I write here not to question the validity of the United States Olympic Committee’s trademark of the term “Olympics” or variants thereof. The US court system decided years ago that they are allowed to hold a trademark on a term that has existed for thousands of years. As such, the USOC has a right...
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I remember watching the first season of Big Brother and wishing America would actually vote for entertaining television. They never did. The mean people were voted out as soon as they were up for eviction and the cruel game choices were never selected. CBS remedied that for season 2 by removing the audience vote...
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Let’s keep this quick. I’m one of the finalists in the MyndJack Rado Idol contest. It’s like American Idol, only entertaining. Parodies and enthusiastically bad singing are encouraged. This week was showtunes week. My wheelhouse, if you will. You can listen to what I did to “Luck Be a Lady” from Guys & Dolls...
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It’s been a pretty big month for news from Disney about animation or animation-adjacent projects. First, Wreck-It Ralph got an arcade game port for E3 and an official trailer. It’s the story of a video game bad guy (think Donkey Kong) who wants to do good in the world. It has a very Monsters,...
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There must be something in the air. In the past month, we’ve created sci-zombies by way of a terrible new drug craze. We’ve started a discussion about a sci-fi movie that will never end because it refuses to answer any questions it raises. And everyone is suing everyone else over cut and dry copyright...
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Meet Anita Sarkeesian. She runs the media criticism site Feminist Frequency. One of her focuses is on the use of tropes in media. Essentially, she breaks down how certain character types repeat over a broad range of media. Here’s a sample. In this video, she analyzes the use of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger...
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I was at the horror convention where Max Brooks broke the news that his just-released episodic horror novel World War Z was picked up–sight unseen–by Brad Pitt’s production company. That was…in 2006. The book was so new that I couldn’t even get a copy at my local Barnes and Noble yet. I bought it...
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There’s been rumblings about a revised Side Show for a couple years. The cult musical about Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twin side show performers, has a beautiful score. It’s a rare school year if a few of my theater students don’t ask me if I know Side Show. It’s rarer still when they...
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There’s an odd trend popping up on Broadway that I’m getting a kick out of. Shows that recently closed on Broadway are coming back a year or two later for limited sit down engagements. This is not to be confused with cash grab moves like staging a revival of Rent in a smaller Off-Broadway...
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Despite what you may have been taught in school, not all of William Shakespeare’s plays premiered at the Globe Theatre. The theater was built for Lord Chamberlain’s Men, true, but it wasn’t constructed until 1599 and burned down in 1613. Direct records indicate at least eight premiered there, but that’s hardly all of his...
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