Sadly, there’s a part of me that still pays attention to news about CBS’ Big Brother, a reality show that’s slowly been evolving into the new Paradise Hotel (or was it Forever Eden where the rules changed regularly, depending on what the producers would generate drama). That’s not to say I’ve gotten increasingly cynical and more and more likely to drop the show quickly. Still, I do feel the need to peek when a new cast is announced: I’m a bit interested in the gay rodeo cowboy (though Julie Chen’s comment make it clear he’ll be expected to live up to ...

Rich Juzwiak compiles your guide to the cliched phrase that signals an annoying reality TV contestant: ...

The death of someone like Jesse Helms isn’t the kind of thing that usually sends me to blog but hearing about how people are trying to dismiss his reputation for bigoty certainly does. I remember back when, on one of the message boards I used to visit, someone posted some article trying to claim that the association between the Republican Party and racism is based on a misunderstanding of voter trends in the south or something like that. It didn’t make sense, really, and I replied that “Funny, my basis for associating racism with the Republican party is Jesse ...

I may not be as big a fan of Anna Faris as AfterEllen’s Reese DoWitt, but I do always enjoy her performances. Still, her upcoming film The House Bunny — where she plays a former Playboy playmate who becomes a den mother to a sorority of nerdettes and turn them into barbie dolls just has me wincing: The house Bunny trailerby caro8049 The trailer’s one saving grace? The Seven Year Itch parody and the idea of Faris getting a make-under to woo a smart guy… why couldn’t that be the whole movie and ditch the cliched makeover story. ...

::snicker:: Considering the number of conservatives who told me the only reason they ever watch The O’Reilly Factor is for the unintentional comedy I’m not entirely surprised to hear someone like Rush Limbaugh publicly insult Bill O’Reilly. However, I did find it funny that he compared O’Reilly to Ted Baxter, the buffoonish newsman from The Mary Tyler Moore Show — after all, Keith Olbermann has been making that comparison for years. BTW, you can always spot a new Countdown viewer when they say that Olbermann’s impression of O’Reilly isn’t very good. ...

I guess I’m a sucker for any show that wants to be Mythbusters, so when I heard about The Rock & Roll Acid Test on music network Fuse from Nat I quickly set a recording. Overall, Acid Test does a much better job of matching the format of Mythbusters than the Discovery Channel’s disastrously-bad Mythbusters clone, Smash Labs. When they do research into their “myths” they either go to sources who make sense and who communicate some good information or they start a fact gathering project that shows the cast breaking down what they need to learn, much ...

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if Bill O’Reilly is the buffoon he seems to be or if he’s a some comedian pulling the longest running Ali G prank on the world. One of the running gags with Bill-O is his history with the Peabody Awards. First he tried to debunk the tabloid reputation of his former show, Inside Edition, by claiming it won two Peabody Awards… which, turned out to be Polk Award when pressed. Of course, he continued to claim those were Peabodys for a little while after the truth came out, because the joke is so much better that ...

When I first saw the trailer for Wanted (as part of my look at the sexy guys of the summer blockbuster films) I thought it looked pretty cool. Then I realized that it was based on that comic Mark Millar kept blathering about, a realization that killed 90% of my interest in the film. I tried to convince myself back to excitement — after all, the effects look so cool and it stars James ::sigh:: McAvoy. Well, Graeme McMillan reminds me that my initial bit of Millar-antipathy was probably the right track, noting reviews that criticize the ...