less like spending time at the world's most quarrelsome adult summer camp. I realize this may qualify as faint praise. (CBS, 8 p.m.)

Comedy, drama, and whatever Barbara Walters is, after the jump...

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10:47 AM ET | 12- 4-2008 | permalink

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NBC Stares At Its Foot, Loads Its Pistol, And Doubles The Size Of 'Celebrity Apprentice'

by Linda Holmes

NBC dropped a bunch of midseason scheduling news yesterday. The Office will get the high-profile spot after the Super Bowl that has, in the past, gone to events like the House episode with Mira Sorvino and the first half of the Grey's Anatomy episode where the unexploded shell blew up the poor bomb-squad guy.

The Office has had a relatively good, if slightly uneven, fall, so it's nice to see them getting the boost of that slot. If you're a fan, check out the clip above, which is the first episode in the show's new run of online-only "webisodes."

ER flatlines (sorry about that), Knight Rider crashes and burns (that too), and more, after the jump...

Continue reading "NBC Stares At Its Foot, Loads Its Pistol, And Doubles The Size Of 'Celebrity Apprentice'" »

7:21 AM ET | 12- 4-2008 | permalink

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25 Days Of Newman

by Linda Holmes

If you enjoy -- or do not enjoy -- a Randy Newman movie title song (like the Toy Story tune he's performing above), you'll definitely enjoy 25 Days Of Newman, a project where two comics are producing a new (sort of) Newmanesque movie title song every day.

Hat-tip to Metafilter.

9:50 PM ET | 12- 3-2008 | permalink

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Baggin' On the Sea King, or: The Comedy Meme that Ate Atlantis

Sea monkey: Even Stephen Colbert can't resist taking a dig at Aquaman. Comedy Central.

 

by Glen Weldon

Aquaman. King of the Seven Seas. Swift and Powerful Monarch of the Ocean.

Dude can't catch a break.

In the popular mindset, he's become a quite literal joke, and a tired one.

And so to all those cut-ups, wags and wacky funsters who have helped to spread the now pervasive "Aquaman is Lame" meme, I say this:

Enough. Basta. Move on.

Credit where it's due, though: Thanks to you, said meme itself — the very act of pointing out that the highly specific nature of Aquaman's power-set would logically circumscribe his effectiveness as a deterrent of crime and administrator of justice (i.e., "The guy talks to FISH!") — is now officially the hoariest, hackiest arrow in the quiver of pop-culture commentary.

Qua humor, it is to our Internet Age what "And what is the deal with airline peanuts?" was to the skinny-necktie 90's.

It is not remotely fresh; it is fresh's antithesis, its polar opposite, its mortal enemy. It's what steps onto the Enterprise wearing a goatee after a transporter malfunction strands Fresh Himself in the anti-matter universe.

Stephen Colbert, bless him, recently managed to put a silly new spin on the Aquaman joke. (It's right around the one-minute mark). It's not bad, actually, as Aquaman gags go -- just dumb enough to crack Colbert up, which is fun.

But that's the exception. The rule itself is pretty grim.

After the jump, a short history of the Aqua-gag, involving Dave Chappelle, Craig Ferguson, Family Guy, Entourage, and the many others who've mistaken the Sea King's orange tunic for Komedy Gold.

Continue reading "Baggin' On the Sea King, or: The Comedy Meme that Ate Atlantis" »

3:48 PM ET | 12- 3-2008 | permalink

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This Week In 'AIIEEEEE!': 'The Amazing Race' Edition

by Linda Holmes

Every now and then, you get a reminder that half of life is showing up.

And the other half is not losing your stuff.

This week on The Amazing Race, the highly likable mother-son team of Toni and Dallas had made it all the way to the final four, along with three less likable teams. In descending order of likability and the mutters of disinterest they inspire, those teams were: brother and sister Nick and Starr (eh), semi-feuding couple Ken and Tina (feh), and incompetent buffoon clown can-barely-find-their-own-feet pals Dan and Andrew (bleh).

The previous week, Dan and Andrew had given perhaps the worst performance by any team, in any leg, ever. Most notably, they had to quit on a task and try a different one, because Dan couldn't walk in formation. Not tango, not mambo, not limbo: just walk. Walk in a straight line in a rhythmic fashion. Couldn't do it. Don't believe me? See for yourself. It was like Elaine dancing on Seinfeld, if Elaine had only been trying to walk at the time.

