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Howard Stern to Replace Simon Cowell? Not So Fast

February 8, 2010 | Permalink

Rolling Stone:

Last week Page Six stoked a rumor that Howard Stern is a possible candidate to replace the departing Simon Cowell on next season’s American Idol. Today the shock jock addressed the reports on his satellite radio show, admitting the job wouldn’t be out of the question. “There’s not a better job on the planet than judging a fucking karaoke contest,” Stern said.

…Idol producers are rumored to be considering offering Stern a contract that mirrors his five-year, $500 million deal with Sirius XM, but considering Paula Abdul and Idol split ways over a few million and Cowell will only make a reported $50 million per season to executive produce and judge on The X Factor, that figure seems a little excessive.

…“If I do say so myself, I can’t imagine anyone else but me replacing [Cowell],” Stern said. “I mean, how else are they going to make that show work? Who knows how to broadcast and who knows how to be interesting? And who’s not afraid to speak their mind?”

ME.

Howard Stern? Please. For one thing, the guy has a face for radio. Read the rest of this entry »


Get Lost: Early Frontrunner for 2010 “Top 10 Videos”

January 20, 2010 | 2 comments

I’ll give you this, Lost-ies: the first season was pretty good. By the end of the second season, however, I was annoyed. I’ll give it credit for trying something different–and I use “different” here in the strictly value-neutral sense. “Different” is only different until it suddenly isn’t. Read the rest of this entry »


Up in the Air Dance Remix is Unsatisfying

January 18, 2010 | 7 comments

Normally, I look forward to screener season. Woohoo—free movies! At least once a year, for a few weeks, my SAG dues seem to deliver a tangible benefit.

Last night was my first viewing of any of the four screeners I have (thus far) received, and it was not an auspicious beginning. Up in the Air looks like it might be a pretty enjoyable movie. Might be, that is–I couldn’t say for sure, because the DVD I got is either a faulty reproduction or some kind of Special Jigsaw Puzzle/MadLibs/stoned Director’s Cut edition.

Minor plot spoilers hereunder
But if you read it anyway, you’ll know how I felt.

Up-in-the-air_collageMy DVD’s rendering began with a phone call scene between the George Clooney and Vera Farmiga characters, in which she reprimands him for having transgressed the boundaries of what apparently had been their rather casual relationship. Cut to George in the office of his boss Jason Bateman, who lets him know that someone named Natalie has quit. Cut to George receiving his 10-million-miler status card during a flight, complete with congratulatory announcement from the flight attendant and a special sit-down visit from the pilot (Sam Elliott). Cut to aforementioned Natalie character (Anna Kendrick) taking a picture of George holding a cardboard cutout of his sister and soon-to-be-brother-in-law in front of the St. Louis Airport terminal.

“Wow,” I thought, “they’re really going all-out with this whole non-linear narrative thing. But why are the edits so abrupt? Like, with some of them coming in mid-sentence?” Read the rest of this entry »


Top 10 Movies of the Decade

January 15, 2010 | Permalink

Jeff Chen recently asked, “Since everybody else is making lists of their top ten films of the decade, does that mean I have to, too?” I wouldn’t presume to speak for him, but my own answer to the same rhetorical question is a sheepish “yes.” Jeff ended up making his list, too, although I don’t know how sheepish he felt about it.

Anyway, here are my top ten…nah, screw it—twelve favorite movies of the decade just completed, i.e., 2000-2009.

  1. Dogville (2004)

    dogville_thumbTrailer
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    Mike D’Angelo, The Man Who Viewed Too Much:

    Inevitably, von Trier’s spartan aesthetic has American critics citing Our Town, but in both method and spirit Dogville has much more in common with Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan (written in Denmark, ironically), another sorrowful disquisition on the mercenary aspects of human nature. Anything this ostentatiously artificial demands to be read as allegory, of course, and charges of anti-Americanism aren’t entirely groundless — certainly the film is very, very critical of the way that the U.S. treats its underclass, and to argue that Von Trier isn’t entitled to feel that disgust without having set foot in the continental 48 is patently absurd.

  2. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)

    capturing the friedmansTrailer
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    Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader:

    If Capturing the Friedmans were less shapely and less of a masterpiece, I’d find it less troubling. Both times I’ve seen it I’ve felt that by the end practically everyone associated with the film seems tarnished in one way or another: the ostensible subjects (the Friedmans, an upper-middle-class Jewish family in the Long Island town of Great Neck), the members of their community who helped destroy much of their lives, the filmmakers, and the audience. We’re all tainted by the graphic exposure of family wounds, diminished by what we think and feel–and by what we don’t think and don’t feel.

    3. Read the rest of this entry »


Facebook Meme-esque Movie Quiz, Part II

October 13, 2009 | 1 comment

The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Here it is, the thrilling conclusion of the quiz from Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule which I began in the post before this one. Let’s get right to the action:

  1. Best Film of 1979.
    Absolutely, definitely, unequivocally Manhattan.

  2. Most realistic and/or sincere depiction of small-town life in the movies.
    The one that made the biggest impression on me was All the Real Girls.
  3. Best horror movie creature (non-giant division).
    Read the rest of this entry »

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