PopMatters: PopWire News, Reviews and Commentary from the World of Popular Culture 2009-07-09T21:21:21Z Copyright (c) 2009, PopMatters.com ExpressionEngine tag:popmatters.com-popwire,2009:07:09 At the halfway point, a summer movie scorecard tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107960 2009-07-09T17:43:22Z 2009-07-09T17:43:22Z Robert W. Butler A maverick female director explores men who dare death tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107959 2009-07-09T17:03:16Z 2009-07-09T17:03:16Z Carrie Rickey PHILADELPHIA — Slim as lightning, Kathryn Bigelow makes movies charged with adrenaline and electricity, action thrillers like "Blue Steel" and "Point Break." The 6-footer with the radiant... ]]> The girl next door, a bit remote: That sunshiny, yet cool, Doris Day tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107945 2009-07-09T15:20:37Z 2009-07-09T15:20:37Z David Patrick Stearns First look at fall pilots: Familiar faces, old formulas, and a few hits tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107928 2009-07-09T11:47:35Z 2009-07-09T11:47:35Z Aaron Barnhart The nation's television critics have spent a generation — or two, if you count the DVD and VCR as representing separate epochs — watching pilots, those first episodes of the shows that... ]]> Casey Kasem's countdowns rocked our world tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107925 2009-07-09T11:10:05Z 2009-07-09T11:10:05Z Glenn Garvin Born to be a country girl: Hank Jr's daughter is making a place for herself tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107890 2009-07-08T19:47:07Z 2009-07-08T19:47:07Z Walter Tunis Early praise for 'Hurt Locker': Narrative on war in Iraq may be Oscar-worthy tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107889 2009-07-08T19:40:48Z 2009-07-08T19:40:48Z Michael Phillips CHICAGO — Opening Friday, the gripping war film "The Hurt Locker" is the first narrative feature to make full, unnerving dramatic sense of the war in Iraq, and it does so without polemics or... ]]> 'Freebird' traveling on: Whether anthem or heckle, the Lynyrd Skynyrd song endures tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107877 2009-07-08T12:10:16Z 2009-07-08T12:10:16Z Christopher Borrelli Pragmatic '80s band Def Leppard is still spot on tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107876 2009-07-08T12:07:06Z 2009-07-08T12:07:06Z Glenn Gamboa For the most part, Jackson memorial was dignified viewing tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107875 2009-07-08T11:49:21Z 2009-07-08T11:49:21Z Jonathan Storm Prog-rock guitarist Steve Howe does double duty with Yes and Asia tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107825 2009-07-07T12:52:55Z 2009-07-07T12:52:55Z Ben Wener Steve Howe had gotten distracted again. "What's the word again? 'Taxing'?" We were chatting by phone a few hours before Michael Jackson died. Howe, the legendary guitarist, had just arrived in... ]]> Sacha Baron Cohen's 'Bruno' is an equal opportunity offender tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107822 2009-07-07T12:19:22Z 2009-07-07T12:19:22Z John Anderson Among the narrowly focused special-interest groups poised to get lathered up over "Bruno" — comic-critic Sacha Baron Cohen's new exercise in carefully calibrated bad taste — are Jews.... ]]> Carole Lombard's slapstick legacy shines at Seattle Art Museum tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107821 2009-07-07T12:17:28Z 2009-07-07T12:17:28Z Moira Macdonald Having survived her initial success, Margaret Cho is ready to go back on TV tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107820 2009-07-07T12:12:25Z 2009-07-07T12:12:25Z Luaine Lee GLENDALE, Calif. — Standup comedian Margaret Cho was never the polite, little Asian girl who covered her mouth when she laughed and made straight As. In fact, she was always the opposite. A... ]]> Accent on experience for Cotillard as Dillinger's girl tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107728 2009-07-06T14:00:46Z 2009-07-06T14:00:46Z Michael Phillips CHICAGO — She is Oscar-winning, French, intense and full of interesting opinions about the quality of the bottled water in her trailer. "I think this (bottle brought over from the Peninsula... ]]> Time has no hold on the reconstituted Feelies tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107739 2009-07-06T13:52:48Z 2009-07-06T13:52:48Z Greg Kot Like the band's 1986 song "Slipping (Into Something)," the Feelies have a tendency to sneak up on people, then disappear. In the song, the guitars surge, then recede until they slip beyond the... ]]> Michael Jackson couldn't maintain the success of his blockbuster album tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107738 2009-07-06T13:48:12Z 2009-07-06T13:48:12Z Greg Kot Sci Fi channel changes its name to Syfy tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107735 2009-07-06T13:41:46Z 2009-07-06T13:41:46Z Diane Werts Michael Mann explores the legendary dark sides of home tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107727 2009-07-06T11:10:43Z 2009-07-06T11:10:43Z Michael Phillips For author Richard Lawrence Miller, it's all Abe all the time tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107725 2009-07-06T11:06:30Z 2009-07-06T11:06:30Z Brian Burnes The post-'Thriller' Michael Jackson was in exalted company: Mozart, for instance tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107719 2009-07-06T10:31:52Z 2009-07-06T10:31:52Z David Patrick Stearns Duncan Jones explores notions of home and self in 'Moon' tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107634 2009-07-04T14:36:25Z 2009-07-04T14:36:25Z Michael Upchurch