The writers for The Simpsons clearly gave up any sense of relevancy years ago; Family Guy is essentially the same laugh-free joke week after week; and Fox’s new Jonah Hill-voiced series (which is so dull I can’t even be bothered to remember the name) is dead on arrival, leaving South Park as one of a few adult cartoons that still elicits a chuckle every now and then. But HBO’s brilliant…
Five seasons into it, if you’re not watching Robot Chicken by now, you probably never will. But for those who are fans, Season Five is a good reason why. The pop culture obsessed stop motion skit show done with old action figures manages to spoof some their old reliable targets like He-Man and the rest of the Masters of the Universe crew and Batman. There is also a particularly filthy…
There are bookshelves crammed with tomes about the origins of punk rock and just as many, if not more, about how hip-hop first began. It’s refreshing then that Will Hermes, a long time music critic, manages to cover both genres as well as disco, salsa, jazz and other aspects of the music world from his unique perspective growing up in New York in the mid 70’s. Love Goes to Buildings…
For decades, the follow up to The Beach Boys brilliant Pet Sounds was one of rock and roll’s best urban legends. Sure they eventually threw up their hands and released the so-so album Smiley Smile in 1967, but there was always talk of what was almost released. A sonically-layered masterpiece, bootlegs dripped out in the years that followed and in 1993, Brian Wilson finally released, a newly recorded version of…
The jokes pretty much write themselves with this one. You can almost envision chapters like “How I Made My First Million Selling Grilled Cheese Sandwiches in Dirty Parking Lots”. But once you get past the jokes about endless jams and white-bearded, tie-dyed hippies, you soon realize that the author is much more than a Grateful Dead obsessed fan and that the band knew how to make money – lots of…
Michael Winterbottom’s latest film The Trip contains quite possibly the funniest three-minutes of any movie released this year. Witnessing two comedians (played by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon) trying to one up each other with Michael Caine impressions elicits a laugh-until-it hurts response. Not sure the same can be said about any scene from The Hangover II. The independent comedy follows Coogan (24 Hour Party People, Tropic Thunder), playing himself,…
On the surface, In Treatment shouldn’t work. Aside from Gabriel Byrne who plays therapist Dr. Paul Weston, there are few reoccurring characters to attach to; just about every scene takes place in either Weston’s office or the office of his own therapist; and there is very little action, putting all of the pressure on the dialogue. But somehow – and almost exclusively thanks to the brilliant Byrne, as well as…
From the sounds of their self-titled debut in 1995, it was clear Ben Folds Five was going to more than a flash in the pan alt rock band. At the time a guitar-less trio with singer Ben Folds more than making up for the void with his piano, the group sounded both comfortably familiar (everything from Elton John to The Beatles) and shockingly original over the span of just a…
Wylie Overstreet’s The History of the World According to Facebook is likely not the only book to satirize the wildly popular social networking site and it certainly won’t be the last but, at least for now, it may be the wittiest. The germ for the book originated with an August 2010 online article by Overstreet (“If Historical Events Had Facebook Statuses”) and has evolved into a quick read paperback that…
The second season of HBO’s most underrated comedy is brought to you be the New Yorker and pot. I can’t prove it, but based on the number of mentions of the magazines and number of times someone flames up a joint, spread out over the eight episodes, there has to be some kind of product placement deal that was made. Regardless, the season is still extremely entertaining. The show follows…
In 1956, a 21-year-old Elvis Aaron Presley was on the verge of becoming a phenomenally influential music icon. Recently signed to RCA, 1956 was the year his debut came out and more importantly the year his (big gasp) lewd hip movements on The Ed Sullivan Show created massive amounts of controversy and cemented his legacy as the first real badass of rock and roll, a legacy that even bloating and…
Let’s get Holly’s World out of the way first. With plenty of plastic surgery and a grating voice she heads off to Mecca for those who like to disrobe for strangers: Vegas! The show follows Madison and her dim assistant (even for realty show sidekick standards, she is jaw-droppingly ditzy) in their new city, where Madison has taken up residency at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino where she headlines…
Listening to Pink Floyd’s three decade spanning, 14 song catalog, two things are clear; One: they were more than a tad bit pretentious at the beginning. With droning organ solos and album titles like A Saucerful of Secrets and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, you can almost imagine that scene from Spinal Tap with the little people dancing around the replica of Stonehenge actually came from the acid-soaked…
It’s been said before, but needs to be said again: Tom Perrotta knows suburbia. In his previous works (Election, The Abstinence Teacher and Little Children), Perrotta used his unique perspective to tackle the everyday challenges and worries – both real and ridiculous – of his characters that populate the suburbs of America. And nowhere is that done to better effect than his latest novel The Leftovers. Absolutely absorbing from the…
You know what’s great about a musician like Tom Waits? Aside from being a great songwriter, he has made a musical career out of simply doing his own thing, not content to change his vocals or music style to fit into whatever happens t be the prevailing trend (this is a guy who was signed by David Geffen alongside 70’s country rockers like The Eagles and Jackson Browne, and said…
HBO’s favorite man whore is back for a second season. Hung, starring Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker, a former high school jock now coaching at the school, is still trying to rebuild his old burned out house, while juggling clients (women only), a one-night stand with one of his two pimps (again, women only) and now his ex-wife (played by Anne Heche). While season one was all about quickly introducing…
It’s pretty clear just a few chapters into Adrenaline that (soon to be retired) CIA Agent Sam Capra will be back for more books. And that’s not a bad thing at all. In Jeff Abbott’s latest novel, he introduces Capra, an undercover American agent working aside his pregnant with at the CIA’s London office. An explosion in the UK headquarters, shortly after his kidnapped wife lures him away from it,…
You can see what the creators of Running Wilde were going for. Put together by Mitch Hurwitz, the brains behind the beloved (though clearly by not by enough people) Arrested Development, he even managed to snag Arrested alums like Will Arnett and David Cross for his second chance show at Fox. With Running Wilde, the hilariously odd characters seem almost like an offshoot of his former series, but the show…
Want an idea of just how big Prince’s ego is? As told in Jason Draper’s new bio on the often reclusive musician, in an attempt to regain some of his former mojo a few years ago, Prince decided to finally reunite The Revolution – his most successful backing band. But only on the condition that Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, denounce their homosexuality. Apparently the newly converted Jehovah’s Witness, labeled…
The movie adaption of the strongly compelling memoir from war photographers Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva could have gone one of two ways – either a bloated Hollywood-take on war (think Michael Bay) or taken the sophisticated indie route, true to the source. The Bang Bang Club, out now on DVD, thankfully falls into the latter category. Starring Ryan Phillippe (the new go-to guy for indie dramas) as Marinovich and…