She did it all for Hannah Montana

The most amusing — and dreadful– news story I’ve read in the last month.

A few movies

What I’ve seen: The Savages: The writer-director of Slums of Beverly Hills can’t resist a too-cute opening montage of seniors pirouetting a la Busby Berkley against a Barry Goldwater-approved Arizona backdrop; or giving Laura Linney a breakup scene with her boyfriend instigated by a question about her fern (it’s one of those details designed to

Merry Xmas and stuff

My favorite Christmas song:

The only hint of discord on what’s so far been a lovely vacation is learning that Tim Finney just had a benign tumor extracted. All news is very good, apparently, so we can all breathe a little easier. I know Tim slightly from ILM, numerous private emails, and the R&B blog assembled by Andy Kellman

An addendum to my last post regarding ageing: bitching about “compressed” schedules, i.e. not enough time to listen to every album you want before year-end lists are due. I’ll post the music lists before the end of the year, but, thanks to South Florida’s erratic release schedule, will wait on movies, especially since I’m catching

Like a bad trip that won’t go away, Ethan Hawke’s teeth in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead haunt my sleep. Forcing his voice through those yellowed, sharp babies produces the best imitation of Tim Roth’s shot-in-the-belly spams in Reservoir Dogs I’ve ever seen. It’s indicative of the movie’s anachronism that it reveres Hawke’s hysterics

…and speaking of Mary J. Blige, here’s a review of Growing Pains.

Grow old with me

During a free moment yesterday afternoon in Raleigh this weekend I had a chance to read Slate’s rockcrit year-end round table, comprised of Jody Rosen, Ann Powers, and Robert Christgau. Their opinions (boy, do they love Kala, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, and Lil Wayne, but so does most everyone else; glad to see Bob’s suspicious

Well-rested after a weekend-plus trip to Charleston and Raleigh (thanks, Hatzel and Josh). Only one assignment to turn in before another vacation begins. Returning to blue skies and cooler subtropical temperatures does wonders for one’s carefully repressed indolence.

Final essays to grade, reviews and proposals to write, and a weekend with friends in Charleston and Raleigh have made this a breathless week few days. Having listened to roughly a third of my favorite albums of the year on the plane this morning (Jay-Z sounds great with Kingsley Amis!), I’ve realized that 2007 is

After two massive singles still getting lots of airplay on WHYI Miami, Timbaland featuring OneRepublic’s “Apologize” has really hit the spot. No surprise: the track is a dead ringer for an Enrique Iglesias ballad circa 2002. And I love it…because it’s a dead ringer for an Enrique song, albeit with a stronger rhythmic foundation. The

I guess I’m a very bad homosexual for thinking that, with a few exceptional performances– obvious ones at that — I don’t understand Edith Piaf. But I know why filmmakers do: she’s the kind of subject of which award-worthy biopics are made, the more overwrought the better. Baffling and rhythmless, Olivier Dahan’s La Vie En