NOTE: To hear any song mentioned in the following post, just click on its title.

Good lord, there were a lot of major singles released on iTunes today. But that makes sense, since these songs are previewing big-ticket albums that will be released for the holiday season. Get us primed now, and we’ll be ready to buy a thousand CDs as gifts. Or at least, that’s what the music industry hopes.

In the interest of keeping us up-to-date, here’s a quick overview of wannabe hits from some very popular artists. Let me know what you think of them!

[Read more →]

It’s not worth calling him out and starting some ludicrous flame war, but today on his blog, a fellow critic posted an anecdote that essentially mocked a woman for not knowing Chekhov’s The Seagull. The play is currently on Broadway (starring Kristin Scott Thomas) and it’s an indisputable masterpiece of modern drama, but it saddens me that someone would belittle a person for not having read it. To do so suggests that theater is a special club, and that if you don’t have certain knowledge, you can’t come in.

And that? Is a sucky way to behave. If people feel forbidden to learn about an art form, then all of us lose.

I’m making a complementary point to the one I made last week, about not mocking those who know more than you do. It’s just as unnecessary to make yourself feel bigger by belittling people who don’t know what you know.

I mean, I understand the impulse. If you get teased in school, or nobody at the bar asks you out, or your stupid boss yells at you… then you want to do something to make yourself feel better. And often, that means inflating the importance of your own expertise.

Case in point: I used to get hankty about the Oscars. Like, if someone in my seventh grade class didn’t know that Kathy Bates won Best Actress for Misery, then I would judge them. It made me feel better about that kid who poured grape soda on me in gym class.

But eventually, I got over that. And then when I was twenty three, I got a taste of someone else’s judgment.

Whew. Let me get ready. This story still makes me mad.

[Read more →]

The Movie: Revolutionary Road (opening December 26)

The Buzz: Kate and Leo reunite, sans boat.

The Trailer:

The Review:

Honestly? If this movie weren’t generating some crazy Oscar buzz–and if I didn’t have faith in Kate Winslet’s choices–then I don’t know that I would see it.

The trailer makes it look like Revolutionary Road is telling the same hell-in-suburbia story that every movie has ever told, ever. Only this time, everyone is precociously articulate about why they hate their white picket lives. When a character says, “Look at us! We’re just like everyone else! We bought into the same ridiculous delusion,” while boozy-sad piano music plays in the background, then I look for the smug graduate student who’s responsible.

Haven’t we exhausted the horrors of suburban life? Haven’t we realized this particular vision of the American dream doesn’t always work out?

My hope is that the trailer oversimplifies. Else my Christmas vacation is going to have a looong afternoon.

(BTW, this movie gets bonus points because it co-stars Kristen Connolly, who went to grad school with me.)

The Rating: Two Highball Glasses, Hidden Behind the Cookbooks Before Hubby Comes Home

A few days ago, I had a piece in the New York Daily News about Michael Kenneth Williams, who rose to fame playing Omar on The Wire and now is getting cast in all kinds of movies.

Read here and enjoy!

If you count back to last Friday, this has been an incredibly long week. So much stuff has happened, you guys. I’m freaking drained. It’s mostly because… um… I’m unsure what I want out of my professional life right now

But let’s not dwell. These are the times when I need a good pop song. Today I reached for “As Cool As I Am,” a nugget of gold recorded by folk-rocker Dar Williams in 1996.

Here’s the super-cute video. Dar’s happy jumping dance gives me joy.

And look… I’m not a woman. But I still love the idea of this song… that Dar isn’t going to blame women for her feelings about men. The decision to let go of negative feelings is always empowering, because it’s easy to get used to them, you know? Once you start thinking badly about something, or someone, or yourself, you can convince yourself that you must think that way. You can believe that your negative thoughts are natural.

But really, almost all our thoughts are habitual. And when we remember that, we have the power to make new habits. Unless we suffer from chronic depression or something, we can replace a negative pattern with a positive one. We can stop being afraid of women, if you will.

And that realization deserves a jumping dance and some sassy didgeridoo.

I’ll stop with the Deepak Chopra, but that’s what the song says to me.

