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.
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