11.29.2012

4.27.2012

4.23.2012

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Think tops weekend box office


Who’da thunk it? Think Like a Man, Tim Story’s romantic comedy starring Kevin Hart and a raft of newcomers, outpointed The Lucky One, with Zac Efron, and the one-time money monster, The Hunger Games, at the U.S. box office this weekend.
Logo: © 2012 Sony Pictures. Box office data courtesy Rentrak. © 2012 Rentrak Corporation.

4.22.2012

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Jack at 75



“A man who, it sometimes seems, more than any other actor alive, happily looms like some trickster colossus over the entire Hollywood landscape ... and no one anywhere begrudges him his dominion.”

Life.com: Photos of an actor on the brink
HuffPo: John Farr on Jack's greatest hits
Photo: © 1969 Arthur Schatz, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
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April, the cruelest month



CNN: Dick Clark, the eternal American teenager, television producer and a tireless champion of rock culture and its music, dies at 82 on Wednesday. 

Rolling Stone: Levon Helm, the drummer for The Band and that group’s indelible “beautifully gruff and ornery voice,” gone on Thursday at the age of 71.

Sydney Morning Herald: Greg Ham, the saxophonist whose distinctive sound made Men at Work a staple of 80’s rock, was found dead at his home in Melbourne on Thursday. He was 58.
Photos: Clark: Associated Press via The Washington Post

3.11.2012

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Austin: SXSW: Xroads of culture



It’s maybe the one thing that could bring together Biz Stone and Bruce Springsteen, Norah Jones and LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman (in the video below). South by Southwest, the annual collision of music, technology and pop culture that’s on through next Sunday. The objective for many: to find the Next Big Thing, or be the Next Big Thing. Mike Snider of USA Today reports on “a mash-up of extreme proportions.”

Image: SXSW Logo: © 2012 SXSW Inc.
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Iranian and American, in L.A.



Does Ahmedinajad know about this? The flashy, gold-plated antics of Iranian-American families in Los Angeles is the foundation for Shahs of Sunset, a new reality series debuting tonight on Bravo. The show offers a fresh look at Iranian culture that’s a long way from mullahs and ayatollahs, but does it trade one stereotype for another? Roshanak Taghavi of The Christian Science Monitor reports. In Television
Photo: Colleen Hayes/Bravo
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Channels of diversity



Magic Johnson and Sean (Diddy) Combs are setting the pace for a spate of new television channels aimed at African American viewers who, according to Nielsen, watch more TV than just about anyone else. With these new outlets of black life set to explode in the next few years, how will they change perceptions of black America? Anthonia Akitunde of The Root gets the lowdown. See Television
Photo: Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

3.10.2012

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Notorious: Life after death



It’s been 15 years since the Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace), perhaps the most lyrically, rhythmically gifted rapper in the game, was slain in a hail of gunfire outside the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. His killer remains at large to this day. Rachel Shapiro of The Hollywood Reporter looks back at a life of genius and potential cut short.

Photo: Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

3.01.2012

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Monkees’ Davy Jones dies at 66



The diminutive British heartthrob, a singer for the made-for-TV rock band that defied expectations, achieved chart-topping success and survived a Beatles-besotted public in the mid 1960’s, succumbed to a heart attack early Wednesday morning near his home in Florida. The Huffington Post reports.
Photo: Splash, via The Huffington Post

2.28.2012

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Oscars 2012: The rundown



We got an upset, cheesecake, the Muppets and Billy Crystal in blackface. We got the pure emotional joy of Octavia Spencer and the international pride of Iran and Pakistan. We got the lyrical beauty of Cirque du Soleil and the, uh, presence of Sacha Baron Cohen. Oscars 2012 was a mixed bag. Let Melissa Bell at The Washington Post’s Celebritology blog sort it all out. So you don’t have to.
Photo: Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

2.26.2012

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Critic Howard Kissel dies at 69



The tousle-haired, bespectacled theater critic beloved on Broadway for decades, died Friday night in Manhattan from complications from a 2010 liver transplant. Kissel was lead theater critic at the New York Daily News for 20 years; former chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle and the New York Drama Critics Circle; and a prolific author. A frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, he blogged there as "The Cultural Tourist." Robert Simonson reports in Playbill
Photo: Still from "Theater Talk" TV program.
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White House of Blues



Tuesday was blues day in Washington, as a number of blues and rock luminaries came to the East Room of the White House for a performance celebrating the blues and marking Black History Month. Some British bloke with moves like Jagger made the best of it, ripping into “I Can’t Turn You Loose” (an Otis Redding classic) and “Commit a Crime” (from Howlin’ Wolf). “In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues” airs Monday on PBS stations nationwide. Watch the video for a taste:



Short Sharp Shock: Sonny Boy Who?: Blues and the absence of memory
Photo: whitehouse.gov/PBS.

