Blurbex

The New York Times waxes nostalgic about the Beatles in light of their rumored entry into the world of Guitar Hero.

Are Slate and The Daily Show sharing writers? Both get similarly snarky on Obama’s first campaign commercial of the general election. Check out the Slate’s vid here and The Daily Show’s here.

The U.S. Supreme Court slashes the punitive damages relating to the Exxon-Valdez oil spill.

Check out this cool Google map, which tracks newspaper buyouts and layoffs.

Don’t want your unborn baby to grow up gay? The answer may be chemical.

1,500 bid goodbye to Tim Russert at memorial service.

Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama play the “Who’s a prouder American?” sweepstakes. Grand prize? A 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. address.

Wasn’t something like this to be expected? Former Bear Stearns managers get collared for shady dealings in the subprime mortgage market.

I can’t believe I missed this til now, being the devoted Macca fan that I am, but Sir Paul McCartney turned 66 today. On June 14, he played before over 350,000 fans in Independence Square in Kiev. One of the show’s highlights was undoubtedly “Mrs. Vandebilt,” (off Band on the Run) which was the top song requested by fans at a Ukrainian website. It also happens to be one of my favorite songs off the album, particularly for its cheeky refrain “What’s the use of worrying/ What’s the use of hurrying/ What’s the use of anything?” Check out the stellar performance for yourself.

To plug Eddie Izzard’s upcoming appearance at the Tampa Theatre, Monday’s Metro section of the St. Pete Times recommended a YouTube clip of Izzard doing a “killer impression” of Christopher Walken. I was a bit skeptical, since as anyone who’s watched Saturday Night Live knows, Walken impersonations can be all over the map. Well, after watching said clip, I have to say, despite being an Izzard fan, his impersonation is definitely not killer. To be fair, Izzard doesn’t claim it is either.

I really liked Ang Lee’s 2003 big-screen Hulk, so I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit like some other fanboys to see the 2008 “reboot” edition, The Incredible Hulk, which gives the would-be Marvel franchise a fresh start. I thought Lee’s version played like a hybrid of a summer blockbuster and an art film, what with its “sins of the father” overtones and Lee’s multi-perspective camera work, approximating the dynamic look of comic books.

But it was a draggy Sunday night, and since this just-released film has gotten decent reviews — and I’m a super-hero-loving boy at heart — I drove my under-the-weather self to Park Side for an 8:15 screening.

And yes, this new Hulk is a more fan-friendly creation than its predecessor, with more action and less of the cerebral bent that seemed to turn so many off to Lee’s version. As Bruce Banner, Edward Norton gives a typical Edward Norton performance — reserved and tight-lipped, relying on his stock tics (the pensive look downward, the stoic shaking of the head) to convey his character’s personal tragedy. But in the context of the film, the performance works. Norton isn’t charismatic, but he doesn’t have to be, because Hulk is all about Banner’s destructive, green-skinned alter-ego.

But as any seasoned fan of action movies knows, a film is only as good as the protagonist’s nemesis. And in this case, Tim Roth is the perfect adversary, portraying a Russian-born soldier on loan to the U.S. military from the Royal British Navy. Roth plays Emil Blonsky like a coiled viper of energy, an aging soldier who lives for the thrill of battle. Instead of fearing the Hulk, he relishes taking him on, especially after being injected with a “super-soldier” serum (à la Captain America) at the request of Gen. “Thunderbolt” Ross, played with command and intensity by the always-reliable William Hurt.

While the climactic showdown between Hulk and Blonsky’s radiation-induced Abomination is the film’s raison d’etre, the best sequence for my money is the battle on a college-campus green between Hulk and Blonsky, in which the latter uses his newly acquired super-speed to avoid being crushed by the Big Guy.

Like the previous Hulk, this film still doesn’t explain how Banner manages to keep his pants on after Hulking out, but the suspension of disbelief is a small price to pay, lest we find ourselves rooting for a super hero with a big green penis flopping all over the place.

From CIA secret prisons to the Bush administration’s “secret plan” to stay in Iraq, Huffington Post has the news the mainstream media forgot to report.

According to Cockburn, the U.S. is “holding hostage some $50 billion of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing” the plan, under which U.S. troops “would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law” for years to come.

