A few weeks ago, I began my third descent into the world of professional wrestling. My first was almost 30 years ago during the period known as “Rock n’ Wrestling,” when wrestlers appeared in Cyndi Lauper videos, and Cyndi Lauper appeared at wrestling matches. I quickly learned that wrestling was “fake,” and while I tried […]

  Comic book fans love their favorite characters. When comic books are adapted into movies, fans want to see those characters translated faithfully, as closely as possible to the source material. (That doesn't just apply to comic books. Fans of novels, nonfiction books and plays don't want to see any drastic changes to their favorites […]

Six-time rehab failure Lindsay Lohan has apparently landed an eight-part reality series on the Oprah Winfrey Network, of all places.  Via People.com: It's a sneak peek picture to promote the eight-part reality series, called Lindsay, premiering on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network Sunday, March 9. The network promises an "honest, no-holds-barred account," of the 27-year-old actress's […]

Guardians of the Galaxy was going to be a tough sell for Marvel Studios. This group of outer space outlaws doesn't feature any recognizable icons like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor or the Hulk. The characters and their stories are even relatively obscure among comic book fans, enjoying a 25-issue series run from 2008 to 2010 […]

The most popular phenomenon at the 2014 Winter Olympics isn’t an athlete, it isn’t an event, it isn’t even

Have you begun watching season 2 of House of Cards yet? Holy crap — can you believe what happened in that first episode? You said you started watching, right? If you haven't, I don't want to spoil anything. But if you've watched it, we have to talk about it! That was unbelievable! What a way […]

Jay Leno’s comedy legacy is almost entirely tarnished from his run on The Tonight Show. By now, every critic has danced and spit on the grave of his run on the NBC institution. Very few people will ever debate that Leno did much of anything other than continue to want that show for the sole […]

Looking back on my childhood with my younger sister, I realize now that it wasn't always fair for her. I was a big comic book fan, finding entertainment and escape in the adventures of Batman, Spider-Man, the Avengers, Daredevil and dozens of other superheroes. My sister had her own amusements and diversions. She played with […]

It never looks good when a movie is pushed from the spotlight month of October to the relative obscurity of February. So when George Clooney's The Monuments Men was bumped from Oscar season to a time when studios often dump films that aren't well regarded, that wasn't a good sign. When the decision was made, […]

In the 1960s, as Beatlemania stormed across the globe, it also made its way through the Iron Curtain and into the radios of Soviet youth via Radio Luxembourg and other Western broadcasts. With no Beatles albums legally being sold within the Soviet Union, a black market arose where Beatles songs were illegally recorded onto x-rays […]

Fox did a solid job of driving viewers to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and (especially) New Girl on Sunday following Super Bowl XLVIII. Twenty-six million watched Zooey Deschannel get weird with Prince (more than watched The Office, The Simpsons, Alias or The Practice), while a series-high 15 million stuck around to see Andy Samberg’s Golden Globe-winning new […]

The Seahawks-Broncos Super Bowl was supposed to be a matchup of titans. Seattle's vaunted "Legion of Boom" lining up across from the best passing offense in NFL history. During the 2013 season, Peyton Manning passed for 55 touchdowns and 5,477 yards — both new NFL records. Denver became the first NFL team to score 600 […]

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman is that most everyone seemed to know who he was when the news of his death began to circulate on Sunday. Hoffman, 46, wasn't a Hollywood star like George Clooney or Brad Pitt, but took such a variety of roles and showed such range with his choices […]