Archive for April, 2009

EMILY SAIDEL: The underlying isms to the Britain’s Got Talent viral sensation.

AKIE BERMISS:Secret Ingredients of a Pop Star

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: Susan Boyle, C’est Moi

DAVE TOMAR: Alright, so stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A priest, a rabbi and an immortal meat-body space-alien Thetan spirit walk into a bar . . . well, you know how the rest goes. Long story short, the Thetan says, why would I want a 3 inch pianist?

HOWARD MEGDAL: While Dave makes important points regarding ways the Church of Scientology can improve its image through responding to its critics with humor, this doesn’t really address the heart of the problem. Ultimately, Scientology is held back by a simple inability for most to take its tenets seriously.

HOWARD MEGDAL: Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure there’s an audience forFull Force Nature. It Could Happen Tomorrow must be delightful for those who want to know exactly what it will feel like to die from too much sleet. But I watched the Weather Channel so that, yes, I could find out the weather.

CHRIS PUMMER: Maybe you’d enjoy someone else’s weather. You can certainly keep mine.

Grey Gardens:  A Non-Review

MOLLY SCHOEMANN:

“It’s very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present, you know what I mean?”

–Edith Bouvier Beale

I was first introduced to Grey Gardens by a friend of mine who had seen it dozens…

HOWARD MEGDAL: I think the takeaway from this set of polling questions isn’t that Mike Huckabee deserves more respect. Rather, it reinforces just how commanding position Sarah Palin is in for the 2012 GOP nomination.

CHRIS PUMMER: It’s simply too early to pick a favorite for the Republican nomination. Hilary Clinton had a better case for her inevitability than Sarah Palin does, and look how that turned out.

AKIE BERMISS: Eastbound Is Renewed!

You Made Me Laugh – But What’s So Funny?

The best and most beautiful thing about HBO’s EASTBOUND AND DOWN is that its funny. Abhorrent. Disgusting. Juvenile. And profane. But damned funny. It snuck up on me,…

HOWARD MEGDAL: I can’t think of any greater compliment to pay an announcer than this: Harry Kalas annouced home runs of the Phillies, and I am a Mets fan. Yet it was impossible not to enjoy a baseball game as Harry Kalas saw it.

DAVE TOMAR: The kindly Iowan drawl of Harry Kalas piecing together the details of a matchup between hitter and pitcher is a summer sound akin to the hiss of the sprinkler, the sizzle of the barbecue and the chirp of the crickets. The rich baritone delivery, dry and soothing, used to sing me to sleep on Sunday afternoons as a child. Harry Kalas had a way of narrating the hushed, whistling white noise of a stadium crowd through the radio that made your heart ache to see Ebbets Field 70 years ago, to watch Ted Williams swing the bat, to actually smell the cheap cigars and grass.

HOWARD MEGDAL: I must take issue with critics of President Obama on the right who have called for Bo Obama to withdraw from consideration as White House dog because he has not paid taxes.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: Of the many grievous errors committed by the Obama family during its first several months in the White House, high on the list is their recent adoption of a purebred Portuguese Water Dog, an elitist breed if ever there was one; the sort of dog that’s born with a silver shoe in its mouth.

HOWARD MEGDAL: At first glance, it would appear that either Arlen Specter, R-PA or Jim Bunning, R-KY is the most vulnerable U.S. Senator facing re-election in 2010. I think ultimately, the deck is most fatefully stacked against Senator Christopher Dodd, D-CT.

CHRIS PUMMER: The new bipartisan consensus is that everyone wants Sen. Jim Bunning to go away.

AKIE BERMISS: Dig this.

HOWARD MEGDAL: I have little to add, and wouldn’t begin to challenge Akie’s expertise in the field. But that, in itself, makes my falling in love with The Checkout relevant.