| The new passion
The story of Jesus of Nazareth, both the biblical and the fictional versions, has been the basis for more than a few best-selling novels and blockbuster Hollywood releases in recent years.
Some say it's the uncertainty of the times - wars, terrorism, a spate of large-scale natural disasters - that's driving more and more people to search for deeper meaning in life and fuelling the seemingly sudden, and undeniably lucrative, pop culture love affair with the 2,000-year-old gospel story.
Others say it's the other way around, that authors and movie-makers are getting rich by tapping into the pockets of an existing market of true believers and I-told-you-so skeptics.
Whatever the reason, church leaders everywhere are sitting up and taking notice of the trend, wondering what it means for organized religion, wondering how long it'll last and how it can be used to bring more people into the Christian faith.
50 Cent's New Album, Curtis, Takes Hip-Hop to the Bank
On Curtis, his third major label album, rapper 50 Cent gives no quarter. As hard and brutally honest, yet musical and entertaining, as his first two albums -- each of them #1 Pop, #1 R&B/Hip-hop and at least seven times platinum -- 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson) tells it like it is on Curtis and makes the resulting controversy pay as he heads "Straight to the Bank," the title of the album's first street track. Curtis (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope), releasing June 26, 2007, features guest appearances by Eminem, Akon, Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige, Robin Thicke, and Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls. Curtis continues 50 Cent's phenomenal rise from the mean streets. His official debut album, 2003's Get Rich Or Die Tryin', sold 872,000 units in the first four days of its release, making it the fastest-selling debut disc in the SoundScan era (since 1991).
On Postmodernism: A Pomo Primer
Doubtless there are many folks who either don't know what postmodernism (aka pomo) is, and/or frankly don't care. And some may disagree with me when I assert without reservation that we are in the midst of the full flowering of pomo, just as the turn of the last century saw some of the finest examples of primo modernism in all its "shock 'n' awe," experimental glory. Furthermore, the modernist era is as "over" as the Renaissance or Romanticism before it, though their influence echoes through the centuries that survive them. It's hardly coincidence, for example, that Jesus is still typically envisioned as blond haired and blue eyed--for that one can thank the Renaissance masters who made him over in their ideal artistic image centuries before we were born. Just as the great modernists looked back to the era before for anti-inspiration so they would know what to rebel against (for instance, the art Academy, in the case of the major painters of the 20th century), so pomo could not have taken root and thrived without its precursor, modernism - which arguably existed in its purest form from the mid-19th to mid-20th century.
New Spielberg interview in Rolling Stone
Steven Spielberg is featured in a new interview with Rolling Stone on the event of the magazine's 40th anniversary. Founded in 1967, the periodical is celebrating its four decades in rock and pop culture journalism through chats with baby boomer luminaries and notables including Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, and many more musicians, writers, and artists.The Spielberg interview is a terrific read, as he touches on his life in the late 1960s (making films, avoiding the Vietnam draft), the influence of music and Rolling Stone in his life and work, his generation's influence on cinema (in which Spielberg respectfully puts the late Pauline Kael in her place for accusing Spielberg and George Lucas for infantilizing American film), politics in the 1960s and today, and the future of film production and presentation.The 40th anniversary issue of Rolling Stone is now available at local booksellers everywhere.
Why we love Kerry Katona
The claim by Gordon Brown, in Saturday's interview with this newspaper, that we in Britain have "fallen out of love with celebrity" shows that the prime minister-in-waiting is way out of touch with the popular culture of his times. If Brown were right, he should have had someone from his office get in touch with Prince William and his former girlfriend Kate Middleton and tell them the good news - hey guys, you don't have to split up. The public are no longer interested in celebrity! But Gordon Brown shouldn't feel too bad about getting it hopelessly wrong. For he belongs to a group of illustrious pundits, pop stars and professional zeitgeist watchers who have, since the 1990s, all predicted the end of celebrity culture - and they've all been wrong. I should know, I was one of the first to make this mistake in 1995 when I wrote about the rise of "celebrity fatigue".
Al Franken… Gets Serious
Al Franken leans over the scattered papers atop his desk. He puffs out his pasty cheeks. His round brown glasses seem slightly too small for his face. His brown eyebrows arch up and he grins like Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman. "I gotta tell you," Franken says to me in his midtown Manhattan office, "I’ve been to Israel, and I didn’t enjoy it." He chuckles. He knows he’s telling this to a Jewish magazine. "I hate to say that," he continues. "I support Israel. But when I was there, in 1984, it was very high-pressured. It felt very"—he pauses to find the right word—"tense." Al Franken is a caricature of himself, which allows him to talk about serious issues without ever appearing to take himself too seriously. He can shuttle from the solemn to the sardonic as the straight man, often in droll monotone.
Opinion: The idiots are running pop culture
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - There is still something I need to say about Don Imus and the very necessary discussions his ignorant attempt at humor has spawned. I want to talk about pop culture in general and hip-hop/prison culture in particular and why we need to rethink old ideas about their ability to influence us. Pop culture is on steroids now. It's bigger and badder than it's ever been. It's pervasive, inescapable and powerful enough to override good parenting. Read that again: It's pervasive, inescapable and powerful enough to override good parenting. The naive argue that hip hop and other youth cultures are harmless. Good parents know better. They realize that it is no longer 1968. They know there's a television in every room, wireless Internet all over the house, an iPod for every child, a cable channel for every perversion, call-waiting, text messaging, DVR and "Flavor of Love." Pop culture is like ants in the spring.
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