Thursday, January 5 2012
Return of the Movie Blurb Game
Notional, portable and entirely analog, the Movie Blurb Game can be played anywhere, at any time.
Friday, August 19 2011
Comedy, Technology and DVD Extras: In Defense of a Dying Format
Media formats come and go, subject to the gale-force winds of technology and the retail market. Me, I'm still clinging to my Monty Python collections on VHS.
Monday, June 27 2011
What Harm Can ‘Ice Road Truckers’ Do to Tender Young Minds?
We went into Ice Road Truckers with the best intentions for our eight-year-old, I swear. It's the History channel, right? It's educational!
Wednesday, May 11 2011
How Sherlock Holmes and Isaac Asimov Can Help Purge Your Social Media Addiction
Old books and even older movies can fend off the creeping anxiety of information overload.
Monday, March 14 2011
‘I Am Number Four’: Vampires, Aliens and the Art of Movie Recycling
I Am Number Four, a PG-13 science-fiction-slash-teen-romance movie, is so faithful to the Twilight template that it could have been assembled by marketing software.
Tuesday, January 18 2011
‘Glee’ on the Wii
Video games and cross-promotional marketing yield the inevitable: console karaoke for Gleeks.
Wednesday, November 10 2010
‘Knucklehead’: The Tenacious Appeal of Pro Wrestling
It occurred to me that Clint Eastwood used to make these kinds of movies – often with an orangutan – back when he made good movies.
Thursday, September 23 2010
Return of the Situational Ethicist!
Glad you asked about the mosque! This is what situational ethics is all about!
Wednesday, July 7 2010
Plan 9 for Ironic Appreciation: On B-movies, Riffing and Value-Added Irony
The RiffTrax line of DVDs reignites the enduring debate: Can something really be so bad that it's good?
Wednesday, May 5 2010
Submarines and Androids: The Comfort Movie Phenomenon
Is there a certain film that, if you come across it flipping channels randomly, you feel compelled to watch yet again? Even though you've seen it 34,000 times? Even if it's on the Spanish-language station and you don't speak Spanish?
Monday, March 22 2010
Come Back to the 9-5, Dave Chappelle, Dave Chappelle
If Dave Chapelle came back, spring would come earlier, melodies would sound sweeter, the polar ice caps would stop melting, and maybe we might all understand and treat each other just a bit better.
Monday, November 9 2009
PopShots: The Lighter Side of Swine Flu
Researchers have largely ignored the pop cultural value of the H1N1 virus: hours on the couch catching up on DVD.
Wednesday, September 9 2009
Digital Downsizing: CD to MP3 the Hard Way
When paring down your music collection, is it OK to prune songs off classic albums? An aesthetic (and moral) dilemma...
Wednesday, July 15 2009
15 Second Theater Presents…
PopShots introduces 15 Second Theater -- radically distilled dramatic readings designed to accommodate the contemporary attention span.
Tuesday, May 5 2009
The Geeks Have Inherited the Earth -– and They Rule It
Geek humor is rooted in a commanding pop cultural and scientific literacy and deployed with a sense of casual authority which one ... must ... obey.
Tuesday, March 3 2009
Quote-Unquote: Excerpts from Upcoming Oral Histories
The use of unfiltered direct quotes gives a veneer of authenticity, and the writer doesn’t have to do much actual writing.
Monday, January 5 2009
Facebook and the Death of Distance
Facebook is like having a dozen rolling high school reunions simultaneously, plus grade school, and college, and every summer camp you ever attended.
Monday, November 24 2008
You Think You Know Obama?
Internet memes meet political postmortems as we uncover more salient facts about America's next president.
Wednesday, October 22 2008
Discovery: Washington, D.C.!
Tred quietly, carefully with your Tour Guide as we catch glimpses of the fierce and the timid political animals of Washington, D.C.
Thursday, September 4 2008
The TrueGeek(TM) Qualifying ExamExam
Mushrooming geek chic trendiness has made it difficult to separate the men from the fanboys. Take this quiz to see how authentic you are.
Wednesday, June 25 2008
Wii Will Rock You
On the (Wii) golf course I am a multiracial, broad-shouldered, green-haired punk rock Adonis in a kilt.
Monday, May 19 2008
Zen and the Art of Cramming
You will highlight and underline, memorize and prioritize. And you will not blink.
Wednesday, March 19 2008
Websurfing, Digital Shorts and Lateral Drift
Premium beer + long winter months + national health care = fertile breeding ground for resourceful science.
Wednesday, February 27 2008
Dear Lost: Lose the Guns
The gunplay in Lost shot past the ken of lessons-not-learned in Screenwriting 101 and blasted into an over-the-top Marx Brothers routine.
Tuesday, January 22 2008
In Defense of the Popcorn Movie
Wanna get me off my DVD-lovin' couch and into a movie theater? Then gimme the movies that make me feel like a 14-year-old.
Monday, November 19 2007
Writers – Who Needs ‘em? A Solution to the Writer’s Strike
A bold proposal regarding our massive backlog of pop culture artifacts and the potential recycling thereof, ad infinitum.
Friday, October 26 2007
Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas
Time again for everyone's favorite corporately co-opted Judeo-Christian pagan demon holiday! A public service for procrastinating party-goers.
Friday, October 5 2007
A Chronicle of Higher Education
A felonious alumnus provides words of wisdom to the graduating class and sepia-drenched remembrances on the way things were at Higbert Community College.
Tuesday, August 21 2007
Archeological Discovery!
