PCR past banners Now in our fourth calendar year
PCR #174  (Vol. 4, No. 30)  This edition is for the week of July 21--27, 2003.

LA FLORIDIANA
"Webb's City, Inc. - - The World's Most Unusual Drug Store"
by Will Moriaty
THIS WEEK'S MOVIE REVIEW
"Bad Boys II"
by Mike Smith
COUCH POTATO CONFESSIONS
"Mega-Opolies"
and who owns television and more by Vinnie B.
ASHLEY'S HOLLYWOOD
Ashley answers her critics...again!
 Ashley Lauren
SPLASH PAGE
"GAIMAN, GAIMAN and more GAIMAN!"
by Brandon Jones
CREATURE'S CORNER
HeroClix, New movies, and Comics
by John Lewis
MATT'S RAIL
80s horror films are over-rated?
by Matt Drinnenberg
MIKE'S RANT
Webb City revisited...Ashley...Happy Birthday...By Your Command...Passing On
by Mike Smith
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Couch Potato Confessions by Vinnie B.
   The adventures of a boy and his personal video recorder.


Mega-Opolies
Do you every wonder why all the television channels show the same programming over and over and over and over? Well, Consumer Reports magazine reports that "AOL Time Warner, Disney (ABC), GE, News Corp (Fox) and Viacom control an estimated two-thirds or more of the programming that appears on prime-time television" (Consumer Reports July 2003). A pretty scary statistic as these conglomerates also control most of the movies and music in our culture (along with Sony and Vivenda/Universal).

Independent film is now just another division of the Disney Corporation. Just market a film as Independent and it will be a moneymaker these days. That is why it is so important for outlets like Crazedfanboy.com and local film festivals to thrive and prosper. It is here that real independent films will be showcased and discovered. Just as the major record labels have squashed the independent record label they are on the same track to making Independent film just another formulaic moneymaking machine.

The record labels continue to be scared to death of digital music delivery on the Internet, as it will ruin their "good thing" of selling 25 cent CD's for 18.99.

The answer to all of this is something the punk rockers taught me, D.I.Y. With the Internet the possibilities for delivery of independent film and music product is in its infancy, which why I am so excited by Nolan B Canova's commitment and hard work to this web page and his new projects of streaming TV and the Last Outpost store. Just watch one less movie or rent one less video a week and divert those funds from the Mega-Opolies to deserving websites like CrazedFanboy.com or Mindbomb.tv, a subversive artist collective from Tampa, and make our pop culture a little better place to live.

Catching Up: Farscape RIP, and Lathe of Heaven
It was sad news for the sci-fi community when the Sci-Fi Channel prematurely pulled the plug on the best sci-fi show on TV "Farscape". The series was cancelled in mid storyline, as a 5th season was already planned. What a disappointment to watch the final episode and be left with a cliffhanger. Surely they could of put forth a better effort to at least give some closure to the series. The show was replaced by the awful show "Tremors". Just how many times can you say assblasters in one episode?

The Sci-Fi channel execs were pretty sly and secretive, as the public announcement was made only after the sets and production was already completely shut down, thwarting any kind of fan protest that might of worked. There are ongoing protests but it looks pretty bleak since from what I heard the sets are kaput.
http://www.savefarscape.com/
Farscape: Season One on DVD

Rumors of a movie have circulated, but ultimately this is just another dumb television executive programming decision that will go down in history along with the cancellation of the original Star Trek and other idiotic TV program blunders. Maybe they should let the chimpanzees in the zoo pick which shows to keep, they couldn't do any worse.

Last year, the A&E channel, or the Columbo channel as I like to call it, produced an original movie based on Ursula K. Le Guin's great novel, "The Lathe of Heaven". I was originally very excited to hear about this project. Unfortunately, for anyone who's read the book you will see that the screenwriters used the first few chapters and discarded the rest of the book. The two stars of the movie were Lukas Haas and Lisa Bonet, two fine (NOT) actors who can't seem to get work in any worthwhile projects. The production values and James Caan were good enough to prevent this from being a complete stinker, but the bad acting of Haas and Benet, and all the missing plot elements from the book made this movie one big disappointment.

There is a BBC production of "The Lathe of Heaven" from 1980 that I have read some good reviews for but I have yet to see this one.

Coming up Next Week: "Spidey Powers for the MTV Generation".


"Couch Potato Confessions" is ©2003 by Vinnie B..  Couch Potato main graphic by Vin Blesi and Nolan Canova.  Webpage design and all graphics herein (except where otherwise noted) are creations of Nolan B. Canova.  All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2003 by Nolan B. Canova.