And the Washington Post lays out what’s at stake in this year’s presidential election:

Differences over Iraq policy are among the sharpest distinctions between the two U.S. presidential contenders. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) advocates continuing the current strategy, with no timetable for the withdrawal of what are likely to be about 133,000 troops remaining in Iraq by the November election. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has said he would begin an immediate withdrawal of combat troops, to be completed within 16 months.

Here at the Loaf, we have Dance Party every Friday, usually beginning around 4 p.m. (with tunes selected by yours truly and resident PoHo, Wayne Garcia. Good Morning Cincinnati has one, too, after a fashion. This guy does a mean Billy Idol.

Boston.com recently launched its Do Good site, in an effort to get readers involved in their local communities.

Bloggers hold Fox News accountable for its use of disparaging screen text to describe Michelle Obama.

Thanks to CL reporter Alex Pickett for passing on this story about the surge in popularity of alternative newspapers in suburbia.

Among the highest reaching alternative newsweekly in the country, Madison Wisconsin’s Isthmus has moved to the top of the list, reaching 37.4% of all adults in Madison, compared to 34.6% a year earlier.

• Spokane Washington’s Inlander ranks second in the study, reaching 36.1% of the market
• San Diego Reader (35.6% reach)
• Tucson Weekly (33.2% reach)
• New Haven, Connecticut’s New Haven Advocate (32.4% reach)
• Columbia, South Carolina’s Free Times (30.6% reach)
• Eugene Weekly (29.7% reach)
• Reno News and Review (29.2% reach)
• Madison, Wisconsin’s The Onion (28.7% reach)
• The Austin Chronicle (28.6% reach)

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has an insightful breakdown of the media’s coverage of the Democratic and Republican primary races, focusing on the candidacies of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

The report puts to bed the notion that Obama received more favorable coverage in the press than Clinton. However, it also points out the unfortunate preference by journalists for “horse race” analysis:

Looking beyond the master narratives about the candidates personally, coverage overall in 2008 has so far focused largely on the horse race. Fully 78% of the stories studied between January 1 and the first week of May have focused on political matters, such as who won the latest primary. By contrast, policy stories made up 7% of the stories, personal matters 7%, and the candidates’ public record, 2%. And few major storylines stand out.

When I was a graduate journalism student at USF St. Petersburg, my most rewarding course focused on constructing user-friendly websites. The main text we used as our guide, Designing Web Usability, was written by Jakob Nielsen, whose useit.com is an essential resource for improving your site’s interactivity. Simplicity seemed to be Nielsen’s mantra, and his strategy is echoed in Jon Friedman’s 8 rules for designing a media website.

ABC ready to give its World News webcast a do-over.

Which newspaper has the best online financial coverage? No surprise: It’s the New York Times.

USA Today draws high traffic with its Candidate Match Game.

With all due respect to Joe Bardi’s post of the obnoxious anti-Republican video, I think this makes the Democrats’ case much more succinctly:

Left Coast alert: Silver screen siren Scarlett Johansson is pen pals with Democratic nominee Barack Obama. No surprise, since she can be seen in Obama’s Yes We Can video. Seems Barack is a “huge movie lover” — well, who isn’t? — and loves Johansson’s Lost in Translation.

So what are Barack’s favorite movies? Well, after a quick Google Search:

Casablanca

The Godfather

The Godfather Part II

Lawrence of Arabia

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

No word on where the films of Scarlett’s fiance, Ryan Reynolds, fall on Obama’s list.

Now that Hillary’s dropped out and Obama’s secured the nomination, aren’t you just a bit sad the parade and pageantry of the Democratic primary is over? Well, now you can relive the magic, in eight minutes.

As if we needed any more proof that racism, in all of its irrational permutations, is alive and well in this area, take this letter to the editors from the June 7 edition of the St. Petersburg Times.

Richard Wilson, a resident of Safety Harbor, railed against the Times for running articles that he claimed “pandered” to the black community. Here is his letter, as printed:

Pandering to blacks

Well, you are to be congratulated. You did a marvelous job of presenting the black community to the majority white community that your “newspaper” serves. Let us see what we have.

Well, as starters, we have a very interesting story, with pictures, of black children being schooled in manners. This is a remarkable story for Page 1 of the Memorial Day issue — so timely. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate story for the occasion. Next, we have another marvelous story, again with pictures, about the black marching band — this being on the front page of the Clearwater Times. Not to be outdone, another fine story, with pictures, titled “Tender loving care” appears, where else but on the front page of the May 25 Floridian section. And let’s not miss the interesting story, with pictures, “An uphill mission,” which adorns the front page of the Tampa Bay section on the same day.

