LATEST BLOG POSTS

• January 17, 4:32 PM EDT

  The Top 10 Moments at the Golden Globes By Peter Travers

  

  The only thing I can figure about last night's Golden Globes TV show is that those Hollywood Foreign Press jerks called a last-minute meeting and, like a whore picked up by the cops with a john's pants already unzipped, tried to get respectable fast. It wasn't just the media, including me, ragging on them mercilessly last week: It was their former publicist Michael Russell suing them for $2 million because he had objected over the years to "unethical and potentially unlawful" d... | MORE »

• January 17, 11:58 AM EDT

  Mailbag: Mainstream Punditry, the Financial Crisis and the Tea Party By Matt Taibbi

  Readers, there almost wasn't a mailbag today -- had there been a loaded weapon in my home during yesterday's football games, you'd be reading a classic "Comma Self" headline this morning, as in, "Rolling Stone Writer Kills Nine, Shoots Cat, Self." However, I chose sedatives over weaponry yesterday, and so here goes. A general announcement: I'm going to start deducting points from readers who send in questions like, "When are you going to start writing about solutions inst... | MORE »

• January 17, 4:08 AM EDT

  Golden Globes 2011: Bitchiest Awards Show Ever? By Rob Sheffield

  

  Well squirmed, Ricky Gervais! As always, the Golden Globes bash was the award show nobody takes seriously — it’s just a bunch of movie stars packed into the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where they get plied with drinks, though not as many as whoever did Scarlett Johansson’s hair. But Gervais spent the show proving he takes it less seriously than anyone. He was a prize bitch all night, insulting the whole crowd, but he was bloody brilliant, and he kept everyone awake for a few hours... | MORE »

• January 14, 11:00 AM EDT

  Golden Globes Preview: Predicting the Winners of Hollywood's Boozy Night By Peter Travers

  

  Sunday night on NBC, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will dole out its Golden Dildos (OK, Golden Globe awards) to A-list stars who show up to celebrate themselves and, not coincidentally, boost the TV ratings for a show put on by a shoddy association of foreign journalists, many with dodgy credentials. Sure it’s a sham, but nobody cares. The Globes put on the kind of tacky awards fest we all want to watch. Unlike the Oscars, where the audience squeezes into uncomfortable theater... | MORE »

• January 14, 10:10 AM EDT

  All Ears: The Latest in Listening By Scott Steinberg

  

  Sleek by 50 Cent ($TBA, www.sleek-audio.com) – First came custom cans from Dr. Dre, Quincy Jones and Ludacris. Now hip-hop heavyweight 50 Cent gets in the branded headphones game with these cord-free units sporting a 60-foot wireless range, two 50mm dynamic drivers, internal amplifier and micro-USB rechargeable battery. Built from military-grade carbon fiber, their design was reportedly overseen by the mush-mouthed MC himself. CXC 700 ($319.95, www.sennheiser.com) – An ear-canal ... | MORE »

• January 13, 6:28 PM EDT

  Weird But True: Grateful Dead Video Game Coming By Scott Steinberg

  

  Following in the footsteps of the Beatles, Aerosmith and Metallica, the Grateful Dead is the next iconic band getting its own video game, featuring the act’s music and signature imagery and lore. An online game with supporting mobile phone companion, the title is being created in partnership with Curious Sense, the developer behind REO Speedwagon’s (yes, REO Speedwagon’s) casual hidden-object game Find Your Own Way Home. Featuring all band members’ names and likenesse... | MORE »

• January 13, 9:30 AM EDT

  Obama Makes Most Powerful Speech of His Presidency By Tim Dickinson

  

  Invoking the sunny idealism of a slain nine-year-old girl and the unlikely image of rain puddles in heaven? It wasn't textbook political rhetoric, but President Obama's memorial address for the victims of gunman Jared Lee Loughner was the most powerful speech of his presidency. My own political instinct in anticipation of Obama's address was to write about how the 2012 campaign was beginning in earnest: To contrast Sarah Palin's flag-draped, hearth-side chat (a... | MORE »

• January 12, 5:46 PM EDT

  Hottest. Year. Ever. By Tim Dickinson

  2010 was just named the hottest* —and the wettest — year on record by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. That's the data point. Here's the trendline: 2010 was also the 34th consecutive year in which global temperatures surpassed the 20th century average. Looking at NOAA's map of anomalous temperatures from last year should make you shudder: Those big red dots over Greenland are temperatures of 4 and 5 degrees Centigrade above average, melting t... | MORE »

• January 12, 4:07 PM EDT

  Welcome to the World of Tomorrow: The Top Gadgets of 2011 By Scott Steinberg

  

  Here’s an advance look at some of the hottest gear headed your way in 2011. 3D Laptops – Following in the footsteps of 3D TVs, video cameras and Blu-ray discs come several portable computing solutions that promise to let you watch Avatar in its full three-dimensional glory. Sony’s Vaio 3D laptops will display 3D video, gaming and multimedia at maxed-out 1080p resolution, while Toshiba has prototype Qosmio units up and running that offer glasses-free viewing solutions. iPad... | MORE »

• January 12, 12:51 PM EDT

  Captain Beefheart Memories: A Birthday Celebration By David Fricke

  

  On January 15th, the singer, composer and painter Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, would have turned 70.  As I prepared the tribute to him in the current issue, following his death last month, I spoke to guitarist Gary Lucas, who played on 1980's Doc at the Radar Station and 1982's Ice Cream for Crow and managed Beefheart at the time; guitarist Denny Walley, who played on the unissued 1976 LP, Bat Chain Puller; and photographer-filmmaker Anton Corbijn, who took... | MORE »