More on morons, after the jump...

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12:59 PM ET | 12- 3-2008 | permalink

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Wednesday, December 3: The Discerning Viewer

Pushing Daisies: A scene from last week's episode, in which Ned shows off his talent for waking the dead -- but only for one minute.

by Linda Holmes

Join the final stages of grief: ABC recently pulled the (apparent) plug on Pushing Daisies (as it did with Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money), but there are still a handful of new episodes left. Tonight, a chef turns up dead at a cook-off. (ABC, 8 p.m.)

It's beginning to look a lot like tourists from Ohio: Last year at this time, I was actually working in Rockefeller Center, and believe me, it may be the most wonderful time of the year, but not if you are trying to get a peppermint mocha at the Starbucks in the underground concourse next to the skating rink. If you're doing that, it's nothing but a solid wall of people's backs. People who are not from New York, and therefore don't understand the Step Aside Rules, the Keep It Moving Rules, or the You Can't Just Stand There Where People Need To Walk Rules.

What I'm saying is that tonight's Christmas At Rockefeller Center (NBC, 8 p.m.) will not give you the real feeling of Christmas at Rockefeller Center, despite the efforts of Harry Connick, Jr., the Jonas Brothers, and American Idol champ David Cook.

More of tonight's TV, after the jump...

Continue reading "Wednesday, December 3: The Discerning Viewer" »

8:53 AM ET | 12- 3-2008 | permalink

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The Cartoon Network Rickrolls The Macy's Parade

by Glenn McDonald

This is inspired.

At the extremely orchestrated, extremely annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City, those rascals at the Cartoon Network managed to Rickroll a crowd of millions, both in person and via the live broadcast on NBC.

If you're not familiar with the concept of Rickrolling, there's a good primer here. Basically, it's a fun but aging Internet meme -- an endlessly perpetuating prank that tricks people into watching a full-screen, full-volume version of Rick Astley's 1987 video, "Never Going to Give You Up."

More on Rickrolling, The Man, and how a meme dies, after the jump...

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8:22 AM ET | 12- 3-2008 | permalink

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Midweek Blah-Buster: Ben Folds

Ben Folds - "Such Great Heights" Hey, Play This. . . !

A room full of excitable nerds with acoustic guitars is never, never, never a bad idea. This video of Ben Folds covering the Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" has been kicking around for a couple of years now, beloved by random YouTube stumblers and email link-followers. There's a lot of love in that room.

Happy middle of the week.

6:27 PM ET | 12- 2-2008 | permalink

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Gap Holiday: The Thrill Is Gone

It used to be that one of the best sources of palatable holiday ads was The Gap. This one was actually the first time many people ever saw Rufus Wainwright, singing "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" for the holiday campaign in 1998. Around the same vintage, there were ads with Luscious Jackson singing "Let It Snow" and with Low singing "The Little Drummer Boy." It wasn't all hipster bands, either -- Johnny Mathis showed up to sing "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year."

Gap history and holiday blues, after the jump, and be warned -- mute your computer first if you are working around sleeping babies, because The Gap will autoplay its merriment in your ear if you don't...

Continue reading "Gap Holiday: The Thrill Is Gone" »

8:01 AM ET | 12- 2-2008 | permalink

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Snobs, Movies, & Adorable Thrift, In The Monday Roundup

Culture panic: Worried about applauding at the wrong time? You're hardly alone. iStockphoto.

 

by Linda Holmes

• The London Times is feeling mighty optimistic these days, judging from its creation of a list of the 100 Best Movies of 2008. Now, it doesn't always feel like there are two movies a week that anyone would want to include on such a list, but they've gone and compiled their list nonetheless. (Note that it's based on 2008 releases in the U.K.; some of these were released in the U.S. in 2007.) If nothing else, it does make a nice refresher on recent movies you may have missed, and there are handy links to every review.

TiVo, penny-pinching, and fear of culture snobbery, after the jump...

Continue reading "Snobs, Movies, & Adorable Thrift, In The Monday Roundup" »

1:20 PM ET | 12- 1-2008 | permalink

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