By Don Jacobson

A recent story in the Los Angeles Times caught my eye; it said that according to various polls, 40 percent of Americans believe that events leading to the Biblical end times are already under way. These are the end times from the Book of Revelation which will culminate with Jesus roaring down from Heaven to end the reign of the Antichrist at the Battle of Armageddon, in which Satan’s armies will be defeated, Judgment Day will be upon us and all of Jesus’ true followers will finally get their reward for having to endure the endless “persecution” they’re now suffering at the hands of Godless liberals like the editors of the L.A. Times.

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Posted on June 27, 2006

Since it really began to thrive as a basic-cable channel in 1988, the American Movie Classics channel has become more American Movie than Classics. AMC recently managed to outpace even my affection for amusing trash with Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, in which the mutant earthworms of Tremors and Tremors II: Aftershocks evolve into flying death machines that propel themselves by shooting flames from their asses.
I suppose that flames shooting from mutant asses make it a classic in a certain sense, and one certainly can’t portray American movie culture without a nod to cheesy horror movies. (I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the straight-to-video horror-comic shitfest Santa’s Slay, starring former professional wrestler Bill Goldberg.)
But Tremors 3?
A Beachwood statistical analysis confirms our suspicions. I randomly sampled 10 movies on AMC’s weeknight prime-time schedule from 1988 and 2006 and found that the average IMDB user scores for each season fell by 1.26 points. In addition, a look at four interim years reveals that the decline has been steady and consistent.
To wit:

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Posted on June 10, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Music Choice Classic Country Channel (703)
Thursday , June 8
1. Do You Love As Good As You Look/Bellamy Brothers
“Honey, do you love as good as you look?
Can you satisfy your man the way your body says you can?
Judging by the cover, I’d love to read the book
Honey, do you love as good as you look?”
2. She’s Single Again/Janie Fricke
“She’s single again
Hold on to your men”
“Is this number four? Number five?
Tell me how many men has she buried alive?”
3. Southern Rains/Mel Tillis
Music Choice Trivia: Mel Tillis enjoys gardening, cooking, fishing, and painting.
4. You and I/Eddie Rabbit and Crystal Gayle
This is the Classic Country station, right? Not Today’s Country?
This song is from Eddie Rabbit’s Greatest Hits. I suppose the term “greatest” is relative.
5. Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’/Charley Pride
Finally, some real country!
“You’ve got to kiss an angel good mornin’
and let her know you think about her when your gone
You’ve got to kiss an angel good mornin’
and love her like the devil when you get back home”

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Posted on June 10, 2006

By Don Jacobson

UPDATE JUNE 2: The Save Invasion fan campaign continues unabated. Links abound. Here are five.
* The official Save Invasion site.
* Sign the petition.
* Vote for the official Save Invasion campaign logo.
* Fund a plane with a banner to fly over ABC HQ.
* The Last (?) Wave Goodbye.
And now, on to our story, originally posted on May 22.
Of course, this happens every year, because it’s network TV. Yet it still brings a fresh sense of outrage each May, as deserving shows that managed to struggle through the season with mediocre-to-poor ratings, perhaps hanging on only because some network suit personally likes them, bites the dust. This spring I’m directing my frustration primarily at ABC, the Mickey Mouse network, for giving the ax not only to the best comedy on all of TV, but to the best drama as well, in one awful bloodletting.
The comedy was Sons and Daughters, the subtle, hilarious, laugh track-free offering from Lorne Michaels and Fred Goss, which I gushed about in March. I fully expected Sons and Daughters to be canceled, however, right from the get-go. First, as a mid-season replacement, it was born on the ropes. Second, it relied on dry humor and intelligence. This is network TV, remember? Such hubris will always be punished with crushing indifference.
But what really, really hurt was the cancellation by ABC of Invasion. This stung on two levels because it was a top quality show – a terrifying and vivid document of modern paranoia – and also because it had a chance to make it. Following Lost, one of the most popular shows around, Invasion had a huge lead-in audience but couldn’t hold them. My theory is this is because the show was essentially a 20-part, slowly unfolding story, and didn’t tip too much of its hand at the start of its run. Short attention-span viewers got turned off because there wasn’t an immediate denouement.

