Currently Browsing: Arts & Entertainment
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Dec 4th, 2011
Add Universal Studio Florida’s Bruce the shark to the ranks of the unemployed. In a sign of the passing of a generation of entertainment, Universal Studios Orlando will close the famous Jaws attraction as new blockbusters, news films with lots of buzz supplant a past blockbuster.
Bruce will soon sleep with the fishes:
Jaws, the classic Universal Studios Florida ride in which tour boats full of guests...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Dec 4th, 2011
The late former President Harry S. Truman is constantly in the news. Whenever a President gets into serious trouble, people urge him to be “another Truman,” or run a “Truman like campaign.” And this has never been truer before than with President Barack Obama: his supporters want him to run like Truman, and some pundits say he’s planning a Truman like campaign.
So exactly what is...
Posted by ROBERT STEIN | Dec 3rd, 2011
If Americans could pick someone for the White House next year from a Chinese menu, what do opinion polls tell us about what they want?
The seesawing Republican race, along with Obama’s falling favorables, suggest that voters’ appetites are more jaded than they have been for decades. But if they could pick and choose traits, what kind of composite President would we get?
Resistance to Romney clearly shows...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Dec 3rd, 2011
Times are sad and stressful for so many people. Watch this video and keep the words of this old song and the expressions of the singer — and the little girl — in your hears and minds. It’s kind of a mind vitamin:
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Dec 3rd, 2011
I don’t know why but the news that Donald Trump (and his hair) will be moderating a Presidential debate (supposedly) attended by leading candidates of the Republican Party brings to mind the song below. Once upon a time, debates conjured up images of Lincoln-Douglas, the Kennedy-Nixon debates, debates hosted by news organizations such as Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS. And the serious Gain-Gingrich debate.
But...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Dec 2nd, 2011
Why don’t I just copy the phrase “and so the bar is lowered again on our politics” and repaste it? Because I have to say it again: and so the bar is lowered again on our politics: it now seems as if Republican candidates could show up to for a debate moderated by one of America’s most prominent birthers, Donald Trump.
It’s hard to see how the Republicans want to seriously try and...
Posted by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist | Dec 1st, 2011
LEW TABACKIN
If you’re not an aficionado of jazz, you’ll probably want to skip this post. But if you are, read on and groove to the sounds and sensations of Zoot Fest 2011.
Zoot Fest is an annual do in honor of two of the all-time great sax players — John Haley “Zoot” Sims and Alvin Gilbert “Al” Cohn (photo, below left).
Long story short, Cohn was among...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 30th, 2011
If you boil it down, here’s the song that with a slight bit of adaption is what conservatives are singing to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney:
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 28th, 2011
One of my most prized possessions comes from the days when I did limited autograph collecting and wrote to famous movie stars, tv stars and performers who I loved all my life. One was the famous voice of cartoons and radio comedy genius Mel Blanc, who did the voice of Bugs Bunny and others. He wrote on the photo: “Ehh, what’s up, Joe?”
There are host of actors who are seldom seen who do voices...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 28th, 2011
This time CNN gets it…
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 26th, 2011
There are a bunch of classic songs that remind me of the race or the 2012 Republican nomination. There’s something about the songs where all they’d need is a change in lyrics and they’d fit.
For instance, this one immediately comes to mind when I watch the debates:
Each time they debate and the moderator introduces the candidates, each candidate comes out and instantly communicates his/her...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 25th, 2011
Must viewing. Politics is everywhere. Even at the Thanksgiving table with the Peatnuts cartoon crowd…
Sheer genius.
The only problem: the dubbed in dialogue is too childish to have ever really appeared on a Charlie Brown special.
h/T Mediaite
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 25th, 2011
The month is almost over, so here’s our Band of the Month.
Posted by HART WILLIAMS, Guest Voice Columnist | Nov 24th, 2011
In Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (a book that you’ve either read or will never read, so there’s no spoiler here) Yank Tyrone Slothrop turns out to have been the infamous (within psychological conditioning circles) Baby Tyrone.
Young Baby (as opposed to Old Baby, which would be Toddler) Tyrone is conditioned to a Pavlovian response. And, when the scientists realize that the experiment...
Posted by PATRICK EDABURN, Assistant Editor | Nov 22nd, 2011
While there were many things I didn’t like about Dr. Laura I did always enjoy the fact that every Thanksgiving she would have her corny joke episode. The last day before Thanksgiving was dedicated to everyone calling in with their corniest jokes.
Since things on the net sometimes take longer to filter I thought I’d start us out earlier.
So chime in with those corny jokes (and feel free to share your...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 22nd, 2011
Forget the political song and dance. Just for a moment.
Take a break.
And enjoy a classic and soothing one:
Posted by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist | Nov 21st, 2011
It was November 29, 1981 and Hollywood star Natalie Wood had a few days off over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend from shooting Brainstorm. She and actor-husband Robert Wagner were doing what they often did on weekends, spending some time on their yacht Splendor, which was docked at Isthmus Cove on Catalina Island, drinking and drugging. Christopher Walken , who also was appeared in Brainstorm, was with them.
The...
Posted by ROBERT STEIN | Nov 20th, 2011
An impression of Bumble the Beadle is Newt Gingrich’s latest turn in a one-man show of Dickens impressions as he tells Harvard students that he wants to turn schools into workhouses by hiring poor kids as janitors:
“You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing…Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 16th, 2011
I don’t often get to watch Jon Stewart, but last night as I sat in my hotel room here in Barboursvillle, West Virginia, I watched The Daily Show — and Stewart’s devastating take on Herman Cain’s brain freeze. Here it is:
The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook
These kinds of segments hurt a candidate. Once they...
Posted by DORIAN DE WIND, Military Affairs Columnist | Nov 15th, 2011
It’s February 2013. It’s 3 A.M.
The phone rings in the President’s bedroom — it has an urgent ring.
Finally the President picks up the phone.
The voice of his National Security Advisor, John Bolton: “Mr. President, we have a serious situation developing in Asia.”
The President: “Asia? Which Asia? Can’t you be more specific than that …”
Bolton: “In China, Mr. President.”
The...
Posted by CAGLE CARTOONS | Nov 15th, 2011
Luojie, China Daily, China
This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Posted by HART WILLIAMS, Guest Voice Columnist | Nov 15th, 2011
This originally appeared on May 24, 2010, months BEFORE the “Tea Party” election. Let’s all see how prophetic* it was, or wasn’t, shall we?
[* Certainly it was for NPR, which started a three part series on the Renaissance of Medievalist Ayn today. I had already reprinted this on MY blog Sunday. ]
No. He wasn’t named after Ayn Rand, although he ought to have been. Suddenly, the...
Posted by CAGLE CARTOONS | Nov 14th, 2011
Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner
This copyrighted story is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Nov 14th, 2011
When CNN anchor Don Lemon released his autobiography “Transparent” several months ago the big news “peg” was that in the book he noted that in the book he announced that he was gay. This was the fact that seemed at the center of many new and old media stories about him and his book at the time. And then there was the racial component added to it: his experience of being gay and black...
Posted by DOUG BURSCH | Nov 13th, 2011
I normally DVR SNL, but last night my wife and I stayed up a tad bit later to watch the opening sketches. Andy Samberg’s new digital short sent us straight to bed. I have to rank last night’s “Wish It Would Rain” digital short as one of the worst things ever aired on SNL. It is not necessary to explain why it is such an awful piece of television history. The video exists, and that...