As I said earlier, you are really to be congratulated but, unfortunately, not for putting out a class newspaper but instead a mirror image of Ebony magazine. I am just about prepared to cancel my daily/weekend subscription to your “rag” and go to your competitor paper which, I hope, will present more relative reading matter to a nonblack reader.

Can you in any way explain this obvious pandering? I can’t. Maybe I’m just not with the times or maybe I’m nitpicking. What do you think? Should I be more “understanding” of the times? I wish you could tell me where I am wrong so that I may sit back and enjoy true reporting of the “news.”

Yeah, you’re missing something, Mr. Wilson. A whole lot of somethings, in fact. “Tender loving care” was a story about a young girl who was terribly burned in a fire. And this didn’t interest you because — she’s black? And by virtue of her being black, this is “pandering?”

Well, the definition of “pandering,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is as follows:

“To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses.”

So a story about girl who survived a deadly fire is — pandering? A story about a ministry reaching out into the community is — pandering? Well, who else but those with the basest predilections would want to read such tripe? Substitute into those stories members of “the majority white community,” and I imagine Mr. Wilson would feel himself properly served and informed by his hometown paper.

The mind reels at the insanity of it.

One of my first clear-headed thoughts after reading his letter was: Haven’t we advanced to the point where we can see past race and cultural differences, especially with regard to human interest stories? Doesn’t a human interest story encourage us to see past those differences? But upon reflection, I realized that the differences between races, ethnicities and cultures are why we should embrace a journalism that nurtures inquisitive, open-minded journalists who strive to challenge readers with stories that ask them to see beyond their immediate concerns, to evolve in their humanity.

Rather than endure mindless criticism, the St. Petersburg Times should be lauded for its coverage. Just as they should be credited for printing letters, such as Mr. Wilson’s, that remind us of the strides we still have to make as a society.

Wanna write for The New Yorker? Here’s how!

Talk about soft-soaping: You’d think the Washington Post headline could’ve just read: Bush lied.

She loves his mind: all six of them. Guess he has a “big” vocabulary.

No surprise here, Zohan: Another Adam Sandler movie that sucks.

Dylan for vice president: Bob backs Obama.

A step toward the inevitable? St. Pete City Council votes to proceed with Rays’ waterfront stadium plan.

Somebody other than Big Brother is watching.

A co-worker here at the Loaf set me a link to this trailer for The Onion Movie, which was released on DVD yesterday. I’m a big fan of The Onion, and the movie seems to have the same goofily satirical take on the news as the website. But the golden find here is the movie trailer within the trailer. Take a look.

As the Lakers prepare to go mano a mano with the Celtics in the NBA Finals this Thursday, I’m reminded of the epic battles between these two proud franchises in the 1980s.

And how much I hate Boston.

Not so much this incarnation of the Celtics and their current roster of hired guns. But geez, how I loved rooting against that ’80s team led by the Hick from French Lick, Larry Bird, and his supporting cast of Kevin McHale (he of the incredibly successful low-post move), Robert Parish, Danny Ainge and Dennis Johnson.

I’m pretty sure I started despising Boston the moment I saw Celtics fans, sitting above their hallowed parquet floor, waving signs and chanting “Beat L.A.,” as if they were driven more by a desire to see those hotshots from Tinseltown lose (because Boston fans are oh-so salt-of-the earth) than for their own team to win. And then there’s the reputation Boston fans have for being racist. Unreasonable loathing on my part, you say? I don’t care.

Celtic Pride?

Bite me.

Just one look at that smirking, winking Irish drunk mascot, Lucky the Leprechaun, gets my bile rising.

When the Finals begin, I won’t be rooting against the Celtics in the hopes that it will bring those arrogant New Englanders back down to earth. That’s well-nigh impossible. The Red Sox went without a World Series championship for 86 years, and despite their fans’ pitiable “woe is us” mentality during that time, they made up for it by acting as if they were the best, most knowledgeable fans in all of baseball, scourging us with Red Sox Nation, Curt Schilling’s bloody sock and sabermetrics-loving know-it-alls in the process. When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, you’d have thought the heavens had parted and the cryogenically frozen head of Ted Williams smiled down on all of baseball.

The sports world, and me in particular, has had to endure the insufferable Bosox winning two of the last four World Series. The New England Patriots, led by an uncharismatic, monosyllabic coach, have appeared in four of the last seven Super Bowls, winning three of them. The last thing the world needs is another Boston championship.

