The A.V. Club - The A.V. Club Blog

Music: The A.V. Club Blog:Adorable Internet Thing Of The Day: Jason Segel + The Swell Season + penis jokes

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:09:00 -0600

As a publicist at Shore Fire Media helpfully (and self-servingly, but what can you do) just informed us, The Swell Season (Once stars Markéta Irglová and Glen Hansard) performed a concert in L.A. last night, and a buddy showed up to première a new song: actor Jason Segel, playing piano and singing a somewhat stream-of-consciousness song not unlike the songs he wrote and performed on How I Met Your Mother and in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Naturally, someone in the audience videotaped it all and got it up on YouTube. In the clip, Segel claims Irglová told him ...

Features: The A.V. Club Blog:Snap!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:40:00 -0600

It's Friday morning, which means it's time for a Ridiculous Internet Thing to get you through 'til the weekend. Courtesy of the always-awesome Rich over at FourFour: A lesson in SNAP. To quote Josh when I showed him this: "Wow. There are whole worlds out there." Indeed there are. Snap on, divas.

Arts & Culture: The A.V. Club Blog:Here we stand, all together now, at the end of the media age

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0600

The only thing more 2009 than a Media Alert from a big PR firm about a "flash mob" to happen at Universal City Walk in support of a new Janet Jackson CD is a follow-up Correction Media Alert stating that the time for the "flash mob" will be 6 p.m., not 4 p.m. as previously stated. There you have it. "MEDIA OPPS," the release goes on to state, "WILL INCLUDE B-ROLL OF DANCERS SURPRISING THE PUBLIC WITH SPONTANEOUS FLASH MOB PERFORMANCE SET TO A MEDLEY OF JACKSON HITS: 'IF,' 'RHYTHM NATION,' 'MISS YOU MUCH,' 'NASTY.'” Take some time ...

Music: The A.V. Club Blog:I went to see 50 Cent introduce his directorial debut and all I got was this lousy blog post

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:07:00 -0600

As readers are perhaps aware, I am perversely fascinated by 50 Cent. He’s one of those larger-than-life pop icons who makes the world just a little more interesting. So when Josh Modell forwarded me an email about 50 coming to Chicago to screen his sub-direct-to-DVD directorial debut, Before I Self Destruct at a gloriously cheesy downtown multiplex called River East I was, to put it mildly, intrigued. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away. So last night I went to River East with my friend Michelle to see the man himself and the “film” that will be bundled alongside ...

DVD: The A.V. Club Blog:Some fun Halloween crap to do without leaving your computer

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:56:00 -0500

Oh, Halloween. You're a holiday I don't celebrate. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy some Internet content related to your celebration. For instance... Rotten Tomatoes has a feature on the 25 best vampire movies according to the Tomatometer. I haven't seen too many of them, and 30 Days Of Night was so boring I turned it off, but perhaps you'll find something to love. It did remind me that I've had a copy of Night Watch at my house for like 2 years, so maybe it's time to bust that out ...

Eat/Drink: The A.V. Club Blog:Want 10 pounds of Halloween candy?

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:00:00 -0500

Our friends at the National Confectioners Association—the wonderful souls behind the annual All Candy Expo—and their Candy Dish blog are giving away a whopping 10 pounds of Halloween candy in time for the industry's favorite holiday. Sure, it means you'll need to work out roughly six hours a day seven days a week until Memorial Day to burn it all off, but...10 POUNDS OF CANDY! Your inner grade-schooler would kill for that kind of score. Yes, of course, there's a catch: To win the candy, you have to tell a panel of judges selected ...

TV: The A.V. Club Blog:30 Rock's dangerous decline and the shadow of Will & Grace

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:00:00 -0500

30 Rock occupies an unusual place in the television landscape. It’s far from a hit—its ratings would have meant cancellation on just about any other network—but because of its leading lady, snarky sense of humor, and satirical digs at the network that airs both it and the show within its show, it’s become one of those things you Have To See if you’re at all interested in television or comedy. And back in 2007—roughly the show’s back half of its first season and first half of its second season—there was nothing quite ...

Film: The A.V. Club Blog:Song And Vision No. 5: "California Dreamin'" and Chungking Express

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:09:00 -0500

Why do movies and pop songs work so well together, and how does the union of sound and vision affect how you see the image in the moment and hear the song for years afterward? These are some of the pretentiously worded questions A.V. Club writer Steven Hyden will be trying to answer in the semi-regular column "Song And Vision," where he'll be writing about famous (and maybe not-so famous) movie scenes set to pop songs and all the weird and wonderful things that happen when directors and singers collide. Find the first four "Song And Vision" columns ...

DVD: The A.V. Club Blog:How many of the 100 worst films have you seen?

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:52:00 -0500

Late last week, our friends over at Rotten Tomatoes put together a list of the worst-reviewed movies of the past 10 years. Twitterers across the globe raced to count how many they'd seen, and now it's your turn to share your horrible magic number with us. Check out the list here, and then don't be shy: Let us know how many hours you've wasted with these horrible movies. Or defend those that you think shouldn't have been rated so low. I've seen 11, maybe 12. (I'm pretty sure I saw Three Strikes, but ...

TV: The A.V. Club Blog:There IS crying in boxing

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:10:00 -0500

I enjoy boxing, but I don't follow it at all. (Who's got time when there are so many movies to see and TV shows to watch?) But when there's a fight on HBO I'll often find myself stopping to watch the whole thing, which never happens to be when I chance upon a basketball, baseball, or football game. Anyway, I just watched the replay of last night's WBC heavyweight title match between two guys I'd never heard of before: Chris "Nightmare" Arreola and Vitali "Dr. Iron Fist" Klitschko. Klitschko was defending, and by pretty ...

