The inevitable challenge faced by Wii developers is this: Can you create a game so spectacularly awesome as to prompt a gamer to even consider ejecting Super Mario Galaxy from his console? The gravy train is over; good luck looking consumers in the eye while offering them another lame collection…
Picking on bad shows like Viva Laughlin is just too easy. There’s enough low-hanging fruit being broadcast to fill a whole bushel of awful from 2007. And then there are those shows that represent how TV fails us, how it fails itself, how it just plain fails. In other words,…
The Year of our TV 2007 was something of an odd duck. It saw the end of some TV classics (The Sopranos) and the beginning of a strike that still threatens the medium as we know it. Fun year! But in these trying times, we all yearn for something to…
Best Sleeper Hit: WordJong (Nintendo DS) — It may not sell like Mario, but this mishmash of Scrabble and mah-jongg hooks you like handheld crack. Already a word-of-mouth hit, despite being released only this month, WordJong is perfect for quiet afternoons, loud commutes, or romantic walks on the beach. Best…
Fresh City Life and The Fabric Lab are keeping the buzz around the Frock Out Independent Designers Challenge runway show alive with this video they posted recently to YouTube. Check it out, and if you missed the show, be sure to read Aubrey Shoe’s recap of the runway looks created…
There’s a lot of Christmas TV. Enough that ABC Family can fill up 25 Days of it in the month of December, stack up specials one after the other in prime time, and never have to repeat a thing. That’s a lot of holiday spirit. It only stands to reason,…
Okay, so what’s wrong with A Charlie Brown Christmas? The answer, it might surprise you, isn’t “nothing”. So let’s get this out of the way right off the top. The animation is somewhat clumsy. The voicework is pretty bad in spots. And—horror of horrors—it actually culminates in the recital of…
Just when it seemed like Project Runway could not possibly stage a more boring challenge, they go for something that positively screams “average.” Yes, yes, I do think that it was a great idea to make the designers create a new look for their plain-Jane models who had recently lost…
Nothing says “holiday spirit” quite like stabbing a terrorist or hammering a goombah, as the hottest games this season invite us to do. But no matter how cutting-edge the stars of 2007 may be, they are also unmistakably familiar. This week, we stack the holiday hits of today against the…
The Writers’ Strike of 2007 looks to be going into 2008 as well; but late-night programming won’t be following it anymore. NBC has announced that on January 2, both Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan O’Brien will return with new episodes. It’s being reported that David…
Where I walk into Tattered Cover and randomly select five books from the new release racks to read a random page for 45 seconds and rate the book accordingly. Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers By Michael A. Banks Page 35 Doesn’t it seem outmoded to…
Turn on ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas programming, and you’ll see a lot of what you might expect; classic TV cartoons, claymation specials, great old movies and an odd lot of newer ones. But here’s something you might not have expected: the whole thing seems to center around the…
At a Guitar Hero tournament a few months back, one kid complained to me that Expert Mode is “too easy.” Then he demonstrated the game’s secret Hyper Speed mode. My pupils nearly ruptured at the sight of him as he navigated the light-speed stream of colored notes; it looked like…
When I moved to Colorado, I took a job as a server at Gunther Toody’s. I lasted one week. Why such a short-lived serving career, you ask? The answer to that question is two-fold. Reason one: Three days into my training, I was tested on the menu. One of the…
You know Dasher, and Dancer, and Prancer, and Vixen, right? And Comet, and Cupid, and Donner, and Blitzen? And of course you recall the most famous reindeer of all: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Rudolph was invented by Montgomery Ward ad men, but immortalized by Rankin-Bass in 1964. It’s a beloved…
In anticipation of tomorrow night’s new episode of Project Runway (looks like there will be drama, drama, drama!), here’s a quick recap of last week’s antics: In a challenge that Heidi Klum described as “thwee designers reinterpreting thwee outdated looks,” teams set out to make over the poodle skirt, overalls,…
It’s become something of legend, of course, even if YouTube has stolen some of its mystery these days. Only a few years ago, all you could find of the Star Wars Holiday Special were bootleg tapes traded at comic-book and sci-fi collections, sold like contraband spice. (This transaction was even…
Too bad we don’t have an IKEA in this town, because I can’t tell you how often this happens to friends of mine with kids. — Sean Cronin…
View all the fabulous fashions in this comprehensive slide show by Jim Narcy. The Cat’s Pajamas and friends were out in force at last night’s Frock Out: Independent Designers Challenge at the Central Library. All things considered, the event was a smashing success with nary a runway tumble or wardrobe…
Most newspapers have a weekly feature in their Entertainment section that highlights the upcoming television worth watching. It’s a vestigial remnant of the old days when TV grids used to run daily, with a small bit recommending something good that evening. But now, with the strike, the Rocky Mountain News…
For a game that’s considered Microsoft’s premier 360 title this holiday season, it’s amazing how sloppy Mass Effect is. Graphical glitches distract from otherwise fascinating character designs and alien vistas, constant stops and stutters lengthen load times, and the inventory system must be the worst in history. And just as…
Last Wednesday’s episode of Project Runway forced the designers to take on what might be the biggest single challenge on the show to date — menswear. When the 13 remaining designers had to swap their lithe, pretty female models who are always ready to wear every flowing, gauzy gown and…
