Are You Ready For Some … Reality TV?
Quick: what’s the most popular reality television show this autumn? Dancing With the Stars? The X-Factor? Survivor? Sorry, but no. Sure, they’re popular. They’re reportedly real. They’re undeniably on television. But to find the most popular reality programming out there, you’ll have to tune into a different sort of competition: One with helmets and cleats […]
A Little Horror Exorcise
On Friday, Bob Hoose posted about why our society has a collective yen for horror flicks. It is a curious phenomenon: None of us love to hear something go bump in the night—particularly if it’s an unexplained bump in your hall closet. But things that go bump on screen? We love it. The reasons, as […]
Movie Monday: Puss in Boots
Leave it to a swashbuckling, animated cat to do a little trick-or-treating this Halloween weekend. Puss in Boots, a spinoff from DreamWorks’ Shrek series, flouted conventional wisdom by knocking off the more Halloween-centric Paranormal Activity 3 and treating moviegoers with some surprisingly family friendly fare. Of course, one could argue that everyone who wanted to […]
Movie Monday: Paranormal Activity 3
For weeks, the box office has felt fairly … dispirited. Oh, sure, we’ve dutifully reported the weekly winners in this space every Monday, but let’s face facts: Some of these high-profile films were making less than Lady Gaga spends on fake bone protuberances. The movie scene seemed a little, um, dead. Or at least it […]
The Meaning of Life? The iPhone (Thinks It) Knows
About 4 million folks have picked up a shiny new iPhone 4S since its release a couple of weeks ago, and most of them knew exactly what they were getting: It’s a phone, a calendar, a GPS, a mini-computer, a … well, you get the idea. Everyone knows what smartphones are capable of. Still, some […]
Movie Monday: Real Steel Still Real Deal
Hollywood may get weak in the knees over 1980s remakes, but the movie-going public thinks they’re just plain weak. Or at least that’s my interpretation of this weekend’s box-office derby, which saw last week’s champ Real Steel claim the title yet again—this time over the reboot of 1984’s Footloose. Hugh Jackman’s robo-movie thumped those retro, […]
Movie Monday: Real Steel
Et tu, Hugh? Real Steel, the Hugh Jackman-fronted action flick, KO’d George Clooney’s The Ides of March to win the box office trophy this week. And it wasn’t all that close. Steel—based partly on Mattel’s game Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots—thumbed its way to $27.3 million, far outdistancing the $10.4 million made by Ides. That […]
The Role of Role Models
“You’re my hero.” This is one of my favorite throwaway phrases. I say this to my daughter when she unloads the dishwasher. I say it to my co-workers when they remind me of a meeting. I say it to my editor every day, without fail, in the hopes he won’t slice my latest review to […]
Steve Jobs: 1955-2011
Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and one of our era’s most influential entrepreneurs, died yesterday at the age of 56 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer. I don’t think it’s really my place to recount Jobs’ life here. There are plenty of journalists and pundits doing that this morning. And we’ve talked previously about […]
Movie Monday: Dolphin Tale
Aak! Aaa-aa-aak! Klaa-aaak! For those of you who don’t speak dolphin, those series of squeaks and clicks translate to, “Take that, you bipedal excuses for thespians! Dolphins rule!” And so they do—for a weekend, at least. Dolphin Tale, the heartwarming story of a lovable ocean mammal who (with a little help from some bipeds) learned […]