Joaquin Phoenix was not the first person to have an extremely...weird celebrity interview moment. He wasn't even the first person to do it sitting across from David Letterman. Your afternoon lull-killer is the Nerve.com list of the Twenty Weirdest TV Interviews Of All Time.

Number 20 is the clip above in which Gary Busey seizes upon a surprised and baffled Jennifer Garner. I won't tell you what they picked for #1, but I can't really argue with their selection, though I do wonder why Joe Namath's "I wanna kisssshooo" sidelines interview didn't make the cut.

(Hat-tip to Pop Candy.)

No ordinary aerobics class: Faux-stripping for fun and fitness is probably infiltrating your gym as we speak.iStockphoto.com

 

by Elizabeth Nelson

I always believed that stripping was a rarefied skill set practiced only by those individuals who ply what we old-timers used to call the "sex trade." Then in the early 2000s came Carmen Electra, flush with another of her bold, Edison-like innovations: in a series of videos, she combined stripping with aerobics to create the ultimate in low-impact workouts for the vamp in you.

At my gym, an enormous raft of empirical evidence attests to the ascendancy of this phenomenon. Long lines, bright lights, big beats, short shorts and a general atmosphere of pandemonium permeate the premises every night that these classes are offered. It's a frustrating predicament, because I like dignity, but I also like things that are popular. What to do?

The uncomfortable idea of appropriating stripping to improve your abs, after the jump...

Continue reading "Fitness And The Pole" >

by Linda Holmes

Kanye West is a powerful performer and kind of a fascinating guy -- it's not for nothing that he's won twelve -- yes, twelve -- Grammy Awards. Tomorrow night, he brings his act to VH1's Storytellers, long a showcase for singer-songwriters. Based on the clip above, it may well be a fine show, but it's currently being eclipsed by controversy over what you're not going to see.

According to Reuters, you won't see either an airing of grievances about Radiohead's Thom Yorke or -- more interestingly -- a statement that the public should give singer Chris Brown "a break."

Brown is currently the subject of one of the ugliest public investigations in recent memory, and West's comments are likely the most headline-friendly aspect of the entire show. But you won't see them; they were cut along with the Yorke business.

Bill Flanagan, the show's executive producer, says that this is all perfectly normal as part of the process of editing a much longer performance down to what's usually a one-hour show -- but has been extended in West's case to 90 minutes. The idea, Flanagan says, is to encourage people to "keep talking" on stage, in return for which the show agrees to "eliminate any 'gotcha' moments."

That seems like a dangerous bargain, doesn't it?

The scratching of backs, after the jump...

Continue reading "Kanye West, The Edited Version" >

Batman: Well, he sure looks dead, doesn't he? DC Comics

 

by Glen Weldon

In comics, always bet on "or something."

You won't go wrong, particularly when the putative corpse in question is -- as in the case before us -- a multiple-franchise-spawning chunk o' intellectual property whose heavily marketed multimedia presence has infiltrated mass culture to an absurd, and in some cases profoundly unflattering, degree.

In superhero circles, see, death is a chronic condition. It's inconvenient, yes -- but treatable.

Case in point: Last month, DC Comics once again sent one of its most recognizable characters into the Great Beyond ... or somewhere thereabouts.

In the Caped Crusader's absence, DC will launch Battle for the Cowl, a multi-issue series in which Robin, Batgirl and the rest of extended Bat-family... well, battle. For the right to wear the pointy ears.

"Battle for the Cowl." Hey, it beats what they called a very similar plotline back in the 90's, when Bruce Wayne literally broke his back fighting crime.

(He, um, got better. But for a while a Bat-vacuum existed that nature thoroughly abhorred. I wasn't too crazy about it either, frankly, as it allowed this cheesy, "TO THE EXTREME!", quintessentially '90s chump of a character -- your garden-variety brainwashed, gene-spliced, French-Catholic-assassin in fire armor -- to take over the Bat-books for a time.)

Back then, DC editors ushered in the guy's doofy stint as interim-Batman by asking the question: "Who Will Inherit ... the Mantle of the Bat?"

"Mantle of the Bat." Doesn't really sing, does it? Not sure why. Maybe it's the faux-gravitas of it, which just comes off sounding ineluctably dumb. Or maybe it's because the word "mantle" puts you in mind of things that stick to rocks.

After the jump: The facts, such as they are, behind the Dark Knight's Dubious Dirtnap.

Continue reading "So, Yeah: Batman's Dead, or Something" >

by Linda Holmes

Did I know Sesame Street was on Hulu and had its own YouTube channel? It appears this happened in late 2008, but I must not have realized, because I certainly would have lost an entire day to it. It's interesting to see classic kids' shows show up on services like this; I'm not sure whether the presumed audience is current nerds or current nerds' children. Either group is lucky to be able to enjoy a little singing Ernie, though.

Note that the Sesame Street YouTube channel disables embedding on all its videos, so you can watch "C Is For Cookie," but as they say, you can't take it with you like you can with the Hulu stuff.

While the Hulu selection is a little Elmo-centric for my tastes (I suppose one's affection for Elmo is one of those skinny-Elvis/fat-Elvis questions that divides generations), they're probably smart to capitalize on the nostalgic tendencies of people like me -- who will otherwise be reduced to poor-quality YouTube life lessons. Which brings me to "We are out of sweet rolls."

Possibly the best angry cartoon lady ever, after the jump...

Continue reading "Just The Thing For A Four-Year-Old With A Laptop" >

Top Chef: Can Carla pull out the big win on tonight's season finale? Bravo

 

by Linda Holmes

Top Chef is what its Bravo sibling Project Runway was before it got stupider; before it became clear that controversial contestants would be given two or three or even more free passes before being eliminated; before "threw me under the bus" became the most overused phrase on television.

Top Chef is still mostly sane. It dabbles in arguing and unpleasant personalities, but for the most part, it still relies on talented people showing off how talented they are. And tonight, three people with good track records face off in what should be a close contest.

The details, some video love, and a few predictions, after the jump...

Continue reading "The 'Top Chef' Finale Awaits" >

You Mustn't Read This: Linda didn't much like Benjamin Button, but there are those who argue the movie's still better than the book.photocredit

By Linton Weeks

The literati can't stand to hear it, but sometimes a movie is better than the book it's based on. Even when the book is pretty good: Jaws comes to mind. And, arguably, Forrest Gump.

This year theaters are teeming with movies based on books. And some reviewers who've had a look at both are saying that the movies are better.

Take The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The tale, about a man who ages in reverse, is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Having seen the movie and read the story," writes Fritz Lanham in the Houston Chronicle, "I'd say there's no comparison. As a book guy it pains me to admit it, but the movie is better. A lot better."

The film critic for the Montreal Gazette, meanwhile, avers that the movie Slumdog Millionaire is better than the Vikas Swarup book it's based on.

When it's the other way around, after the jump ...

Continue reading "Open Questions: Books Into Movies, For Better Or Worse" >

by Linda Holmes

I learned something new while researching the new Pussycat Dolls version of "Jai Ho," the Oscar-winning song from Slumdog Millionaire.

It turns out that everybody and their three-year-old is posting YouTube videos of themselves dancing to "Jai Ho." Up there at the top is an unnamed small child getting his groove on, and believe me, there's much more.

Much more, after the jump...

Continue reading "A Full-Fledged Phenomenon: YouTube "Jai Ho" Dances" >

Andy Richter: Does his reunion with Conan mean failure or success? Michael Buckner/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

When Conan O'Brien takes over The Tonight Show on June 1, he'll be joined by his original sidekick/announcer, Andy Richter, who worked on his Late Night show from 1993 to 2000.

After his previous Late Night stint, Richter starred in a couple of well-regarded sitcoms that ultimately failed, including Andy Richter Controls The Universe and Andy Barker, P.I., and he never really found a stable comedy home.

Reactions to Richter's return and video evidence that it's worth looking forward to, after the jump...

Continue reading "Andy Richter Comes Home" >

by Linda Holmes

So in news that surprises no one, alleged Dating A Banker Anonymous "founder" Laney Crowell now admits that the whole thing was made up. There's no support group, the blog entries are fictional, there are no members (the closest thing there is to a support group is "I go out to brunch with my friends and talk about guys and dating"), there are no actual failing relationships, and they don't even know anyone who's actually a "DABA girl" in the way they described.

So for those of you who followed the initial post and the Times response we got a couple of weeks back, it ends not with a bang, but with an interview in a coffee shop.

The New York Times has now published its "Editor's Note," which essentially says that it used the wrong terminology in describing the group.

by Linda Holmes

Anyone who has followed my long love affair with various competitive reality shows has heard me complain about the way people sometimes choose to ask God for help. Asking for strength: fine. Asking not to die while skydiving: certainly! But asking, "Please make me win instead of that other guy"? That seems...vaguely distasteful.

