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The Obama smear campaign continues. OK, it’s only a wackadoo blog commenter, but isn’t this how lies spread in the digital age?
Former Sen. Jesse Helms died today at 86.
Sweet 16: The Oakland A’s sign a 16-year-old from the Dominican Republican for $4.25 million.
Big Brother strikes again: Judge orders YouTube to release data on the viewing habits of its visitors.
Here’s a sneak peak at my news story running in next week’s Creative Loafing:
Don Kobasky is losing sleep over recycling.
The St. Petersburg resident lives across the street from one of the city’s 22 drop-off recycling centers, and from sunrise to well after sunset, he hears the crash of glass.
“There’s nothing worse than working 10 to 12 hours a day and waking up at 3 a.m. to glass exploding,” says Kobasky, a large, tattooed artist who inhabits an apartment across from Crescent Lake Park’s recycling center. “It’s enough to make your brain snap.”
Kobasky doesn’t know what the answer is. He’s called the city’s solid waste department to complain; they responded by putting up a bigger sign informing residents the center closes at 9 p.m.
“But it won’t do much good,” he says.
Though he’s worried about the possible costs, he’s open to a county proposal to fund curbside recycling in St. Pete and the rest of the county.
“It seems like a win-win for everyone,” he says.
But if St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker has his way, Kobasky may be hearing glass break for the foreseeable future. As the county picks apart Baker’s arguments against curbside recycling, the mayor is digging his heels in.
When asked if the city is open to the county’s plan, Mike Conners, the city’s internal services administrator and the Baker cabinet member who has taken on the county over their proposed program, replies flatly: “At this point, no.”
Read the rest of this entry »
We have ourselves some weather action, folks! Tropical Storm Bertha has formed in the Atlantic, approximately 4 gagillion miles away from Florida — but moving west. If the forecast track is to be believed, Massachusetts could be wiped off the map as early as July 20th.
For the moment, those of us manning the CL 4000 Weather Center advise you to stay out of the Home Depot, as we have not yet issued our “Buy plywood or die!” advisory notice. However, you should stay tuned to this blog for extremely late-breaking weather news and last rites.
And run for you lives!
(Sorry, the excitement of hurricane season is already getting the better of us.)
You read the familiar lament when critics review a surefire blockbuster: “It doesn’t matter what I write; people will go see it anyway.”
That’s mostly true for Hollywood’s big-budget releases, but as Erik Lundegaard points out in making the case that we need movie critics, these arbiters of taste have a measurable effect on box-office receipts.
Using basic math and the compendium of critical reviews from Rottentomatoes, Lundegaard shows that across the board — from art-house flicks to major studio releases — better-reviewed films earn more on a per-screen average than movies that are panned. Of 234 films released in 2007 and reviewed on Rottentomatoes, Lundegaard discovers:
While there were fewer “fresh” films (i.e., movies that critics liked) and they showed on fewer screens and took in less overall box office, they tended to make almost $1,000 more per screen than “rotten” movies (i.e., movies critics didn’t like). So, on a per-screen-basis, more people are following critics into theaters than not.
With that in mind, here’s a link to my review for Hancock.
It’s my considered opinion that Chris Rock is a funny motherfucker. Last night at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center he was definitely a funny motherfucker. OK, there’s my review of the show.
What follows is a few of his bits, so consider this a spoiler alert if you’re going to his show tonight.
Very early in the set:
• I wanna do a good show tonight, ’cause I don’t want the authorities to come and take my children — like they did to Britney Spears. They took her kids! I’m looking at Britney Spears’ kids — they ain’t got no knots upside their heads, they don’t look hungry. It made me realize: They take white kids quick. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, they got their kids. They even let O.J. Simpson keep his kids. And he killed the mother. O.J.’s got a lotta balls; I saw him say ‘Y’know it’s hard being a single dad.’ … But you killed the mother. He said it like they just broke up, like she won’t return his calls.
It’s arguable that Marvel Comics’ Ultimates series — a modern re-tool of the classic Avengers team — is the biggest breadwinner the company has seen in years. Not the actual comic books, really, since we know that print comics still don’t enjoy mainstream success. These days, the money is all at the movies.
First came a series of successful animated DVDs. Then, when the company took over production of their officially licensed movies with Iron Man and Hulk (2008), it announced that most of the next 5 years of big-screen comic features will be devoted to the slate of characters on the Ultimates team, with another Iron Man movie, a Captain America feature and a blow-out movie featuring the entire Avengers line-up. And, considering the quality of the first few Ultimates comics series — and the box-office success of Iron Man and the Hulk — it was a good move. Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury? That’s how he was drawn in the Ultimates years before these movies were mentioned.
But then why would you kill the goose that laid the golden egg? I’m not saying that Marvel is canceling the Ultimates comic. On the contrary, I wish they would. Read the rest of this entry »
Tyson Gay, Olympic sprinter, has a problematic last name — at least for the anti-gay American Family Association, whose practice of replacing “gay” with “homosexual” in news reports has led to some big fun. The ramifications of AFA’s filter problems are detailed on the Poynter Institute’s E-Media Tidbits blog, the Sleuth blog at washingtonpost.com and Jock Talk at outsports.com. As Poynter points out, be sure to read the comments.
1. Museum of Fine Arts unveils Ansel Adams and the American West, which includes more than 60 works by the black-and-white master, his contemporaries, and those who followed in his creative footsteps. (Pictured at right: “Grass in Rain, Glacier Bay National Monument, Alaska,” by Ansel Adams, 1948. ©The Trustees of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. All Rights Reserved.)
2. Fourth of July fireworks fill the Friday night skies.
3. Music showcases on both sides of the Bay give area folks the chance to get acquainted (or re-acquainted) with a range of appealing local and regional acts. The Hot Dog Show 2 at Ybor City’s Crowbar features a cookout, hot dog eating contest, $5 liters, and sets by Très Bien, Liquid Limbs, Mumpsy, Hometeam and Matt Butcher & The Revolvers. CL in Concert stages Independence Fest at State Theatre in St. Petersburg, with $2 drinks, voter registration opportunities, a $50 gas card giveaway, and live music by Car Bomb Driver, Mouse Fire, Military Junior, and Have Gun, Will Travel.
4. Current students and alumni of the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School stage a very limited run of Art – Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about the subjectivity of art – at the Studio at 620 in St. Petersburg.
5. A variety of reality stars converge on Ybor City for the very first GaYbor Days.
It’s a high-concept premise that must have had studio execs seeing dollar signs: Will Smith stars as a surly, alcoholic superhero.
Sad to say, but that concept is all there is to Hancock, a Hollywood product in the worst sense — devoid of a compelling story, relying instead on star power, gimmicky direction and the de rigueur assemblage of CGI effects typical of would-be summer blockbusters.
As the titular hero, Hancock has a penchant for drinking excessive amounts of whiskey and causing millions of dollars’ worth of destruction during his rescues and crime-stopping endeavors. Some might consider his reluctant, clumsy superhero a novel creation — until one realizes that Hancock the character could just as easily be seen as little more than a profane update based on a nearly three-decade-old sitcom, The Greatest American Hero. Read the rest of this entry »