2.23.2012

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Ava after Sundance

It’s been three weeks since Ava DuVernay won best director honors at Sundance for her film Middle of Nowhere, a surprise choice that caught festivalgoers off guard. Now that the dust has settled and the phone’s stopped ringing as much, the indie darling sat down with Nsenga K. Burton of The Root to make sense of what the ‘‘big hug’’ at Sundance means for DuVernay, and for other black women filmmakers struggling for a voice. See Movies
Photo: Ava DuVernay via The Root
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The Help tops NAACP film honors

The serious 2012 Academy Award contender wins best picture at the NAACP Image Awards, one of the last awards ceremonies before the 84th Oscars (this coming Sunday night). Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer took home honors as best actress and best supporting actress. CBS News reports.
Photo: Getty Images
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Seattle: Another Oklahoma!

The 5th Avenue Theatre's staging of the vintage Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, still "a valentine to America," in the words of producer Peter Rothstein, weds folkloric homage with multiculturalism, via cross-racial casting and a vision of inclusion a far cry from its early stagings in the 1940’s. Misha Berson of The Seattle Times reports. See Stage
Photo: Promotional still, 5th Avenue Theater, Seattle, via boradwayworld.com
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NYC: Asian and absent in the arts

In an increasingly diverse American society, Asian American actors are battling for wider acceptance. In the hothouse of competition on the New York stage, they find it harder and harder to find roles that white and even African American actors gain with more regularity. One actor said it plain: “There's this real subconscious perception in society that Asian-Americans are not actually American.” Lucas Kavner of The Huffington Post reports. See Stage
Image: Asian American Performers Action Coalition, via Facebook
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A new home for the blues

The National Blues Museum, said to be the first dedicated to the indelible genre of American music, is set to open sometime next year in St. Louis, a city whose DNA is steeped in the blues experience. The project, part of a $500 million riverfront renovation, will have a tech-centric feel, but one that strives to celebrate blues as “a state of mind ... the human condition ... a way of life.” More at The Huffington Post
Photo: Central Iowa Blues Society

2.12.2012

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Goodbye, Whitney

The investigation
Los Angeles Times: Authorities probe possible bathtub drowning scenario
New York Times: A voice of triumph and pain: “She was, alongside Michael Jackson and Madonna, one of the crucial figures to hybridize pop in the 1980s ... Jackson and Madonna built worldviews around their voices; Houston’s voice was the worldview.”
Mashable: The social world explodes
L.A. Times: The Grammys plans tributes
THR: Houston dominates iTunes



Michael E. Ross: One nation, two minutes in Tampa, indivisible
Photo: REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

1.31.2012

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The Gross

Liam Neeson’s dances-around-wolves thriller set in the Alaskan wilderness notched first place this weekend in theaters. Underworld Awakening, with Kate Beckinsale reprising her kickass role as vampire huntress Selene, slipped to second. And Red Tails continues to show strength in theaters, placing strongly in the top five — and probably in a great position to find a new audience, and repeat business, with the start of Black History Month on Wednesday.
Source: Rentrak Corporation. The Grey logo: © 2012 Icon Films

1.29.2012

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Chemicals and reaction

The Chemical Brothers performed a triumphal concert one night at last year’s Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. Director Adam Smith was there to commit a movie. The result is what some critics have suggested is one of the best concert films ever made. Don’t Think (screening in select theaters worldwide starting Wednesday, in the UK on Friday) works because of its fan-centric perspective.



Kia Makarechi of The Huffington Post says it “bravely faces the challenges of translating a concert to the cinema without relying on an imposed narrative frame. Smith's ability to resist layering a hokey story on top of the concert experience is admirable …” It also works because of the sound; it’s being marketed as the first concert recorded in Dolby 7:1 surround sound. Want tickets? Here.
Photo: The Chemical Brothers/Adam Smith/Parlophone
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Strangeness in Seattle

The trailers have been trickling out since late October, and the word has been building on YouTube, Facebook and IMDb about Chronicle, Josh Trank’s much-anticipated horror film about three Seattle high-school students who acquire supernatural powers — and the discovery of their dark sides in a city whose Space Needle looks strangely outsized. Check the trailer, you be the judge. The 20th Century-Fox film opens Friday.

Poster: 20th Century-Fox

1.24.2012

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Hugo sets the Oscar pace

Martin Scorsese’s fanciful 3-D paean to Georges Méliès and the history of filmmaking leads the field with 11 nominations. The Artist, a tribute to the movies of the silent era, follows with 10. Jonah Hill, Viola Davis, George Clooney and three (!) stars of The Help also won Oscar nods. Jen Chaney of The Washington Post surveys everything.
Poster: © 2012 Paramount PIctures

1.23.2012

1.20.2012

1.19.2012

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Sundance 2012: Action!

