Good Grief, "God Bless America"

The premise of "God Bless America" makes for a great trailer. A sad sack middle aged man named Frank (Joel Murray) discovers that he has terminal cancer, he's been fired from his job, and he has nothing to live for. Moreover, he's plagued by the inescapable dregs of the American media, in the form of braying political pundits, soulless talent competitions, and entitled teenage princesses who melt down when their parents buy them the wrong car. The last one inspires Frank to take a road trip and put the offending brat out of everyone's misery with a bullet to the head. Soon he's on a cross-country rampage with a spunky teenage girl cohort named Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), gunning down every hatemonger they can find, with America's favorite nationally televised singing competition in their sights for a final showdown.

Sounds pretty fun, doesn't it? Well, yes and no. While the film delivers a little catharsis with every new kill – I especially enjoyed Frank and Roxy picking off rude theatergoers and running over homophobic protesters – the joy is fleeting. Frank is not some righteous crusader, but a deeply sad and misanthropic individual with a very skewed worldview. He's zeroed in on one thing that he believes is wrong with the world, and it's the meanness and selfishness of everything being broadcast on television and the radio. He sees it poisoning the behavior of everyone around him, from his awful neighbors to his own spoiled daughter. And pretty soon it becomes apparent that the point of "God Bless America" is not the violence or the mayhem, but giving writer and director Bobcat Goldthwait a platform to rant about the state of American popular culture.

Frank gets multiple monologues that are painfully didactic and unoriginal. He rails against "American Idol." He disabuses Roxy of the notion that all adult men are attracted to teenage girls. He pleads for a return to civility and decency, using over the top violence to get people to listen to him. Frank is a sympathetic figure, but also a terrible hypocrite, and the plot indulges him shamelessly, ensuring that he gets away with a staggering number of major crimes. Roxy's even worse. She has an endless list of people she'd like to wipe off the face of the earth for fairly minor faults. The anarchic look of glee on her face when she contemplates murdering everyone who has committed a pop culture sin is pretty disturbing. And her impassioned, out-of-nowhere declaration of her love for the music of Alice Cooper makes it pretty damn obvious that she was written with the sensibilities of a middle-aged man.

The film would have had more impact if it sent up these two, revealing the inherent flaws in their approach to the world, or maybe having them caught up in the very media circus that they despise. Instead, they end up playing out all the odd couple clichés of an older man on an unexpected road trip with a runaway teenage girl. And I'm sorry to say that they don't do them very well. Joel Murray and Tara Lynne Barr try their best, but it was never clear how they'd developed any kind of meaningful connection, or why the audience would have any reason to care about what happened to them. At times the contrivances around the two border on the ridiculous. Roxy tells a very obvious lie to get Frank to take her with him on the killing spree, and her presence at the finale makes no sense.

I admire Goldthwait for getting a film like this made, and agree with many of the sentiments behind it. However, I frequently see discussions online that contain all the same complaints, all the same fantasies of doing away with the Rush Limbaughs and the Fred Phelps and the "American Idols" of the world, along with those who empower them. They usually end the same way, with everyone agreeing that the status quo sucks, and affirming each other's wishful thinking. And that's what "God Bless America" is in the end – a stack of complaints about the way the world is going, trying to provoke its audience into self-awareness and outrage, but not really adding anything new to the conversation. And it doesn't hit hard enough to leave much of a lasting impression, the satire dulled by an overwhelming lack sense of sadness and futility. What's the point of Frank continuing his rampage if the movie itself acknowledges that all killing the hatemongers won't change a thing in the end?

"God Bless America" may be an attack on the American media, but its pandering and its sensationalism smack of the worst of the same media's excesses.
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Where's the "Breakfast Club" Reboot?

With the remake of "Total Recall" coming this summer, we are now officially moving into the era of reboots of 90s properties. There are plenty of 80s movies that are going to be remade over the next few years, but one of the yet overlooked titles has always stood out for me – John Hughes' 1985 teen drama, "The Breakfast Club." Now as I've said before, comedies are always harder to reboot than dramas and action films because they depend so much on their talent. Also, the John Hughes films are so much a product of their times and the particular sensibility of their director. They don't make many movies for teenagers like this anymore. The last one I remember was "Easy A," which specifically paid homage to the John Hughes movies, even giving them their very own clip montage.

