The James Logan Courier

By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel (MCT)

Harlowe to Monroe, Mansfield to Hawn to ... Anna Faris?

Every generation needs its dumb movie blondes. Might the star of those progressively worse "Scary Movies" and "The House Bunny" be ours?

"The House Bunny" is a real tour de Faris. She plays Shelley, who has just aged out of her right to residency at the Playboy Mansion. She's 27 ("59 in Bunny years!"). And she will never realize her lifelong dream — to be a centerfold.

"It says, 'I'm naked, in the middle of a magazine. Un-FOLD me!'"


So poor Shelley is homeless, or she is until she recognizes her tribe, wandering into another mansion. But she can't become a shallow, dizzy sorority girl without enrolling. She can, however, become house mother to the Zekes, the lowliest sorority on campus, where misfits, social lepers, nerds and losers reside.

By Colin Covert
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT)

"The Death Race" is not smart or graceful or inventive, but it delivers what it promises, a kinetic outpouring of energy, blood and destruction. Photographed almost exclusively in hues of battleship gray and fireball orange, the film is set in near-future postapocalyptic America. This time the catastrophe was economic, and the corporations that operate all the nation's penitentiaries have developed a lucrative sideline in gladiatorial auto races. Driving muscle cars pimped out with hood-mounted machine guns and napalm nozzles in place of turn signals, prisoners blast each other on pay-per-view, competing for the chance to win their release papers.

By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel (MCT)

"Traitor" is a solid, gripping, only occasionally preachy thriller built around the War on Terror. Ripped-from-the-headlines realism, top-drawer performances by Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce, a dandy "ticking clock" story structure and a vast catalog of terrorist modus operandi make this as harrowing as it is timely.

Samir (Cheadle) was born in Sudan but grew up in America. He served his new country in the military, but when we meet him, he's selling plastic explosives to Islamic terrorists in Yemen. He's a devout Muslim. He's tough. The Arab terror cell al-Nathir wants him.

And after he's been slapped around by FBI agents in a Yemeni prison, he's open to the offer of cell leader Omar (Said Taghmaoui).

By Joanne Weintraub
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (MCT)

One is sun-sparkled Aegean blue, the other dark as ink. One teems with women scattering flowers, the other with men tossing grenades.

Both are highly entertaining, though each has moments of sheer over-the-top goofiness when viewers' eyebrows may arch toward their hairlines.

So why is "Mamma Mia!" considered a guilty pleasure, while "The Dark Knight" is widely respected as a grown-up drama?

By Ben Wener
Orange County Register (MCT)

Even if it had been a merely half-hearted performance —which it wasn't, not even close, though who'd have blamed 'em if it were? — Tuesday's inspired show at Staples Center would still linger long in Dave Matthews Band lore.

For this, sadly, was the night the group played a nearly three-hour elegy for its fallen brother, LeRoi Moore.

By Greg Kot
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

Your daughter would rather be grounded for a month than miss a Jonas Brothers concert.

Still pulling your hair out because you paid 10 times what any sane person would consider reasonable so that your kid could attend one of Miley Cyrus' sold-out "Hannah Montana" concerts last year?

Parents may not fully understand, but to a nation of adolescents, Cyrus and the Jonas boys aren't just pop acts. They're 24/7 obsessions. To a legion of businessmen presiding over a slumping industry, they are trend-defying sales juggernauts. And to culture-watchers, they are the latest in a series of teen-pop acts dating back to Ricky Nelson who serve as a generation's musical rite of passage.

By Kim Andrew Elliott, International Broadcasting Bureau Research Analyst

If you go to my website about international broadcasting (kimandrewelliott.com) and search on “jazz,” you’ll see several entries about musicians who were inspired by Willis Conover’s jazz broadcasts on the Voice of America. They listened in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, as expected, but also in India, Cuba, Sweden – all over the world, actually.

My own first memories of Willis Conover were as a teenaged shortwave listener in Indiana. When I began working at VOA in 1985, I considered it a perk to encounter the famous international broadcaster in the corridors. Willis always had a smile and a hello for me. I don’t think he ever knew my name.

