On Thursday I promised to have this damn thing ready by Friday night. However, the fickle finger of fate intervened, and made that impossible by occupying my time with other matters for the last 3 days. And like some of my better moments in life (i.e. like cramming a semester's worth of organic chemistry inside my brain in a 7 hour period), I have somehow pulled it together to give you this... Crap.
The standard warning for those of you who've never seen one of these before: If you would like to see some of the latest entertainment news, celebrity gossip and odd crap making the rounds, keep reading. However, if you are easily offended by half-nude men & women or other such things, you might want to stop right now.
You've been warned.
[Entertainment Weekly Creates Lists Full Of "Fail"]
Last week I had the new AFI lists, now it's EW's turn. "Entertainment Weekly" can have some good & incisive articles from time to time, but their attempt to find "The New Classics" (the greatest accomplishments across film, television, literature, fashion and tech over the last quarter century) gets into the ridiculous. In particular the movie list. You can see the entire list of 100 films by clicking the link, but here are their Top 10.
- Pulp Fiction (1994)
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
- Titanic (1997)
- Blue Velvet (1986)
- Toy Story (1995)
- Saving Private Ryan (1998)
- Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
- The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
- Die Hard (1988)
- Moulin Rouge (2001)
Now I could nitpick this list to death (like how The Lord Of The Rings is counted as a single trilogy, but others films part of a series aren't), but I'll let that pass. I want you to keep in mind that The Blair Witch Project & South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut are at 99 & 100 respectively, because these are some of the films NOT on EW's list.
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Requiem For A Dream
- The Color Purple
- Platoon
- Field Of Dreams
Then you can get into the ordering.
Blue Velvet is a good film, but should it really be at number 4? A couple others that stand out as being a little too high are
Crumb at 14 &
Shrek at 25. On the too low side is
Back to the Future at 91, under
Napoleon Dynamite. As for the other lists.....
Top Television Shows Over The Past 25 Years
- The Simpsons, Fox (1989-present)
- The Sopranos, HBO (1999-2007)
- Seinfeld, NBC (1989-98)
- The X-Files, Fox (1993-2002)
- Sex and the City, HBO (1998-2004)
- Survivor, CBS (2000-present)
- The Cosby Show, NBC (1984-92)
- Lost, ABC (2004-present)
- Friends, NBC (1994-2004)
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The WB (1997-2001); UPN (2001-03)
Top Albums Over The Past 25 Years
- Purple Rain - Prince and the Revolution (1984)
- The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - Lauryn Hill (1998)
- Achtung Baby - U2 (1991)
- The College Dropout - Kanye West (2004)
- Madonna - Madonna (1983)
- American Idiot - Green Day (2004)
- The Blueprint - Jay-Z (2001)
- Graceland - Paul Simon (1986)
- Back to Black - Amy Winehouse (2007)
- In Rainbows - Radiohead (2007)
Top Books Over The Past 25 Years
- The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
- Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
- The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)
- American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
- Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
- Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
- Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
- Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
[Movie & Television News]
The Politics Of Wall-E: It seems even though little Wall-E has been getting rave reviews and has been called the best film so far this year, and the last time I checked it has a 97% "fresh rating", but not so surprisingly it has pissed off some people. As a general rule, whenever anything is successful in entertainment, there is always going to be a group that is pissed for one reason or another.
How can a little CGI character who's only trying to save the world and find love get peoples panties in a twist? Well it seems some are criticizing everything from the film's environmental subtext, conservatives crying about a perceived swipe the film takes at the Bush Administration, criticism of the Walt Disney Company (which now controls Pixar), to some with concerns the film is discriminatory against fat people.
First, conservatives are complaining about the use of the phrase "Stay The Course" in the film.
Some conservatives, including my treasured colleague Kyle Smith, are up in arms because the president of a multi-national conglomerate that has wreaked environmental havoc on the earth -- and exiled its population to other space for centuries -- uses the phrase "stay the course,'' a favorite of Dubya, who inherited it from H.W. and Ronald Reagan (and, I wouldn't be suprprised, Herbert Hoover). The neo-cons are also less than thrilled that the president is portrayed by Fred Willard, long Hollywood's leading expert in playing nitwits, and that the film, basically a robot love story, is also an extended, razor-sharp attack on corporate malfeasance and consumer spending run amok.
On another front is a piece over at CHUD.com, where they wonder about hypocrisy on the part of Disney.