The latest person to weigh in on my side of the argument: Mel, the Amazing Race contestant who, in Sunday's episode, had to wait in agony for the winds to change so he could complete a parasailing task. Other teams had already moved on, choosing to run down the steep mountain instead. But Mel was nursing a pulled muscle and didn't think he could do the run, so he waited for the instructors to give the all-clear. And, in the clip above, he explained why he didn't think it was necessarily a great idea to ask God to step in and alter the results.

Oh, and Mel? Mel is a minister who has written extensively about spirituality, so take that, callow tattooed bartenders praying to win Survivor!

Viola Davis: Her dress doesn't seem controversial enough to spark such a strange discussion. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

One of the little rituals I tend to indulge in after the Oscars is the E! Fashion Police special. It used to be Joan and Melissa Rivers, of course, but they're long gone -- this year's special was handled by Debbie Matenopoulos, Project Runway champ Christian Siriano, America's Next Top Model stylist Jay Manuel, and stylist Peter Ishkahns.

This year, the four went through a pretty predictable discussion of Sarah Jessica Parker and Miley Cyrus and so forth, until they arrived at Best Supporting Actress nominee Viola Davis. Davis' gold gown, by Reem Acra, generally got very good reviews -- the Times Online called it one of the best dresses of the evening, the Fug Girls loved it, the Chicago Sun-Times praised it, and so forth.

Not so the E! panel.

What went down, and why it went down uncomfortably, after the jump...

Continue reading "A Very Strange Discussion Of Viola Davis" >

by Linda Holmes

The trailer for Judd Apatow's upcoming Funny People has started to circulate in earnest, and the first warning is -- as explained at Low Resolution -- that the trailer is lengthy and appears to give away most of the plot. This is a baffling and frustrating affliction of the modern trailer, where there's been a collapse of the idea that you can sell a movie without encapsulating it.

What the trailer actually portends, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Funny People' Unites The Renowned Subtleties Of Sandler, Apatow, And Rogen" >

by Linda Holmes

If you wondered why Will Smith said "Boom goes the dynamite" the other night at the Oscars after he biffed a little bit of his scripted patter, enjoy -- or rather, "enjoy" -- this much-distributed, but still entertaining, viral video in which a hapless college sportscaster has a very painful buildup to what he's obviously certain is his Great Idea. It's pretty painful, but boy, he's ready for that shot to go in, isn't he?

Above: You know Jar Jar Binks makes you angry, but why?

by Linda Holmes

At last, we have been cured of our Oscar hangover! Fortunately, there really are other things going on in the world, and one day, no one will even care about Marisa Tomei's origami dress. And that day is "Tuesday." On with the show.

Read:

• If you're wondering why old songs make you feel good and terrible sequels make you angry, enjoy this article, which explores how your brain rebels when it gets angry at George Lucas. (Hat-tip to io9.)

• Variety offers some details about how the economy is affecting the production of pilots, with the most interesting tidbit being the fact that multicamera comedies -- which were in the process of becoming extinct in favor of single-camera, un-laugh-tracked fare -- are cheaper, and thus may be back.

What to Note and Ignore, including Oscar ratings and two unnecessary remakes, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Nostalgia, Broadway Drama, And A Really Bad Thing Happens To 'Jai Ho'" >

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger — is that how the saying goes? With that in mind, we returned to the Oscar well one last time this morning for a live chat with our favorite film critic.

And now that it's over, no kidding, it's time for us to have a little nap. So enjoy the chat (you can replay it in the widget below), and we'll be back soon. Maybe tomorrow, but soon.

The live-blogging is done, But you can relive all 4 hours of it by clicking 'Replay' below, and add your thoughts in the comments. And don't forget: More NPR Oscar goodness is collected for your convenience at NPR.org/oscars.

by Linda Holmes

Hey, all -- we're only a couple of hours or so away from the liveblog, which will start at 8 p.m. To tide you over until then, check out the live backstage tweets from NPR's Mandalit del Barco and Carrie Kahn, who are already up and running in the press section. Once we get a little closer to showtime, you'll be able to see both the liveblog and the backstage tweets on the same page (you'll see how it works); until then, because they're underway and we're not, please follow @nprlive or just browse the widget above.

And we'll see you at eight.

by Linda Holmes

Update: The day has come. I am doing jumping jacks with my mind. In a mere couple of hours, I will begin the long day ahead, which will feature, in order: Milk, The Reader, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, and Frost/Nixon. Will I bail and spend the afternoon at Starbucks? I don't think we know. But now, we're going to find out. The suspense is killing me, and soon, I suspect that my spine will be also.

I've always been kind of fascinated by the AMC Best Picture Showcase. That's the special deal where, for $30, you can watch all the Best Picture nominees...in a row. It's happening today (Saturday), and they may be doing it at a theater near you -- check the site to find out.

This year, I'm actually going. I've already seen four out of five of the movies (sorry, The Reader!), but I don't mind a refresher before the big ceremony on Sunday night, and I'm kind of curious about what that much exposure will do to me -- I mean, for me.

To follow my adventures, follow me on Twitter at monkeyseeblog, or if you're not a Twitter person yourself, watch it roll by here.

What I think will happen, after the jump...

Continue reading "A Marathon Of Movies, Not A Sprint" >

Oscar: This statue is waiting for Sunday night's ceremony and not, as it might appear, waiting to get married. Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images

 

So you've been here all week, right? We talked about whether the Oscar show is doomed, and we questioned the wisdom of trying to tone down the glamour out of sympathy for the broke.

We talked about some of the movies up for major awards -- we compared two very different movies with very different endings, and we got more specific about what ails the most-nominated movie of the year.

We even looked back with pity and pleasure at Oscar fashion with the Fug Girls. And now we're ready for our very big weekend. To pull it all together, here's what's on tap for the next few days.

• Follow us on Twitter to see whether I survive the all-day Best Picture marathon tomorrow, or come back and watch the updates go by right here.

• On Sunday night, we'll be liveblogging the Oscars starting at 8 p.m. -- that will be me and two of my favorite speed-talking writer pals, Stephen Thompson and John Ramos. You can also check in with the rest of NPR's Oscar coverage Sunday night for backstage tweets, red-carpet photos, and all of the rest of the awards-ceremonial goodness you need.

• Come back Monday morning at 10 a.m., where NPR's Bob Mondello and I will chat and take your questions and comments about the ceremony, the winners and losers, and whatever else you dream up during the awards show and its many commercial breaks.

We'll see you then.

Benjamin Button: The rarely active, usually acted-upon central character is only one of his story's major problems. Paramount Pictures

 

by Marc Hirsh

Ever since 1996 -- when I'd seen Apollo 13, Babe, Sense And Sensibility and, yes, even Il Postino only to watch Braveheart win the Oscar -- I've seen every Best Picture nominee before the ceremony. Since I can't go to AMC's brilliant/horrifying all-day Best Picture marathon tomorrow [Ed. Note: HEY!] I've been catching up slowly. And so, on a full night's sleep, I somewhat reluctantly saw The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.

I found myself baffled by Button's massive nomination haul. Here before me, on the verge of being festooned with highest honors, was a genuinely bad movie.

How bad? Allow me to count the ways. [Warning: the spoilers will fly fast and furious.]

The framing device. Button unfolds as Daisy's daughter, Caroline, reads Benjamin's journal to her on her New Orleans deathbed, with Hurricane Katrina looming. That's two entirely unnecessary elements added to the story. The dying woman looking back on her life is cheap sentimentality, while the Katrina aspect is rife with symbolic weight, but symbolizing what? It's a storytelling gimmick that Means Something, without the slightest indication of what that Something might be.

Moreover, the device invites pointless exchanges that stall the movie. My personal favorite: an agitated Caroline steps out into the hospital hallway for a smoke, where she's promptly told, "You can't smoke here." Thank you, Oscar-nominated, three-hour screenplay!

Much more that went wrong, after the jump...

Continue reading "What's So Curiously Wrong With 'Benjamin Button'?" >

The All-Time Classic: Bjork swans her way into the 2001 Oscars. Lucy Nicholson, AFP/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

The fashion blog Go Fug Yourself is one of the sharpest and funniest destinations on the Internet, and your hands-down best bet for red-carpet fashion critiques.

It's won a boatload of awards, and it's been written up in Time and Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal and Entertainment Weekly, and there's just not time to list the accolades — but they are all deserved. There's even a book, The Fug Awards, perfect for the analog fashion critic in you.

So we're glad to report that The Fug Girls, Heather and Jessica, were kind enough to take time out of one of their busiest weeks — they're covering New York's Fashion Week for NYMag.com — to answer some Oscars 101 questions, and to warmly (?) recall the terrifying ghosts of red carpets past.