By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel
(MCT)

"Dead Poets Society," "Dangerous Minds," "Mr. Holland's Opus," all "great" movies about "great" teachers inspiring their students to achieve great things — all movies referenced lovingly by Steve Coogan's "inspiring" teacher in "Hamlet 2." All are slandered mercilessly in this demented profanity of a comedy from South Park writer Pam Brady.

"Hamlet 2" doesn't fall "trippingly" off the tongue. A leaden third act almost kills it. But "the play's the thing" in this spoof of "inspiring" teacher films, this satire of Red State attitudes toward the arts.

The brilliant Brit-comic Coogan pulls out all the stops and drops all the trousers as Dana Marschz, a frustrated never-was whom we meet in a montage of TV herpes commercials and Xena bit parts in the film's introduction. Dana has moved to Tucson, "where dreams go to die," intones the master thespian narrator (Jeremy Irons).

By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel (MCT)

"The Longshots" is a certifiable crowd pleaser, an agreeable variation on the kid sports movie formula whose family-friendly messages outweigh its corny over familiarity.

It's set in the world of Pop Warner (pre-high school) football and the first girl to play in the Pop Warner version of the Super Bowl. Of course it's fictionalized. Of course, it hits the usual sports formula — adversities to overcome, tragedy to forget, accepting "the new kid," and life lessons learned.

But this kid-friendly dramedy from the musician-turned-filmmaker Fred Durst (of Limp Bizkit) hits its marks and tugs its strings. It works. Especially if you've never seen a formula sports dramedy before, something most of its audience will be able to say.

By Colin Covert
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT)

Forty-something wannabe rock star worms his way into his teenage nephew's band. How many times do you think Will Ferrell and Jack Black have turned down that pitch? I'm guessing approximately eleventy billion.

Rainn Wilson (of TV's "The Office") can't afford to be so choosy. Playing a paunchy workaday drone chasing one last shot at rock 'n' roll glory is the kind of dues you gotta pay when you're working your way up from cameo player to feature film star.

Not that "The Rocker" is a major feature. Lightweight as cotton candy and nearly as beneficial for your brain, it is a banal concoction of hair-band gags and unconvincing romantic comedy. Wilson plays Fish Fishman, a has-been drummer from Vesuvius, an '80s rock band that dumped him the very day it hit the big time. (Metallica's lawyers, take note.)

By Gail Pennington
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MCT)

Sabrina Bryan was heading for the stage to answer questions about the latest "Cheetah Girls" movie when she was momentarily distracted by a flat-screen TV showing the latest "Cheetah Girls" movie.

Bryan froze in her tracks, apparently mesmerized by the sight of herself and co-stars Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams singing and dancing in lush Bollywood costumes in "The Cheetah Girls One World," set in India and filmed amid the historic palaces and colorful bazaars of Udiapur.

Apple Computer Inc. (MCT)

Top 10 albums on iTunes Music Store for Aug. 20:
1. "Schwayze," Schwayze
2. "The Illusion of Progress (Deluxe Version)," Staind
3. "A Little Bit Longer," Jonas Brothers
4. "Raw Footage," Ice Cube
5. "Viva la Vida," Coldplay
6. "Mamma Mia! (The Movie Soundtrack)," Various Artists
7. "Fast Times at Barrington High (Bonus Track Version)," The Academy Is...
8. "Tha Carter III," Lil Wayne
9. "Kala (Bonus Track Version)," M.I.A.
10. "First Love (Bonus Track Version)," Karina

For more information, please visit the iTunes Web site at www.apple.com/itunes/.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By Kim Ossi
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

Here's a solution for the harried who still like to get a good book in from time-to-time: Daily Lit (dailylit.com). The site breaks a book up into installments sent via e-mail or RSS feed, making a lengthy book easier to fit into your schedule.

The site is easy to use: Just sign up and choose a book. Many are free — most of these are in public domain but some newer titles are freebies, too. Others cost a few bucks, but even most of these offer a couple sample installments before you have to pay. Once you pick a book, you can customize your delivery.

