Squeezing Gervais’s not-so Golden Globes
Podcast: Pop This!
To toasting and roasting Ricky Gervais as returning host of the Golden Globes, an awards show that makes some viewers walk around the house in high heels with a tall glass of pinot
Featuring Lisa Christiansen and Andrea Warner. Produced by Andrea Gin.
A sampling of what you might hear in Episode 9: Looking at The Golden Globes
I will tell you what I genuinely think of Ricky Gervais: I think he is smug, self-congratulatory, fat-shaming...and he can be incredibly boring.... He has a lot of specific self-hatred...
The only human beings who don't want to be liked are sociopaths.
Mad Max.
Rent is not a comedy?
Empire is not nominated in the musical category?
One of the great loves of my life, Spy Magazine... the monocles reviews, that's who I envision as the Hollywood Foreign Press
I have the feeling they are the kind of people who go to Cannes and don't see movies
I love Veep so much. A rare show without a weak link. It messes you ...
Warm, cheesy and super easy
Food: Cauliflower Gratin
A stray cat looking for warmth on a frigid winter's day serves as a furry reminder about the importance of comfort food, such as cauliflower gratin
By Louise Crosby
Late last winter, as the snow was melting, a strange creature appeared at our back door. Turns out it was a cat, or more accurately, half a cat, with bony haunches and huge matted clumps of black fur. He had obviously survived a terrible ordeal, an unusually harsh Canadian winter, apparently with little food. We fed him, of course, and he stuck around, making our back deck his home through the spring, summer and fall. And what an appetite. By late November he was as solid as a little black bear, with a good, thick coat.
We called him Charlie because he’s male and because it rings nicely with Chicklet, the name of our official cat. He’s a lovely guy, just a little skittish, and particular about who approaches him and from what angle, and he absolutely, positively, will not come ...
The joy of general assignment lost on next generation
Journal: The Sick Days, Part 19
The Death Knock is among one of the most unpleasant tasks in any newsroom, but the uncomfortable face-to-face with a grief-stricken relative has now been replaced by social media trolling and scalping Tweets
By Shelley Page
It’s called a “pick up” or a “death knock,” and it’s among the most unpleasant tasks a general assignment reporter on the city desk can draw.
The most experienced of our breed can get a grieving mother to unchain her door, make a pot of tea, and unspool woeful stories of her lost love, usually urged on by an invitation to “set the record straight” about son Jimmy the Bank Robber or make sure Little Emily the Heroin Addict isn’t misremembered. The most tenacious of us leave the widow’s home with an entire photo album under our arm so there are no pictures left for media outlets late to the tea party.
This is another one of those tasks that journalism school can’t prepare you for.
So many years ago, ...
For Auld Lang Dies
Tribute: Dal Richards
The Bandleader who rang in New Year's Eve for decades rings out on the New Year's Day, five days shy of 98
By Rod Mickleburgh
VANCOUVER - I certainly didn’t know Dal Richards well. But I knew all about him, and I loved running into him. How often do you get to shake hands and say ‘hello’ and ‘thanks’ to a living legend? Vancouver’s King of Swing had a gig every New Year’s Eve for 79 years, which, as the whimsical Richards never tired of pointing out, must be some kind of world record.
This year, Dal didn’t make it. The bandleader, who really did seem like he would live forever, passed away five days short of his 98th birthday on, yes, New Year’s Eve. No one ever accused Dal Richards of not having a sense of occasion.
The thing about Dal was not only his accomplishments as a terrific bandleader and musician, but that he kept on playing. The years rolled by, and you kept wondering, will this be the year Dal Richards finally hangs up ...
Jack and Vanessa get out of Dodge
Mob Rule: Part 40
When Jack realizes he's stuck between The Kennedys and his old mob buddies back in New York, he makes a bold squeeze play to abandon the Presidential campaign trail and return to the family fold
By John Armstrong
So now I was in the middle of a triple-cross, because surely the last thing Meyer and Frank expected was for me to come home having made a side deal with one of my co-conspirators. But, like Sidney said, this was a game where the rules changed while you played.