Walking out of a screening of Wall-E on the Disney lot last week I couldn't help but mull over the irony of this huge, branding-obsessed, merchandise-spewing corporation releasing a movie where consumers are shown to be giant fat babies essentially taking orders from advertising (with this being portrayed as a negative thing. I'm sure Bob Iger sees most of his customers like that and loves it). When I got to the Four Seasons hotel the next day, the site of the junket for the film, and saw an entire room dedicated to showing off the marketing tie-ins, I lost the sense of irony and began to think what I was seeing was flat out hypocrisy. I wondered if maybe Stanton's denials about the messages weren't coming from a marketing point of view but from simple shame.
Star Trek: Harry Knowles of Aint It Cool News got to see about 7 minutes of J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek, set to debut next Summer. You can read the entire description by clicking on the link, but among the tidbits revealed.....
- A scene of Wynona Ryder as Spock's mom, holding baby Spock.
- The look of the USS Enterprise's bridge is said to be reminiscent of the Original Series, but it looks "functional", as if it was developed by Steve Jobs & Apple.
Sulu was at the helm – and the bridge. And the uniforms... Classic Trek. Nice. Then for the first time in the history of Star Trek, it looked amazingly functional. It echoes that classic Trek look – but imagine if you handed that design to the folks at APPLE and said... Make it really work. I instantly believed in the functionality of everything. That’s hard to quantify, but it is true. Remember when you saw the war room underground on Hoth in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK? How it just felt functional – that’s what this looked. And it looked Star Trek, without looking as cheap as Star Trek. It was a tech-fetishists wet dream.
- Another scene "feels as though some Intergalactic Pearl Harbor has happened and all the cadets are anxious to get underway."
Movie Trailers: If you have problems with the embedded players below, or want to see other recently released teasers & trailers, click here.
Other stories making the rounds.....
[Music News]
RIAA Calls Radio A Form Of Piracy: Let me just see if I can get this straight. Probably ever since Marchese Guglielmo Marconi invented the damn radio, music acts have been trying to get airplay on the radio. Over the years record companies have gone to great lengths to make sure their tracks were played in heavy rotation, including "payola" to DJs. Why? Because it helps record sales, and garners attention for their acts. The radio stations pay the licensing fees to broadcast music, but not the royalties.
So when the RIAA isn't busy suing college students, they've got someone coming up with this position, also known as the "squeezing blood from turnips" strategy.
On Monday, the recording industry sent the National Association of Broadcasters -- the trade group representing the $16 billion a year AM-FM broadcasting business -- a can of herring to underscore that it believes its arguments against paying royalties are a red herring. The NAB says its members should not pay royalties because AM-FM radio "promotes" the music industry.
[...]"It's a form of piracy, if you will, but not in the classic sense as we think of it," said Martin Machowsky, a musicFirst spokesman. "Today we gifted them a can of herring, about their argument that they provide promotional value. We think that's a red herring. Nobody listens to the radio for the commercials."
And apparently the RIAA got a House subcommittee to agree.
A house subcommittee approved legislation Thursday requiring AM-FM radio broadcasters to pay royalties to singers, musicians and their labels, a proposal moving to the House Judiciary Committee and possibly soon to the U.S. House.
The measure, which broadcasters said could cost the radio broadcasting industry as much as $2.4 billion a year in royalties, is being pushed by the Recording Industry Association of America and other groups representing musical copyright holders. For decades, the music business and broadcasters have lived in a symbiotic relationship when it came to compensating singers, musicians and labels. Royalties to them were not required by Congress because compensation was offset by the promotional value of radio. The music industry formerly believed radio play was so necessary that it paid broadcasters to play their music, a term known as payola.
But with the advent of widespread online music piracy, iTunes and internet and satellite radio, the music industry is looking to make money wherever it can -- while at the same time viewing free radio as less important to its business model.
Charts: Through the magic of , you can click on any of the song titles below & see the video for that particular track. The top 10 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 are.....
- Katy Perry - "I Kissed A Girl"
- Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major - "Lollipop"
- Leona Lewis - "Bleeding Love"
- Rihanna - "Take A Bow"
- Natasha Bedingfield - "Pocketful Of Sunshine"
- Coldplay - "Viva La Vida"
- Chris Brown - "Forever"
- Piles Featuring Ne-Yo - "Bust It Baby Part II"
- The Pussycat Dolls - "When I Grow Up"
- Miley Cyrus - "7 Things"
The Top 10 Songs in the United States at the iTunes Store are.....
- Katy Perry - "I Kissed A Girl"
- Jonas Brothers - "Burnin Up"
- Coldplay - "Viva La Vida"
- Rihanna - "Disturbia"
- The Pussycat Dolls - "When I Grow Up"
- Sugarland - "All I Want To Do"
- Miley Cyrus - "7 Things"
- Demi Lovato & Joe Jonas - "This Is Me"
- Metro Station - "Shake It"
- Leona Lewis - "Bleeding Love"
Other stuff percolating around the series of tubes called the internet.....
