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For those who crave a weekly dissection of all things pop culture, NPR’s podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour will slake all of your cravings. A lovechild of NPR’s pop culture blog, Monkey See, PCHH is a 45-minute analysis of events in entertainment like the Oscars; discussions of trends in film, TV and print media, such as the portrayal of nerds and whether or not romantic comedies are dead; and my…
The mob world is the real world in Scorsese’s Goodfellas. The “made” guy - the Mafioso, the wiseguy, the goodfella. He’s a man of power, a man of means. He gets the women, dresses in the finest clothes, parties without worry, and has enough money to do all of this and then some. He’s everything that Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), an Irish-Italian Brooklyn boy, desires to be. But once he enters that world,…
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced his departure from his position last month, which has stirred up quite a buzz in Washington. The position has been highly anticipated by groups such as The Women’s Media Center and the National Hispanic Media Coalition who have pressed for a woman to rise to power. Thirty-seven democratic senators wrote letters to President Obama asking to nominate current…
The camera zooms in on your alarm clock as it strikes seven a.m. Gunshots sound off in the background and shouts can be heard through the window while you get ready for school. The camera scans your kitchen while you eat breakfast in silence as police sirens echo off the walls. You head out the door, dreading the news to follow at school. The camera follows you through the hallway as rumors spread…
The master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock delivers in his 1951 thriller Strangers on a Train. It seems like the perfect murder scheme. Two strangers, both wishing for someone in their lives to be dead, meet each other in a chance encounter and plot to switch their murders. As in, you commit my murder, I’ll commit yours. Airtight alibis. No connections whatsoever between the murderer and the victim,…
Avid readers will equate the name Cormac McCarthy with the chilling, iconic masterpiece “The Road”; however, another of McCarthy’s novels almost eclipses “The Road” in its portrayal of the darkness that lurks on the fringes of both humanity and society. “Child of God,” published in 1973, chronicles the descent of a young outcast into the deepest moral pitfalls one can imagine. Lester Ballard, a disturbed…
Additive manufacturing, more popularly known as 3-D printing, is changing the way we look at product creation. Now, a fashion designer can whip up a dress on the computer and have it printed to the exact measurements of his/her model. Chairs, lamps, and art pieces can be customized to the buyer’s desires. There will be one day too (and it will be soon) when a patient will have spinal implants that…
The average person watches over 14,000 movies in one lifetime, amounting to 240 movies a year and 20 movies a month. This adds up to about 3 years and 2 days worth of movie viewing jam packed with adrenaline racing action, horrifying gore, and tear jerking emotion. As life pushes forward, many movies face the test of time, eventually fading into the background as mere memories, with the exception…
Speaking of reboots, set to hit theaters this coming summer, Despicable Me 2 is expected to premiere July 3 in the United States. Bringing back Gru (voiced by Steve Carrell), the three orphan girls (voiced by Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, and Elsie Fisher), and of course, the hilarious yellow minions, this movie will certainly hold its share of laughter. The original film, released in 2010, became…
With society becoming all the more open to new, easy-to-use technology that puts the power of creativity instantly in our hands, Twitter has acquired and introduced the new company, Vine, to the world of social media. Vine is an iphone and ipad friendly downloadable and free application that makes video creation and sharing as simple and thoughtless as ever, introducing the notion of filmmaking without…