|
June 30, 2005
The New Emir of Pop? Or Is It The Shiek
Michael Jackson was as good as his word after his aquittal on child molestation charges in California -- he left the the country. BlogPulse's no. 7 man is taking a vacation with the royal family of of Bahrain, the Associated Press reports, where (he hopes) draconian gag laws will keep away the tabloid photogs. But what's next after he's rested? Jacko plans to make a documentary that will salvage his image, but since his lawsuit against Sony, in which he said the label didn't do enough to promote his last new record, "Invincible," nobody has seriously mentioned him doing another album. Stilll, for all the notoriety of his trial, he still has millions of fans around the world. Writes BastardZero: "I feel sorry for people who refuse to admit to themselves how great Michael Jackson's disco songs were."
Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:24 PM | Permalink
Category: Celebs
June 28, 2005
The Cruise Boycott
For Steven Spielberg, bigger worries are at hand these days than just the dwindling number of UFO sightings -- the star of his new flick War of the Worlds has been acting, ah, unconventionally of late. Some bloggers are resolving that they won't see War because of Cruise's over-the-top devotions to his fiance, Katie Holmes, the potential insidious influence of his Scientologist beliefs on her and the lecture he gave NBC's Matt Lauer on psychiatry. Rogue Slayer, tingaling and Absolutely Bill are all taking a pass on the coming blockbuster. Heckler Spray calls it one of the most spectacular career suicides in history. How big a dent can the web's chattering class make in the opening grosses of a summer Spielberg movie? Without wishing to overstate things, it might wise to ask this guy.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:51 PM | Permalink
Category: Moving Pictures
A Shot Across The Bow
America's highest court apparently knows what's been happnening in the nation's dorm rooms for the past few years, and with its decision Monday in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inv. v. Grokster Ltd, it's putting traders of music and movies on notice. The unanimous ruling, which The New York Times calls "a major victory" for Hollywood and the record business, found that Grokster could be sued for the money that record companies or movie studios say they loose through the swapping of copyrighted material. Bloggers are on the air about this -- Justice David Souter is BlogPulse's no. 5 bursty name today. In a pretty detailed breakdown, Ernest Miller writes that neither side achieved a definitive victory in the ruling, while Barking Moonbat speculates that Grokster and other file-sharing companies will just move out of the country. That seems to be what they're hoping for in all those dorm rooms out there: Sharkblog has the file-sharers' rebuttal.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:03 AM | Permalink
Category: The Soundscape
June 27, 2005
Rough Times In The Hundred-Acre Wood
Paul Winchell is BlogPulse's no. 2 bursty person today, for the sad reason that the 82 year-old voice actor and ventriloquist -- who was the voice of Winnie the Pooh's friend Tigger for more than 30 years -- died Friday. Blogger Susan Shelley, who calls him "a genius," remembers Winchell for his old children's TV show and laments that nobody can see it anymore. Winchell's life was especially meaningful for Joe Gandelman of themoderatevoice, who speaks highly of Winchell's skills as a ventriloquist. Now comes word that John Fiedler, the voice of Pooh pal Piglet, died Saturday. The blogosphere still seems to be processing all the news, but, to be sure, these are sad days for the bear.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:30 AM | Permalink
Category: Celebs
June 24, 2005
When Geekoids Daydream
iPodlounge has no official say-so with Apple but iPodders nonetheless consider the site gospel, meaning there've been a lot of responses to a new article about the 10 features Apple should include on a new fifth-generation iPod. (Poster Divad 1 wants his to have a 9mm pistol). Bloggers elsewhere are talking too about the new iPod and what new features it might have -- the web is rife with fanciful designs that reflect what people want the new model to be. The consensus? Most techies want movies, Bluetooth and a user-replaceable battery to replace the expensive, inaccessible model Apple now uses. And they want that stuff now. Fortunately, it might not be very much longer. Engadget reported Friday that Apple is inviting people to a "special media event" on July 7, but keeping quiet about what exactly that means. Could Steve Jobs roll out the iPod of tomorrow? If so, what will it look like? Wouldn't it be delicious if it looked like this?
Posted by Philip Ewing at 02:41 PM | Permalink
Category: The Gadget Scene
Maybe Oprah's The One Who Needs A New Watch
Fem-talk potentate Oprah Winfrey already had one traumatic experience this week when Tom Cruise, channeling Emporer Palpatine, electrocuted her as she sat right in front of her studio audience. That was the story going around the web, anyway. Now comes word from Paris that a Hermes store turned her away when she showed up 15 minutes after closing time and asked to dash in to buy a watch for Tina Turner. Some people say Oprah is a victim of racism; others say she shouldn't have expected to get in after closing time. Either way, Chicago's most famous billionaire says she will never shop Hermes again. She's not getting a lot of sympathy in the blogosphere: "Boo-freaking-hoo, Oprah," writes denl42. Matt's World resents Oprah's penchant for inconveniencing employees when she wants to make an extravagant after-hours purchase -- this isn't the first time. Hermes, for its part, says it's sorry. C'est la vie.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:50 AM | Permalink
Category: Celebs
June 23, 2005
Has the 'Wild About Harry' Gag Been Used Yet? Oh, it has?
