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  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010

    "My name is Steven Seagal and you're under arrest."

  • TV

    Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009

    Oprah will still be with us everywhere, the earth’s third most common element, right after oxygen and silicon.

  • celebs

    Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009

    Levi Johnston, the lady-killa from Wasilla, is taking baby steps towards showbiz.

  • Pop Culture

    Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009

    The Hollywood Burglar Bunch illuminates celebrity’s diminishing grip on us all.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009

    Leo DiCaprio, Tom Petty and everyone’s favorite style icon, Kevin Federline, have all been photographed “vaping” in public. E-cigs are the new Obey T-shirts.

  • Film

    Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009

    In Hollywood, there are career penalties to pay for getting fat. Unless you're Vince Vaughn.

  • Dining

    Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009

    BooYa Tequila, Freaky Ice Vodka, Moonshot Beer, Gravity ShotPak Vodka: It’s perfectly legal to have caffeine in your goofy alcoholic beverage. So, why are state attorneys general trying to ban the stuff?

  • A&E

    Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009

    If it seems a little ironic that slender urban saplings are dressing like Paul Bunyan and the Marlboro Man, well, so what?

  • A&E

    Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009

    Being turned into kitty litter and dumped in a glorified spittoon doesn’t sound all that glamorous. But that’s old cremation technology. Today, even the frumpiest corpse is a literal diamond in the rough.

  • TV

    Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009

    Looking back through the glass at TRL’s pop-culture revolution

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009

    They eliminate inches in seconds. They’re surprisingly comfortable. They’re flying off the shelves at trend-setting retailers: They are Mirdles - girdles for guys.

  • television

    Thursday, July 23, 2009

    How bad can things be, really, when we have not one, not two, but three cable TV series about bakers who make extremely complicated and expensive cakes?

  • Sports

    Thursday, July 9, 2009

    Which is more inspiring? Overcoming cancer to win the Tour de France, or overcoming prolonged exposure to Matthew McConaughey to accomplish the same feat?

  • adult

    Thursday, June 18, 2009

    Scan the newspaper headlines, and you might think these are boom times for porn stars. Alas, it’s not all hip Hollywood premieres and political temperature-taking for the nation’s carnal professionals.

  • As We See It

    Thursday, June 4, 2009

    Elvis left the building long ago, but his nasal douche remains and is being offered to the highest bidder. So are 30 pairs of Ann Miller’s false eyelashes and two bricks from Marilyn Monroe’s patio.

  • adult

    Thursday, May 21, 2009

    Hot women, clad in little more than panties, knee pads and a hard protective shell of spray-on tan. What’s not to like?

  • Economy

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    It was bad enough when pizza places started charging for delivery. Now, all across the land, restaurants have begun making their patrons pay for the bread they once enjoyed for free.

  • Dining

    Thursday, April 23, 2009

    Fling’s fingers are imbued with a faint metallic pink shimmer that straddles the line between “amusingly chic” and “scrumptiously contaminated.” If you haven’t guessed yet, Fling is aimed at women.

  • Literature

    Thursday, April 9, 2009

    Today’s tweens and teens are totally fine with deferred gratification. Maybe it's all that Ritalin.

  • television

    Thursday, March 26, 2009

    Dr. Drew needs an intervention, and he needs one now. Everywhere he looks, he sees screwed-up celebrities. Or MySpace wannabe superstars who model their behavior on screwed-up celebrities. I

  • Pop Culture

    Thursday, March 12, 2009

    If you spend a lot of time in coffee shops and a lot of time in strip clubs, the idea of combining the two might seem appealing.

  • Culture

    Thursday, March 5, 2009

    In February 2005, when a million Internet voyeurs were poring over the contents of Paris Hilton’s hacked Sidekick, one name piqued the attention of Hollywood journalist Mark Ebner: Darnell Ryley.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009

    Want to see 86 episodes of The Sopranos meticulously mined and compiled into a montage of nearly 5,000 curse words screamed, spat and muttered on the show? Or course!

  • Film

    Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

    If you’ve listened to the audio clip of Christian Bale's eruption on the set of Terminator: Salvation, then you know that Bale understands that a movie star’s job isn’t just about acting, but also about living the life to which everyone else aspires.

  • Film

    Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

    As far as we’re concerned, asking why the producers of Friday the 13th keep remaking their movie is like asking why McDonald’s keeps remaking Big Macs—they taste great, and we keep getting hungry.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009

    "I think I’m ready for my close-up,” Britney Spears intones on her latest album, joylessly, mechanically, as if being the center of attention is now about as appealing to her as spending 72 hours locked inside an oil drum with Dr. Phil.

  • Culture

    Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009

    After the last inaugural balloon disappears into the heavens like a January 2008 campaign promise and the “Yes, we can!” era officially begins, what’s going to happen to public discourse?

  • Culture

    Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008

    What if eight-track tapes were a billion-dollar business today, more popular than iPods and Zunes? Would that be any stranger than the fact that U.S. consumers have purchased millions and millions of calendars in the last few weeks?

  • Music

    Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

    Music torture, one of the War on Terror’s most enduring hits, made headlines again last week. Apparently there is no Army-wide playlist or programming strategy that determines what songs get utilized. Soldiers are simply encouraged to make selections from their own private collections.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008

    Why are so many major movie stars fleeing the screen? Apparently it’s less fun than generally imagined to spend a couple of months in an exotic locale once or twice a year, eating catered food in luxurious trailers and having your hair styled for hours on end.