Also, it’s just tons of fun. Dar Williams’ recent albums are more reflective than celebratory–like her beautiful new record Promised Land–but those early releases, with songs like “Allelulia” and “The Christians and the Pagans” and “Better Things,” can cure the blues in a Yankee minute.

This morning, Wendy Rosenfield astutely wondered why LL Cool J was on Project Runway last night. Sure, it might have seemed like he was there to promote his new album (which isn’t selling very well) and his supposed fashion line (which… okay), but his presence on the show served a higher purpose. LL Cool J was  there to keep Kenley quiet.

You see, Kenley’s hip-hop outfit was so laughable that when it came down the runway, even Hank Williams rose from his grave and said, “That ain’t right.” 

But if the guest judge for the challenge had been, say, Mary-Kate Olsen, and Mary-Kate had said, “That doesn’t seem very hip-hop,” then Kenley would have just complained. She would have said her outfit was hip-hop and Mary-Kate just didn’t know.

But when LL Cool J says your outfit isn’t hip-hop? Then girl, you messed it up.  

So thanks, LL. You made Kenley shut her damn mouth and take some criticism. For that, we are grateful. 

Thanks to critic and reporter Wendy Rosenfield for her generous compliments to The Critical Condition on her blog, Drama Queen. 

Not to be a trumpet-blower, but here’s a bit of what she said…

Though Blankenship–kicking back and mixing up his arts coverage with “Clay is gay” stories–may not save the world, he just might help save informed, professional criticism from extinction by expanding its reach outside the realm of a handful of subscribers and niche enthusiasts. And by “save it,” I mean, “make a video for his Silence of the Lambs rap.” Hey, whatever works.

And seriously… this is exactly what I’m trying to do. So to have a writer and thinker as nimble as Rosenfield acknowledge it is incredibly gratifying. (Her blog is great, by the way. You should read it!) 

And the video for “Silence” has already been shot, y’all! It’s in the editing process right now. Holla!

Taking a cue from the ladies on The View, I guess, David Letterman used last night’s show to ask John McCain some really tough questions.

Or rather, he asked some really tough questions about John McCain, since the senator cancelled a scheduled appearance, saying he needed to go back to Washington to handle the economy. (The photo up there is from an earlier broadcast.) 

A clip of Letterman’s comments (and some thoughts on them) after the jump…

[Read more →]

Wow. Some people hated Monday night’s season premiere of Heroes.

Adam Buckman of the New York Post especially hated it. I noticed his review because Metacritic translated it as being a 0 out of 100. I just had to know where he brewed all his Haterade.

I’ll sip what he’s giving after the jump, but beware… there are spoilers ahead.

[Read more →]

Clay Aiken gay. Clay Aiken comes out of the closet. Clay Aiken out.

Lindsay Lohan gay. Lindsay Lohan comes out of the closet. Lindsay Lohan out.

No, those aren’t tone poems. They’re the words that millions of people are Googling right now. Clay Aiken has finally acknowledged he’s gay, via the cover of People, and Lindsay Lohan has done the same on a national radio show.

Good for them. When you’re honest about who you are–whatever it is you’ve been hiding–you get control over your life.

In one sense, these announcements will have a predictable outcome. Entertainment Weekly will run a story in next week’s News & Notes section, analyzing what this will or won’t mean for Lohan and Aiken’s careers The Advocate will run a cover story, and lots of people will make smartass jokes about how everyone knew Clay was gay from the start.

But wouldn’t it be nice if something unexpected came of this, too? Aiken and Lohan are both popular right now, if not exactly A-list stars, so what if by coming out, they really change some people’s minds? What if they become part of a massive snowball affect, with more people (famous or not) finally deciding to be themselves?

To me, that’s why these stories are interesting, especially now that we’re hearing more and more of them every year. The obliteration of a high-profile closet gets us a little bit closer to making closets unnecessary.

Hell, the obliteration of any closet gets us closer to that dream. So maybe somebody, somewhere will hear about this and come out to someone. And then maybe eventually, it won’t even be news that somebody’s gay, because it won’t seem like a big deal.