Lacinia ac enim

Posted in Uncategorized by - Jun 17, 2010
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Phasellus congue lectus in nisi pretium at vestibulum augue ultricies. Sed et metus orci, ornare laoreet turpis. Morbi ac diam vitae lectus convallis euismod. Curabitur tempus feugiat tincidunt. Nullam sit amet ligula massa, eget egestas dolor. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse lectus sapien, bibendum sed condimentum sed, vestibulum quis purus. Morbi vehicula elit erat, ac rutrum augue. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Praesent commodo luctus ipsum, at fringilla est imperdiet ut.

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Gatorade – are you kidding me?

Posted in movies by - Jun 12, 2010
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At first, I did not believe this ad in Rolling Stone was real. To use your ad dollars to attack water just seemed ridiculous. Water has, of course, been adequately hydrating every living thing on this entire planet for untold eons. Water does not need a PR team, or an outside-the-box ad agency. Water was sitting there, bothering no one, sustaining life and charging nothing. Sure, Gatorade needs to differentiate itself from the other sugarwater “Sports Drinks” on the market, but it’s pretty audacious to target H2O as a bogus sports drink.

Once I realized they were at …

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Mood Music: Fyah by Graph Nobel

Posted in Mood Music by - Jun 12, 2010
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Idle Warship is a group composed of rapper Talib Kweli and singers Res and Graph Nobel. I’ve been listening to their mixtape
“Party Robot” quite a lot lately, and I have been feeling this song in particular. It’s got a warm R&B vibe, but it feels like it could take off in any direction. In the pocket, but not weighed down by form. A little bit of Minnie Riperton maybe- you don’t hear a lot of R&B this open-ended any more.

And that openness characterizes the whole record. Party Robot is not at all what you’d expect from a rapper’s …

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Did the Lost Finale Satisfy You?

Posted in movies by - May 27, 2010
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I’m not a Lost hater.

I never missed an episode in six seasons. I listened to podcasts about Lost. I scoured Lost blogs for alternate theories and spoilers. I took the ride.

Mostly, the ride was enjoyable. The deliberate pacing, the elliptical story structure and the attention to minute detail all hinted at a secret grandeur just below the surface and drew me in. I enjoyed trying to tease apart the mysteries of the island. I was anxious to find out the answers to the unending parade of mysteries, even after I started sensing that the …

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Quick Review: Iron Man 2

Posted in movies by - May 27, 2010
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Iron Man 2 has every element required of a summer megamovie. It’s full of explosions and expensively shot action sequences. There is a charming hero that we know must prevail. There is magic – although in this case the magic is just tech that’s a decade or two from making sense to us. There is even sort of a love story. All of the necessary pieces are present in good working order.

If that was all Iron man 2 brought to the table, it would still make a squillion dollars and ensure that John Favreau never has to park …

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Netflix Streaming Pick: Let the Right One In

Posted in movies by - May 05, 2010
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Undead entertainment is everywhere these days. I’m not sure what it says about our shared cultural moment, but we love stories about ghouls. There are sexy vampires on HBO, dull-eyed emo-teen vampires on the screen and the New York Times bestseller list is lousy with the damned of all types. Werewolves are even getting a decent amount of shine. It’s a big moment for the accursed immortals.

It’s too bad that so much of this stuff is awful.

She may be the patron saint of Forks, Washington, but Stephanie Meyer has loosed a torrent of boring, dunderheaded vampire fiction on us. …

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Quick Review: The Losers

Posted in movies by - May 01, 2010
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As a movie, “The Losers” is mediocre, but it has the makings for a fairly exciting video game. I would be more than happy to play this movie on my Xbox, but it’s a waste of time to watch this motley assortment of hams play it out on screen. The dialog that would be so clever in an FPS falls flat here, and the various characters behave like especially inscrutable video game AI.

There is a lot of shooty, explosiony stuff here, and it’s shot well. It’s clear that the director wanted the source comic’s style and energy on …

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Mood Music: Cal Tjader – I Say a Little Prayer

Posted in Mood Music by - Apr 21, 2010
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Cal Tjader – I Say a Little Prayer

This is one of those peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate musical moments that I want for the soundtrack of my imaginary movie. The sticky pop genius of Burt Bacharach meets the jazzy latin vibe of the great Cal Tjader. The results are tight and playful and have a very cinematic late 60s feeling. I dare you to listen and NOT see a soft-focus movie montage in your head. In fact, there’s a whole album of this stuff, and it’s pretty great.

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Mood Music: Ashley's Roachclip by The Soul Searchers

Posted in Mood Music by - Apr 20, 2010
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Ashley’s Roachclip – The Soul Searchers

Now that I’ve figured out how to post music on my blog, I’m going to try to post some every day. I’ll try and focus on music that might be unfamiliar – hopefully you’ll find something that you didn’t know you dug.

Today is a gloomy, overcast day and I wanted to pick something uptempo to remind me that it’s springtime. In honor of 4/20, I’m posting “Ashley’s Roachclip” by the Soul Searchers. AR is a tasty 1974 track from The Soul Searchers album “Salt of the Earth.” If you’re a hip-hop fan, you’ll …

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Quick Review: Alice in Wonderland

Posted in life after cable by - Apr 20, 2010
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There are some great things about this movie, but it is ultimately a failure. For reasons that I do not understand, Tim Burton decided to turn the surreal, playful and menacing brilliance of Carroll’s book into the equivalent of a Nintendo side-scrolling videogame.

Don’t get me wrong – Burton’s trademark visual genius is everywhere on display. Your attention to the scenes with the Red Queen is lavishly rewarded with all kinds of charming/terrifying little details like chandeliers held up by exhausted birds. The Queen’s interrogation of her frog footman is exceptionally well realized and darkly hilarious. The problem isn’t …

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