Be sure to explore the photo gallery above to see most of the outfits Jessica and Heather mention here — you may have blocked out the memory of the Demi Moore bike shorts, and it's just not the same if you can't see them for yourself.

What's your favorite Oscars outfit of all time? What made it successful?

JESSICA: I think mine would be Bjork's swan dress. I would not say it was successful, but that dress has given people comedic fodder — not to mention Halloween costumes — for literally years, and there's something to be said for that. On the other side of the coin, it's very hard to say what I think is the all-time most beautiful gown, as there have been so many, but I loved Marion Cotillard's white Gaultier from last year. I am looking forward to seeing what she wears this year.

HEATHER: I'm lousy at remembering this stuff year-to-year. Half the time I can't even remember stuff I fugged a week ago. My mind is a lousy archive. I do remember thinking Penelope Cruz's pink strapless dress with that feathered train — she wore it the year she was nominated for Volver, and I think it was Versace — was stunning. It was exactly the kind of dress I feel like a girl ought to wear to the Oscars, because when else can you go that big, that dreamy? The gown wouldn't really be possible at any old movie premiere, so I admired her for living the kind of red-carpet princess fantasy I feel like all little girls have when they dream of being actresses. You know, before they learn the business is all about rejection and sadness and pills.

Disasters, up-and-comers, and why Freida Pinto may be luckier than Jennifer Hudson, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Fug Girls: The Ghosts Of Oscar Fashion Past (And Future)" >

Milk: Might this man have a more uplifting story than even an instant millionaire? Focus Features

 

by John Ramos

Note: John Ramos is a film producer and a longtime writer at Television Without Pity. Happily, he will be joining me and Stephen Thompson (NPR Music Editor and the creator of The Onion A.V. Club) for our live Oscar coverage on Sunday night, beginning at 8 p.m.

-- Linda Holmes

Okay, I'll admit that portmanteau in the title doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Superficially, Slumdog Millionaire and Milk are similar in that they deal with utter unknowns who become beloved figures. But beyond that, they're radically different. They're almost polar opposites in many ways, including the emotional states they left me in -- and not in the way their apparent happy-ending/sad-ending alignment might suggest.

As told in Sean Penn's (if you'll excuse the expression) Oscar-worthy performance, Harvey Milk's journey began with a simple desire to be seen, to stand up and be counted. He thrived on both the satisfaction he got from fighting for the rights of his gay constituents and on the attendant attention. The famous message he recorded to be played in the event of his assassination is featured prominently in the film as both a storytelling device and a reminder to the audience not to get too comfortable.

Furthermore, even if you go in not knowing the story, the film opens with Dianne Feinstein announcing his murder (and Mayor George Moscone's) at the hands of Dan White, so the viewer is intimately aware that Milk's story is going to come to a tragic end.

Why both sad endings and happy endings are often not as they appear, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Slumdog Milk-ionaire'" >

Jennifer Lopez: Dressed oh-so-modestly at the Golden Globes, in deference to the economy. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

Oscar week continues! I am limbering up in preparation for the AMC Best Picture Showcase on Saturday, and on Sunday night, I will be joined by NPR Music Editor Stephen Thompson as well as writer and film producer John Ramos to discuss the awards live. I'm particularly happy to be teaming up with John -- we were colleagues at Television Without Pity (where you might have known him as the Couch Baron) and I am sure he is just as pitiless as I recall.

One of the big questions surrounding this year's Oscars seems to be whether there will be less flash at Sunday's Oscars because everyone wants to be sensitive about the economy.

It's a reasonable idea, in theory, to tone down the ostentatious overindulgence to keep people from concentrating on awkward thoughts like, "Hey, I could get my house out of foreclosure if I could have one of your earrings." But when it's done consciously -- when it's a bunch of stylists talking about simplifying celebrity jewelry out of respect for people who've been laid off -- it sounds outrageous. Check out this quote from the L.A. Times piece linked above:

"It used to be chic to say, 'I'm wearing $16 million worth of jewels,' " said publicist Howard Bragman, who specializes in crisis counseling for celebrities. "That's distasteful right now."

It's distasteful "right now"? (Not to mention, "crisis counseling for celebrities"?)

A unique use of the word "job," and more, after the jump...

Continue reading "Why Hollywood Should Never Try To Be Tasteful" >

by Linda Holmes

As I continued to poke around in the Sling.com archive (the same place I found Brad Pitt yesterday), I came across full episodes of Wonder Woman. And I thought to myself, "Now there is some classic kitsch." And then I further thought, "I wonder whether I'll be able to tell from the descriptions what might be worth watching."

The description of this episode starts with, "Wonder Woman tries to rescue Wonder Girl after she is kidnapped by the Nazis." Sold!

But seriously, just get through the theme song, if nothing else.

by Linda Holmes

We continue the run-up to Oscar, Oscar, Oscar! Remember that my tired, exhausted, probably embittered self will be Twittering the AMC Theaters Best Picture Showcase this Saturday, and that I will be joined on Sunday night by a couple of Super-Magical Guests to chat about the Oscar ceremony As! It! Happens! So stay tuned.

My favorite movie of 2008 was Rachel Getting Married. There, I said it. I've gone back and forth between it and some others, but it's the one I keep coming back to, and it's the one I was most disheartened and baffled to see shut out of most of the major awards categories, with the exception of Anne Hathaway's (well-deserved) Best Actress nomination.

The "good sister"/"bad sister" movie has been done quite a bit, where one is a free spirit who gets away with murder, and the other is a dutiful rock who feels overshadowed and resentful. It's been done with a lighter heart in In Her Shoes, with great sadness in Georgia, and even with total froth in 27 Dresses. This is a very, very old story.

But the fact that it employs a storytelling staple in an interesting way is a great example of its best quality, which is the deft deployment of a beautifully broad range of talents. The credits include people who come from pop culture and high culture; from television and theater and music; people who are young and hot and people who are making comebacks. Creatively, it is a powerful endorsement of the idea that you often make great projects by opening your mind a little.

Why Anne Hathaway is a brave choice, and where the poppiest of pop-culture phenomena enters the mix, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Pan-Cultural Pleasures Of 'Rachel Getting Married'" >

(Above: The audio of Ricky Braddy's lovely but overdone "A Song For You.")

by Linda Holmes

American Idol's Top 36 contestants have officially begun the process of asking for your votes, beginning with last night's performances by the first group of twelve.

What have we learned?

We've learned a little about bad arrangements, a little more about oversinging, quite a bit about just how dangerous unsteady nerves can be, and a very large amount about unforgivable disrespect for Carole King.

Let's have a chat, after the jump...

Continue reading "A Song For You That's Really, Really Loud" >

A world of covers: This online catalog just might bring out your inner undershirt. iStockphoto.com

 

by Glen Weldon

www.coverbrowser.com.

It's all there in the url, really. You click, you browse. Forever.

Browse what?

Covers. Hundreds upon thousands of comic book covers, is what. ForEVer.

Oh. Yeah, okay.

Whee!

No, yeah, fine, I guess. But wait, no: What is there to love about a website that simply archives old comic book covers?

Um...I mean...everything? I don't ... I don't understand the question.

Surely it's just a means of cataloging, no? And thus sort of like getting excited about a particularly adroit application of the Dewey Decimal System?

.... What's your point?

And anyway it's not like there aren't several sites that archive comic book covers, if that's really what warms your particular cockles. And those sites, unlike this one, provide useful, concrete information about the issues in question -- year, featured characters, plot synopses.

Pfft. That stuff just gets in the way of the pure, crystalline adrenaline rush of four-color goodness. The allusive, right-brain, stream-of-consciousness, goose-pimply....

Seems sorta ... squishy, is all. Lacking in rigor. I mean check out that nondescript homepage. Where do you even start? How do you know when you're done?

Ah, you just need someone to get you started.

After the jump: We get you started.

Continue reading "The Great Comic-Book Cover Time-Sink, From Whose Bourn No Geek Returns" >

by Linda Holmes

While checking out today's piece about the construction of Old Man Brad Pitt in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, I was reminded that I was more impressed in the movie by whatever they did at the end that legitimately made him look very young than I was by the flashier business with his shriveled old-man head.

Because -- I swear -- my thought at the time was, "He looks exactly like he looked when he was on Growing Pains playing a high-school student." (I am a fount of knowledge that way.) And so, for reference, about a minute and a half into in the clip above: Brad Pitt as a high-school student. Or possibly a very old Benjamin Button.

by Linda Holmes

I don't consider myself a fan of NASCAR. I don't currently own a car, as a matter of fact. My entire history of traffic tickets consists of one incident more than ten years ago in which I changed lanes without signaling while "speeding" in a "construction zone" where there was no construction. (But I'm totally over it.) I have never been at fault for an accident, except for one time when I hit one of my parents' cars with the other one in the driveway when I was in high school.