The cause of the Cataclysm revealed? Experts discover new tell-tale artifacts, recalibrate their analysis of American celebrity from the Year 2449.
Friday, August 3 2007
Pop Culture in 17 Syllables
In our brave new world of news bytes, instant messaging and dwindling attention spans, the haiku is making a comeback.
Friday, July 6 2007
Summer Must-Reads
Let authors Michael Bloomberg, Paris Hilton, John Travolta, and Bob Barker help you through the long dog days of summer with these new, engaging titles.
Friday, May 25 2007
American Family Vacation
Roller coasters are fun, vacations are fun, and parks are fun. So why are vacations at roller coaster parks no longer any fun?
Tuesday, May 1 2007
An Ugly Trend in Filmmakers
Strapped for cash, aching to free their creative impulse from the grind of the same old story, over and over and over, our best modern film directors turn their talents toward the vastly untapped world of TV commercial-making.
Wednesday, April 4 2007
Nobody Likes a Quitter
Giving up cigarettes – an odyssey of shame, debasement and despair.
Sunday, March 4 2007
Send/Receive: The Instantly Regretted E-Mail
You know that sick feeling you get when fire off a toxic reply, hit the “send” button, and find yourself peering into the Dark Side of instant global electronic communication?
Tuesday, January 30 2007
Gadgets Gone Wild
The introduction of Apple’s new iPhone prompts a review of that enduring cultural artifact known as The Gizmo.
Thursday, January 4 2007
If You Can’t Say Something Nice…
Our resident wit offers up the excerpts and highlights from the best celebrity roasts in 2006.
Tuesday, November 28 2006
The Situational Ethicist
In which our resident ethical expert contends: Ethics may complicate, but absolute ethics complicate absolutely.
Monday, October 30 2006
Kids’ TV: A Vast Stygian Wasteland
Kinder, gentler, and thoroughly creepy, today’s children’s television is no match for the classics.
Tuesday, October 3 2006
When Harry Googled Sally
A terrifying glimpse of what can happen when modern technology meets Happily Ever After.
Tuesday, September 5 2006
Discovery: Internet!
Join our guide on a tour of the Internet, where stealthy sexual predators, docile digerati, pathetic loners, and vast, roaming herds of the dangerously overinformed roam freely in their habitat.
Thursday, August 10 2006
The Lighter Side of Artificial Intelligence
The scary-smart 20Q AI project asks: Animal, vegetable, mineral or legendary '70s rock star?
Tuesday, June 27 2006
Snakes, Planes and the Triumph of Ironic Appreciation
Does the Snakes on a Plane phenomenon signal the End of Days in Hollywood?
Wednesday, June 7 2006
The Trouble with (Net)Time Travel
It's the ultimate in entertainment options when Netflix and the time-space continuum collide.
Wednesday, May 3 2006
You Almost Saw It TV
A behind-the-scenes peek at television pilot programs the networks almost wanted you to see -- until someone got wise.
Tuesday, March 28 2006
Love the Sport, Not the Sports Star
Q: How many professional athletes does it take to screw over a lifelong fan? A: Several thousand, evidently. Thanks, pinheads!
Wednesday, March 8 2006
The Movie Blurb Game
The ultimate in elegant time wasting for the obsessive film fan.
Thursday, February 9 2006
The (P)Art of the Prank
A desperate inquiry into the madness and methods of practical joking from a frightened young man who really should know better, by now.
Thursday, January 19 2006
SupraDeluxe Interactive Reader Edition
Our intrepid correspondent answers his fan mail. That which is publishable, anyway.
Tuesday, December 13 2005
All I Want for Christmas…
'Tis the season! Several modest proposals for Mr. S. Claus regarding studio execs, rock chicks, worldwide revolution, and other gift ideas.
Tuesday, November 22 2005
Jung and the Restless
Fun with media supersaturation as the realms of celebrity and the collective unconscious collide!
Wednesday, November 2 2005
The Underrated/Overrated List
Bringing you the best in arbitrary, uninformed and mean-spirited opinions since 1986!
Tuesday, October 11 2005
Friendless, Hostile, and Afraid of Soil Erosion
In the alien(ating) world of addictive, online communiqués, can anyone hear you scream?
Wednesday, September 21 2005
The Last Action Hero
Indiana Jones is 63 years old, and we're in trouble.
Thursday, September 8 2005
We Came! We Game! Get Used to It!
30,000 gamers descend on middle America to dress up, get down, and spook the squares.
Tuesday, August 9 2005
Grand Theft Autoerotic
The notoriously violent video game sneaked in some sex scenes. Now that's naughty!
Thursday, July 21 2005
I Don’t Feel Tardy
What goes around to the hip, comes around to us all... eventually.
Friday, June 24 2005
Impending Drastic Inevitables
At PopMatters, we've seen the future. So . . . want some investment advice?
Friday, May 20 2005
Discovery: Hollywood!
A guided tour of one of America's most protected habitats for endangering species.
Wednesday, April 20 2005
Orthodontia: A Generation Laments
There's a planet full of kind and decent people who, as children, were terribly abused. We were the lab rats and guinea pigs for a nascent industry called orthodontia.
Wednesday, March 23 2005
TV is a Horrible Bitch Goddess
McDonald succumbs, all too easily, to the guilty pleasures of Internet TV.
Wednesday, February 23 2005
The Curious Case of Mr. SquarePants
McDonald vouches for SquarePants' character. He should know, he roomed with him in college.