But still, I can't help thinking that "The Breakfast Club" presents what should be irresistible reboot material. It has such a simple formula – five kids from a school's different cliques are stuck together in Saturday detention, and realize that they're more alike than different. It would cost next to nothing to make, the title is instantly recognizable, and there's plenty of room for improvement. "The Breakfast Club" is probably the most popular John Hughes teen movie after "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," but it's also the one that has aged the most badly. The five high school types in the movie are a jock, a popular girl, a nerd, a delinquent, and an artsy girl. The kids are all Caucasian, all from roughly the same suburban environs, with the exception of Judd Nelson's working class Bender.

Surely everyone who's a fan of "The Breakfast Club" has thought about what a modern version would look like, all the new issues and divides it could address. You'd definitely need to introduce characters from racial minorities, to reflect the changed demographics of the Chicago area. Black and Hispanic kids would need to be represented. Optimally Asian ones too. Oh, but that's where we get into trouble. Remember the five high school types they did the first time? If you have racial minority characters, they immediately get pigeonholed in certain stereotypical roles – Asian nerd, black jock or delinquent, etc. You could mix and match, but not that much. The whole point of "The Breakfast Club" was presenting these high school stereotypes and spending the whole movie tearing them down. However, when you toss race into the mix, it might be too much for a teen movie to address.

Maybe in the 90s the studios would have backed some hotshot young director who wanted to take a stab at this, but in the last ten years, Hollywood has gotten much more conservative and risk-averse. You still rarely see interracial couples portrayed in movies, and there are all kinds of lingering issues with the portrayals of minority characters. Films aimed at kids and teenagers are still notoriously bad about having non-white leads unless they happen to be prestige pieces. I don't care how highly you think of "The Breakfast Club." It's not that kind of movie. It's a high school fantasy that ends with four of the five kids romantically paired off in the end, their angst validated by their shared experience.

It's actually kind of quaint, looking back on it. The problems of the Shermer High kids in the 80s seem so simple compared to today, but of course those portrayals weren't particularly true to life. The movie acquired a reputation for being deep with its target audience, because it declared that the teenage experience was a miserable one no matter where you were in the high school pecking order, and portrayed enough of the pecking order to pass for universal. Would people still buy that kind of basic platitude today? Would the gimmick still work? The trouble with "The Breakfast Club" being considered one of the most insightful and beloved teen films of all time is that a reboot would have to live up to its reputation. And it might actually have to actually be deep and interesting in a way that its predecessor never really was.

And that would mean tackling the hard issues. Race is just the tip of the iceberg. Can you imagine what would happen if you tried to address political affiliations? Religion? Sexual preferences? Bullying? "The Breakfast Club" avoided most of these land mines by choice, but you couldn't justify that anymore, considering how pervasive these issues have become in the culture and everyone's lives. Kids are more sophisticated in the 21st century. And sadly, marijuana doesn't solve everything, and it would probably get cut out of a new version anyway.
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5 New Technology Developments Anime Predicted

Yes, yes. The giant robos and mecha suits are nowhere in sight. Galactic empires and dystopian megacities? Robots becoming commonplace and developing feelings of their own? No, not here yet. However, science fiction and anime have enjoyed a long and fruitful association, and they have manged to make a few predictions about modern society and new technology that were actually right, and not in the most obvious ways. I want to talk about a few examples below. Please note this list is in no way comprehensive, and if you've got suggestions for additions, please let me know about them.

Augmented Reality - Abbreviated as AR, augmented reality adds a layer of virtual reality on top of the real real world. You can see rudimentary uses of AR already in sports broadcasts and mapping systems. But in the 2007, the anime series "Denno Coil," imagined a world where AR obsessed kids wore special glasses and visors that let them see, hear, and interact with an otherwise invisible virtual landscape all around them, superimposed on top of the existing one. Virtual pets could follow them to school and virtual battle games could be played out in real locations. And certain illegal AR hacking tools could let them do even more interesting things. The series won heaps of awards in Japan, but never got proper distribution West. But those new Project Glass images from Google look a heck of a lot like the rough beginnings of a live action "Denno Coil" AR universe to me.

Image Recognition Systems - The 2008 anime "Eden of the East" features an application that allows instant identification of anything you take a picture of, be it a landmark or a random stranger on the street, which then directs a user to public data about them. This is an extension of already existing image and face recognition software that is causing privacy concerns online. Most of the anime has nothing to do with this, being an offbeat conspiracy thriller that imagines global power games being played out with a special cel-phones and a Siri-like interface (though it may actually be a human being behind the scenes instead of an app, so that doesn't count) . The image recognition system is a neat component though, not only because of the technology, but because of how it was created by a small group of idealistic programmers, and reached its full potential through crowdsourcing and social networking.

