If you’ve seen the TV spots promoting A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD you pretty well know what this movie is all about…
Namely 98 minutes of rolling gun battles, explosions, violence and car chases. All punctuated by semi-clever one-liners uttered by Bruce Willis.
Guess you’d call that truth in advertising. Continue reading
Happy Valentine’s Day! The convenience store in my hood is out of chocolates, so it looks like this year I’ll make another trip to the Flying J.
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The hunt for the ex-police officer ended with a cabin fire and a corpse. Or was that my last trip to Lake of the Ozarks? I’ve had too much chocolate ale.
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Lemme tell you what I mostly know about Carol Burnett…
Along with Lucille Ball she was one of my mother’s favorites. Two looney ladies of the 50s, 60s and 70s – Burnett being the one who did the Tarzan yell.
Coupled with the fact that Thursday’s Burnett show at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts could sell out and the Pitch even recommended it, that speaks volumes for the staying power of the 79 year-old comedy legend.
What to expect? Not your standard issue senior citizen standup comedy show.
Burnett’s 90 minute throw down is – mostly anyway – an anything-could-happen Q&A session with the audience. They ask, she answers. It went down in Tucson recently late last month. Continue reading
There’s a school of thought among some Kansas City Star reporters – past and present – that fired former columnist Steve Penn‘s lawsuit against the newspaper didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades…
Penn got the ax a year and a half ago for including passages from press releases in his some of his columns.
But Penn didn’t just quietly get let go as is usually the case, the newspaper fired him, then burned him at the public stake.
That was then. Continue reading
This just in…
How did this one fly under the radar for so long? Turns out Wyandotte County export Eric Stonestreet – of “Modern Family” fame – has hooked up with late night television talk show host Jimmy Kimmel have joined forces.
In the uh, meat biz it would seem, according to the National Enquirer. Continue reading
Does everyone have all their shame-shopping finished up?
Only two more days, guys! Don’t eff it up.
If you just broke out in a cold sweat thinking of the brutal beating your old lady will lay on you if you come home empty handed, let me help you out. I’ll let you in on a little secret. A secret whispered in my ear by none other than Mr. Jim Rome about a thousand times over the last few weeks: There is nothing any woman wants more than some fucking berries dipped in chocolate and stuff!
Or maybe, I don’t know, take her out to a concert?…. Continue reading
Being a Criminal Defense Attorney, I’m used to defending people and actions that are, personally, repugnant…
So this is how I would defend Christopher Jordan Dorner. In case you don’t know who he is, Dorner is a former Lieutenant in the US Navy and a three-year veteran of the LAPD who went ballistic after being fired by the latter, and has accused the Los Angeles Police Department of continuing to use of force, racism, corruption then firing him for bringing up those issues. Continue reading
How far is too far?
Should a film critic stray beyond the bounds of reviewing the movie itself and wage a verbal assault upon an actor’s persona as well? That’s what veteran New York Observer critic Rex Reed did in a very negative review of IDENTITY THIEF starring Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman.
Reed attacked McCarthy for her weight, referring to her as “cacophonous, tractor-sized,” a “female hippo,” a “screeching humongous creep” and – last but not least – “being obese and obnoxious with equal success.” Continue reading
Here’s the deal…
Things are going to heck in Lawrence after three straight losses by the KU men’s basketball team. You see, they’re a little spoiled. Actually, they’re a whole lot spoiled.
I think former KU coach Roy Williams was onto something when he described Kansas basketball fans as the “wine and cheese crowd.”
“If you don’t want to cheer for us, keep your big butts at home,” Williams added.
Since losing to TCU, those big wine and cheese-scarfing butts have been in an uproar. Practically suicidal, with the hyperbole flying off of the keyboards of sportswriters like there’s no tomorrow.
Case in point, this lollapalooza unleashed by Lawrence Journal World sports columnist-turned-doomsayer Tom Keegan: Continue reading
It’s gotten to be kinda like Groundhog Day, you know, the movie…
Every handful or so of months the powers that be at the Kansas City Star issue some sort of interoffice memo about how things are looking up and even toss in a cocktail party for the ad execs to celebrate. And then – whammo! – the next thing anybody knows, here comes another round of layoffs and or cutbacks.