For Michael O’Hehir at Salon, the most recent iterations of Sundance — under new management — has meant a leaner, more muscular festival refocused on the work of film, something he expects to see again this year. See Movies

The Hollywood Reporter: Robert Redford kicks off a festival for "dark and grim" times
With a deep page of previews, trailers and interviews, The Hollywood Reporter has the festival’s anticipated big draws all buttoned up (enough to know that anything can happen).
Back for more: After a wild Sundance 2011, film buyers are returning with high hopes of making the next big indie discovery, despite buys last year that didn’t perform as well as expected. THR’s Jay A. Fernandez and Daniel Miller report. See Movies
Logos: © 2012 Sundance Institute; © 2012 The Hollywood Reporter
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Priceline Negotiator checks out

After 14 years, The Priceline.com pitchman (Wlliam Shatner) has made his last deal. As the travel services company begins a rebranding, travelers everywhere are said to be in deep mourning. Below, the details of his final earthly transaction (the ad begins airing on Monday). We’re betting he finds a great deal on a room ... at the Great Beyond Hotel.

YouTube
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140 to the Twitterverse

SPIN Magazine recently announced a bid to “reinvent the album review” as 140-character posts on Twitter, a move that’s aroused some outrage among music writers. NPR's Ann Powers and Jacob Ganz weigh in on SPIN’s move, with ideas on what could be said with a little more space. In Music
Logo: © 2012 National Pubic Radio

1.17.2012

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London: Hockney goes big

Spanning past work in conventional media (watercolors and outdoor oils) and more adventurous creations (big-canvas oils and drawings done on an iPad), moving from expansive views of the Grand Canyon and the Hollywood Hills to studies of the Yorkshire countryside, the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London is a marvel. For Martin Gayford, “the boldness and panache of the total ensemble” makes for an “exhilarating” experience. See Art
Winter Timber (2009) by David Hockney (detail); photo by Jonathan Wilkinson/Royal Academy via Bloomberg

1.16.2012

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Hollywood’s Asian whitewash

Two of Japanese popular culture’s biggest exports to the United States, manga and anime, have brought that culture to a much wider audience. But when those art forms make the leap to the major motion picture, Asian American actors are strangely in short supply. Stephanie Siek of CNN reports on how Asian pop culture without Asians is, to quote one scholar, “an affront to their identity.” See Movies
Cover: VIZ Media LLC 

1.09.2012

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Brazil: Diplo on tecno brega

With the World Cup coming in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, Brazil is about to blow up in a big way. The nation of 203 million people is in the midst of reinvention – some of it in a bubbling, vibrant music scene. Writing for Vanity Fair, the musicologist and electronica artist Diplo surveys the emerging tecno brega sound (“industrial reggaeton on crystal meth”) as distilled in the music of the group Banda UO. See the slideshow
Photo: Candy Mel by Shane McCauley for Vanity Fair
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Derring-do in World War II

It’s been years in the making, but Red Tails, George Lucas’ long-planned story of the Tuskegee fighter pilots in World War II, is finally leaving the hangar. The film stars Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Bryan Cranston and Ne-Yo, and was written by John Ridley (Three Kings) and Aaron McGruder, creator of The Boondocks. It lands in theaters Jan. 20. Give the trailer a test flight:

Red Tails logo: © 2012 Twentieth Century Fox/Lucasfilm Ltd.
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China turns off the TV

The country with the most television viewers in the world – about 1.2 billion people – has officially cut broadcast of entertainment content by about two-thirds, in accordance with a government campaign meant to reduce the impact of “vulgar” reality shows and programming of “low taste.” BBC News reports. See Television
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Guessing the Grammys

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 2012 Grammy Awards early last month. The actual presentation of the awards goes down early next month (Feb. 12, to be exact). To give Grammy handicappers something to do the rest of this month, PopMatters offers early predictions of who'll walk away with the golden gramophone.
Image: © 2012 National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

1.03.2012

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Jesmyn Ward: The next Toni Morrison?

With her second and highly personal novel (Salvage the Bones), the 34-year-old author has won the National Book Award, and the attention of a literary world more accustomed to successful authors of majority culture. The novelist talks with Keli Goff of Loop21 about her book, the future and issues with The Help. In Word
Photo: Via Loop21
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And still Sharpton rises

Four months after the launch of PoliticsNation on MSNBC, the Rev. Al Sharpton is helping the network solidify its progressive bona fides. In The Root, Michael E. Ross reports on how he also represents the emergence “of minority voices finally starting to achieve critical mass in the American commentariat.” In Television
Photo: MSNBC via The New York Times
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