The Hologram Pop Star - Hatsune Miku became a sensation in 2010 in her native Japan. Originally a a singing synthesizer application produced with Yamaha Corp.’s Vocaloid software, Miss Miku went on to become a pop phenom, topping the Japanese music charts and filling venues for performances as an animated hologram. There have been cartoon bands before, such as the Gorillaz, whose shows are a mixture of musical talent and technical wizardry to create the illusion of animated characters brought to life. However, the cult of personality around Hatsune Miku is on another level, and strongly recalls the fictional computer generated pop star Sharon Apple, from 1994's "Macross Plus." Sharon had her own AI, composed her own music, and could put on a much more sophisticated light show. However, she also went a little nuts, resulting in a city-devastating rampage. Let's all be very nice to cute little Hatsune, huh?

Anonymous - The "Ghost in the Shell" franchise has predicted all kinds of new technology, from GPS to prosthetic bodies to advanced AI. However, the 2002 series "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex," introduced a new breed of cyberworld villain, the Laughing Man. This was a hacker vigilante who concealed his identity by hacking all video recordings of himself, hiding his face with a smiling logo: the Laughing Man. Though dismissed as a prankster at first, his activities eventually become serious enough to draw the attention of the show's law enforcement heroes. There are plenty of other parallels to the real-world Anonymous group, particularly as you get deeper into the operations and philosophy of the Laughing Man, and the force that spawned him, the Stand Alone Complex - where "unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals create a seemingly concerted effort." The actions of Anonymous are definitely concerted, but its operations suggest no one is really in charge.

The Dark Side of Life Online - One of the things that anime does better than most Western entertainment is tackle the morality and social impact of new technology. Back in 1998, just as the internet was really starting to get rolling, "Serial Experiments Lain" presented a dystopian future where society revolves around a creepy version of the internet called the Wired. Cyberbullying, alienation, identity theft, and a whole host of new problems take center stage. The story is kicked off by an E-mail purportedly sent by a girl who recently committed suicide, for reasons unknown. "Lain" moves on to much more high minded science fiction concepts and existentialist ideas, but the way that the Wired is portrayed, as a place where traditional, real world morality breaks down and gets warped, hits pretty damn close to home.
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An A La Carte Cable Fantasy

A recent legal challenge to the cable companies' practice of bundling channels was recently shot down in court. No surprise. However, with the prevalence of cord-cutting, I wonder if it's just a matter of time before the cable companies change their tune. I'd think that the cable channels would rather have me paying for a few channels individually rather than not paying for any cable service at all. If 80 basic channels a month costs $100 with bundling, that would be $1.25 per channel. I'd be willing to pay double that for a la carte choices, so let's say $2.50 per channel. If I picked ten channels, that would be a much more reasonable bill of $25 a month. Actually, I don't think I'd even as many as pick ten if I had my way, but let's use that as a minimum that a cable company would probably require. And this is what my fantasy lineup would look like.

The Food Network
Comedy Central
Cartoon Network
CNN
AMC
SyFy
HD versions of ABC, NBC, and CBS and FOX

That's right kids. No sports channels, no music channels, and no more "Law & Order" marathons. How did I arrive at this list? I watch more than these few channels, but I cut all the ones where I was really only watching one or two shows. I like "Mythbusters" and the "Planet Earth" documentaries, but I haven't had any inclination to actually seek them out, so no Discovery Channel. Back when I had cable, they were already showing too many extreme job and nature survivalist shows for my taste, and I know that's only gotten worse. I watch "Project Runway" online, but nothing else on Lifetime remotely appeals to me. Comedy Central was nearly off the list, since "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report," and "South Park" are all online. What saved it? The upcoming seventh season of "Futurama."

The hardest channel to cut was FX, which has some of the best basic cable programming. I'm still catching up on back episodes of "Archer" and "Louie." However, I've also been doing pretty well watching those shows through Netflix. I don't feel the need to tune in on a week-to-week basis the way I do with the AMC shows. It doesn't bother me in the least that I'm about a season behind on both. AMC, which runs "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad," and "The Walking Dead," also has the benefit of occasionally still being a movie channel, and I like AMC's selection of titles much better than the action-oriented stuff that gets the most play on FX. If I go and get myself hooked on "Justified" or "Sons of Anarchy" this may change in the future.

