Paul Newman Dies At 83

By Beth in Entertainment, Movies, Hollywood, film, pop culture, celebrity, Paul Newman on September 27 2008

Paul Newman lost his battle with Cancer today at the age of 83. He will be sorely missed, especially by the bloggers here at Amaldo.com who loved his films, his salad dressing, and most of all his signature charm. The smoldering smile and kind-hearted giver went hand-in-hand.

Sarah Silverman Effs Obama Too

By Beth in Entertainment, Politics, comedy, Sarah Silverman, Comedy Central, Movies, Hollywood, TV, pop culture, media, celebrity, George Clooney on September 25 2008

I’ve made no secret my distaste for the stale humor of Sarah Silverman, but she did recently win an Emmy for spouting vulgarities at Matt Damon, so apparently the chick holds some mass critical appeal or is one very lucky gal. In this video clip below, here she is telling us why we should all vote Obama. You know…In case there weren’t enough Hollywood celebrities wearing their status like a piece of chintzy Obama shwag these days.

Do we still prefer Heroes?

By ariel in Uncategorized, Entertainment, NBC, Heroes, TV, Comics, pop culture, media, America, Weeds, season premiere, writers' strike, Dexter, New Years, Medium, AMC, Hiro, Nakamura, Mad Men, Volume 3 on September 23 2008

As expected, Heroes‘ season premiere (Heroes Volume 3) picked up from where it stopped. But the show has been away for so long that I’m not sure it’s relevant anymore. Before the writers’ strike, Heroes was one of the main reasons to watch prime time TV. When NBC stopped airing the show we had to find other things to watch instead, and we found. Medium, Dexter, Weeds, Mad Men and a few more showed that good TV can be done even without Hiro Nakamura.
Heroes is still a decent and watchable show, and I was pleased that last night’s episode was more eventful then the last 10 episodes of the first season together, but I would lose the ridiculous countdown-to-the-event show. It’s not New Years.

Our Heroes Are Back

By Beth in Entertainment, NBC, Heroes, TV on September 22 2008

And they’re badder than ever…Ok, so now I’m kinda excited.

Branding

By ariel in Uncategorized, Smut Advertising, Tech, Money, Advertising, stereotype, Music, TV, Pop Music, pop culture, media, America, Apple, Mac, iPod, Nano, Chromatic, Commecials, Restart, MP3 on September 16 2008

Have you noticed that all the songs in Apple products (iPod, Mac..)commercials sound exactly the same? Is this what one might call Branding? Or is it Over Branding?

And also, my Mac does need to be restarted at times, and while I appreciate it’s quality, it still gets stuck  here and there!!!

Ilana Donna Goes Biking For Sport

By Beth in Entertainment, sports, pop culture, Amaldo.Com, Ilana Donna, Biking, NYC on September 9 2008

Who knew that people can function at 4:30 AM…Let alone get up that early on a weekend to bike 100 miles all in the name of social mingling.

Let’s Get Serious For A Second

By Beth in Entertainment, comedy, Money, Movies, Hollywood, film, pop culture, media, celebrity, Tom Cruise, Jewish, Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller, Stereotypes on September 7 2008

What’s wrong with being an equal opportunity offender within the confines of comedy? If you asked me before I saw Tropic Thunder last night I might have answered, “Not much.”

Not the case anymore.

I went to see the much-anticipated Ben Stiller flick after a few months of heightened anticipation. I had read many enticing reviews, including David Ansen’s glowing accolades of Ben Stiller’s comedic rise to genius from his days on the Ben Stiller Show to his fall in The Heartbreak Kid to his present-day redemption.

I like Ben Stiller most of the time. I used to get annoyed with his shtick but ever since Zoolander (which people I either love or hate), I’ve been singing a different tune. It was a silly commentary on the fashion world, models, and the media that exploits every facet of pop culture. It was so over-the-top, it was hard to offend. Unless you’re a self-obsessed, dumb model, that is…Or just an incredibly dim-witted, kind-hearted model like Stiller’s Derek Zoolander.

So given Stiller’s penchant for poking fun at various groups in his work (and most notably “slow” people) and his 2-D labels, it’s not surprising that the President of the AAPD (Association of American People with Disabilities) came out denouncing Stiller’s portrayal of a character playing the part of mentally retarded individual, even going so far as to call out the film as “tasteless” and “offensive from start to finish.”I know what he meant because I, too, cringed every time I saw Stiller stutter in his “Simple Jack” character, wondering how this brand of cruel humor managed to see its way through the DreamWorks editing suite.

And I felt doubly ashamed and irate with Tom Cruise’s cameo as a money-grubbing, fat, and vulgar Hollywood Executive named Len Grossman.

Robert Downey, Jr.’s portrayal of a white man playing a black man was meant to be funny and self-deprecating because it was poking fun at someone who was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. It didn’t involve colors so much as one actor’s self-absorption and what he put himself through to be an artiste. The make-up and phony accent were all part of the gimick.

The joke ended there.

But with Cruise’s Jewish character and Stiller’s mentally disabled character there was no foil. There were stereotypes that were magnified and blown up at the expense of these groups. The joke was entirely on the people that comprise these groups.

I’ve never been fond of the mantra that it’s ok to insult and joke about a group if you’re a member. We all have the responsibility to uphold a degree of ethics and social responsibility in our work and our daily conduct. Besides, the majority of people attending such a mainstream flick aren’t necessarily Jewish nor Special Needs so you’re depicting these groups in an unfavorable light to a broader audience for the sake of what? To fuel the fire of discrimination and spread hate?

It’s quite possible I have a giant rod up my butt and just don’t “get it” but “it” seems like such infantile and low-brow humor that I’m not sure I ever want to get it. It makes me long for the comic brilliance of Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor - men who valued a level of sophistication in their cultural commentaries and knew that the best kind of laugh sometimes came with the price of of a tear in that it held a mirror to our own ignorance and short-comings. And at the end of the day we were better people for having listened to them and chuckled at our own expense - not someone else’s.

My Daughter Bedded A Douche! And Is Having His Baby!

By Beth in Entertainment, Politics, Smut Advertising, love & lies, TV, pop culture, media, gossip, Obama, Sarah Palin, John McCain, Bristol, parody on September 2 2008

No, this is not a direct quote from VP ticket Sarah Palin, but might not be far from the truth after reading the “personal, private” blog of Palin’