  • Film

    Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008

    Robert Pattinson, the young English star of the new movie Twilight, plays Edward Cullen, an ageless blood-sucking hottie with the creamy pallor of a slightly consumptive Abercrombie & Fitch model and stylishly haunted hair.

  • Politics

    Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008

    On January 21, George W. Bush starts his new career as an ex-president. How will President Bush spend his time?

  • Music

    Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008

    Are you tired of change? Are you fed up with extreme makeovers, disruptive innovation, the constant pressure to extend your product line? You may feel alone, out of step, defective in a world that prizes self-improvement above all else. But at least you still have AC/DC, the patron saints of high-voltage complacency, to believe in.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008

    Not only is our Diet Coke tastier than the zero-calorie beverages earlier generations had to endure, but you can also get it with vitamins. Even though we have so many reasons to be happy, fulfilled, ejaculating with gratitude from every pore that we’re fortunate enough to live in this country, at this time in history, we’re angry.

  • television

    Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008

    Halloween used to be the busy season for ghosts, but that was before reality TV. Now, every day of the year—or at least those days when cable shows like Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International and Most Haunted are airing—is go time for our supernatural kin.

  • Social

    Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008

    At first glance, you might mistake Guinness World Records 2009 for a book-sized can of some energy drink.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008

    This is, after all, the reality TV era. If, like Brooke Hogan, you’re the daughter of a famous person, you get your own TV show. If, like Dina Lohan, you’re the mother of a famous person, you get your own TV show. If, like Kim Kardashian, you live in a city where a lot of famous people live and you have a giant ass, you get your own TV show.

  • 2008 Presidential Election

    Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008

    n Minneapolis last week, as Sarah Palin introduced herself to the world, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska talked about her small-town values, and her life as a small-town hockey mom, and her experience as a small-town mayor.

  • Olympics

    Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008

    This month in Beijing, the planet’s greatest athletes sprinted, backstroked and pirouetted their way to glory and endorsement deals, thrilling billions around the world. In Oulu, Finland, the planet’s greatest air guitarists sprinted, backstroked and pirouetted their way to sore necks and sweaty semi-acclaim, momentarily amusing the hundreds of Finns who were on hand.

  • Politics

    Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008

    In 2006, Paris Hilton was hot. By 2008, the former infotainment diversion had grown so tepid that clunky designer knockoff Perez Hilton was probably wishing he’d chosen a namesake with more staying power, like Taylor Hicks or Lonelygirl15. Then, in an attempt to undermine Barack Obama’s status as the “biggest celebrity in the world,” John McCain spiked his latest attack ad with random images of Hilton and fellow blond cupcake Britney Spears.

  • Pop Culture

    Thursday, July 31, 2008

    At the London headquarters of Madame Tussauds, the only place in the world where bloody decapitations and exacting facsimiles of Brad Pitt’s ass are presented as family entertainment, strange and gruesome spectacle is the norm. And yet even by its outlandish standards, the museum’s recent unveiling of a new Amy Winehouse automaton was surreal.

  • Pop Culture

    Thursday, July 17, 2008

    When was the last time you read a John Updike novel cover to cover in a single sitting? Or even a John Updike book jacket cover to cover in a single sitting? While dour eggheads are forever forecasting apocalypse borne of our infatuation with images over text, it should be obvious by now that reading is grossly overrated. For most people, bookstores are where you get lattes and Burt’s Bees sampler kits, and yet life just keeps getting better. In previous centuries, apparently, everyone was so engrossed in Paradise Lost they never got around to inventing the Internet, organic frozen dinners, reality TV. We haven’t made the same mistake.

  • Pop Culture

    Thursday, July 3, 2008

    In the earliest days of e-commerce, it didn’t matter if you were ordering from a little old lady on eBay or a venture-funded start-up like Amazon or Webvan: Every transaction was a crapshoot. With a leap of faith, you clicked on the Order button and surrendered your mailing address and credit card number.

  • Pop Culture

    Thursday, June 19, 2008

    If you think life was tough in the old days, when housewives prepared dinner using manual can openers instead of microwave ovens, when teens rode bikes to school instead of SUVs, when changing TV channels required a hike across the living room, consider this: Not only did the hearty folk of yesteryear have to endure such hardships, they did so without the benefit of energy drinks!

  • Pop Culture

    Thursday, June 5, 2008

    For years, Hollywood celebrities have fought to keep us healthy by enjoying sumptuous $1,500-a-plate meals at lavish benefit galas, auctioning off their old shoes to the highest bidder and holding hands with each other and singing. Despite such efforts, however, cancer, heart disease and countless other ills continue to afflict us. Frustrated, no doubt, by their lack of progress, today’s most forward-thinking stars have decided that disease isn’t the real problem after all—the cure is. Thus, they’ve declared war on health care.

  • adult

    Thursday, May 22, 2008

    The last bastion of smut—the hotel-room on-demand channel—may soon be a thing of the past.

  • Columns

    Thursday, May 8, 2008

    Lindsay Lohan hasn’t carjacked an SUV in months. Nicole Richie’s formerly extroverted clavicles have taken refuge behind a discreet veil of subcutaneous tissue.