By: Mary Fran Bontempo Think Cast Away but in outer space and crammed into real time. Gravity, the widely-heralded space disaster movie starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney is, at its most basic, a survival film, a la the Tom Hanks desert island movie from 2000. (Hard to believe Cast Away is thirteen years old.) The primary difference, that Gravity takes place over an actual ninety minute time frame, as opposed to the [...]
By: Mary Fran Bontempo To hear an audio version of this post click the play arrow below. I will not be fluffing Christmas trees this year. A good friend of mine has, for several years now, been engaged as a tree fluffer for a number of department stores. She gets trees ready for store display by fluffing for a few days during the month of October, generally spending several pleasant hours doing something [...]
By: Mary Fran Bontempo It's absurd, it's overwrought, it's unbelievable, it's engrossing, it's exciting, it's addicting. It's Scandal, which began season three last night at 10 PM on ABC. I started watching the show last season at the behest of my daughter, Laura, who was hooked early on. For the uninitiated, Scandal stars the lovely Kerry Washington as a high-powered Washington, D.C. "fixer" with direct ties to the president. Washington's Olivia Pope is [...]
By: Mary Fran Bontempo To hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below. To all Entenmann's workers and stockholders--my apologies. While I'm at it, let's add to the list Tastykakes as well as every soft pretzel manufacturer in the tri-state area, along with the guy who sells pretzels at the entrance to Woodhaven Road, before you get on I-95 in Philadelphia. My husband is watching his weight. Ordinarily, [...]
By: Mary Fran Bontempo James Spader is one creepy dude. I've never been a great fan of the actor, mainly because he specializes in portraying off-the-wall, and sometimes downright menacing, characters. The fact that he makes me uncomfortable really just means that he does his job extremely well. Spader extends his creepy, menacing streak with his latest endeavor--The Blacklist, airing on NBC Mondays at 10 PM. The actors stars as Raymond "Red" Reddington, [...]
By: Mary Fran Bontempo To hear an audio version of this post click the play arrow below. It’s been a subtle transition, no grand pronouncements, no obvious plan to weed them out, but it is happening, none the less.Mediums are disappearing. Given society’s tendency to opt for extremes in almost every area of life, no one should be surprised. Medium implies ordinary, and heaven forbid we settle for any of that. But now [...]
This video garnered 43 MILLION hits on You Tube. It's so stupid that it's hilarious, which is exactly the point. These young TV stars from Norway wanted to make a video that shows how any ridiculous subject can seem important, sexy and timely with a cool video. They made it to the Ellen DeGeneres Show, so I guess they succeeded! Enjoy the silliness!