Film: The A.V. Club Blog:Hey Screenwriters, Enough With The Backstory-Rationing Already!

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:30:00 -0500

There’s something about watching five or six movies a day for a solid week that makes a body contemplate how movies are constructed—and what makes them “good.” Back in 2006, at the end of the Toronto International Film Festival, I wrote a blog post about what I like to see when I plop myself down at the cinema. That list hasn’t changed much over the past three years, though there’s something I’d now add to a list of what I don’t want to see, and it’s this: Please, no more movies that are ...

TV: The A.V. Club Blog:Dollhouse: "Epitaph One"

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:45:00 -0500

[Note: The following is a review of the unaired 13th episode of Dollhouse: Season One. Normally, this would warrant a place among my TV Club write-ups of the show, but since this is a special case, it’s appearing here in the blogs. Fair warning: As with a standard TV Club entry, massive spoilers follow. Please view the episode before reading further.] In my favorite scene in True Romance—hell, everyone’s favorite scene in True Romance—a powerful Italian mobster, played by Christopher Walken, confronts a veteran cop, played by Dennis Hopper, over the whereabouts of Hopper’s ...

TV: The A.V. Club Blog:Fall TV Predictions We Got Wrong

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:00:00 -0500

Every year when we write our fall TV previews, we do so with minimal foreknowledge of the shows in question. We’ve maybe seen a screener or two, and maybe read some advance reviews from other critics, but mostly we’re relying on instinct and a lifetime of watching TV. But we don’t always get it right. The following is a sampling of some not-so-exact predictions and prejudgment from the past four years of A.V. Club fall TV previews. 2005 On Criminal Minds: “Although Mandy Patinkin’s one of Broadway’s brightest stars, and a reasonably value character ...

TV: The A.V. Club Blog:The Price Is What?

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:22:00 -0500

If I may offer a counter-example to my own “the monoculture is doing just fine” post of yesterday, there’s one example of a grand national unifier that strikes me as less unifying every time I watch. That would be The Price Is Right. I’ve been watching The Price Is Right off and on since I was a kid, and I’ve watched it more lately because my son is a game show fanatic. He’s watched every episode on my four-DVD Price Is Right set multiple times, and over the summer he watched the Drew Carey-hosted version just ...

TV: The A.V. Club Blog:One Nation, Still More Or Less Under A Groove

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:47:00 -0500

The death of Michael Jackson this summer prompted a slew of familiar-sounding opinion pieces proclaiming—yet again—the death of “monoculture.” As the legend has it, once upon a time, in the days before cable and the internet, we all (or at least more of us than currently) shared common experiences thanks to the wide popularity of certain mega-event movies, TV shows and albums. Nearly everyone was aware of Thriller. A large chunk of the country watched M*A*S*H*, or went to see Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Now we’re all “bowling alone” (to use another outdated ...

Games: The A.V. Club Blog:The A.V. Club at Blizzcon: Zerg, worgen, and Felicia Day’s drapes

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:30:00 -0500

The World Of Warcraft class panel at Blizzcon 2009 hadn’t even started yet, and lead systems designer Greg Street was already looking surly. He explained to the thousands of fans gathered in Anaheim Convention Center’s main-stage room that they might know him better by his forum handle, Ghostcrawler, or maybe just as “That asshole who nerfed your class.” That’s the kind of humor you have to develop when the Q&A session for your panel is just a line of people asking about how you’re going to fix their specific problems. While Street’s answers couldn ...

Film: The A.V. Club Blog:Bay-watch: The hunt for meaning in the films of Michael Bay

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:13:00 -0500

It’s easy to hate Michael Bay. Not dislike him, not be irritated by his terrible films, but flat-out despise the guy, with a level of vitriol normally reserved for child molesters and Joe Francis. For anyone decrying the state of modern cinema and its emphasis on flash over substance, Bay is the perfect symbol of a world gone mad, phenomenally successful for seemingly all the wrong reasons, and arrogant about that success to an infuriating degree. “I make movies for teenage boys,” he says to the critical community that rails against his work, and it’s a proud affirmation ...

Film: The A.V. Club Blog:Notes from a conformist

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:02:00 -0500

When a Twitter friend alerted me this morning that I'd been named our most conformist critic by Slate, a publication I like and to which I occasionally contribute, I wasn't sure how to react. Do they make plaques for that? Should I put it on my business card? I was relieved to see the context, which made it clear that though I agreed with the critical consensus more than the other critics considered, even my 83% rating wasn't that, to use the terms of the piece, "conformist." I ultimately found the piece more interesting than insulting. That ...

Books: The A.V. Club Blog:I attended this on purpose: Twicon 2009

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:00:00 -0500

Stephenie Meyers’ emo-riffic series of books about sensitive, sparkly vampires and the bland girls who love them rocketed into the cultural lexicon seemingly overnight: The first of the series’ four books was published in 2005, with the rest following at a steady clip; the film adaptation was, unsurprisingly, rushed out by 2008, with the sequel to follow this fall. In less than half a decade, Twilight has burrowed into the public consciousness, where it has, depending on your outlook, either bloomed or festered. Meyers’ slapdash empire has spawned a huge, largely female legion of “Twihards” who devote large portions of ...

Music: The A.V. Club Blog:Bush was right!

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:05:00 -0500

I can't find the words to describe this video, but I'll say this: If it appeared on a sketch-comedy show, we would all be hailing it as the most hilarious parody ever. But it's real. Enjoy.