Category Archives: Pop Culture

Jul 31 2014
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Movies, Pop Culture

Devil Child

‘Rosemary’s Baby’ remake still has creep-out power

Rosemarys Baby

 

Rosemary’s Baby

Blu-ray $19.99 / DVD $19.98 (Lionsgate)

 

Almost half a century after director Roman Polanski put actress Mia Farrow through a devilish, Oscar-winning pregnancy predicament, HBO took another crack at the tale, turning it into a miniseries with Zoe Saldana and giving the story an international spin. But, based on Ira Levin’s best-selling suspenseful, psycho-thriller novel, it still has the power to creep you out big-time, here watching a young married couple escape their troubles in New York and moving to France, where they’re presented with an offer too good to turn down in a place with a very troubled past—and ending up paying a terrible, otherworldly price.

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 30 2014
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DVDs, Pop Culture, Television

Top Cops

On the Emmy-winning beat with the detectives in ‘Blue’

NYPD Blue S6

NYPD Blue: Season Six

DVD $34.99 (Shout! Factory)

 

One of TV’s groundbreaking “cop” shows of the 1990s, this Emmy-winning network series ran for 12 successful seasons before finally hanging up its badge in 2005. This collection of all 22 season six episodes, available for the first time on DVD, continues the nitty-gritty, true-to-life adventures of New York police detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) as he and his precinct partners (Kim Delaney, James McDaniel, Gordon Clapp) welcome a new cast mate, former Silver Spoons star Rick Schroder, in his breakthrough “grownup” TV acting role.

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 30 2014
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Books, Pop Culture

Click Tricks

A LEGO master builder shows how it’s done

final_cover05.indd

The Art of LEGO Design

By Jordan Schwartz

Softcover, 288 pages, $24.95 / $9.99 Kindle edition (No Starch Press)

 

If you’re serious about your LEGOs and long ago moved far beyond just clicking one brick onto another, this is your book: a serious how-to from a LEGO master builder. The author, who became one of the LEGO Group’s youngest designers ever when he landed an internship at the age of 18, provides tips to better model-building and inventive use of LEGO components (use inside-out rubber LEGO tires for sea-creature legs!), along with hundreds of color photos and advice from other LEGO masters to help guide hobbyists to even greater heights of imagination.

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 29 2014
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DVDs, Movies, Pop Culture

Far Out Man

Johnny Depp stars in head-trippy futuristic sci-fi thriller

Transcendence2Transcendence

Blu-ray $35.99 / DVD $28.99 (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)

What are the limits of artificial intelligence? In this sci-fi, not-too-futuristic thriller, Johnny Depp plays a researcher working on a machine that combines the knowledge with human emotion—a computer with consciousness, or “transcendence.” But forces are afoot to stop him, even as the secrets of the universe await—and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Co-stars include Rebecca Hall, Cillian Murphy and Paul Bettany, and the Blu-ray comes with several making-of featurettes.

 —Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 29 2014
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Books, Humor, Pop Culture

Shakespeare in Space

Another masterful mashup of the Bard and ‘Star Wars’

William Shakespeare's The Jedi Doth Return

William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return

By Ian Doescher

Hardcover, 168 pages $14.95 / $8.52 Kindle edition (Quirk Books)

 

Continuing the ultimate literary arc of geek-speak high homage, this third installment of author Ian Doescher’s parody of the entire Star Wars movie canon, re-told in the florid iambic pentameter “signature” of William Shakespeare, continues the interstellar adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and other familiar characters from “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”—all to a masterful mashup of English lit and pop culture that’s hilarious, dramatic and downright mesmerizing.

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 22 2014
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DVDs, Pop Culture, Television

Lights, Action, Wahlbergs

Donnie, Mark, other Wahlbergs star in reality-TV show

Walhburgers_cov

Wahlburgers: The Complete First Season

DVD $19.98 (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)

The A&E reality-TV series about the Wahlbergs, centered around their family-owned restaurant in the Hingham, Mass., shows a domestic, hometown side to the Hollywood lives of actors Mark and Donnie, alongside their cousin Paul and their mom, Alma. Season one episodes includes various eatery escapades and offsite adventures, including visits from Mark’s fiancé, actress Jenny McCarthy, and Joey McIntyre, his former musical mate in the s’80s “boy band” New Kids on the Block.

 

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 22 2014
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Books, Music, Pop Culture

Portrait of Paul

A revealing new light on the ‘cute’ Beatle

Man on the Run

Man on the Run

By Tom Doyle

Hardcover, 288 pages, $27 (Ballantine)

 

The author, a Scottish rock journalist who’s interviewed Paul McCartney numerous times over the years, paints a candid, fascinating portrait of the rock ’n’ roll icon from one of the most tumultuous, uncertain periods of his life—following the breakup of the world-famous band, forming a new group, trying to outpace his past and find his future. It’s a whole new side to the “cute, happy Beatle” that sheds revealing new light on one of the most famous living rock stars on the planet.

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 18 2014
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Books, Pop Culture, Television

Talk to the Animals

To TV vet Dr. Pol, every creature has a tale

Never Turn Your Back on An Angus CowNever Turn Your Back on an Angus Cow

By Dr. Jan Pol with David Fisher

Hardcover, 288 pages, $15.88 / $10.99 Kindle edition (Gotham Books)

A familiar character to fans of his reality show, The Incredible Dr. Pol on Nat Geo Wild, this no-nonsense, Netherlands-born veterinarian, who’s lived and worked in rural Michigan for the past 40 years, gives a fascinating account of his mission of caring for creatures ranging “from a white mouse to a 2,600-pound pound horse.” Amusing, colorful and heartwarming, it’s a tale any animal lover will enjoy. “Until they start inventing new animals, I think I can say there isn’t a type I haven’t looked into the eyes and wondered how it was feeling,” he writes. With Dr. Pol, every patient has a story—and every animal has a tale, as well as a tail.

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 10 2014
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Books, Pop Culture

Twice the Thrills

Crime-fiction characters come together to work in tandem

FaceOffFaceoff

Edited by David Baldacci

Hardcover, 384 pages, $26.99 / Kindle edition $10.99 (Simon & Schuster)

Lovers of thrill-and-chill fiction will get a real kick out of this unprecedented collaboration bringing together 23 bestselling thriller writers, linking up their iconic characters to “face off” together in jointly penned stories to solve all-new mysteries, track down serial killers, settle old scores, or mop up some other messes. The who’s who includes Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Jeffrey Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme, Steve Barry’s Cotton Malone, Joseph Finder’s Nick Heller and dozens of others who’ll be familiar to all lovers of the arcane, the cloak and dagger, and the dark and the dangerous.

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Jul 10 2014
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DVDs, History, Humor, Pop Culture, Television

Red, White & Snoopy

Charlie Brown & Co. reanimate American history highlights

This Is America, Charlie Brown

This is America, Charlie Brown

DVD, $26.99 (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)

Originally airing in 1988 as an eight-part CBS miniseries, this delightful animated roundup of recently remastered 24-minute TV specials features a crash course in American history as Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the beloved Peanuts gang sail on the Mayflower, discuss the U.S. Constitution, watch the Wright brothers take wing at Kitty Hawk, dream of space travel, meet several presidents, explore the roots of American music and its composers, and bring other red, white and blue milestones to educational and entertaining cartoon life.

 

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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