LATEST BLOG POSTS

• December 28, 9:30 AM EDT

  Still Playing: Daft Punk's 'TRON' Headphones By Scott Steinberg

  

  Just in case the new TRON movie, soundtrack, video games and iPhone app weren’t enough, high-end audio manufacturer Monster (Beats by Dre) and Disney are also offering custom Daft Punk TRON edition headphones. Mirroring the French electro duo’s chrome-plated vibe and sci-fi virtual reality franchise’s futuristic feel, the $349.95 SRP cans feature animated LED lighting, glossy aesthetics and black, white and blue coloring keyed to the film’s decor. Features include nois... | MORE »

• December 27, 5:35 PM EDT

  Video: Travers Praises the Best and Trashes the Worst Movies of 2010 By Peter Travers

    Peter Travers has some very nice things to say about say about his favorite film of the year, The Social Network — namely, that the main cast members all deserve credit for giving some of 2010's best performances — but entertainingly enough, he spends much of this look back trashing the "most vomitous chick flick" (guess which one that was) and threatening to release the Kraken on a host of other movies. | MORE »

• December 27, 1:00 PM EDT

  Fricke's Picks: Top 2010 Reissues from Under the Radar By David Fricke

  There are the big-box monsters and major-artist retrospectives, rightly celebrated in our year-end issue. Then there is the scholarship from under the radar and along the margins, those archaeological digs and passion projects that make a wider deeper history come alive. Here are 10 from '10 that will reward further study, well into the new year. Procol Harum, Exotic Birds and Fruit (Salvo)The British acid-pomp band defied the mounting common wisdom that it was long past its kaftan-glor... | MORE »

• December 27, 11:58 AM EDT

  Mailbag: Corporate Overthrow, Finance Convictions and Salty Writing By Matt Taibbi

  Greetings from snowbound metro NYC. The weather is so bad, my not-at-all-small dog disappeared into a snowbank mid-dump this morning. So from now on I’m going to be publishing a mailbag once a week or so, most likely every Monday. I’m trying to get to as many as possible. I should note that I get many different versions of one particular question, which goes like this: “Your book/articles paint a really depressing picture of America and in fact make me want to immolate myse... | MORE »

• December 27, 9:30 AM EDT

  Big Spender: Cut Your Own Records By Scott Steinberg

  

  With vinyl records growing in popularity and still renowned for their warm sound, it’s only natural that DJs and producers would want the option to cut their own. For almost $14,000, Vestax’s VRX 2000 lets industrious (and well-heeled) artists live immortalize original sounds on wax, cutting 33 1/3 or 45 rpm records onto special blanks on-demand. Recordings, transferable in real-time using a mixer or power amp connected to an external audio source and cut using a sapphire head, ca... | MORE »

• December 23, 3:45 PM EDT

  Fricke's Picks: A Personal Top 10 By David Fricke

  Annual Top 10 lists are not always what they should be. It is very easy to fall back on records that seemed important to the year's cultural arguments, rather than those that regularly delivered solace, challenge and release. This is only a list of what mattered to me in 2010, in regular inspiring rotation. Alejandro Escovedo, Street Songs of Love (Fantasy)Still not the star he should be, this Texas-born singer-songwriter wrote the year's best bruising songs about the complications... | MORE »

• December 23, 11:24 AM EDT

  Peter Travers' Best and Worst of 2010: From the Sublime ('Social Network') to the Ridiculous ('Tourist') By Rolling Stone

  

  The Social Network — or "The Facebook Movie," as everyone seemed to call it — tops Peter Travers' list of the Best Films of the Year. Travers writes that "the movie that told us who we were this year, this decade: willing slaves to technology as a substitute for direct communication." He adds that the film uses Facebook to "hold up a mirror to the way we live now... with wit, imagination, honesty and satire so cutting it can open wounds." On the other hand, Johnny Depp and A... | MORE »

• December 23, 9:05 AM EDT

  Top Toy: The Next-Generation Boombox By Scott Steinberg

  

    Rewinding the clock to the era of boomboxes and mixtapes, former cassette maker TDK’s new Two-Speaker Boombox and Three-Speaker Boombox models invite you to party like it’s 1989. Due out in early 2011 for $399 and $499, respectively, the retro-fabulous units, which pack serious sonic punch, can be connected to digital music players like the iPod or USB drives. Sexier than your average Apple dock, the Three-Speaker unit is backed by a 6-inch, 15-watt middle-mounted subwoof... | MORE »

• December 22, 3:50 PM EDT

  Three New Reasons to Love Your Television By Scott Steinberg

  

  Once the home’s clear entertainment leader, the humble TV has recently bowed before more interactive devices like smartphones, laptops and gaming systems. But these recent enhancements promise to help it regain its crown, and completely redefine how we view today’s top sets.   Online Connectivity Between Internet-accessible platforms like Google TV and Yahoo Connected TV and app-enabled televisions by Samsung and Vizio, countless options from streaming media to social netw... | MORE »

• December 22, 2:40 PM EDT

  The God-Awful 'Little Fockers,' Triumphant 'True Grit,' and the Greatest Roles of Jeff Bridges' Career By Peter Travers

  

  "Do you really wanna see Little Fockers?" Peter Travers asks in this week's At the Movies video. "My fear is that you do." True Grit, he tells us, is what you need to see over the holidays instead. There are a lot of things to like about Grit — including star Jeff Bridges, who, Travers writes in his review, is "killer good at playing the hell out of double-tough Rooster." To honor Bridges and his latest remarkable role, Travers gives us a special treat this week: A ranking of t... | MORE »