Britons probably never thought they'd export anything more lucrative than tea or rock and roll music, but they also never counted on the bespectacled, lighting-emblazoned young wizard who has been BlogPulse's key person for days now. The days are ticking down, after all: soon children and adults across the United States will assemble at midnight in bookstores to scramble for their copies of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, available July 16. Pottermeister J.K. Rowling has either been assigned a new editor or shown remarkable discipline with the new volume, which weighs in at 672 pages, some 198 fewer than its predecessor. No matter: The bloggers are restless -- "EEK!" writes Noihatu, who sums up their collective, building excitement over the new book and the movie version of The Goblet of Fire, due out in November. Have you read all the books and seen all the movies, and still need more of that sweet Potter? There's always plenty of fan fiction to tide you over.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 01:36 PM | Permalink
Category: The Dead-Tree Scene
Frankly, AFI...
Cinema-minded bloggers are buzzing this week about AFI's Top 100 Movie Quotes, those memorable snippets of dialogue delivered so memorably in those memorable movies we all remember so fondly. Then again, AFI seems not to have remembered many quotes that could've been contenders: Hacks & Wonks says that many great quips are absent, and the existing list comprises "at least one-third crap lines." Mr Blonde has his own list of overlooked quotes. As does Bloggledygook, who writes "quotes uttered by Patrick Swayze should by default be left off the list." Amen.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:06 AM | Permalink
Category: Moving Pictures
June 22, 2005
Justice for Biggie?
The Notorious B.I.G., skilled rapper and East Coast foil to hip-hop demigod Tupac Shakur, finally is getting his posthumous day in court this week as his family pursues a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles. The case makes for a cold retrospective into earlier years of gangsta rap, when feuds between rival gangs and East- and West Coast record labels often seemed to turn violent. These days seem a little better: When G-Unit thugs 50 Cent and The Game settled their differences a few months ago, they cited Biggie Smalls' death as the reason life was too short for beef; in his song "Like Toy Soldiers," Eminem is believed to have told Ja Rule, the diminutive New York MC, that their feud wasn't worth anyone's life.
So the B.I.G. trial is a leftover from hip-hop's less enlightened era, in which, Biggie's family contends, an off-duty LAPD officer helped conspire with the rapper's enemies to gun him down as he rode in an SUV in Los Angeles. The murder didn't happen so long ago, however, that the survivors aren't feeling skittish about sharing what they know. Meaning that we haven't progressed far enough from the violence of the 90's.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:04 AM | Permalink
Category:
June 21, 2005
The Coming iPod War
The posters at iPodlounge are miffed, not surprisingly, at the latest offensive in the music industry wars: in a gambit to blunt Apple's hardware and software music dominance, Sony BMG and EMI record companies plan to release more CDs that can't be copied into iTunes and, in turn, played on iPods. The companies say their new coded discs are part of an anti-piracy campaign -- designed so people won't be able to illegally share the files they contain -- which just happens to run on Windows Media Player, made by Apple's archnemesis Microsoft. Everyone is hoping for a truce, Variety reports; the labels want to be able to sell files that work on iPods but Apple is refusing, preferring to keep its monopoly on the iTunes Music Store. Bloggers, many of whom already are either pro- or anti-Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) are choosing sides. Wil, siding with the big labels, says Sony BMG's decision "makes sense, for a change." Seth Anderson sums up the case for the opposition: "If I purchase a new CD, and cannot listen to it on my iPod (or on iTunes for that matter), the CD is a useless piece of plastic to me, as I haven't placed a CD in a CD player in years."
Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:47 PM | Permalink
Category:
No Surprises
Magazine editors love annotated lists -- Cosmo's perpetual 101 ways to drive your man wild, AFI's 100 top movie quotes, or Spin's Top 100 albums of the last 20 years -- because they're cheap, easy and sure to cause controversy. Usually. While some bloggers are quibbling over the albums' rankings, most hipsters have seen the list, topped by Radiohead's 1997 masterwork "OK Computer," and said, "well, sure."
Infinitely listenable, OK Computer gave us such hits as "Paranoid Android," "Let Down" and "Karma Police," and is the subject of this fascinating analysis, one of many out there on the Web. Even though they've gotten Spin's top honor, however, the Oxford boys have remained predictably mum.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:23 PM | Permalink
Category:
Is Foxx Safe From The Gooding Effect?
Moviegoers last week who showed up ahead of time to watch the half-hour's worth of commercials and previews before Batman Begins saw trailers for an upcoming shoot-em-up flick called Stealth, the first big release to star Jamie Foxx since his Oscar-winning turn in Ray. A seemingly frenetic crossover between Top Gun, Flight of the Intruder, and Short Circuit ( Johnny 5 makes no appearance, but look for similarities) "Stealth" pits Navy figher pilot Foxx and his wise-cracking buddies against a new computer-flown jet, which the Navy wants eventually to replace all the human fliers. Not a bad premise, but also not one that afficianados or discerning bloggerati seem too excited about.
Which compels the unpleasant, but neccessary question -- can Foxx keep himself safe from The Gooding Effect? Just like Foxx, Cuba Gooding, Jr. once turned in an Oscar-worthy performance (Jerry McGuire) and then, with the clout that earned him, proceeded to churn out a long series of unwatchable bombs (Snow Dogs, Boat Trip, Radio and others).
Ah, but never fear, children. Foxx's upcoming projects indicate he at least can pick better scripts than Gooding: imdb reports Foxx's next two movies are a film adaptation of Marine Anthony Swofford's hard-hitting memoir "Jarhead" and the big-screen version of director Michael Mann's innovative 1980's TV show 'Miami Vice." No indication yet any of these movies involve computer-animated talking Huskies.
Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:05 AM | Permalink
Category:
|
|
|