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)


"Smart People" is, put succinctly, a coming-of-age film about a handful of people who, one exception (Ellen Page as Vanessa Wetherhold) aside, probably should have come of age quite a while ago. The plot isn't so much a plot as it is a chunk of days in lives (Dennis Quaid as college professor Lawrence Wetherhold, Thomas Haden Church as his brother, Sarah Jessica Parker as one of his many, mostly unsatisfied former students) already in progress. Translation: It isn't a story for everyone, and perhaps not worthy to some as being called a story at all. Similar words could be said about "People's" sense of humor, which takes the word "dry" to new frontiers. That, of course, is only when the film actually has a sense of humor, which isn't always and becomes increasingly occasional as the characters push ahead. So here's the bad news: If you came here looking for another "Sideways" from the people who brought you "Sideways," you might be disappointed by what you get instead. The good news is that when "People" wants to be funny, it often genuinely is, and when it tries to be sincere, it succeeds similarly and never at cost to a script that is, unlike the characters acting it out, very smart indeed. Ashton Holmes, Christine Lahti and Camille Mana also star.
Extras: Writer/director commentary, deleted scenes, interviews, bloopers.

By Rex W. Huppke
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

CHICAGO — The way some people are griping about the jokes in that hilarious new Ben Stiller movie "Tropic Thunder" is totally retarded.

What? That sentence offended you? C'mon, it's a joke. It's satire, thus the flippant use of the word "retarded" is perfectly fine.

At least that's the logic Hollywood executives are relying on to explain the "retard" gags scattered throughout Stiller's new flick — it's a satire about Hollywood actors and the absurd lengths they'll go to for fame and awards.

PopMatters.com (MCT)

The Bug: "London Zoo" (Ninja Tune) (rating: 9)
A long time partner of Godflesh and Jesu's Justin Broadrick (in God, Ice, the Sidewinder, Curse of the Golden Vampire and Techno Animal), Kevin Martin cradled obsessive talents for years under collaborative projects, all secretly his babies, but found in his Bug project a rare calling within dancehall and the raw blueprint for what would one day be called dubstep. The Bug is terminal. It lays off the dub-poetry-laden side of Pressure on London Zoo, but it heightens the zero hour terror of what exactly it means to be (barely) alive in Summer of 2008, the shuffling and volatile heartbeat of history ready to rain down distress from every corner. Martin shines floodlights in those corners, revealing a barefaced volatility as palpable as that found on Dre's "The Chronic" (recorded mere weeks after the LA riots). His Jamaican-by-way-of-England guest MCs splatter "London Zoo's" canvas with blood, vitriol, and plangent dystopianist alarmism. Martin himself scores the mayhem with machine gun jolts, ominous tolling bells, murky sub-bass, and reverberating dystopianist alarm clocks, from the 8-bit bleeper to the seizure-stuttering variety. The Bug is viral. Even though the MCs inked their own diatribes independent of one another for separate sessions, occasionally even in direct discord with one another thematically, the individual tracks still piece together like snap-puzzle components, as if they were each tapping into the same conversation, the same synaptic nerve of the collective unconscious. The Bug is infectious. It's a vision of a world gripped by prepossessed fear and hatred, as if by a "rage" outbreak. It's also packed with full-on soundboy contagions of propulsive beats and lyrical hooks, enjoyable as much as a ghettoblaster that scares the neighborhood children, a paranoid headphone chin-scratcher guaranteed to bring about a case of stoned inertia creeps. _ Timothy Gabriele

Apple Computer Inc. (MCT)

Top 10 songs on iTunes Music Store for Aug. 13:
1. "Crush," David Archuleta
2. "Change," Taylor Swift
3. "Disturbia," Rihanna
4. "Paper Planes," M.I.A.
5. "Dreamer," Chris Brown
6. "Get Back," Demi Lovato
7. "American Boy," Estelle (featuring Kanye West)
8. "Burnin' Up," Jonas Brothers
9. "My Life," The Game & Lil Wayne
10. "Viva la Vida," Coldplay

For more information, please visit the iTunes Web site at www.apple.com/itunes/.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By Heidi Stevens
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

Without even realizing it, you've probably done one or more of the following: Engaged in fabric-ation while jeans shopping.

Entered the buyosphere at your local Whole Foods.

Fallen for an outlet maul purchase.

Gone yellular.

Bemoaned all the tourons clogging Michigan Avenue this time of year.

