| 'Charm School' sells redemption but it's all show
Coincidence can be a beautiful thing, and it's something of a relief that VH1's new reality contest, the unwieldily named "Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School Starring Mo'Nique," arrives just after the nation met the Rutgers women's basketball team. It may not surprise anyone -- except, perhaps, producers at VH1 -- that a group of young women can be poised, unified, and classy enough to make a positive mark on pop culture. But it's worth giving the network another reminder. VH1 has gone through a string of iterations over the years, from music network to purveyor of pop culture lists, but it seems to have found new life in the "Flavor of Love" franchise, an empire built on the supposed joys of the catfight. Needless to say, the original show, a "Bachelor" parody starring the rapper Flavor Flav , didn't do women any favors -- especially not African-American women, who made up the majority of the contestants.
Panel at OU discusses new trend of casual voyeuristic violence
There's a new mischievous teenage pastime coming to town, and this time the stakes are higher than sneaking into Dad's cabinet to find that R-rated movie you weren't supposed to watch. Look out, America: Here comes happy-slapping. Three panelists discussed happy-slapping, the London teenage phenomenon that is also the subject of an upcoming Ohio University School of Theater production, during the school's regular brownbag lunch meeting Friday. "American gangs have been beating people randomly as a part of that culture for a long time," Thomas Vander Ven, criminology director and sociologist at OU, said of America's violent tendencies. "Filming the violence is new, but the behavior is not." At the brownbag meeting, participants explained that happy-slapping is a random violent act that has becoming popular among London youth and has begun to spread to the United States and other places via online forums such as YouTube.
Trivial Pursuit...a pop culture column: Summer brings fun in sun ...
Summer is more than a month away but in Hollywood, it's going to be here in two weeks. The most important and lucrative period in the film industry, the summer movie season is when movie studios launch their biggest, most bloated and flashy films, all fighting for number 1 in the box office.
The history of the summer movie season is quite illustrated. It used to be a time when Hollywood dumped their most unworthy and unwanted films. It wasn't until Steven Spielberg's Jaws was released in theaters in the summer of 1975 when that concept changed. The film revolutionized the industry by becoming a box-office phenomenon and the first film to gross more than a $100 million. Two years later, George Lucas followed suit with the release of Star Wars, solidifying summer releases as one of the most moneymaking seasons for film releases.
Americans have become anime-ted
A young American girl sits in the neighborhood bubble-tea house, sipping her green tea on ice, chomping on tapioca balls. The mm-bop of J-pop surrounds her as she moves her head to the beat, mumbling along with the song, which she recognizes from a Japanese anime movie her parents recently brought home. She nibbles leftover sushi. .
Script with 'just errors'
JIMMY WALES'S life reads like a Hollywood script - which is probably why there's said to be a couple of books and a documentary in the works. Born in 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama, where his father worked in a grocery store, Wales began his education in a small private school which he later described as "an Abe Lincoln type of thing". Called the House of Learning, the school was run by his mother and grandmother and it's where the Wikipedia thing started. "I just spent many, many hours just pouring over the World Book Encyclopedia," he told a C-Span interviewer in 2005. Wales studied finance at university before going to work in Chicago as a futures and options trader. He quit after he had "made enough money". "I'm not a wealthy person but I'm a person who lives within my means," he said.
Microsoft and NAMCO BANDAI create video game history
18 Apr 2007 : Microsoft Corp. and NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. today made video game history by announcing the first-ever Xbox 360™ “Pac-Man" World Championship, presented by Quiznos. From April 25 to May 9, fans of one of the world's most beloved video games of all time will compete on the classic arcade game via Xbox LIVE® Arcade on the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system, evolving “Pac-Man" gameplay from the local pizza parlors and arcades of the '80s to the Xbox 360 and its online gaming community with more than 6 million members. The top finalists from participating countries around the world will be flown to New York City for the finals on June 5, with the winner being crowned the Xbox 360 “Pac-Man" World Champion by Toru Iwatani, the creator of “Pac-Man." Since launching in 1980 in Japan and in 1981 around the world, “Pac-Man," its host of ghosts and the famous “wakka wakka wakka" sound have become global pop culture icons.
The Problem With Letting The Government Provide Private-Sector ...
There are many in this country who love the idea of government providing us with certain services that are now provided by the private sector. Health care is a big one, and lately free wi-fi internet access has become another one. Some cities have spent citizens' tax dollars to erect wi-fi systems which blankets the municipality in question with "free" internet. Many (including the writers at the popular technology blog Gizmodo) have cheered the creation of these tax-funded public internet systems, but now that cheering has died off as one of the "free" internet systems in Boston has come up against the problem with all government-managed services: They're run by stupid politicians. Apparently the bureaucrats in Boston have decided that the popular technology/politics/pop culture/cool-stuff-in-general blog Boing Boing isn't fit for public consumption and have decided to block it from being accessed through the city's internet system. Why? Because the blog used a "banned combination phrase." Whatever the hell that rather Orweillian-sounding term means. And if Boston can ban Boing Boing for disallowed "combination phrases" how long until they're banning political sites for, say, "hate speech" (PC-speech for criticism) against Islam? Or criticism against a politician who just happens to be in a position to ban websites on the public system? The point here is that the politicians in Boston have created a public internet system, and now are starting to decide what sort of content the public can access on it. Which might not sound like that big of a deal given that not everybody uses the public system, but when combined with the impact a tax-funded internet system has on the marketplace of internet service providers in general it becomes a huge deal.
Video: Shopping Euphoria Brought to Life: TJ Maxx Launches Maxx ...
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., April 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In shopping and fashion, there is the thrill of the hunt, and then comes the pure, unmatchable exhilaration of the "find." The bargain find that is! There is nothing better than uncovering an amazing piece of designer fashion at an incredible price. A recent survey by Caravan Opinion Research found that 15% of women who responded loved nothing more than to share that exhilaration with everyone around them, while only 2% are inclined to talk about their extravagant, high end purchases. Inspired by a woman's need to divulge her amazing find, national off-price retailer, T.J. Maxx has launched a new marketing campaign, and a new phrase into pop culture-the Maxx Moment. To view the Multimedia News Release, go to: http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/tjmaxx/27747/ What is a Maxx Moment? "A Maxx Moment is a spontaneous display of joy and euphoria brought on by the combination of great savings and hot designer fashion, and that need to share that joy," said Laura McDowell, T.J.
|