The last thing I need is another Boston championship.

It’s time to cowboy up, Lakers.

Beat Boston.

Sure, he’s an aging action star, but Harrison Ford is back doing what he does best in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

So I thought it would be amusing to show this icon of the movies in two of his, uh, less heroic roles. Below are two clips, one that captures his first speaking part in a film, and the second a very brief clip from a cheapo 2004 movie called Water to Wine in which Harrison, as a favor to his son Malcolm, plays Jethro the Bus Driver.

I’d already made up my mind that I’m going — at some point — to see Sex and the City: The Movie. I’ve caught and enjoyed a handful of episodes, and while I’ve never found it must-watch TV, it’s served as a bubbly distraction on a draggy night.

But in light of the vitriol leveled at Creative Loafing critic Lance Goldenberg for his pan of the film, Sex Bomb, (scroll down to read the comments), I guess I should get a ticket sooner rather than later, just to see what all the fuss is about.

While a couple of the screeds imply that “getting” the film depends upon whether one has a penis, this is an awfully shortsighted perspective that doesn’t hold up to close inspection (i.e., reading any other reviews by other men). On Rottentomatoes.com, which offers a compendium of reviews from critics, you’ll find plenty of men who dug the flick and plenty of women who didn’t, often for the same reasons. As the saying goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” And one girl’s Cosmo is another man’s girly drink.

Among the female critical assessments, my favorite is this take by MaryAnn Johanson of FlickFilospher.com:

Fans of Sex and the City, the TV show — I am not a fan — rave about how it’s about “real” women and “real” concerns that women have. But I don’t see a real woman in Carrie Bradshaw. I see a very narrow, very stereotypical idea of what women are. Maybe that’s just me — I have no doubt that I am not the average woman. But I guarantee you that I am real. And here, I see a woman who is a caricature of “women,” not someone who is a human being first and a woman second, like we all actually are. Does she read a fucking book once in a while?

Ouch.

But as I said, there’s plenty of men who appreciate the movie, including New York Magazine’s David Edelstein:

Sex and the City: The Motion Picture (not the actual title) is a joyful wallow. And it’s more: In this summer of do-overs (The Incredible Hulk, a new Batman versus a new Joker), it’s what the series finale should have been. For one last time, the relationship columnist–cum (no pun intended)–anthropologist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) tests the fairy-tale trappings of modern romance—turns them inside out, pulls at the loose threads, and wrings the tears that have saturated them into iridescent cocktails. (God, that’s terrible. I have to work on my Bradshaw-esque relationship musings.) It’s not that the writer-director, Michael Patrick King, breaks new ground; it’s that these women are in their fifth decade, and age is a more insistent subtext. The time for do-overs is almost up.

However, the best, most scathing non-review review may be from the Orlando Weekly:

We’re totally down with the interpretation offered by a choreographer we know, who once pithily observed that SATC projects onto women “everything that’s wrong with men.” For real: Is it any sort of inroad for a summer film to prove that ladies, too, can surrender to pummeling materialism, a blinkered emphasis on self-gratification and hollow objectification of the opposite gender? Plus, Darren Star and his “creative” crew must be laughing their sphincters loose knowing that their amoral fantasia has been welcomed as gospel by genuine urban women, instead of their obvious target demo: Iowan paralegals too tipsy and titillated to notice that the characters are actually semiotic stand-ins for gay men.

Geez, I can’t wait to see this movie.

With so much attention devoted to the efforts of POWW (Preserve our Wallets and Waterfront) to dissuade city leaders from approving the construction of a new stadium for the Rays, it was refreshing to read Tim Nickens’ Sunday Perspective article in the St. Petersburg Times. In Betting on baseball, Nickens makes a compelling argument that we need to consider the consequences of not building a new stadium in light of the advances the downtown area has made since the Trop went up over 20 years ago.

When will the madness end? As if $4-a-gallon gas wasn’t bad enough, now our energy bills might go up.

An Inconvenient Truth: The Opera!

Sex and the City mania hits the U.K.; men stay away in droves. Um, isn’t this a little self-defeating, guys? Do the math: Whatever you may think of Carrie, Samantha, et al, cinemas this weekend will be the ultimate hook-up.

Will Bird and Magic be suiting up? Lakers clinch spot in NBA Finals; Celtics are one game away from meeting their Left Coast rivals.