Then there are what I like to think of the white noise channels. Sometimes all you want out of television is pleasant time filler, and the Food Network is always what I would end up watching when I couldn't find anything else. Sometimes you just want the television on for some color and noise, and the Food Network is perfect for that. Ditto CNN, which I fully acknowledge has its problems as a news organization, but is the least disagreeable out of the big three cable news channels. Also, when something major like the Japanese tsunami does happen, CNN has the best coverage in a crisis hands down.

SyFy and The Cartoon Network? They're for my inner nerd. I like Syfy's original series, including "Warehouse 13" and "Alphas." They play British genre imports and occasionally rerun oddities like the Robert Halmi miniseries and even older nerd classics that I find appealing. Then there's Cartoon Network, which has Adult Swim and the handful of kids' action cartoons I'm still keeping an eye on. I don't think I'll ever stop watching cartoons, though I tend to appreciate the ones aiming a bit older than the Disney and Nickleodeon crowd. And both channels will occasionally offer surprises - Bugs Bunny marathons or special uncut episodes of the "Twilight Zone."

Television isn't entirely about content, I've realized, but about the kind of viewing experience you want. I like to think of TV channels as akin to radio stations. You don't regularly listen to a radio station for one or two songs or artists, but the mood and ambiance of the the whole lineup. There aren't a lot of channels that I think are really worth having available all the time. That's why I've only picked six. I've left the other four slots for better quality versions of the major networks, which I find I miss more of than anything else because they're full service networks with morning shows, late night programs, local news, and the most mainstream broadcast programming that the majority of America actually watches.

Right now my television reception is so bad, I can literally only access two of the major networks, and the quality is terrible. The biggest irony of this little thought exercise is, I think I'd actually be the most willing to pay for the free TV - if the right deal came along.
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Where in Hollywood's History Are We?

The studios are in trouble. The industry is in trouble. The movie theaters are losing patrons to new technology in droves, having been too slow to change with the times. Trying to hold the line, filmmakers are resorting to technological gimmickry instead of making better films, wasting its resources on spectacle and pageantry. The most exciting films are being made in other countries, by emerging film industries in exotic places. It's 2012, except maybe it's also 1952 again.

Hollywood tends to go through boom and bust periods, and as the movie industry has gone through its latest round of painful contractions and lost a lot of its cultural cachet, there have been many observers that have looked to the past for insight. The more hopeful ones, anticipating an upending of the studio system and a new wave of American filmmaking, have suggested that the current age is analogous to the 1960s, when Hollywood was churning out overly manufactured, expensive musicals and biblical epics, but "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Easy Rider" were right around the corner, ready to usher in a decade of more challenging, more artistically ambitious filmmaking.

If we want to make those kinds of comparisons, I think we're about a decade further back in time, in the early 1950s. It was the 50s when television became a major threat, and when the studios experienced a major financial bust at the end of WWII after new regulations decreed that studios and exhibitors had to cut ties. Many studios closed, and whole categories of films like newsreels and serialized shorts disappeared. A huge amount of talent transitioned to television productions. Meanwhile, the business of making films became a fight to lure patrons back into the theaters, often with event movies. It was in this era that films transitioned almost totally to color, when widescreen became widely used, and we had the first wave of commercial 3D films.

The '50s were also the decade where nothing particularly interesting was going on in Hollywood movies. There were a few major auteurs working in Hollywood, and some memorable genres like musicals and film noir were flourishing, but the really exciting stuff was post-war Italian neo-realism, the emergence of Japanese cinema with Akira Kurosawa, and the beginnings of the French New Wave. You did see some of their influence in Hollywood films, but nobody was willing to make anything too politically pointed or controversial, especially since this was also the era when Hollywood was shrinking under the scrutiny of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Okay, you have to stretch to make some of those parallels work, but my point stands. Hollywood is in a bust period right now, and I think we're closer to the beginning of it than the end. The studios are still raking in record returns from their slickly produced blockbusters, and though we've been seeing some notable flops and some major systemic shifts on the business end, Hollywood really has no reason to stop making the kinds of movies it's been making for the past thirty years. If tastes are changing, so far it has been slowly and predictably. The internet may be upending the theatrical distribution system, but we're still only in the early days of transition and the full impact of the new technology isn't yet clear. We're due for further declines before we can talk about a rebound.