All of this does nothing to reduce my enjoyment of being a completely dangerous, bomb-throwing, car-crashing, joyfully destructive menace in the ad-soaked but still very enjoyable NASCAR Kart Racing, my latest Wii acquisition.

I had absolutely no confidence that I would even be able to figure out how not to immediately blow myself up every time I started driving, but I got the hang of it fairly quickly once I figured out where the accelerator was.

There were a few bumps along the way.

The bumps, after the jump...

Continue reading "NASCAR Kart Racing: Unleash Your Inner Menace" >

Facebook updates: Is this the reason you never joined the Peace Corps? iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

I like this little piece in The New York Times about Facebook updates. Virginia Heffernan is right about the brightness with which people express detail at times. Some of my friends post very creative status updates, and they are, indeed, little bursts of great writing.

But what was really curious to me was the extraordinary hostility expressed in some of the comments attached to the piece. Like this one:

All this social nattering is a waste of time. Meaningful discussion and the exchange of ideas is sacrificed to virtual graffiti. Visitors from another galaxy will unearth the Facebook/My Space/Twitter phenomenon a thousand years from now, concluding that the human species were suddenly stricken dumb by some terrible degenerative disease.

Or this one:

useless noise. go about your business, then call on your actual friends once in a while, to catch up.

Or this one:

call a friend or go see him/her. join the peace corp. help someone. take a walk, work a soup kitchen, stop this adolecent, narcissistic, self-absorpsion called facebook and myspace and texting, growing like insidious cancer...there, that dramatic enough for your facebook update?

Or here's a good one:

If even half the time spent on "social networking" was actually spent increasing our knowledge, we would have known why ARM's aren't good for us, why producing things made of air aren't profitable, and why the time wasted on any of this are hours of our lives we'll never get back.

The litmus test is not whether you can get a clever update posted, it's whether or not having this is essential to survival. The answer is no.

I will admit that Facebook is not essential to survival. But...why would anyone be so angry about a purely voluntary system in which other people engage in what is primarily small talk?

Yes, I care what you had for dinner: after the jump...

Continue reading "Linda Is Writing About Facebook Updates" >

by Linda Holmes

Sunday night brought a very strong first episode of the new season of CBS's The Amazing Race, an intermittently great show that's been suffering from increasing staleness for the last several seasons.

Happily, the entire premiere is available on CBS.com here, now that the show has finally given up its position as a stubborn holdout against putting full episodes online. In this single hour, there are two excellent tasks, a bunch of potentially appealing teams, and substantially tightened editing. If you're one of those people who's tried the show only to find yourself saying, "Why would I want to watch people standing in line at the airport?", note that they've essentially done away with airport footage, at least in this episode, and it's a very good change.

In the clip above, a group of teams tries to carry large wheels of cheese down a very slippery hill in Switzerland, with legitimately hilarious results. Runaway cheese is a winner every time.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button: Who cares? (Sorry, too blunt?) Paramount Pictures

 

by Linda Holmes

We're getting into the swing of Oscar season here, so look for coverage to continue this week. On Saturday, I will be sacrificing my posture and possibly my sanity to perform selfless acts of live Twittering from the all-day, multi-hour, good-for-your-soul AMC Theaters Best Picture Showcase, and on Oscar night, we'll be having live commentary on the show, which we'll discuss in more detail very soon.

Generally speaking, Oscar night is a frothy cocktail of pretty dresses and teary speeches, and it's unusual for the occasion to feel quite as fraught with tension as it does this year.

First, you have the pressure created by the failure to nominate The Dark Knight for major awards outside of Heath Ledger's Best Supporting Actor nomination. There was immediate disdain for that decision, particularly in combination with the failure to nominate WALL*E, another very popular movie that was very well reviewed and also didn't snag a Best Picture nomination.

More generally, the five films that were nominated for Best Picture had, as of the beginning of this week, grossed a little less than $275 million between them. While that's a large amount of money for a randomly selected group of five films, it's not a lot for a crop of five Best Picture nominees, and as Variety points out, it's in the neighborhood of $40 million less than last year, which already wasn't about nominating blockbusters.

Not only that, but the movies that did get nominations didn't get as much of a post-nomination boost as might have been expected, with the exception of Slumdog Millionaire, word-of-mouth about which had already boomed before the nominations came out. So on top of the fact that smaller films were nominated, it doesn't even seem to have done those small films very much good.

Furthermore, it's my sense that not only are people not excited about the Oscar nominees because they haven't made a lot of money; they're not excited about them because with at least a couple of them, even many people who have seen them don't think they're all that good and will tell you so.

Does seeing Benjamin Button mean you care whether it wins awards? After the jump...

Continue reading "The Great Oscar Panic Of 2009" >

Starbucks: This cup of coffee does not cost any four dollars, and the company that makes it would like you to remember that. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

 

by Todd Kliman

All things are revealed in time; the new economy just has a way of hastening the process.

Last year, as the markets went into a free-fall, Starbucks cut jobs and closed stores. Now, with the financial picture darkening by the week, and with consumers looking at cheaper alternatives from McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts and others, the Seattle-based coffee colossus has called for new measures.

Slashing prices? Cutting store hours?

Nope. None of that.

The company that bid you to see it as somehow different, as a kind of anti-McDonald's -- eco-friendly do-gooders sharing a cup of joe with the community and encouraging you to follow your bliss -- is now going the route of the big, bad burger chain.

How Starbucks is emulating the golden arches, after the jump...

Continue reading "Starbucks Moves Ever Closer To Offering You Fries With That" >

by Linda Holmes

I have a long history with romantic movies of all kinds. Goopy musicals, kicky-girl rom-coms, masterpieces of banter -- you name it, and I've probably fallen for it at one time or another. Unfortunately, the older one gets, the more some of these fall apart, and the more others don't work at all. I give you five (of many) Un-Romances. Be warned: all descriptions contain spoilers.

1. Jerry Maguire

This really pains me, because I thought this was a terribly touching story the first time I saw it. As much as "you complete me" and "you had me at hello" are now as dessicated as "Show me the money!" there was a time when they seemed like sort of nifty things for people to say to each other. Of course...I was 25.

Why it's an Un-Romance: What's frustrating is that for the first three-quarters or so, this movie demonstrates all kinds of incredibly valid points. Don't perform dramatic stunts (like quitting your job) to impress guys with good teeth. Don't have drunks over to your house. Don't introduce your kid to guys he'll fall in love with unless you're pretty sure about them. Don't date your boss. Don't try to save disasters. Don't ignore your sister when she warns you about guys who are "hanging onto the bottom rung." Don't get married as an alternative to the nightmare of driving a U-Haul.

And then in the closing moments: BOOM! It turns out that the guy who clearly was not in love with you can suddenly discover he's in love with you, and that all your bad decisions are now irrelevant. If only real life worked...anything like that.

More, after the jump...

Continue reading "Valentine's Day Un-Romances" >

Dollhouse: Is Echo, played by Eliza Dushku, a misogynist fantasy, or maybe old hat? Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

I had very mixed feelings about Joss Whedon's Dollhouse -- which premieres tonight at 9:00 p.m. on Fox -- after listening to the interview about whether it constitutes a misogynist fantasy (it's the story in the box on that page, with the "Anti-Buffy" title).

On one hand, I do understand the concern. On the other, Whedon strikes me as a thoughtful guy, often guilty of various storytelling sins, but unlikely to knowingly play into hatred of women.

Fortunately for me, I know a lot of women writers who have spent a lot of time on pop culture and television, so I threw the question open to some of them. I referred them to the interview piece and asked them three questions: (1) Did the premise of the show strike them as fundamentally sexist? (2) Did the fact that it was Joss Whedon affect their feelings one way or the other? (3) How did it compare to other television and movies, as concerns the creep factor of sexist fantasies and so forth?

Here are some of their responses.

What three writers had to say about feminism and simple good television, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Joss Whedon Question" >

Movie romances: Mash them up; watch them spin. iStockphoto.com

 

by Glenn McDonald

The object:

The blurbs below combine the titles of two or more well-known movies. Can you guess the new mash-up movie title?

Example:

Michael J. Fox stars as a time-traveling teenager in this second installment of George Lucas' original space opera trilogy.
Answer: The Empire Strikes Back to the Future

NOTE:
At least one of the movies in each blurb is a famous cinematic love story. Remember that films can be mashed up phonetically as well, e.g. "Nosferatu Kill a Mockingbird"

Go to it, have fun, and post your answers below. Smug as you may rightly feel if you know them all, please post one answer per comment, just to make sure the most skilled among you doesn't grab all the glory. Feel free to elaborate in the comments, also, about details of the resulting mashed-up movie. How would it end? What would be the crucial plot points?

