Idol Chatter

Britney Spears’ much-balleyhooed head-shaving meltdown over the weekend had (at least) one religiously confusing aspect to it. While she was getting a white-and-pink cross tattooed on her lower hip, the former teen idol sported a large Star of David necklace that at one point was on backwards so it hung down her back–facing the many…

In “Breach,” director Billy Ray of “Shattered Glass” tells yet another gripping story of one man’s utter duplicitousness. This time around, however, the man in question, Robert Hanssen–played brilliantly by Chris Cooper–succeeds in bringing down not only himself, but the whole FBI with him. Dozens of FBI agents and assets are compromised, and the entire…

The press this week about Britney Spears has centered on a single puzzle–what’s going through that newly bald head? For a while, Britney’s life has been “The Truman Show” meets “Real World.” In the past week, reports from the disaster-in-progess have come so frequently we seem to be watching in real-time. The few remaining gaps…

…and that’s a good thing! The National Basketball Association and the City of Las Vegas’ tourism bureau went prime-time on TNT on Sunday night, and we found out that these players are clearly gifted for high levels of competition, but far less gifted at show business. It’s actually a compliment to them that, well, they…

Even though Ryan Gosling ( “The Notebook”) is up for an Academy Award for his performance in the indie film “Half Nelson,” the film played in such limited release last summer that it’s hard to imagine many outside of Hollywood caught it in theaters. Fortunately, Gosling’s performance as a drug-addicted teacher at an urban middle…

Finally, Madea goes on vacation and we get to see what kind of work Tyler Perry does when he stays behind the scenes. The results are magical, as depicted in his latest film, “Daddy’s Little Girls.” The story follows Monty (Idris Elba), a single father trying to make a life for himself and his three…

Time was, not so long ago, that the game superseded just about anything for professional athletes. Perhaps a day off was warranted if a close family member died, but not much else could tear a player away from those temporary, stand-in family members we call teammates–not even the birth of a child. There are signs,…

I walked into the theater with great trepidation to see Walt Disney’s film adaptation of Katherine Paterson’s Newbery Award-winning “Bridge to Terabithia,” a story about a friendship between a boy and a girl, Jess and Leslie. From the look of the commercials, I feared that this beloved novel from my youth–so widely read still today…

Does God work through thunderbolts or more subtly? That’s the underlying theme of “Amazing Grace,” an earnest, informative, and often stirring biopic of the heroic William Wilberforce, who battled the slave trade for nearly 20 years in England’s Parliament. As a chronicle of those decades, “Amazing Grace” is the story of repeated, crushing failure. Its…

Before seeing the movie “Amazing Grace,” I didn’t know who William Wilberforce was. I had no idea that the namesake of Wilberforce University, the nation’s first historically black college, was a British man who fought long and hard for the abolition of slavery in the 18th century. It was also news to me that John…

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