And I do see the declines coming, even though I think they'll be slower to materialize than people think. There are a lot more mitigating factors these days, more sources of revenue that Hollywood can tap into in order to sustain itself. And yet, the warning signs have been obvious for a long time. Theater attendance is shrinking. Ticket prices keep going up dramatically. 2012 is supposed to be a record-setting year, but some financial analysts have pretty bleak projections for 2013 and beyond. The bottom has fallen out of the home media market. The risk-averse studios are making fewer and fewer films themselves, mostly co-productions, and rely on acquisitions to fill their release slates.

The void creates opportunities for young filmmakers to come to prominence, for the mainstream to be exposed to some new voices and some new ideas, but only if audiences prove to be receptive. That's the biggest piece of the puzzle that I think is still missing. There's plenty of discontent with the current state of American cinema, but no outright rejection. Plenty of film fans are turning to indies and foreign films for more substance, but not the average moviegoer. It might be a very long time before this generation gets sick enough of sequels and remakes to revolt against them. It might take another tumultuous era of social cataclysm, like the 60s.

But right now? I don't think we're quite there yet.
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The Long Belated Sequel

A lot of sequels to successful movies have recently been announced, which is nothing new. However, a lot of these sequels are for comedies that were big hits more than a few years ago. Will Ferrell just announced the sequel to "Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy," which came out in 2004, the Farrelly brothers are reuniting Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey for another "Dumb and Dumber," which you may remember from 1994. And then there's the impending collision of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, and Eddie Murphy for "Triplets," the proposed sequel to the 1988 hit "Twins." If "Triplets" goes ahead in 2013, it'll be the second longest gap between a theatrically released comedy film and sequel since the ill-considered "The Odd Couple II," which was released nearly thirty years after the original.

There's a good chance that some or all of these sequels won't get made in the end, but still, the announcements coming one after the other like this in such quick succession begs the question: what gives? Why are all these comedy sequels suddenly all the rage? In the case of "Anchorman," there's clearly been some reluctance from the studio, Paramount. The film's director and stars were game for a second round as far back as 2008, but the Paramount didn't think it made financial sense. "Anchorman" was a hit, but not a big one, and not big enough to justify the salaries of all the actors like Will Ferrell and Steve Carrell who had gone on to become major stars. The buzz on the internet is that fan campaigning and strong home media sales were responsible for changing Paramount's mind, but I think it's more probable that the financial math changed somewhere along the line. People's salaries probably came down, a sequel looked less risky than original projects with the same talent, and Paramount hasn't had a decent comedy franchise on its slate in a while.

Brand names and franchises have largely replaced star power in the last couple of years, and it's been harder and harder to get original projects off the ground as fewer actors and actresses are able to open a film with their names alone. There's no question that Will Ferrell and Steve Carrell are both popular leading men, but both have had their ups and downs at the box office. For every "The Other Guys," there's been a bomb like "Land of the Lost." A movie with two or more stars is safer than one, and something with a familiar title, like "21 Jump Street" or "Arthur," looks more promising than "Dan in Real Life." The last few years have been rough on Hollywood, which has cultivated stronger urge to fall back on past successes instead of blazing any new trails. Hence the staggering number of reboots and remakes that have come out lately. And older stars, seeking refuge after strings of bombs, have become more willing to revisit old career highlights. Hence, "Dumb and Dumber 2" and "Triplets."

"Dumb and Dumber" was one of those films that its studio, New Line, would have loved to see become a franchise. They released a cartoon series in 1995 and did a prequel in 2003 that flopped. The trouble was that Jim Carrey, with the exception of the second "Ace Ventura" movie, has avoided doing sequels. And unlike with action franchises, it's a lot harder to simply reboot a series and replace your leading man, because so much of a comedy lives or dies by the talent. Even if Jeff Daniels and the Farrelly brothers were game to return, with no Carrey, there was no "Dumb and Dumber." So a "Dumb and Dumber 2" movie had to wait until Jim Carrey was at the "Mr. Popper's Penguins" stage of his career.

The same goes, more or less, for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Eddie Murphy in "Triplets." The idea of these two together in a movie during the 80s or 90s when they were at the heights of their careers would have been unthinkable. Everyone would have loved to see it happen, but it would have cost far, far too much. But these days, Schwarzenegger is still struggling to make a comeback, and his options are few since he can no longer be a credible action star. Murphy's been in decline for years, and his only recent successes have been in ensemble pieces like "Tower Heist." As for Danny DeVito, his directing career was going pretty well for a while, but seems to have stalled. Clearly, the time for "Triplets" is now.