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Posted on June 2, 2006

What It Is: “Arguably the World’s Greatest Supplement!”
Description: A rock-solid foundation of nutrition built upon a whole-food super-food formula.
Quote: “Probiotics devour yeast in the intestine!”
Shills: Joe Costello, a sturdy-looking old fellow with silvery, thinning hair; Two women in their late 40s or so who look like aging Realtors, one wearing some kind of huge medallion on a choker.
Politics: Religious right.
Set and Costume: Joe and Friends plug their nutritious catch-all in the kitchen of what appears to be a model luxury home they are borrowing for the weekend. Later they will host an open house. Their outfits are bright and business-casual. Joe wears some kind of turtleneck with a zipper that starts halfway up the chest.

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Posted on June 1, 2006

By Tim Willette and Natasha Julius

David Blaine: Seriously Not Breathing
David Blaine: Drowned Alive, Yet Brain Dead?
David Blaine: Buried Alive Until He Rots
David Blaine: Beheaded
David Blaine: Beaten With A Rolling Pin
David Blaine: Thrown From A Tall Building
David Blaine: Eaten By Sharks

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Posted on May 8, 2006

By Marilyn Ferdinand

Like a girl branded with a bad reputation, director Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 film Showgirls has been called every nasty name in the book:
“Perhaps the worst film of the year.” (Kim Williamson, Boxoffice magazine)
“Think Flashdance but with an unappealing leading lady playing a woman whose fierce ambition is to do something not admirable, just ridiculous.” (Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle)
“A waste of a perfectly good NC-17 rating.” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)
“Just plain awful.” (Bob Thompson, Jam! Movies)
Showgirls drew attention to itself by garnering a rare NC-17 rating and because its screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas, became the highest-paid screenwriter in history for his series of sexploitative films, most notably Basic Instinct. Roger Ebert and many other critics who piled on Showgirls seized upon how poorly the film lived up to its rating. Others latched onto the noble-minded but ill-considered claptrap Eszterhas served up (that making the film was “a religious experience” for him) to make the film a laughingstock and skewer Eszterhas for polluting us with his personal fantasies. Still others called Showgirls a camp classic, with bad dialogue and stick-figure characters that could be imitated readily at the Baton Club for fun and profit.
Now that we’re 10 years beyond the hype, it’s time for a new appraisal of Showgirls, prompted by a recent bashing the film took in The Beachwood Reporter‘s Must-See TV box. I’ll take on the criticisms first, then provide a new take on this unfairly maligned film.

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Posted on May 1, 2006

What It Is: A system of investing.
Description: A system of investing that makes money, as opposed to losing money. Apparently, the name “Optionetics” is the marriage of “options” and “pathetic.”
Shills: George Fontanills, whose qualifications include appearances in stock footage for CNN and CNBC. Grace Carter quarterbacks the Optionetics effort from behind an anchor desk complete with fake stock ticker running in the background. If you watch carefully, you’ll see the ticker runs from the same point during each Grace Carter appearance.
Set and costume: Carter appears svelte in business attire. Fontanills has exercised too many “put” options at the buffet.
Patriot Act: The background imagery during Carter’s hard-hitting “interview” with Fontanills includes the United States Treasury building and an American flag. Not included: Footage of Alexander Hamilton rolling over in his grave.
Quote: “Make money no matter if the market is going up, going down, or going sideways.”

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Posted on May 1, 2006

By Mark Bazer

Here’s something you may not know but ought to: Martin Mull is both a comedic genius and, as the Web’s only tribute site to him puts it, an artistic “renaissance man.”
Yes, that Martin Mull – the one too many only know, if they know him at all, from his part on Roseanne or, more likely, those old Red Roof Inn commercials.
But when he’s not taking sitcom supporting roles or shilling, Mull is unearthing the dark side of the oft-idealized mid-20th century American heartland in surreal, lush paintings. And he’s been known to finger-pick his way through his own dry, sarcastic brand of the blues.
His greatest comedic achievement, however, remains Fernwood 2Night, a parody of regional talk shows set at Channel 6 in the fictional town of Fernwood, Ohio. Perhaps more than anything else the Chicago native has done, Fernwood 2Night, which debuted in syndication on July 4, 1977, best showcased his spin on white-bread American life. It’s a spin as sardonic as it is silly.

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Posted on April 21, 2006

Who: Jim Bakker
Where: Branson, Missouri
Organization: Jim Bakker Ministries
Founded: Sometime after he got out of prison.

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Posted on April 9, 2006