Category Archives: Pop Culture
Breaking Bad Season 5
The highly anticipated fifth and final Season of this great drama got started several weeks ago, and already there are big changes from the previous fantastic seasons. We have previously discussed this show at length, and I won’t try to link to all those discussions, but suffice it to say that this season is living up to the high standards set by the foregoing episodes. Read the rest of this entry
The Dark Knight Rises
I saw this movie last night with my daughter and really liked it. Rather than write a traditional review, however, I thought I would just start a discussion on it using the things I liked and didn’t like about it, and some things I was surprised about.
WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP. IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE, THINK TWICE BEFORE READING FURTHER. Read the rest of this entry
Why Brad is wrong about Spiderman
In response to Brad’s post at What Culture: Read the rest of this entry
Movie Review: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
Is it sacrilegious to remake a Sam Raimi film? The question isn’t as ridiculous as it might first sound. Imagine if some upstart filmmaker tried his hand at Evil Dead: II, Rebooted. Such audacity would surely be met with righteous indignation the world over, and a handful of us might even issue a fatwa, forcing said blasphemer into a Rushdie-style hiatus from public life. But that’s obviously an extreme example. Putting This is Spinal Tap to one side, Evil Dead II might be the greatest artistic creation of the 20th Century. And of course, Raimi’s follow-up Armies of Darkness was pure dreck – nevermind what all you loser fanboys have to say about it – so we know that Raimi’s oeuvre doesn’t quite deserve a presumption of divine perfection. Read the rest of this entry
Movies that Disappointed the Most
So coming off of the disappointment of Prometheus I was thinking of other anticipated movies that were huge disappointments. What’s that you say? You didn’t think Prometheus was that bad? OK, but did it live up to your anticipation?
Now there are some obvious ones of course. The Star Wars prequels are the obvious #1 choice. Followed closed by Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. But pointing to George Lucas is just too easy. What else is there?
Here are my choices
Playlist Challenge: Trains Edition
This one is also fairly easy if you think about it: 5 train songs. Maybe not as easy as rain, but not hard either. A personal aside: this post was inspired by a marathon session of Mexican Train dominoes played by our family on Sunday to celebrate the start of summer vacation.
In Memorium: Dublin Dr Pepper
I went to lunch today at a particular local deli because I knew they stocked both Amano chocolate and Dublin Dr Pepper and I wanted to pick up some of both.
Oddly I could not find any Dublin Dr Pepper. When I inquired, they informed me that it no longer exists!
It turns out that this isn’t entirely true, but it is true enough. Corporate Dr Pepper sued Dublin last year and early this year they entered into an agreement which resulted in Dublin halting production. It turns out that most of the Dr Pepper sold in Dublin Dr Pepper bottles was actually made at another plant, which will continue making Dr Pepper with cane sugar, but without the Dublin branding. It seems that the fact that you could buy Dublin Dr Pepper outside of their franchise area was an issue, and you can no longer order cane sugar Dr Pepper online.
In my opinion, this is a stupendous mistake on the part of Corporate Dr Pepper. The original bottler was selling the original product and connoisseurs appreciated this. If other bottlers felt hurt, they should use cane sugar as well. And no, HFCS is not cane sugar and beet sugar isn’t cane sugar either. Instead of catering to the real Dr Pepper lovers they’ve cut off our supply. You’ve kicked sand in the face of your most ardent supporters. Someone (the moron that thought this was a good idea) should be fired over this.
For this that want more information on this sad event, The Dallas Observer has details.
Idiots.
Playlist Challenge: By the Numbers Edition
This one is relatively easy. Name one song each from five different acts: solo, duo, trio, four-piece and five-piece. For bonus points, try to come up with songs (or at least performances), where all the music is played by the number of individuals indicated.
The Avengers Succeeds
Joss Whedon, the reigning alpha-geek of pop-culture storytellers has succeeded in a task that seemed nearly impossible: he’s created a superhero movie with seven different comic-book heroes that is hugely entertaining, mostly comprehensible, and provides a satisfying pay-off to the promises made by each of the previous movies.
