But there was also the slightest whiff that, like Friendster—and maybe even MySpace!—Twitter mig
"You need to have just enough life outside your work to inform your work. I've seen this, and I know
The next time you hear a woman screaming "Donde esta mis ninos?" like a thousand cats, don't say "A
"This movie...crashed into people like a speeding truck," said Richard Dreyfuss
Satan scanned your Twinkies
A genial Burbank tradesman offers musicians a unique service that sometimes involves a wood chipper.
October 8, 2010 in interviews, language, social networking, technology, Top
Breathless Twitter true believer and skeptical ROI seeker alike shared the stage at L.A.’s second annual 140 Character Conference, where the discourse was a blend of business plan and wishful thinking. Read the rest of this entry →
October 2, 2010 in documentaries, interviews, movies, music, Top
Composer Jeff Danna has scored a number of Hollywood movies, providing imaginative and compelling music for projects as diverse as shorts (the 7-minute festival darling “GayKeith”), documentaries (the “June 17, 1994″ episode of ESPN’s “30 for 30″ series), and sweeping, trippy features (Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus”). Read the rest of this entry →
October 19, 2009 in Arts, movies, Top
The next time you hear a woman screaming “Donde esta mis ninos?” like a thousand cats, don’t say “Aqui.”
Rigoberto Castaneda is the director of two powerful horror movies, one a ghost story set in Mexico City that draws on an ancient folk tale, and the other what amounts to a drawing room thriller without the drawing room.
I spoke with him recently about ghosts, fate, and the Norse.
October 7, 2009 in history, philosophy, technology
This month marks the 60th anniversary of the bar code, which literally originated as a line in the sand. It is also, therefore, a milestone in the colorful history of eschatology, or study of the End Times. Read the rest of this entry →
May 7, 2009 in books, documentaries, movies
“Jaws” was never a small movie; Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name was already a swimaway bestseller by the time the movie version was being filmed off and on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in 1974. Despite producer David Brown’s assertion that Universal’s 1975 shark tale was “just a big indie film,” however, its unprecedented success originated the era of the summer popcorn blockbuster. Read the rest of this entry →
March 24, 2012 in Arts, commerce, music, technology, Top
John Pedersen at work remving dents from a baritone horn
March 8, 2010 in commerce, consumerism, technology, Top
Following weeks of consumer hysteria over its as-yet-unreleased iPad tablet computer, Apple announced several models of a smaller incarnation of the Flash-based device. Read the rest of this entry →
January 7, 2010 in technology, Top
An apt metaphor for how technology continues to drive us inward is the Katrina-style ghetto into which the press has been herded for the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show. Read the rest of this entry →
November 19, 2009 in interviews, movies, Top
Relentlessly marketed, inexpensively produced, and patently offensive, “Black Devil Doll” is a very special movie that does for feminism what the civil rights movement did for puppets.
Re-animated in puppet form the moment of his state-sponsored electrocution, unstable lover/fighter Mubia Abul-Jama (yes, I know) falls in love with sassy Heather Honeydew Boone. Read the rest of this entry →
October 24, 2009 in books, interviews, movies, Top
Alan Moore’s “Watchmen
” graphic novels, about two generations of flawed vigilantes and a nuked supersentient being working for the U.S. government, took nearly two decades and several writers to make it to the big screen earlier this year. Read the rest of this entry →
October 5, 2009 in language, philosophy, Zeitgeist
In a survival of the fittest world in which social networking, full QWERTY keypads, and 500 channels in a basic cable package contribute to the multiple birth and quick death of new expressions, “Good Times” has adapted and thrived. Read the rest of this entry →