Official mashup answers will be posted shortly, so check back.

1. You can see the tragedy coming a mile away when Gary Oldman falls for Emma Roberts' plucky teen sleuth.
2. Kevin Spacey won the Oscar for this role, in which his middle-aged suburban Dad scandalously pursues the animated but provincial Belle.
3. Director Spike Lee vents his rage over Katrina with a story of gay cowboys, for some reason.
4. Roger Moore's 007 meets his match when he tries to seduce the beguiling Lucy Honeychurch.
5. Ethel Merman, Bing Crosby, John Cusack and Ione Skye form a bizarre love rectangle in this 1936 classic.

by Linda Holmes

This list over at Cracked.com gives a pretty good rundown of some of the more sexist commercials ever to run down the pike. (Warning: Language mildly spicy.) But I think my favorite is this classic Folgers commercial, in which it is suggested that making bad coffee for your husband is almost as bad as kicking the cane out from the hand of an elderly lady as she attempts to cross the street.

Just a suggestion: If your husband reacts to bad coffee this way, get the nice European neighbor-lady to suggest a new husband, not new coffee.

The Bachelor: They may not be going to the chapel or going to get married, but more people are paying attention than usual. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

I told you a while ago that The Bachelor wasn't as horrible as it had been in the past; remember that? I admitted to watching it; remember that?

As it turns out, I am not alone.

In a development that just hardly ever happens in television, The Bachelor is up in the ratings almost 40 percent -- a huge increase in current broadcast TV terms -- over its last installment. It's a show I used to forget was still on that I now hear people chatter about fairly frequently. Call it better production, call it recession fatigue leading to a taste for light fare; you'll be wrong, but call it whatever you want.

I am convinced I know exactly why the surge happened, and it's the same reason I was sucked in myself: the guy is not a jerk. Nobody cares whether a guy who's obviously a flake winds up with Annoying Potential Girlfriend A or Annoying Potential Girlfriend B. It's only interesting if everybody isn't an idiot, because if I want to see mating dances between idiots, I can watch VH1. (Yeah, I said it.)

It's a lesson that popcorn-y reality television frequently forgets: your awful, "evil" contestants may look like they're getting all the attention, but they're only interesting if they're battling people who are likable. The Apprentice was an enormous phenomenon in its first season, and the famous Omarosa was its most talked-about contestant, but when it turned into a conference table of 18 Omarosas, nobody cared anymore, and it faded very quickly from the public eye. Every major reality show has struggled with this same problem: the deflation of a season when everyone left is either boring or loathsome.

But no one listens to me. (And more's the pity, right?) What they will listen to is a 40 percent increase in ratings, so here's hoping that this lesson finally gets learned: those of us who watch this stuff may shamefacedly embrace a good fight, but only if we have a rooting interest.

Watchmen: There are plenty of good reasons to read it before you see the movie. DC Comics

 

by Glen Weldon

So: Watchmen. Heard of it?

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's 1986 graphic novel? Blah blah postmodern masterpiece, blah blah deconstruction of superhero tropes, blahdee blah changed comics forever?

And (now that the lawyers have finished thumping one another about the head and neck) coming soon to a theater near you? March 6, in fact?

Sound familiar?

I know: As a rule, brainy NPR types like y'all prefer to read a given book before seeing the film made from it. That way, when you meet up with other brainy NPR types, you can discuss the sundry alterations that were made to the plot for the sake of budget, running time, narrative cohesion or monumental directorial stupidheadery.

But what about those brainy NPR types who haven't read Watchmen but have seen the trailer, which promises the kind of desultory superhero stuff (slow-mo fight scenes, big 'splosions) that one expects from comics-to-film projects?

They might well think: Why bother? It's just more masked dudes in fetish gear running around beating up on folk, no?

No.

After the jump: Reading Watchmen before watching Watchmen -- the case for.

Continue reading "Watching Watchmen, or: No, But I Read the Comic Book" >

by Linda Holmes

Okay, not your actual broken heart; not in the "Valentine's Day" sense. I refer here to something else.

When I saw He's Just Not That Into You, I was tolerating it pretty well until I saw Wilson Cruz.

Cruz played Rickie Vasquez on My So-Called Life, where he gave perhaps one of the most sensitive and intelligent portrayals of a teenager you'll ever see. Rickie was notable at the time partly because he was a sort-of-out gay teenager, but for the most part, he was just a very warm and lovable kid -- a weight-of-the-world guy who worried all the time about being beaten up for wearing eyeliner to school, but who also managed to be the worrier and the caretaker of all his friends. He took care of melodramatic, self-pitying Angela and brittle, alcoholic Rayanne, even as he struggled with obvious loneliness and a nightmarish home life. (The clip above is the rare moment when he ever wound up on the receiving end of this kind of support.)

In He's Just Not That Into You, he plays one of Drew Barrymore's completely two-dimensional Sassy Gay Friends. The ones who hover in groups and say "girlfriend" and allow a female character to get sound advice without the film confusing its message by implying that any of her women friends might be intelligent enough to advise her. (In this movie, women give only terrible advice and men -- both gay and straight -- give only good advice.)

It just made me want to weep, this terrific actor, to whom I have this intense nostalgic attachment, stuck in this terrible part where he got to do nothing that was worthy of him. In the fifteen years since My So-Called Life began, he's done other very respectable shows, including The West Wing and The Closer, but I just cringed in pain at the sight of him basically...reduced to this.

Have you ever had this experience? Not a hugely famous person in an enormously disappointing flop, but someone who ought to be getting better jobs and apparently isn't?

(Above: A sneak peek of tonight's Top Chef. Proper egg cookery is everything!)

by Linda Holmes

Unless they've changed the format more than we anticipate, tonight should be the annual "Chairs" episode of American Idol, in which contestants sit across from the judges to be given a final yes or no answer about getting into the top 36. And really, what else do you have to do with the two hours tonight's show will occupy? Read a book? (Fox, 8 p.m.)

On tonight's Lost, Locke tries to stop the island from time-traveling. Good luck with that. (ABC, 9 p.m.)

My favorite title of the day? Discovery's I Was Bitten: Episode 3. Now that sounds like a good story, which Discovery is advertising as an exploration of "extreme bites." I wonder if I can still catch up if I missed Episode 1 and Episode 2. (Discovery, 10 p.m.)

Tonight's Top Chef is called "The Last Supper," but I'm pretty sure it's not the Last Supper you're thinking of. Please write your own unbelievably tacky jokes about what challenges might be presented to the aspiring chefs, as well as what nitwit came up with the title "The Last Supper." (Bravo, 10 p.m.)

by Linda Holmes

I am now singing the following song in my head, to the traditional conga beat:

Kittens on a Room-BA!
Kittens on a Room-BA!

Seriously, it's kittens riding a Roomba. The Internet loves you.

(Above: The Village People sing "In The Navy." And that's a classic, you know.)

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• Lost watchers might get at least a little clarity from this explanation of the way time travel on the show seems to work.

• Have a look at Roger Ebert's Oscar predictions, and enter the contest to outguess him. Frankly, I think his predictions are spot-on, even though this year is isn't a hard one to predict in most of the major categories.

Note:

• As The New York Times reports, the new Village People are being sued by the cop from the original Village People. Beware the long, leather-clad arm of the law, is what I'm saying.

• Who says older beauties have to be put out to pasture? Not Stump, the oldest winner of Best In Show in the history of the Westminster Kennel Club.

• I'd like to be able to tell you to ignore something as obviously idiotic as the Forbes list of Star Currency Rankings, but it's weirdly mesmerizing, as is the Defamer take on the people ranked at the bottom. Poor Jensen Ackles!

Ignore:

• In the continuing saga of what has to be the most famously unhappy set in television, Grey's Anatomy stars Katherine Heigl and T.R. Knight are reportedly getting their wishes to leave the show. It really does seem at times as if nobody on that set is having a good time. Which puts them in sync with the audience, but...still.

by Linda Holmes

The first time I ever heard what would now be a DVD commentary (my recollection is that I later learned it came from the Laserdisc edition), it was a showing of Clerks on cable, and I could hear Kevin Smith and whoever else chatting about the making of the film, and it was sort of fascinating, even though it wasn't a movie of which I was a big fan.

Now, of course, commentaries are everywhere. Not only do they have them for high-end movies where everything has been thought out to the last detail and there is much to say about every camera angle, but they also slap them on ordinary movies, and even very bad movies -- the audio commentary on the 1999 trash-classic Cruel Intentions is one of the funniest commentaries I've ever heard, because of the entirely serious way in which they explain how terribly French and sophisticated the whole thing is.

