Do you know what the difference is between Vince McMahon, the head honcho of World Wrestling Entertainment, and David Stern? McMahon knows his sport is rigged. Stern, the NBA’s mafia-like commish, keeps pretending his isn’t. But this isn’t really about the NBA and its crooked refs, its suspect match-ups and…
The idea of a “friendly” match is lost on soccer teams. As an outsider looking in—and to be honest, a soccer nimrod—when I heard that the U.S. National team was playing world No. 1 Argentina in a “friendly,” I thought of spring training baseball. You know, a lot of fine-tuning,…
God help the person who buys a ticket to Bob Saget’s Sunday night show thinking they’re about to enjoy the comedy stylings of mild-mannered Full House dad Danny Tanner. Or the man responsible for those lame zingers on America’s Funniest Home Videos. Because while Bob Saget certainly played those parts,…
I adopted my dog 11 years ago from a Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) shelter. She’s a little bit crazy and doesn’t always listen, and we also have yet to figure out exactly what breeds she is made of. Regardless, she is absolutely perfect; the best…
As a kid, I figured I’d be rich by now from selling my baseball card collection or my old Star Wars toys. Somehow it never occurred to me that there were 10 million other kids with the exact same idea. Nor did I think to put any effort toward preserving…
Here’s a li’l factoid for all you former Rimbaud-reading, snake-skin-boot-wearing, mushroom-munching boomer kids: Jim Morrison would have turned 65 this year. That’s right, the Lizard King would be eligible for Medicare. Probably bald too. Tick-tock, former wild children. Tick-tock. Forgive the schadenfreude, boomers. It’s just the bitterness of someone catching…
Comedian Tony Rock is probably sick of people mentioning he’s Chris Rock’s little brother. But, he’d be compared to Chris even if they weren’t related, because both their routines tend to be heavily battered in class and race, and well-seasoned with both the F-word and the N-word. In Tony’s appearance…
A vacation to Napa? Right. A winery tour just isn’t in the budget. Or is it? Thanks to Nana and Napa’s Summers Estate Wines, I could throw down a mere $150 (OK, maybe it’s not mere, but it’s a helluva lot cheaper than even flying coach and a fleabag motel)…
Due to that Jason Kidd trade (the move that propelled the Mavs into championship contention, right?) the New Jersey Nets now have the Mavs’ first-round selection in this year’s NBA draft. Actually, if the team hadn’t made the playoffs it would’ve held on to the pick, but I think that…
For years after seeing Spielberg’s thriller Jaws, I naturally assumed every lake, pond and swimming pool was a deathtrap with its own great white. Sure the shark’s jerky movements don’t hold up to today’s CGI-laden standards, but John Williams’ menacing score more than makes up for the passé special effects…
Don’t bother saving the whales. It would be like pouring water on a book in a burning library. Instead, let’s join together with our global neighbors and save the whales’ home. The ocean covers 70 percent of our blue planet, holds 80 percent of its life and 99 percent of…
High School Musical is the latest in “love conquers all” movie propaganda, and now it’s coming to town as a stage show. Once again, boy and girl fight impossible odds against cliques and the “status quo.” It’s a story that’s equal parts Grease, Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story and…
At the Reebok Heroes Celebrity Baseball Game this Saturday, I have two missions. Mission No. 1: Find Wade Boggs and hound him until he answers my question. And no, I don’t care about his 3,000 hits, his World Series ring or his 12 straight All-Star Game appearances. All I want…
I have a confession to make. Ready? Back when I was 13 or so, I had a major boner for the Gin Blossoms. Not an “Oh my god, they’re so hot!” boner, but rather a good, old-fashioned man-crush boner. And while I can’t say I’ve given New Miserable Experience a…
It’s probably a good thing Game On wasn’t around to review Ninja Gaiden when it hit Xbox in 2004 — we probably would’ve written “an awesome, brutal, majestic action masterpiece,” then filled the rest of the space with crude crayon drawings of ninjas. Because really, there’d be nothing else to…
As old Broadway shows are revived, new Broadway shows get spun from old movies so that new movies may be fashioned from ancient TV series. It’s an iron law of the culture industry that turns out to be a pleasant surprise in the case of Get Smart, the late-’60s sitcom…
You want a history lesson? Take a class. You want clanging swords, sneering villains, storybook romance and bloody vengeance? Here’s a brawny, old-school epic to make the CGI tumult of 300, Alexander and Troy look like sissy-boy slap parties. Mongol, alias Genghis Khan: The Early Years, may compress, elide and…
A topsy-turvy Escherland exists where Dario Argento’s The Mother of Tears is considered a twisted classic, and it is a magical place. Up is down, sour is sweet, sewer rat tastes like pumpkin pie, and Hitchcock never made a more ripping yarn than Jamaica Inn. A once-great director’s near-worst work…
To my 10-year-old daughter, the term “American Girl” means “that store my meanie of a mom—unlike all the other, higher-quality moms—won’t let me go near.” Why should I? She hates dolls, and I—creeped out by row upon row of homogenized mannequins with staring, Stepford Wife eyes and designer threads—get nauseated…
Which of the following was not in an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Facts of Life: (a) Tootie announces the onset of puberty by yelling “I’m bleeding down there!”; (b) Natalie is nearly date-raped while wearing a Charlie Chaplin costume; (c) Jo catches a teacher doing cocaine; (d) Blair…
I am absolutely dreading the arrival of Guitar Hero: World Tour. Can’t even enjoy the summer. It might sound like insanity, given that the fourth installment in the Guitar Hero franchise could end up being the most successful game of 2008. It won’t even hit store shelves till late October,…
In recent days, Universal’s been running a TV spot for The Incredible Hulk that gives away what should come as no surprise to any fanboy worth his action figure collection: the appearance of Robert Downey Jr. as, natch, Tony Stark. From the delighted, deafening squeals of at least one sneak-preview…
