What? I mean… what??? Has somebody gotten the scheduling screwed up on Sunday night on Fox?
I don’t know the next time April Fool’s Day falls on a Sunday, but if both The Simpsons and Family Guy are still on the air (I’ll bet they will be) I think this would be a great switch.
Sony has released the first formal details on the sequel to last year’s hit reboot, Amazing Spider-Man:
In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, for Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), life is busy – between taking out the bad guys as Spider-Man and spending time with the person he loves, Gwen (Emma Stone), high school graduation can’t come quickly enough. Peter hasn’t forgotten about the promise he made to Gwen’s father to protect her by staying away – but that’s a promise he just can’t keep. Things will change for Peter when a new villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), emerges, an old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, and Peter uncovers new clues about his past.
The official, announced cast list: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Shailene Woodley, Dane DeHaan, Colm Feore, Paul Giamatti and Sally Field.
Additionally, the studio said that behind the camera Dan Mindel will be the cinematographer, Mark Friedberg is the production designer and Deborah L. Scott will be the costume designer and Pietro Scalia and Elliot Graham are the editors.
The film is scheduled for production this year, to be released May 2, 2014, one month after Disney’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and two months before Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, scheduled for July 18.
THE FOLLOWING has exploded onto Fox primetime, and we begin our exclusive look at the show that everyone is talking about. Creator Kevin Williamson along with actors Anna Parisse and Shawn Ashmore talk about just a few of the ways the series stands put from the rest of TV, plus as 30 ROCK prepares to say goodbye, we talk to cast member Grizz Chapman who thinks the exit might be a little premature. And did you hear that the old X-MEN Movie gang is getting back together?
Check out our exclusive video interview with KEVIN BACON right here on our YouTube Channel. Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
We first meet Sandy on the television. She’s down in the Caribbean wreaking havoc on Jamaica and the other islands. We are warned that she might come to the East Coast. Most people shrug. A panicked populace does not yet raid the supermarkets.
By Sunday the East Coast governors are declaring states of emergency. There is a run on staples like water, milk, and bread at stores. Home Depot and Lowe’s do a banner business selling generators and gasoline cans. Batteries are sold out in five minutes. Coastal areas are being evacuated. Alix and Jeff come to stay with me.
The bitch Sandy, a swirling 800 miles-wide apocalyptic force of nature’s vengeance, comes, sees, and conquers the megalopolis of New Jersey and New York, and covers West Virginia with a blizzard. Millions are without power. I lose power on Monday afternoon. It is like Little House On The Prairie, I say. What would Laura Ingalls Wilder do? Alix, Jeff, and I light candles, drink prosecco and play Uno. Alix and Jeff sleep in the hallway, away from the shuddering windows. I bury myself under a quilt and read by flashlight, as if I’m a child again hiding from the boogeyman.
Tuesday we huddle in the living room, listening to the radio. Sandy is still outside, vicious, refusing to leave. Hundreds of thousands are without homes. My apartment building shakes, and it is frightening, but I tell myself I am like the third Little Pig who lives in a house made of brick. Others are not so lucky. Sandy’s winds and surging tides destroy hundreds of thousand of homes. Beaches no longer exist. Boats come to rest on city streets. Raging fires break out in Queens and coastal New Jersey Fire departments cannot reach them because of the raging waters. Lives are thrown into turmoil.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie praises and works with President Barack Obama, who has stopped campaigning to lead the country through this disaster. Both are tireless. President Obama’s opponent, Governor Mitt Romney, who has made millions outsourcing jobs and thus rendering millions jobless, reaches into his pocket and donates $5,000, one-half the amount he offered to bet Governor Rick Perry during the Republican primary. He also tells people to donate a can of soup. Oh, and Governor Christie (finally!) gets the chance to meet and hug Bruce Springsteen.
Still, the Presidential election goes on. I call Mike Gold three times during the evening, freaking out that Obama was going to lose. He tells me that John Ostrander also called him doing the same freaking out. Mike is also incredibly calm – I accuse him of bordering on a Romney smirk – as he keeps assuring me that Obama will win.
I keep switching the channel to Everybody Loves Raymond because I can’t take the suspense. North Carolina goes with Romney. Then – the other battleground states start reporting results. Virginia for Obama. Colorado for Obama. New Hampshire for Obama. Iowa for Obama. Pennyslvania for Obama. Nevada for Obama. Wisconsin for Obama. And around 11:00 P.M. EST, all the networks, including Fox, call Ohio, and the election, for Obama!!
Megan Kelly takes the cameras to the polling room at Fox and demands to know if the statisticians are standing by their call. Karl Rove goes apoplectic and argues with Chris Wallace, who is anchoring. Romney’s campaign is saying they will not concede Ohio. At around 12:00 midnight Romney makes a – yes, it was short, sweet, and gracious – concession speech. Obama has won 304 Electoral College votes, Romney 206. Obama has also won the popular vote. We are still waiting on Florida. Donald Trump tweets, calling for revolution.