Bait and switch? You make the call.
The latest? Continue reading
For the casual web user, there is a decided lack of genuinely interesting things happening on the internet. Oh sure, there are 8,000,000 cat videos—cats with human looking eyebrows, and cats whimsically sitting on record players and cats smoking cigarettes on the toilet—but for those who don’t like cats, the internet can often be mistaken for a barren wasteland of futility.
And though the tedium is occasionally punctuated by delightfully racist comments left under unrelated Yahoo! news stories about the “best burgers in America!” the internet is, for the most part, mostly pretty boring. Unless you know where to look, that is. Continue reading
Kansas City is #6 on the nation’s most ROMANTIC cities list. According to LIVABILITY.COM, ” Kansas City’s growing collection of performance venues, museums, shopping areas, sports attractions and eclectic eateries makes this Midwest metropolis a cosmopolitan playground perfect for lovers to explore.” The way I see it, any city is romantic as long as I have Twitter and Manti Te’o.
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The Kansas City Star introduced a new and improved KansasCity.com, but I still can’t find the funny pages online.
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After a week that included stadium style shows from the likes of Lady Gaga and Kid Rock, this weekend offers up some real music, devoid of shtick, flair, and spectacle.
Though to be fair, it would be kind of cool to see Victor Wooten take the stage in a meat suit. Or anyone for that matter. But I digress.
To the pickmobile!
Finally…
At long last somebody with a nose for news finally pinned former KCUR FM host Jabulani Leffall down long enough to ask – and get – the long awaited answers to tough questions as to why he bailed on the station with no warning at the end of his show a few weeks back.
And the answer is – drum roll, please – he’s nuts. Continue reading
To dope or not to dope, that is the question…
Whether tis less nobler for athletes like Lance Armstrong and A-Rod to engage of the use of performance enhancing drug, testosterone and steroids in pursuit of big bucks and record setting physical feats, or for aging boomers as a means of being buff and staying “young,” as scribe Craig Glazer has often suggested.
A report last night on CNN, “Chasing Youth,” took the opposing view. Continue reading
Hollywood’s advance tracking indicates there’s a strong interest in IDENTITY THIEF…
If one can believe such stats then this laffer is hit-bound.
What we’ve got here is a road trip comedy about regular guy Denver businessman Jason Bateman who’s forced to take extreme measures to clear his name after his identity is stolen.
The thief is Melissa McCarthy who’s living the high life in Miami.
The I.D. she’s using to finance her excesses reads “Sandy Bigelow Patterson,” which, after all, would work for either a man or woman.
In this case Bateman’s character is the real Sandy Bigelow Patterson and his credit, finances and new job are now imploding. Continue reading
It only stands to reason.
The practice of airlines buying each other out makes for less competition and seat availability. Hence higher fares. Especially on routes on which they once competed for passengers.
And there have been plenty of buyouts in recent times.
* AMERICA WEST bought USAIRWAYS a while back but kept the latter better known name. Continue reading
Let me preface my remarks by saying right upfront that SIDE EFFECTS is a solid psychological mind twister…
Not a big movie by any means but an interesting assemblage of screen talent that holds you in suspense throughout the film’s 106 minutes-long running time.
n broad terms SIDE EFFECTS delves into our current pharmaceutical mania, its marketing and the potential consequences. Continue reading
Now it can be told…
What did Clay Chastain think of antediluvian Kansas City Star columnist Charlie Gusewelle‘s recent hit piece on the Union Station and light rail activist?
“I was shocked,” Chastain says. “I’ve been shocked by some things but never in my 20 some year career have I ever been shocked like this. Gusewelle writes heartwarming stories about his animals and his time in Paris and I always thought he was just this kindhearted person.” Continue reading
It’s not like nobody’s ever disrobed in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts…
They just never did it in full view of the audience. That was remedied last night- on February 5, 2013 – when just before intermission the entire cast of the musical Hair bared it all in the opening night’s performance.
Make no mistake, this was no smoke and mirrors Full Monty affair. The stage lights were up and the “goods” were on the table for all to see. All the goods.
But was it really a first?
“Probably,” says Theater League main man Mark Edelman. “The opera and the ballet probably haven’t had any nudity.” Continue reading