The English language morphs at the speed of light, as anyone caught still using the word "gellin' " will attest. And words don't have to appear in the Oxford English Dictionary to pop up in daily communication. So if you find yourself longing for a handbook, grab a copy of the new "Daily Candy Lexicon: Words That Don't Exist but Should" (Virgin Books, $14.95).

By Rob Watson
The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT)

When Sony introduced the PlayStation 3 back in November 2006 (yes, it has been that long already) many, including myself, were skeptical of the Japanese electronic giant's business decision.

The highest price ($599) for any console since the early '90s Neo Geo, an underwhelming list of initial games, and unproven hi-def movie capabilities was a long way from the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Those systems were almost always in the middle of price wars and the catalog of games had dominated the industry since the late '90s.

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT)

It's been both interesting and disappointing to follow the emergence of Brash Entertainment, which promised to elevate the image of movie-based games but thus far has simply advanced perceptions that movie-licensed titles are the black sheep of the gaming family.

For whatever it's worth, "Space Chimps" is the publisher's best work to date, showing flashes of ingenuity that occasionally put it in the same ballpark (though never the same aisle) as the Mario- and Crash Bandicoot-fronted games it tries to emulate. "Chimps" isn't afraid to switch gears between puzzle solving, combat, platforming and a few faster-paced challenges that send you grinding down rails or careening down a river, and the best of these challenges are legitimately fun and executed well.

By Jackie Burrell
Contra Costa Times (MCT)

The cineplex has been filled with superheroes all summer — and last week's Comic-Con convention fairly brimmed with Caped Crusader wannabes. But how do Hancock and other newfangled heroes compare with the heroes of yesteryear? And what makes a superhero truly super? So, we asked readers to weigh in on the greatest superheroes of all time.

For the last week we've reveled in your descriptions of derring-do, awesome superpowers and really great gadgets. We discovered unusual titans — Captain Canuck, anyone? — and waxed nostalgic over Mighty Mouse and Super Chicken. And now we've winnowed down the list to the top eight:

By Rafer Guzman
Newsday (MCT)

If you've shopped at corporate retail lately, you may have noticed that little of the clothing actually looks new. Faded T-shirts, frayed trousers, "destroyed" jeans — everything appears weathered and well-worn. That's appealing to those younger than, say, 20: They haven't lived long enough to make anything look lived-in.

So it is with the ripped and patched blue jeans at the center of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2." And the movie itself has an aspirational quality: Its vision of college life will look much more grown-up to those who haven't yet enrolled.

As with the first "Traveling Pants," in 2005, this sequel follows four young high-school friends based on characters in Ann Brashares' best-selling novels. Now everyone's a little older: Sensitive Lena (Alexis Bledel) studies art; down-to-earth Carmen (America Ferrera) works backstage at a Vermont theater; alt-rocker Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) attends NYU's film school; tomboyish Bridget (Blake Lively) joins an archaeological dig in Turkey.

By Rafer Guzmán
Newsday (MCT)

Veering wildly between red-eyed stoner humor and blood-red violence, "Pineapple Express" is an uneven but entertaining action-comedy that answers a question you've probably never asked: What if someone gave Cheech and Chong a shot of testosterone and a couple of Uzis?

They might look something like Seth Rogen ("Knocked Up") and James Franco ("Spider-Man"), who make an unlikely but appealing comic team. Rogen stars as Dale Denton, a cuddly knucklehead who livens up his job as a process server by adopting various disguises. Franco, hiding his good looks under a Tiny Tim wig of long, scraggly hair, plays Dale's pot dealer, Saul Silver, an amiable wastrel with a sweet, almost beatific soul.

"Pineapple Express," named after one of Saul's more potent strains, initially features little more than slack-jawed dope jokes: One montage of Rogen sucking down smoke in different ways nearly provides a contact high. But just when your eyes start narrowing, "Pineapple Express" snaps awake. After witnessing a drug dealer (Gary Cole) and a corrupt cop (Rosie Perez) execute a man, Dale hastily flees, leaving behind a smoldering roach that points straight to him and Saul.

By Carrie Rickey
The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT)

Funniest pot joke in a movie?