You can see a lot of the same forces at work in many other recent comedies, including the latest in the "American Pie" series, "American Reunion," which is set to be released on Friday. Every major member of the cast is returning, from Jason Biggs to John Cho. Back in 1999, after "American Pie," several cast members seemed to be on the verge fo making it big, and a few like Alyson Hannigan and Seann William Scott went on to some modest success. But here they all are, thirteen years later, right where they started. Considering how rough many of them have had it, (when was the last time you saw Mena Suvari? Or Tara Reid?) and how rough the road ahead looks for everyone, that's not a bad place to be.
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The April Follow-Up Post

Notes on the "Ninja Turtle" Situation - First "Mutant" was out, and the latest is now that our heroes are not going to be "Teenage" either. This has become one of those rare cases where the shortening of a movie's title actually does make sense, but at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if Michael Bay reveals next month that he's actually making a "Biker Mice From Mars" movie. Why did Nickelodeon hire him again?

5 Dr. Seuss Adaptations I Want to See - On the heels of the success of "The Lorax," it has been revealed that the next Dr. Seuss property Illumination Studios will adapt is indeed "The Cat in the Hat." This makes sense, as The Cat is still the most iconic Dr. Seuss character, and very toyetic and marketable. Hopefully this will keep the threat of a "Lorax 2" at bay. Crossing my fingers.

Not a Great Year for Animation - Speaking of movie toons, quite a few trailers are now in circulation for animated films we'll be seeing later in 2012. Here are your first looks at Tim Burton's updated Frankenweenie, Genndy Tartakovsky's Hotel Transylvania with Adam Sandler, and The Rise of the Guardians from Sony Animation (all links go to Youtube). Along with "Brave" and "Paranorman," this is shaping up to be an interesting group. Also, keep an eye out for Disney's video game themed "Wreck-it-Ralph."

Rated M for Managing Expectations - Sylvester Stallone has clarified that "The Expendables 2" will be rated R, in spite of whatever misgivings Chuck Norris has about the level of violence. I still think it doesn't make any damn difference, because nothing is going to change the fact that it's all going to be fantasy violence anyway, as Stallone and Norris and much of the rest of the "Expendables" cast are older than dirt and can't physically do the R-rated violence anymore.

Trouble in "Terra Nova" - The first season of FOX's massively hyped time-travel series "Terra Nova" will be its only season. Briefly, there was talk of Netflix possibly continuing the series, but that's fallen through. I don't think it would have been a good move on Netflix's part anyway, since "Terra Nova" was a notoriously expensive show, and to be honest, it just wasn't very good.

Twitterpation - I've given up on Twitter for the foreseeable future. I'm still updating my own feed regularly, but I've almost completely stopped reading the tweets of the people I'm following. I like having the access and the chance to participate, but just don't have the time for it anymore, and in most cases I'm following individual critics' and writers' work through other channels already.

2012 May be DiCaprio's Year - Most of the rumored projects are still on the table, but it looks like Leo's going with the least interesting option here. He's making "The Wolf of Wall Street" with Martin Scorsese, which will be their fifth collaboration together. Meanwhile, the leading man in Clint Eastwood's new "A Star is Born" may end up being Tom Cruise, which I'm totally okay with.

But What About Arnold's Acting Career? - Of all the roles that it was speculated Arnold could reprise, guess which one he's going with? If you guessed Julius from "Twins," you're absolutely right! Danny Devito will also be returning, and the two will discover that they have a third brother - to be played by Eddie Murphy! The working title is reportedly "Triplets." I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

Life With the NY Times Paywall - I don't think the new model is working out for the New York Times. It was announced that starting this month, the number of articles that non-paying users will be able to access each month is being reduced from twenty to just ten. There is a loophole that allows you to access a certain number of stories from outside search results, but that's becoming more limited too. Personally, I still browse the headlines, but there are hardly any stories I actually click to read anymore. I don't think the new changes are going to affect me at all.

The Battle for Thursday - Finally, regular readers of this blog will know that I've had divided loyalties between "The Big Bang Theory" and "Community," which both air in the same time slot on Thursday nights. Well, in the latest round "The Big Bang Theory" has taken a dive. I haven't watched an episode in months, not since the winter break at least. Once I got out of the habit of watching the show, and got out of the appointment television mindset, I totally forgot about it. I'm still hanging on to "Community" though. I hope Dan Harmon and Chevy Chase make up quick. I'm still holding out hope for six seasons and a movie!
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