Entries Tagged 'Entertainment' ↓

Thinking broadly: George Washington Carver, 1906

What are the possible uses of hip-hop, all of them?

How many kinds of tasks can it do? It what kinds of ways might it be used, in order to help people better understand themselves and/or each other?

This question is, to me, the most important, yet least-addressed, as it pertains to hip-hop and its future. It’s also the one on which I’m focusing, assisted by a talented rapper and educator, during my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, June 20, 2 pm ET.

Continue reading →

In the 1953 Vincente Minnelli musical, The Band Wagon, there’s a fantastic sequence called “The Girl Hunt,” in which dance great Fred Astaire, as gumshoe Rod Riley, searches for a mysterious ingenue. Numerous close calls and clues lead him to a gangster nightspot, Dem Bones Cafe, where upon entering, he suddenly catches sight of a woman, her hair coal-black, leaning ravenously against the bar in a dark green full-length coat.

For a second, there is no movement in the shot whatsoever. Watching it on video, one initially has the confusing impression that they’re looking at a still frame, until they notice the woman’s slow, deep breathing.

Continue reading →

Say hello to my little friend: James McAvoy in Wanted

The Angelina Jolie-starring, Timur Bekmambetov-directed assassin thriller, Wanted (“Curve the bullet!”), has a restricted, or “red,” trailer, available for iTunes download and viewing in all three standard sizes and all three HD sizes.

Continue reading →

Now you don’t, now you see ’em: The Potter posters

Marketing is an immensely subtle practice today, exerting its influence over narrower and narrower realms of sensory focus, but this is absurd: Apparently, Warner Bros. marketing execs for 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix decided that, for the movie’s IMAX version poster, Emma Watson needed something witchcraft couldn’t give her 14-year-old character, Hermione Granger: Bigger boobs. Continue reading →

This looks very familiar: C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) in The Clone Wars

Please: I want someone to tell me, and I want you to be honest:

Am I a bad person because, after looking at the trailer for Lucasfilm Animation’s upcoming CGI series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I feel almost nothing, except, perhaps, the loss of animation director Genndy Tartakovsky?

Tartakovsky (b. 1970) helmed the similarly-titled, Emmy Award-winning Star Wars: Clone Wars. The microseries aired on Cartoon Network from 2003 to 2005, much as the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars will run there this fall. (Tartakovsky first became known for the long-running Samurai Jack and Dexter’s Laboratory on that animation channel.)

I saw Clone Wars when it was released on DVD in 2005.

I’m still reeling from it.

Continue reading →

Aside from the performances themselves, what I love about Kanye West’s 2007 single, “Classic (Better Than I’ve Ever Been),” where he invites Nas, KRS-One, and Rakim to join him in the cipher, is that, though guests, they all spank him, like a child, on his own record.

As it’s been often said, don’t send a boy in to do a man’s job.

Coming up short, fellas? Well, trust me: Women love nothing more than a man with a hot car, and nothing makes a car hotter than flames. Not painted-on flames, but flames for real, blastin’ out the back.

Continue reading →

I’ve been a big fan of David Walker’s BadAzz MoFo from its zine days, and was honored to be blogrolled by him recently.

But I don’t know if anything he’s ever done thrills me more than the poster for his blaxploitation short, Black Santa’s Revenge, starring naught other than Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead).

Check the tagline: “He Knows When You’ve Been Naughty.” Come on. As they say in the U.K., brilliant.

We will not see the likes of him again.

Click the pic. Play it loud. See why he was so great.

Thanks to the hot design Apartment Therapy blog for this tip: The Sims 2 is about to release an expansion pack that’ll enable you to drench the little ne’er-do-wells in IKEA.

Continue reading →