- Britney Spears may return to MTV's Video Music Awards.
- Rihanna & Maroon 5’s Adam Levine Do FNMTV.
- Rolling Stone stays up all night with Amy Winehouse. She does show up for Nelson Mandela's birthday party after getting out of the hospital, but changes the words of one song from "Free Nelson Mandela" to "Free Blake, My Fella." Also finds time to call Kanye West a "C**T".
- When not responding to Amy Winehouse, Kanye West does some angry blogging.
- Coldplay seeks opening act via YouTube, and goes to number 1 on the Billboard 200.
- OMG! David Bowie Writes About His Favorite Bowie Songs!
- Neil Young says the soundtrack to the forthcoming Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young documentary "CSNY: Deja Vu" constitutes the best album ever made by the legendary supergroup.
- If you attempt to leak Guns N Roses "Chinese Democracy" album, expect a visit from the FBI.
- DMX can't stop getting arrested, after being busted twice in 4 days.
- Larry King has no idea who Christina Aguilera is, even while he's interviewing her.
- Meet AC/DC's Original Vocalist.
- Celebs take home stars at the BET Awards.
- 25 Worst Rap Names Ever.
- Tim McGraw personally ejects jackass from concert.
[Gratuitous Links & Pics]
Other News & Crap
- Larry King's wife, Shawn Southwick, checks into rehab for painkiller addiction.
- Surf gang tells the paparazzi following Matthew Mcconaughey to fuck off & get away from their beach in Maui.
- Steven Tyler commits a sin against God with his "Crocs", but is accosted by a Nun who loves her some Devil music.
- Someone is Marrying Chris Kattan.
- Lindsay Lohan's dad may have fathered a love child.
- Jennifer Lopez debuted her bikini body in Tenerife, Spain last Sunday – just four months after giving birth to twins Max and Emme.
- Is Miley Cyrus selling "Hannah Montana" Penis Candy?
- Hulk Hogan tells People he still loves his wife, even though he slept with his daughter's friend & his wife is dating a 19-year-old that looks like their son. However, the Hogans' daughter says it's okay for her Dad to rub her ass, because here ass is like "an old car" to her father.
- "Gossip Girl" stars Chace Crawford & Ed Westwick deny reports of relationship.
- Michelle Williams clashing with Heath Ledger's folks over the will?
- John Mayer called girlfriend Minka Kelly to let her know he was dumping her for Jennifer Aniston.
- Rod Stewart requires breastfeeding at 63.
- Will Smith's school insists it's not Scientologist. However, the school "will use instructional methods developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard called study technology. And a few teachers belong to the church."
- Whether through good genes or good surgeons, Jaclyn Smith hasn't aged a day in 27 years.
- Kim Kardashian kept fans waiting for over 2 hours because of fake eyelashes?
- Alleged "Other Woman" Subpoenaed to Testify in Christie Brinkley Divorce.
- Spencer Pratt & Mary-Kate Olsen get into a little bit of a spat.
- Anne Hathaway's ex is, legally speaking, in some deep shit.
- Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's call girl Ashley Dupre Thanks Supporters – and Haters.
- 82-year-old Hugh Hefner claims he has back problems from "bed rustling."
- 5 "Classics" of Literature written under the influence.
The Guys
[Hot Bachelors of 2008]
[Justin Timberlake For Givenchy]
[Shirtless Soccer Star Cristiano Ronaldo on an Italian beach with his girlfriend]
[Gerard Butler is a Milan man]
[Mario Lopez bares all]
[Ryan Gosling suits up nicely]
[Orlando Bloom in Spain]
[James McAvoy: My Six Pack is Real]
[Clive Owen is an Italian icon]
The Ladies
[Ali Larter's Bikini Cleavage is Very Allure-ing]
[Nadine Velazquez Sizzles In Maxim]
[Ariadne Artiles in Elle]
[10 Women That Look Great Oiled Up]
[Charlize Theron Is Still Super Gorgeous]
[Irina Sheik Lingerie Pics]
[A Teresa Moore Picture Moment]
[Adabel Guerrero in Argentinan Maxim]
[A Teresa Moore Picture Moment]
[Vida Guerra Photoshoot]
[A Natalie Martinez Quickie]
[Raffaella Fico is insanely hot]
[Argentinian Model Magali Montoro Shows Her Love For Football]
[Rosario Dawson Is Back Baby!]
[Vanessa Minnillo Bikini Pictures]
[Week 2 of Lucy Pinder & Sophie Howard Topless Together]