Idol Chatter

While I almost always agree with what fellow blogger Tim Hayne has to say–and I appreciate that he seems to be a fellow enthusiast of slightly darker, indie films–I found myself disagreeing with him after watching “Little Miss Sunshine.” While I love stories about quirky, eccentric characters who go on unexpected journeys that result in…

As my fellow blogger Doug Howe recently noted, last week marked MTV’s 25th anniversary. Doug has decided to forsake the cable giant for more “positive, spiritual” pastures, but I am still on board. It’s true that the channel hawks such wares as the this-close-to-being-morally-bankrupt “Room Raiders” and “Parental Control,” but I would argue that MTV…

MTV celebrated its 25th anniversary last week, but I couldn’t figure out what they were celebrating. I find myself singing the Dire Straits’ classic lyric, “I want my MTV,” because my MTV–or, at least, good MTV–hasn’t been seen in a long, long time. Mark Knopfler called the early MTV stars “yo-yo’s,” said “they aint workin’”…

Fox News reports that Disney is looking for other distributors on which to unload scandal-tainted Mel Gibson’s new movie, “Apocalypto,” about the mysterious expiration of the Incan Empire. Fox’s sources point to Lion’s Gate Films, which picked up Kevin Smiths’ “Dogma” and Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” when Disney got cold feet, as the most likely…

Earlier this summer, I wrote in this space about the growing popularity of Faith Night promotions at minor-league baseball stadiums. The faith in question was typically Christianity. Leave it to the Newark Bears, an independent New Jersey team, to celebrate Scientology Night. In the past, the Bears have signed Jose Canseco’s brother Ozzie and extended…

At a time when U.S. citizens, religious and otherwise, are divided over whether the U.S. should pull troops out of Iraq, not to mention whether the war itself was justified in the first place, the military is desperate for some positive PR. But is a gun-filled theme park the way to go? Apparently, it is–or…

What happened on September 11th, 2001, didn’t just leave its mark on the New York City skyline, it scarred a nation. Everyone has a story. We all remember where we were the moment we learned the twin towers had come down, some even watched the buildings fall, and a select few recall mustering the courage…

As TNT’s “The Closer” headed toward its 9th episode of season two Monday night, “Heroic Measures,” Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson (played wonderfully by Kyra Sedgwick) delivered some more of her trademark, morally ambiguous detective work. This time around, the show took on the issue of malpractice among doctors, as her team attempted to prosecute…

First Al Gore was right about the environment, and now Tipper Gore and her Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) may have been right about those explicit lyrics warning labels!? A recent study by the Rand Corp. showed that “teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as…

The Sundance Film Festival has Robert Redford. Tribeca has De Niro. And the film community in Michigan… well… we have the polarizing docudrama director and producer Michael Moore. Yes, filmmakers from Hollywood as well as Iran, South Africa, and Italy flew to the Midwest last week to attend the 2nd annual Traverse City Film Festival,…

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