It wouldn’t matter anyway unless I figured out how to excuse Vanessa and myself from this party without getting shot. I had to keep myself ready for any opportunity to get a small head start on them, even a few hours. They’d relaxed on watching me so far as I’d noticed and as I thought about it I realized why. They’d hamstrung me in the most efficient way possible: I had no money.
I’d gotten so used to Sydney or one of the others paying for everything or simply signing for it ...
Missy Elliot and Adele duke it out
Podcast: Pop This!
Adele says hello while Pop This! bids adieu to 2015 with a look the most underrated and overrated moments on last year's calendar
Featuring Lisa Christiansen and Andrea Warner. Produced by Andrea Gin.
A sampling of what you might hear in Episode 8: Underrated pop culture moments of 2015
"Oooh... Pizza Rat..."
"If you just got a rotating tattoo that evolved every year into pop culture’s most forgettable moment of all time… that would be great."
"Pop culture ... is this weird thing… it takes fire and everyone talks about it..."
"Is the dress blue and black or gold and white?"
"I want to talk about Missy Elliot's comeback... Not enough people are excited about it."
"Is Star Wars overrated?"
"You had me at Star Wars…"
"I'm tired of squad goals..."
"Caitlyn Jenner... Amazing cultural shift."
"I guess capitalism needs to suck every dollar out of pop culture…"
"Hotline Bling... I love that music video so much I want ...
Pop This! Hits, hisses and misses
Podcast: Pop This!
Trainwreck chugs toward a cliff of critical revision while Albert Maysles's final piece of non-fiction brings an Apfel for a teacher
Featuring Lisa Christiansen and Andrea Warner. Produced by Andrea Gin.
A sampling of what you might hear Episode 7 as Pop This! breaks down the year in movies*:
“I dream one day of owning a La-Z-Boy"
“What about a La-Z- Girl?”
"Sometimes I love AND hate.. but mostly love..."
"My hate has grown for a few things... A lot of my hate has grown for Trainwreck."
"You have to watch... It Follows."
"I found Iris Apfel…. very inspiring..."
"My grandmother is a huge part of my life... she made me hyperaware that we put seniors to the side…"
"If The Rolling Stones Tour and people buy tickets isn’t that it…?"
"Ex Machina... fantastic."
"I'm playing air theramin..."
"I love watching dudes bond over things that aren’t demeaning to women, The Night Before was... ridiculous and lovely and ...
Getting down to brassy tacts
Mob Rule: Part 39
Jack and Lyndon sit back on the campaign trail with a bottle of bourbon and dig at the roots of each other's deep beliefs
By John Armstrong
We had more than several over the next few hours. There were twin beds in his room and I sat on one with Vanessa beside me and him on the other, facing each other. I took a long drink of bourbon and smoked half a cigarette trying to figure out how to start and then finally just began at the beginning, with Frank and I diving for cover on a New York sidewalk, only a few months ago. Back when the world made sense.
If I left anything out it was because I’d forgotten it, not because I was being cagey. I’d had enough of subterfuge and lying to last me a lifetime and I trusted Lyndon implicitly, no matter what side we wound up on in the end.
Over the last few weeks and especially during our early stops in the South he’d gone off-script regularly, hitting on poverty and race equality whether he was in front of ...
Top Ten 2015: Women land box-office blows for a surprise win
Movies: Top Ten 2015
Women stormed the box-office with raw power and profound emotional insight, overcoming Hollywood's institutional misogyny
By Katherine Monk
Let’s hear it for the girls. Though the year started slowly with just a handful of bright moments on what seemed to be a rather bleak horizon — from a pruny soak in a Hot Tub Time Machine and a disappointing date with The Avengers — 2015 ended up celebrating the fair sex in surprise fashion, starting with Mad Max’s furious females lead by Charlize Theron. The movie was kicked from the ticket wicket by Elizabeth Banks’s Pitch Perfect chorus, but there was still plenty of room for revision as Melissa McCarthy took on the spy genre and Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith deconstructed the adolescent female psyche in Inside Out. James Bond lost a bit of box-office mojo with Spectre – pulling in $196 million domestically, compared to Skyfall’s $304 million – but while Hollywood expressed concern over a grim ...