Somewhere along the line, the actual point of a commentary has become blurred. Many of them are fun but impart very little actual information -- witness the rollicking cast/crew commentaries on shows like The Office and How I Met Your Mother. Some are startlingly lame -- I find the 30 Rock commentaries excruciating, because the people involved are all so obviously of the "it's bad to explain comedy" school of thought, so they don't want to be there, and they seem miserable to a person.

But the best use I've seen recently of a commentary as it was originally adored by film buffs, where actual light is shed on the process of making something good, came with the track attached to the first episode of Season 2 of This American Life -- the Showtime TV version, that is. (That's a clip from the show above.)

What makes a commentary good, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Art Of The Audio Commentary" >

Bruce Springsteen: Antitrust regulators are one thing, but the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger is up against this guy, too. Jamie Squire/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

The big news in enormous corporate entities eating each other is that Live Nation and Ticketmaster have announced their plans to merge, meaning that instead of two giant entities in charge of most ticket sales for high-profile live shows, you'll have one.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer has already announced his displeasure with the deal, which he says would "give a giant, new entity unrivaled power over concert-goers and the prices they pay." As a matter of fact, shares of both companies fell after the announcement, apparently because many believe the merger is going to be squelched on antitrust grounds before any such "unrivaled power" can be unleashed.

One notable non-fan of the merger is Bruce Springsteen, who had a high-profile dispute with Ticketmaster last week after ticket buyers were automatically redirected from the Ticketmaster site to a Ticketmaster-owned subsidiary that resells tickets for substantially more than face value.

After that happened, Springsteen issued a letter to his fans expressing outrage about the incident and condemning Ticketmaster's actions -- for which they later apologized -- but he said something else too.

As Rolling Stone points out, Springsteen also took pains to mention, while the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger hadn't even been announced yet, that such a merger, and the single ticketing system it would create, would be "the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now." Ouch.

Sore hands: Only one of the hazards of video game injuries. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

My First 10 Wii Injuries

1. Super Mario Finger Claw

2. Star-Chip-Chasing Tendon

3. Bomb Blox Rotator Cuff

4. Lazy Person's Tennis Shoulder

5. Smash Brothers Broken Face [virtual only]

6. Dancing With The Stars "She Bangs" Toe

7. Stress Fracture To Sense Of Childlike Wonder

8. Repetitive Motion Injury Hereby Labeled "Plaintiff's Claim For Damages, Part A"

9. Pervasive Targeting Squint With Associated Brow Furrow

10. Severe Pride Contusions

by Marc Hirsh

Do you have a movie in you? Is your cinematic vision being held back by things like prohibitively expensive equipment and a frustrating inability to corral (or make) enough friends to properly collaborate? Are you looking for a way to punt anywhere from 15 minutes to an entire day's worth of work?

Fret no more: Xtranormal is here to help. Choose a setting, drop in some characters, type out their deepest secrets (or some fart jokes), pick a few camera angles, add some gestures and sound effects (see above, re: fart jokes) and voila! You're an instant John Lasseter.

The example above comes from the opening of Linda Holmes' "Couch-Potato-ing The Grammys With NPR Music's Stephen Thompson" blog post from last night. I think you'll agree that it really captures the essence of the conversation, without having to do any of that pesky "reading."

It's also important to note that, start to finish, this entire thing took little over half an hour to create. (Yes, even with Linda retching at the merest mention of Katy Perry.) Brilliant as it is, just imagine how amazing it would be with a solid hour's worth of effort. You'd be hearing a lot less about WALL*E, I can guarantee you that.

It is, of course, not perfect. In order to save and share your cinematic masterpieces, you'll have to register (thus bringing the number of times you've registered for something on the Internet to a cool hundred thou). You'll have to wait for your work to render itself into a final product, which can be nearly unendurable when you're a gifted artist with an urgent message that just needs to be shared with the world. And for some reason, the voice software struggles with the correct pronunciation of "shouldn't" while clearing "Saadiq" with minimal difficulty.

But that's a small price to pay for a degree of freedom and control that your Sims characters could only dream of, if they could only dream. (They can't; they're not real.) And heck, for all the limitations of the slightly wooden dialogue, the characters are already more expressive than Milo Ventimiglia. Have at it, and we'll see you at next year's Oscars.

The above post, in Xtranormal form:

Seven-year itch? Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston in He's Just Not That Into You. Warner Bros./New Line

 

By Alison Bryce

He's Just Not Into You opened in movie theaters this weekend, to scorn from critics and a box-office take of $27.5 million. The critics' dismissals were probably to be expected. But I'd say the cash haul that made the movie No. 1 this weekend was, too.

See, I was living in Montana about four years ago, and I was totally into a guy that wasn't into me. He called all the time to hang out, but just wanted to be my friend. I wanted more.

Then one day I got a package in the mail from my mother. You can guess which book it was: He's Just Not That Into You. I opened it, sobbing.

But here's the thing: Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. Seriously: As lame as it may sound, that book changed my life.

The how and why, after the jump ...

Continue reading "True Confessions: I'm Kinda Into 'He's Just Not That Into You'" >

Don't be a Helo: Tahmoh Penikett was at a loss to explain why the Dollhouse crew was at NY Comic-Con. Fox

By Laurel Maury

I walked something like 200 feet into New York Comic-Con without seeing a single comic book.

Booths for video games, regular books, Dungeons and Dragons, sure. Toys, everywhere. But this year, the four-year-old NY Comic-Con seemed to be about everything but comic books.

What did go on? Well, Joss Whedon's new TV show, Dollhouse, premiered its first episode on Sunday. Japanese pop idol Sho Sakurai turned up to promote a movie; British It Girl Peaches Geldof wandered the convention floor with a film crew, courtesy of Nylon magazine.

The panel for the British sci-fi show Torchwood was mobbed. Booths sold T-shirts, corsets, vinyl dolls, messenger bags (really cool ones from Gamma-Go), even doorbells.

But it was increasingly clear that big "cons," as comic book conventions are called, are no longer the comic book geek's natural habitat -- they're places to see and be seen, where Hollywood and the gaming industry try to get products into the hands of early adopters.

Joss Whedon, Tahmoh Penikett, and The New York Times on pimping it Comic-Con style, after the jump ...

Continue reading "New York Comic-Con: Where Were All The Comics?" >

(Above: Cher overuses the Auto-Tune, more than a little.)

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• If you watched The Grammys last night, you saw many, many people who have benefited from the technology known as Auto-Tune. If it's not familiar to you, Time has a good introduction. Interestingly, two different friends of mine who know a lot about music commented, independently of each other, that an auditioner on this year's American Idol sounded like Auto-Tune and its close cousin ProTools (also mentioned in the article) had influenced her singing style, leaving her live voice flat and affectless. Truly, it's everywhere.

• Back in my Minnesota homeland, an interesting battle has been joined over theater criticism. First, a representative of the well-regarded Guthrie Theater wrote this attack on the newspaper coverage theater receives in the Twin Cities. Very soon, one of the papers fired back. It makes for an interesting back-and-forth, with my favorite part being the Guthrie rep's feeling that it's really sad that gossip about actors and their huge egos doesn't get more play in the paper. Seems like perhaps she lost her train of thought.

• Has the film and television business learned anything from the music business's experience with piracy? The New York Times thinks the growth of legitimate, ad-supported video sites may mean it has.

Note:

• Plenty of people saw He's Just Not That Into You this weekend -- enough to bring the movie $27.5 million. That's $27.5 million you ladies can't spend on your elaborate hats and your lipsticks and your pink cell phones, you know.

• Science-fiction blog io9 brings you this list of the Ten Most Expensive Comic Books At New York Comic-Con.

• It sounds like panic is setting in regarding the anticipated ratings for this year's Oscar telecast. Smaller ratings for most everything, little-seen movies competing for top prizes, snubs of performers who might have brought their own crowds...clearly, the only recourse is to refuse to say anything about what's going to be included and hope that people will tune in out of sheer bafflement! This is a great idea!

Ignore:

• When you say, in the body of your story, "Most people aren't funny, they aren't insightful, and they share way too much," it's time to realize that Facebook might not be for you, so your thoughts on how much you hate entirely voluntary Facebook games might not be the most instructive. For an opposing view of "25 Things," please see Salon.

by Linda Holmes

In the (undoubtedly endless) chat below, please join me and NPR Music editor Stephen Thompson of NPR Music as we discuss the Grammy telecast from the comfort of our respective couches. We'll update from time to time, as fast as my typing fingers will carry us. (We don't actually speak live, lest one of us blurt out his or her Social Security number.)

Beginning at eight, we will share our knowledge, lack of knowledge, and feeling that we are too old for the Grammys. Or possibly too young. Depending entirely on the nomination in question. Join us, beginning as soon after eight as I post our first string of outbursts.

The outbursts begin after the jump...