The moment in "Up in Smoke (1978) when the blissed-out Cheech, having sampled a doobie the size of Baja California, asks, "How'm I driving?" and the blitzed-out Chong answers, "Um, I think we're parked"?

Or when The Dude (Jeff Bridges), the bowler/stoner of "The Big Lebowski (1998), hallucinates tumescent pins and balls that resemble private parts dancing?

By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel (MCT)

The whirl of hormones, high hopes and hysterical drama that is high school earns its close-up in "American Teen," a smart and revealing look at the Class of 2006 in Warsaw, Ind.

It's all here — well, most of it. The high school cliques (jocks, nerds, "in betweens"), the "mean girls," the social and parental pressures. Kids look for purpose, fumble for love, grapple with their future, break the rules (and a few laws) and text like mad in Nanette Burstein's documentary, 95 minutes of "real" culled from 1,200 hours of footage.

There's Colin, the Leno-jawed basketball jock whose Elvis-impersonating dad keeps pressuring him to shoot more because it's either a college scholarship "or the Army."

The wealthy and pretty Megan is the classic "mean girl." But even pretty, popular rich girls have pressures — getting into Daddy's alma mater, for instance.

Apple Computer Inc. (MCT)

Top 10 albums on iTunes Music Store for Aug. 6:
1. "Mamma Mia! (The Movie Soundtrack)," Various Artists
2. "Conor Oberst," Conor Oberst
3. "Viva la Vida," Coldplay
4. "The Ghost Overground – EP," Jack's Mannequin
5. "Only Through the Pain," Trapt
6. "Songs for Tibet – The Art of Peace," Various Artists
7. "Breakout," Miley Cyrus
8. "Kala (Bonus Track Version)," M.I.A.
9. "Fasciinatiion," The Faint
10. "Tha Carter III," Lil Wayne

For more information, please visit the iTunes Web site at www.apple.com/itunes/.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By Lilah Lohr
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

Well, "Breaking Dawn," the finale of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series, is pretty darned good, but I wish she hadn't felt compelled to pack so much into one volume.

It should have been two books. There was more than enough material, what with resolving 18-year-old Bella Swan's romantic dilemma (boyfriend Edward Cullen is a vampire, best friend Jacob Black is a werewolf, and she loves them both); resolving the conflict between the resident vampires and werewolves in rainy Forks, Wash.; and bringing in the Italian vampire heavies, the Volturi, for a huge showdown. There's also the matter of choices (humanity versus immortality, for example) and their consequences, a major theme of the four-novel series that includes "Twilight," "New Moon" and "Eclipse."

By Sally Dadisman
McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT)

The SAT. The bane of every high school junior or senior's existence.

If you're dreading the test, don't fear; you're not alone. But Eliot Shrefer, a Harvard alum and private SAT tutor, is offering his top-secret tips for conquering the exam in his book "Hack the SAT" ($15, Gotham Books). There are hundreds of SAT books out there offering to help you crack the code, so to speak, but Shrefer presents his information with doses of humor.

By Colin Covert
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT)

The rites of teen passage have inspired feature films as diverse as "American Beauty" and "American Pie." Nanette Burstein's documentary "American Teen" demonstrates that a nonfiction account of adolescence is as engrossing as any scripted drama.

"High school was a really tough time for me," said Burstein, Academy Award-nominated for her documentary about movie-studio politics, "The Kid Stays in the Picture." Her new film tracks five middle-American kids from Warsaw, Ind., through their senior year. "But it was a really formative time for me, too. I changed dramatically and developed independent spirit by the end, despite all the pressure not to. I've watched a lot of movies about young people and been entertained by some and largely dissatisfied by others. So I thought there's a need to tell these great stories that I saw, but do them with real kids and show them as complicated as they really are and break down those stereotypes."

By Robert W. Butler
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

Oh, Hannibal, you big, lovable teddy bear, you. Come give us a hug!

Yes, we Americans do love our movie villains. And the nastier the better.

You wouldn't think that in a time of terrorism and uncertainty we'd cozy up to characters that represent the worst in human nature. But just look at all the bad guys who in recent years have gone home with an Oscar:

Forest Whitaker as dictator/cannibal Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland." Sean Penn as a Boston mobster in "Mystic River." Denzel Washington as a corrupt cop in "Training Day."