Whatever happened to the Nosferatus of the world? Sometime between that 1921 masterpiece of gothic horror and today, vampires ceased to become cold blooded monsters and started to become the creepy fixation of adolescent girls (not to mention soccer moms) everywhere. The modern day vampire is brooding, sexy, and urbane, more interested in passionate affairs with young, bored women than with devouring the life blood of peasants. The gnarled, bird-like face created by F.W. Murnau has somehow transformed into the […]
movies
Pass The Popcorn: “Final Destination 5”
A good critic is essentially a reductionist, distilling popular art and entertainment into its most basic components and highlighting which parts add to and which parts detract from the final product. It’s easy to take a movie like The Social Network and sing high praises for the hauntingly ambient soundtrack, the laser precise direction, and the compelling performances, just as it is easy to take a movie like Vampires Suck! and rake it over the coals for terrible writing and […]
Another Opinion On Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
Big Money Mike and I were going to collaborate on a review of the new Michael Rapaport documentary about A Tribe Called Quest. But in the back of my mind, I knew that Mike was going to have a lot to say and I thought he should post his thoughts alone ( which he did here ) and I could come in a few days later and give a few opinions on my own. This isn’t a full-fledged review, as I already did that […]
“Watch the Throne” Album Coming Soon! Documentary Now!! And Tour Dates!
Got 10 minutes to spare? If you’re a Kanye West or a Jay-Z fan, you might want to have a look at the short film that was recently released, documenting their collaborative effort, Watch the Throne (out in one week). Of course, 10 minutes is nowhere near long enough to provide anything in-depth, but the mini-doc is pretty entertaining. Jay does much of the talking, and it’s cool to catch them (along with Jay’s wife Beyonce) in relatively unguarded moments-especially […]
Pass the Popcorn: Dark Days – Tenth Anniversary Edition
Perhaps like me, you’ve never heard of Marc Singer’s documentary Dark Days (featuring music by DJ Shadow). Maybe that shouldn’t be so surprising. Spearheaded by an English immigrant with no prior filmmaking experience, shot on a less-than-shoestring budget and barely making a ripple in the American film mainstream, it was easy to miss. But it’s an intimate, emotionally powerful film that deserves wider recognition. Fortunately, the film’s significance is receiving the deluxe treatment to mark its tenth anniversary. When he […]
Blerd Radio Episode 8: MTV in Middle Age
Blerd Radio / movies / music / New Releases / news / Podcasts / pop culture / Pop Music / R.I.P. / TV
Welcome to yet another episode of Blerd Radio! In this episode, your hosts Mike & Jesse pay tribute to a cultural phenomenon by acknowledging the thirtieth (!) anniversary of MTV. Whether you love it or hate it, you can’t deny that the advent of Music Television changed the industry as well as pop culture. Over the course of this episode, we discuss our favorite classic videos, shout out some iconic VJs, and bemoan the constant “16 & Pregnant” marathon the […]
Blerd Radio Episode 7: Solstice Edition
Welcome to the lucky seventh episode of Blerd Radio, in which the special guest floodgates open. The episode starts as per usual-with Mike and Jesse talking about…death. We tribute Clarence Clemons and (somewhat less so) “Jackass”‘s Ryan Dunn. Then, we jump into this week’s new releases-a little (well, a lot) of metal for Jesse, a little Jill Scott and Liam Finn for Mike. We are intermittently joined by Regina A.K.A. Mrs. Jesse (she has finally decided to lift her veil […]
The Viewfinder: There’s Something Familiar About This “Footloose” Remake
MTV gleefully revealed on Tuesday the first trailer for their I-can’t-believe-this-is-actually-happening remake of Footloose, due to hit theaters October 14. Some of you may remember the early development of this remake of the bizarrely-watchable 1984 original, which was to have had Zac Efron in Kevin Bacon’s dancing shoes and his High School Musical director Kenny Ortega at the helm. Ultimately, Efron left to make a name for himself as a more serious actor ( how’s that working out? ) and replacement Chace Crawford of Gossip Girl […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – Moneyball
In 2003, author Michael Lewis published a book about the Oakland A’s, their general manager Billy Beane, and the untraditional methods that Beane and his staff (including assistant GM Paul DePodesta) used to evaluate talent. It was based on playing high percentages, using statistics to predict outcomes, and going away from touch and feel scouting that was predominant since the day baseball scouting existed. It put terms like OBP, SLG, and OPS into popular sports lexicon, even if baseball nerds […]
“Beats, Rhymes & Life” Official Trailer Hits the Airwaves
I’ve been talking about this Tribe Called Quest documentary for a hot minute, and with the film finally scheduled to hit theaters later this summer, anticipation on my end has reached a fever pitch. A new trailer for the film recently surfaced on Yahoo, and this looks like it’s going to be one of the all time hip-hop docs, nay, MUSIC docs of all time. I can not fucking wait. Michael Rapaport did his thing here. http://youtu.be/XJFOM1qRLe8 Opening dates for […]
Pass the Popcorn: Todd Phillips’ “The Hangover Part 2”
Let’s get this out of the way: yes, The Hangover Part 2 is more of the same. The title implies (correctly) that it can be viewed as merely an extension of the earlier film, as opposed to a brand-new one, and it hits every beat in its (already-worn) formula succinctly. If you didn’t much care for The Hangover, that sentence should function as a perfectly serviceable review for you, and anything else I have to say is merely window-dressing. Not […]