Continue reading "Couch-Potato-ing The Grammys With NPR Music's Stephen Thompson" >

Join Mandalit del Barco as she tweets from the red carpet and from the press room of the 51st Grammy Awards.

Etta James: Call us crazy, but at the November premiere of Cadillac Records, she already looked a little skeptical about Beyonce. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• I got a kick out of Variety's review of the new film He's Just Not That Into You, which seems to say, in its brutal Variety way, "This is a very bad movie. It should do well."

• And while you're at it, check out this Times U.K. piece on the evolution of the "chick flick" (boy, do I hate that term) and where it may go from here.

Note:

• Etta James has given a pretty watery "I was kidding" in the wake of recent on-stage comments in which she ridiculed Beyonce. When you start chalking things up to your "comedian kind of attitude," nobody is going to believe you actually had one.

• The U.K. nonprofit Kids In Museums has a new "manifesto" laying out 20 ways for museums to be more "family-friendly." If you like your museums loud and your artwork displayed at knee-level, you're going to love the family-friendly museum.

Ignore:

• It's like the answer to a riddle: What is less significant than Sex And The City? Well, that would be Sex And The City 2.

Hooters faces competition: At this 2006 Las Vegas Hooters opening, competitors seemed few and far between. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

 

by Todd Kliman

Big-time restaurants are laying off sous chefs, portion sizes are shrinking dramatically and splashy theme restaurants are dead. The crisis continues to deepen for the restaurant industry in America, with business off dramatically in most big cities from this time last year. The hope among the hopeful (what few remain) is that budget nights, deep discounts and a return to classic comfort cooking at all levels will rouse restaurants from their slump.

It seems unlikely.

There is, however, a restaurant concept that continues to thrive amid extraordinarily tough times. A concept that seems to be impervious to the vagaries of the market. The "breastaurant."

One new kid on the block takes on the current champ, after the jump...

Continue reading "The 'Breastaurant' Business" >

by Linda Holmes

Last night on NBC's 30 Rock, Jon Hamm of Mad Men began a much-anticipated three-episode arc as Liz Lemon's new love interest, a seemingly perfect neighbor she, naturally, stalked and accidentally drugged. (Because that's what she does.)

The episode was a little disappointing in the sense that Hamm didn't have a whole lot to do other than smile dreamily at Liz. Even though dreamy staring from Jon Hamm is pretty high-octane dreamy staring, it still seemed a little like a waste of such a powerhouse actor (and one who, as he proved on Saturday Night Live, is very funny). I'm hoping his other appearances have a little more substance.

by Linda Holmes

(Above: One of the Wii's most famous hazards. I don't know if I believe this video, exactly, but I believe you can make this mistake.)

The thing about an absorbing game is that you lose your mind.

I recently built a home for a Sim lady (I know; I appreciate the classics, which is another way of saying I am Ye Olde-Fashioned Game Personne), only to have a burglar break in at midnight and steal the furniture. It was very upsetting. Fortunately, I learned something about the triumph of the human spirit when, in spite of having no couch, dresser, television, or chairs, my Sim lady went into her living room and turned on the music (yes, the Sim burglar dragged out the dresser but left the boom box) and began dancing. Around her empty apartment. Poignant, right?

I later discovered that she was even braver than I thought, because I had built her shower outside on the upstairs deck of her house without even realizing it. (These are the hazards of playing with invisible walls.) It turns out she has been taking showers outdoors, facing the neighbors, for quite a while. Surprisingly, this has done nothing to help her make friends.

The Wii and the things you might say to it when no one is listening, after the jump...

Continue reading "Most Embarrassing Things I Hypothetically Imagine People Might Say Out Loud To No One During The First 24 Hours Of Wii Ownership" >

Jimmy Sturr: Seen here accepting a Grammy in 2003, he's up again this year. Mark Mainz/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

While reading a CNN story about polka megastar Jimmy Sturr and other lesser-known Grammy nominees, I noticed that the Grammys have made a change to their format this year that might allow you to enjoy some awards presentations you might otherwise miss.

It turns out that this year, the Grammys are streaming a "pre-telecast" that will allow winners of awards that don't make the prime-time TV spectacular -- polka awards, for instance -- to have a moment in which their fans can watch them be rewarded. Beginning at 4 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, you'll have the chance to catch a lot of very good musicians you've probably never heard of take home awards in, the site claims, more than 100 categories.

So if your tastes lie outside the realm of the three-and-a-half-hour (yipes) Sunday night show, you might still have a shot at toasting the folks you're rooting for the most.

And a special note: I'll be helping out with this year's Grammy coverage, collaborating with Stephen Thompson of NPR Music. Stephen will provide the in-depth knowledge of music; I will provide the set-ups for Stephen's punch lines regarding my lack of in-depth understanding of music. And we will both provide the comments that will provoke angry letters from someone's fans, if history is any guide. It will be fun! More details soon!

by Linda Holmes

Oh my gosh, you guys, this makes me so happy. I had almost forgotten about this Bank Of America corporate cover of U2's "One," which circulated widely on the internet a while ago. And now, it is circulating again, and I am absolutely not above the rehash. This is one of the absolute funniest things anyone has ever sent me, and as you can imagine, people send me a lot of things. As certain networks are always happy to say: If you've never seen it, it's new to you. I can never decide which part is the funniest, but I think it's the part about "leading the team in the Northeast."

They are very sincere about this.

by Marc Hirsh

In the "simple pleasures" column for the day, please enjoy this video from Oren Lavie. The technique on display isn't exactly new, but it's so smartly conceived and well-executed that it serves as a nice reminder that while technical innovation is all well and good, creativity and imagination still trump it.

It loses a point for the "edit" that occurs at the 2:37 point, which violates the reality that the rest of the video has worked so hard to establish. (So much so, in fact, that you'll note that I referred to it as an edit in a video that's nothing but edits.) But it gains that point back by the way the woman at the center of it all keep her eyes closed through the entire thing like the dream that it is.

by Linda Holmes

No part of American Idol is as enjoyable and surprising as Group Performances Night. The contestants sort themselves into little groups of three or four, and they have a few hours to put together a performance of a song from a list they're given. Usually, they are awful. Occasionally, the choreography is excruciating. From time to time, something really interesting happens.

Last night was Group Performances Night.

To understand last night's happenings, you have to go back two seasons, to an audition from 2007, when beatboxer and eventual runner-up Blake Lewis and his group performed an unexpected rendition of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love." That's the clip up top.

See how cool that is, for something they put together in a couple of hours? It was considered very surprising at the time, because the rounds where the contestants sing in groups usually give you three or four people shuffling back and forth like the Brady Bunch kids, charmlessly trying to pull off awkward renditions with watery background accompaniment. Harmony, until this performance, was pretty rare, and competent harmony even more so. It's not Juilliard, but it demonstrates that you know something about music other than how to karaoke your way through "Love Shack."

Last night, there were two more good-to-excellent Hollywood group performances. One group, which called itself "White Chocolate," performed the Jackson 5 classic "I Want You Back" with a rap-infused intro and conclusion, and with harmony and rhythm and the definite suggestion of -- shocker -- actual talent. (Grading on a curve, of course where Step One of not blowing your audition is "Please remember the words to the song you are singing.")

For the moment, you can catch it here:

Another performed an a cappella rendition of Queen's "Somebody To Love," but I'm not finding that one at the moment, so you will have to trust me. There were two. Two performances suggesting actual talent, and both were certainly influenced by the "How Deep Is Your Love" bit. Suddenly, musicality is considered an asset. Even creativity is considered to be at least among your options.

What is the world coming to?

By Trey Graham

There's been no shortage of experts handicapping the Oscars horse-race — in fact it started at roughly 8:31 a.m. on Jan. 22.

But even the most wonkish insider analysis focuses on the outcome of this year's Oscars. We say: Why limit yourself to whether Heath will trounce Hoffman, or whether The Reader will come from behind to skunk Slumdog Millionaire?

And so we offer you the first of five Oscars Past and Present polls, in which this year's nominees are forced, completely arbitrarily, to compete for your affections with Oscar winners from the past five decades — specifically the winners in their categories from 1999, 1989, 1979, 1969 and 1959.

We'll start with the roundup for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The poll's below — pick your favorite, whether he's from this year or from a classic.

And yes, we know, you've probably forgotten what part the Welsh-born actor Hugh Griffith played in Ben-Hur.

(Why, it was Sheik Ilderim, the Arab horse-racing fanatic, of course! 'Cause it was Old Skool Hollywood, and that was how ... oh, wait, that's still how they roll. )

God bless the Internets.

The Obama-Spidey buying frenzy: This has to stop. Marvel

 

by Glen Weldon

Hi, America. Why don't you sit down? We need to talk to you.

