Over the years, I’ve always rolled my eyes whenever people bring up media violence being too extreme. I grew up during The Matrix/Natural Born Killers/Doom era where anyone and everyone seemed like a potential school shooter if they enjoyed a Terminator film. All of it seemed overblown to say the least. So I never thought…
The Pope Was Never Going to be Black, Because The Catholic Church Will Never Change
I couldn’t help but laugh when so many people were falling for the recent P.R. ruse of the Catholic Church pretending it was going to actually elect Peter Turkson (a cardinal from Ghana) as Pope. In my eyes, it was no different than when the Romney campaign “leaked” the suggestion that they were “considering” Condelezza…
TV Review: Law and Order’s Clever Chris Brown/Rihanna Episode
[I know this episode aired a couple weeks back, and the statute of interest has expired, so I’ll keep this brief.] Law and Order, Special Victims Unit, episode “Funny Valentine”…I found the recent and highly-publicized riff on the Chris Brown/Rihanna case to be exceptionally clever, and enjoyably melodramatic (was the acting good? No, but Chris…
TV Reviews: The Big Funeral on “Dallas” and the Court’s Decision on “The Staircase”
Dallas…I’ve never seen a single episode of the original Dallas, but I’ll miss J.R. Ewing, who unquestionably made the first season of TNT’s reboot better and stole most of his scenes in the second season. Larry Hagman’s J.R. is a textbook example of a villain so iconic, he’s actually the hero. [Who would really want…
Movie Reviews: Jack the Giant Slayer vs. Oz the Great and Powerful, Which is Better?
It now seems like Hollywood makes only one of two movies nearly every weekend, and it’s either the R-rated action movie starring a faded actor (Dead Man Down with Colin Farrell, Bullet to the Head with Stallone, Die Hard 5 with Willis, and whatever that movie was with Schwarzenneger a few weeks back) or an…
Entertainment Editorial: Reviewing This Year’s Best Documentary Nominees
[Note: There’s no review of The Gatekeepers since, well, I haven’t seen it. It’s also the only one still in theaters, so it’ll be the hardest to get access to for the majority of people who’ll miss these films until they hit Netflix or Redbox.] Searching for Sugar Man…This was the winner of the Best…
Mom Jokes: Psychology and Law
A guy asked a girl in a library, “Do you mind if I sit beside you?” The girl answered with a loud voice, “I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND THE NIGHT WITH YOU!!!!!” All of the students in the library started staring at the guy. He was very embarrassed. After a couple of minutes, the…
TV Review: “Fashion Star” and “Grimm” Are Back…But Are They Better Than Ever?
Fashion Star…All of the old problems (overstuffed episodes, noisy-as-hell runways that overpower the clothes, too many contestants for us to really keep track of them, routine picking of the wrong designer to go home, unhelpful advice from the mentors, etc.) are still there, but now they’ve added a couple. They’ve white-washed the gorgeous H &…
Petty Issues: NASCAR’s First Black Female Driver, Swift vs. Fey, Baldwin vs. Lebouf, and Chris Brown Shows His Ass Once Again
Tia Norfleet has been promoting herself as NASCAR’s first female driver, and now there’s a controversy because NASCAR is “uncomfortable” with that label since Tia hasn’t actually competed in a top-tier race or finished a second-tier one. So let me get this straight…a pr-ready, very attractive driver wants to try to make NASCAR look a…
TV Reviews: Red Widow, The Vikings, The Bible, and Celebrity Apprentice
Celebrity Apprentice: F [Yep, it’s that simple] Red Widow: This new ABC drama (that stars Radha Mitchell as a crime family widow forced into the drug smuggling business after her husband is killed) gets caught between worlds as it’s not realistic enough to be gritty but not unrealistic enough to be fun. So far, there’s…
Sunday’s Sermons: Yes, the Voting Rights Act is Still Necessary
This week, Justice Scalia (who can always be counted on to be the most retrograde, painfully ignorant judge on the bench) questioned whether the Voting Rights Act was still necessary. He basically inferred that it unfairly punished the Southern states for their racist past, and also called it an entitlement for minorities. He seemed to…
TV Review: Kevin Hart Takes Over TV with an “SNL” Appearance and Real Husbands of Hollywood
Seems like Kevin Hart is everywhere these days, and I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. I don’t have strong opinions of him one way or the other, so I went into his latest projects with an entirely open mind…and I think they’re more successful than not. Saturday Night Live: It’s great to see…
Book Reviews: The Newlyweds (Now in Paperback), The Good Son, People Who Eat Darkness
None of these are new books, but they were recently made available in paperback and are some of the best reviewed books of last year. Maybe I was a bit negligent in compiling a Best Books of 2012 list without reading all of them first, but even though I did really enjoy two of them,…