Don't worry about the groceries. We'll put them away. You just sit over there in that empty chair in the center of the room, okay? The one facing us. Right.

Great.

Now, we know you're surprised to see us here. I mean, you come back from the store and here we all are, crowded into your living room like this. (Gary had to go get some extra chairs up from your basement; hope that's okay.)

The reason we're here today, America, is because we love you. We do; all of us in this room care about you very much, and we want you to get help. We're here to tell you that you need to get help.

You need to stop buying the Obama-Meets-Spider-Man comic book.

After the jump: The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Continue reading "Obama-Spidey: The Intervention" >

Read:

• Jan Swafford at Slate shows off some great examples of critical invective against music in a piece that's a lot of fun until right at the end, when it becomes another baffling example of Nothing's Any Good Anymore journalism.

• When Stereogum refers to musician/writer/crazy-dancer Andrew W.K. as an "outlandishly infectious personality," they're not kidding. And they have a report from the shooting of his new pilot. As a big fan of his 2003 MTV special Crashing With Andrew W.K., which you can read more about here, I am definitely looking forward to his collaboration with Adult Swim.

Note:

• In a surprising reversal of the trend where television audiences for everything are dwindling madly, Sunday's Super Bowl turns out to have been the most-watched Super Bowl of all time, and -- get this -- the second-most-watched telecast of anything in history, behind only the finale of M*A*S*H.

• My guess is that one of the better bangs for the buck to come from a Sunday Super Bowl ad went to Denny's, which saw long lines yesterday for the free Grand Slam breakfast it advertised.

Ignore:

• I love Cinematical, but that doesn't mean I sign off on their ideas to make the Academy Awards more like the Super Bowl. I am a much bigger fan of their hearty defense of the SXSW film festival.

• So far, reports that new mom of octuplets Nadya Suleman has aspirations to fame seem based entirely on her hiring of a publicist to handle the oodles of requests she's received, so until we hear more, you can hope that perhaps there won't be yet another person-with-oodles-of-children show coming your way on cable.

by Linda Holmes

Somebody in graphics is getting such a talking-to, seriously. (Hat-tip to the Fail Blog.)

by Marc Hirsh

If you've listened to the radio at all in the last two weeks, chances are you've heard U2's "Get On Your Boots." (Many, many times, if your radio stations are anything like mine.) It's also entirely possible that at some point during the song, you may have found yourself singing "I'm on tenterhooks, ending in dirty looks..."

It's not the first song that has ganked Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" for inspiration; any child of the late '80s can probably recall the Escape Club scoring a #1 hit with the soundalike "Wild, Wild West."

But even with a radically different instrumental track and a chorus that veers off completely, it's hard not to hear Costello's song in Bono's vocal. It's most obvious when you compare Costello's snarl "You wanna torture her, you wanna talk to her" with Bono yowling "I got a submarine, you got gasoline." Same rhythm, same inflection.

Why Coldplay has the right to roll its collective eyes, and some thoughts on why nobody minds lifting when Bono does it, after the jump...

Continue reading "The End Of Music" >

Ellen DeGeneres calls her new friend Gladys, who says, among other things, "I love Jesus, but I drink a little." Gladys is so gloriously genuine that she can undo months of looking at things that are clearly faked-up for media attention. It is a can't-miss item.

Buddy Holly's historical marker in Lubbock, Texas is only part of the culture surrounding his death; did the music die or not? Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• John Updike's longtime New Yorker editor, Roger Angell, offers reflections on the experience. If nothing else, you will come across the lovely word "pertinaciously."

• Whether you are a New Yorker or not, do not miss this beautiful, warm, witty tribute to New York life done with Legos, by artist Christoph Niemann. And not giant, elaborate Lego sculptures, either: What makes this project so lovely and clever is how much it expresses without using much of anything at all. (Hat-tip to Metafilter.)

• It seems we never run out of the wish to analyze "The Day The Music Died,", even though it's fairly clear at this point that those words shouldn't be taken literally. On this, the anniversary of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and others, one writer bravely argues that music is not dead.

Note:

• The unending SAG wars continue as president Alan Rosenberg asks a court to undo the recent ousting of executive director Doug Allen.

• I have no idea in what sense an Oscar Mayer microwaveable sandwich can be blogworthy. Wait! I just ruined it!

• I missed Steve Martin on Letterman, but fortunately, Gawker has the highlights. He really is a remarkable guy.

Ignore:

• A lot of really unpleasant rehashing of five-year-old dating advice is going to surround the premiere of He's Just Not That Into You, the (ugh) movie, this week. It has begun. Resist.

by Linda Holmes

DABA girls Laney Crowell, left, and Megan Petrus with a friend Photo: Eric Strauss

We had a post last Thursday looking into the much-discussed "support group" known as Dating A Banker Anonymous, and on Friday night at about 10:45, I received a statement from The New York Times. The statement says:

"Ravi Somaiya, a freelancer for The Times, first heard about the DABA group in early October, when he met Megan Petrus at a party. The blog started shortly afterward at this address: http://dabagirls.tumblr.com/page/1.

Ravi told his editor about it in December and began reporting in earnest after the New Year.

The fact that they moved their site and gussied it up did not seem worth noting in the article and does not seem particularly surprising or important now.

As for the size of the group/blog audience: We never said, nor implied, it was some kind of mass phenomenon. We made it clear that it was informal, we said that five women were at the cocktail-session we attended. The reason we liked the story — likely the same reason it has attracted so much attention — is that we knew it was resonant with many people who had nothing to do with their group but found themselves in similar situations.

I'm not sure what is thought might be fake about this. Ravi did talk to some of the men to verify the relationships and get their side.

So that's the Times response. As you'll see, the Tumblr.com address they provided doesn't have any content to speak of, except a cartoon posted on Nov. 4.

So I'm not sure whether the Times believes that (a) the blog was all at that address at one time, but (b) for some reason the women went through, after moving the blog to its present WordPress address, and deleted all the entries except the cartoon , or ... (c) what the relevance of the Tumbler address is, really.

Because my question about the site, to clarify, is not whether it was "gussied up" in January. It's when the entries were posted.

And my question about the DABA group is not whether it is a mass phenomenon, but whether there is in fact, as reported in the original Times story, a group of 30 regular participants in the blog and/or at "meetings."

And with all due respect, I do think those questions are relevant, at least relative to how important the story was to begin with.

Unfortunately, the Times' timeline isn't helping me understand either:

• The Times statement says the freelancer found out about the DABA girls in early October, and that the blog started sometime after that.

But ...

• The blog entries date back to late September.

Furthermore, the statement says:

• The reporter learned about "the DABA group" in early October.

But ...

• The original article says the group wasn't founded until November.

That seems to suggest that the reporter learned about the group at a party at least a month before it was "founded." So again, I'm sort of confused by what it is the Times' editors and spokeswoman understand to have happened.

There are a bunch of other questions that this raises, both factual and philosophical, but unfortunately, other matters call.

I still have all the questions now that I had last Thursday, along with some new ones. But it would seem that the Times, having made this response, is satisfied with the state of the record, so I'm not sure how much more can be said without my becoming a full-time forensic investigator of bankers' girlfriends, which I do not want to be. (I did e-mail the ladies; so far no response.)

That said, one final thought: I'm not sure anything about this whole business surprised me as much as the statement that the Times ran the story because they knew the women would be so "resonant" for other people in the same situation — and that they believe that's why the story has gotten so much attention.

That, I think, is fascinating all on its own.

by Linda Holmes

The live chat is finished, but you can play it back — and watch the best and the worst of this year's Super Bowl ads — in the widget below. And the conversation continues with your observations, questions and rants in the comments.

Once again, we are thrilled to announce a live chat in this space that we think is going to be a lot of fun.

Today at 11:00 a.m. ET, we will take apart the towering Super Bowl media hullabaloo, including the ads and the halftime show, with special guest Bob Garfield, Ad Age columnist and co-host of the Peabody-Award-winning On The Media.

Whether your Sunday included lots of beer, lots of sharp-eyed game analysis, or just a lot of head-shaking at why you're the only one who doesn't get into the spirit, join us for a good talk about what is — for good or for ill — always one of the biggest media weekends of the year.

by Linda Holmes

If you're planning to attend our post-Super Bowl chat at 11:00 a.m. this morning with Bob Garfield but you didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the Super Bowl ads, you can still get in on all the good talk. As bizarre as it seems to have a gallery of commercials to be watched on purpose, Hulu.com has them all in a handy collection.

I think there are some interesting things to note this year, including one or two advertisers who seem like tight-economy specialists you'd never see in any other year, some very elaborate visuals, and one very simple and very funny idea that, for me, was the best laugh of the night. Pick a favorite, spot a pattern, or just wonder why this much work goes into things that are often so uninteresting, and we'll be here at 11:00 listen and talk.