Wednesday. Sandy has left, though outside the skies are dark with clouds and there is no feeling that the storm is over. Alix and Jeff have gone home – they are lucky; although they have no power, their house is dry and safe. I get to work about 9:00 a.m. In the staff lounge I watch TV, and see for the first time what Sandy has wrought. It is as if a war has been fought over the last two days. Some houses are not even there; all that is left are grey concrete foundations. The PATH trains are flooded; the New York subway system is at a standstill. The Holland, Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and Midtown Tunnels are impassable, also flooded. The Stock Exchange is dark. The mighty New York City megalopolis, the city that never sleeps, the center of the financial world, is closed to business.
Though President Obama has won re-election, Florida is still undecided. We learn that Mitt Romney never wrote a concession speech. We learn that when he was told he had lost Romney was in a state of shock. We learn that the Secret Service booked immediately upon hearing the result, and his son Tag drove that Mr. Romney home. We learn that Romney’s campaign workers were told to pack their bags and go home, and oh, by the way, here’s the hotel and food bill. Colorado and Washington State vote to legalize marijuana. Maine, Maryland, and Washington State vote in favor of same-sex marriage.
Wednesday night Sandy’s cousin, Nelly Nor’easter hits New Jersey, New York and Connecticut with wind gusts up to 50 mph and up to 12 inches of snow. Also on Wednesday: Karl accuses the Democrats of stealing the election through voter suppression.
Thursday we learn that Obama won Florida. Thursday we learn the final Electoral College tally: Obama 332, Romney 206. The pundits are blaming Chris Christie for working with Barack Obama. The pundits are blaming Sandy. Bill Maher tweets, “Magic underwear, my ass!” Texas Republicans are advising the public to buy guns and are recommending secession. It is an ironic bit of synchronicity that Spielberg’s new film, Lincoln, is opening tomorrow.
Thursday afternoon the sun has come out; snow is already melting. Alix and Jeff’s power has come back. The trains are still out but they are both able to work from home, and so don’t have to face the hours of commuting into the city. My usual route to work is blocked by fallen trees and telephone poles; I must drive though unknown winding roads. I am glad I never took off my snow tires.
It will take months, if not years, for the great megalopolis to recover. Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York warns that Sandy was just a warning, and that if we do not plan and prepare and stop global warming, the next storm will be worse. It is suggested in the New York Times that “the city and coastal areas build “waterbreaks – like firewalls – to help prevent future massive flooding.” FEMA has come; there is an office here in my city, operating out of the city’s historical museum. Chris Christie continues to work; his stamina is amazing. EMTs and firemen and policemen haven’t been home in days, have risked their lives, and still risking their lives; utility companies from as far away as New Mexico have sent their own to aid their brothers and sisters in rebuilding the broken infrastructure that powers this vast metropolis.
There is a promise in Friday’s sunrise. I look up to the sky as I walk to the car. The crescent moon is ablaze with silvery light, and Venus sits just off its lower horn, shining with the light of tomorrow. Tonight Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, Christine Aguilera, Brian Williams, Jon Stewart, and others will hold a benefit concert.
And I know that there are heroes. They may not fly. They may not have super-strength, or X-ray vision. They don’t come from far away planets. They’re not born with mutated genes.
Their power comes from the heart.
TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis
LOS ANGELES – Sept. 18, 2012– Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment today announced the launch of DIGITAL HD™ — a new initiative that allows consumers to download or stream their favorite Fox movies on a variety of connected devices. Customized for today’s digital lifestyles, more than 600 Fox films can now be enjoyed anywhere, anytime in amazing high-definition immediately in the U.S. from Amazon, CinemaNow, Google Play, iTunes, PlayStation, VUDU, Xbox Live and YouTube.
The epic sci-fi thriller PROMETHEUS is also available today on DIGITAL HD™ for less than $15, arriving three weeks before Blu-ray, DVD and video-on-demand (VOD).
Digital HD™ combines four key benefits into one offering with earlier access to new releases, attractive pricing, cloud storage and availability across multiple devices. Whether the plan involves watching Fox movies on connected HDTVs in your living room, or on your tablet or smartphone on the run, Digital HD™ offers up versatility and convenience.
“With almost 800 million broadband connected devices globally, and millions of people accessing entertainment on those devices, we feel the medium’s time has come,’’ said Mike Dunn, President Worldwide, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. “DIGITAL HD™ redefines digital ownership in a way that presents consumers with a full range of benefits in a coherent way, and it allows them the chance to build digital movie collections that can literally be carried in the palms of their hands. ”
“Available in more than 50 countries, DIGITAL HD™ is a brand that will define the convenience and selection that digital ownership brings,” added Mary Daily, President of Worldwide Marketing and Chief Marketing Officer, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. “Over time, DIGITAL HD™ will embody the benefits of HD quality and the ultimate all-access pass to the best in entertainment.”
Today’s launch will coincide with the most extensive all-digital media campaign to date for digital movies that will reach over 100 million active movie viewers across online retailer sites and through the No. 1 sports, music and gaming sites.
PROMETHEUS on DIGITAL HD™ is also Fox’s first UltraViolet-enabled title. Additional DIGITAL HD™ new releases this year include ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT, THE WATCH and DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: DOG DAYS.
Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA (August 22, 2012) – Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the State Attorneys General and Consumer Protection Agencies and the Ad Counciljoined with Twentieth Century Fox Television and Twentieth Century Fox HomeEntertainment to unveil new public service advertisements (PSAs) featuring scenes from season three of Fox’s award-winning television series “Glee” to educate young adult drivers (16-24) of the dangers of texting while driving.
Earlier this year, the Golden Globe winning series made headlines when a pivotal cliffhanger episode ended with a shocking and catastrophic crash due to texting and driving. Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) was driving to her friends’ (Rachel and Finn, played by Lea Michele and Cory Monteith) wedding when a she received a text. She took her eyes off the road to read it and to type the words “On My Way” for a matter of seconds, but in her distraction she swerved out of her lane and was hit in a tragic accident by an oncoming vehicle. It was months before the audience and “Glee’s” millions of young adult viewers would know the fate of her character, but the message was clear: texting and driving can have horrific consequences.
The new television and digital PSAs employ this powerful scene to emphasize that five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting and driving – when driving at 55 miles per hour, that is enough time to cover the length of a football field. The PSAs direct young adult drivers to the Texting and Driving Prevention campaign web site, StopTextsStopWrecks.org, where teens and young adults can find facts about the impact of texting while driving and tips for how to curb the behavior.
NHTSA reports that in 2010, more than 3,000 people were killed and an additional 416,000 were injured due to distracted driving, which includes texting while driving. The “Glee” PSAs are part of NHSTA, the State Attorneys Generaland Consumer Protection Agencies and the Ad Council’s national Texting and Driving Prevention PSA campaign. Launched in October 2011, this campaign is designed to curb the behavior of young adults who text while driving, address the compulsion of this behavior and demonstrate to overconfident young adult drivers that it is not safe to text while driving.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/hfvUKq_xkfo[/youtube]
“Texting and driving is an epidemic on America’s roadways, but these crashes are preventable. Distracted driving does not just happen, it’s a choice,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “The first line of defense must be personal responsibility by all drivers to put theirwireless devices away and keep their focus on the road, which is why we are working closely with our partners to build public awareness around this important safety issue.”
“This was a story we wanted to tell because we know the influence our show can have in starting conversations and raising awareness,” commented “Glee” executive producer and co-creator Ryan Murphy. “We were inspired by Oprah Winfrey’s campaign encouraging everyone to sign a pledge not to text and drive, which we all signed when we did her show a few yearsago, and we had been looking for an opportunity to tell the story of how a few seconds of carelessness could have a devastating impact on people’s lives. We’ve already heard from thousands of our fans how this story touched them, and we loved the idea of a PSA campaign to keep this important issue front and center.”
“’Glee’ has always told stories that speak to young people in an incredibly entertaining way, provoking conversation and raising awareness in the process,” said Dana Walden and Gary Newman, Chairmen of Twentieth Century Fox Television. “When Ryan and the producers told us they were going to tackle this issue, we knew that beyond telling agreat, dramatic story about our characters, it could have very real impact on the lives of our viewers. We couldn’t be more proud of the work they and the cast have done on this incredible series.”
According to a new, national survey conducted by the Ad Council, there has been progress with the attitudes and behaviors among young adult drivers regarding texting while driving. Fifty-one percent of young adult drivers report that they are “extremely concerned” about their peers texting while driving, which represents an increase of seven percent since September 2011. Most notably, in regards to their current behavior, thirty-four percent of respondents said that they never text while driving, a significant increase from twenty-eight percent in 2011.
“Driving is one of the most dangerous activities for young adults. Texting while driving is a distraction that young drivers can live without,” said Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, the father of two teenage boys. “Drivers of any age should be aware that texting while driving may not only jeopardize the safety of themselves and others, but it can violate state motor vehicle laws against distracted driving and result in hefty fines or loss of driving privileges.”
“We are thrilled to join Twentieth Century Fox Television, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and ‘Glee’ to unveil a new series of public service ads to further extend our texting while driving prevention messages to their vast audience of young adult drivers,” said Peggy Conlon, president and CEO of the Ad Council. “Our latest research shows a nation that is now on the right track in improving the safety of our roads, but there is still more work to be done. We will continue to broaden our campaign messages to help reduce driver distraction, prevent injuries, and ultimately save lives.”
Since 2006, the Ad Council has partnered with the State Attorneys General to address reckless driving among teens. The “Stop the Texts. Stop the Wrecks.” campaign effort has received more than $20 million in donated media support to date. For more than twenty-five years, the Ad Council and NHTSA have worked together on consumer safety PSA campaigns. Per the Ad Council’s model, all of the new PSAs will run and air in advertising time and space that is donated by the media.
The greatest pitfall television series featuring high school cast members has is that the cast is already older when the series begins and they age out rapidly. Smallville stopped setting stories in the high school because the cast looked ridiculous on the sets. Confronting the inevitable graduation challenges the producers to find tortured ways to keep the cast intact after the caps and gowns are put away. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer suffered from this challenge so it is refreshing to see Glee take graduation head on in the third season of the Fox series.
Glee the Complete Third Season came out on DVD last week and seeing it without the weeks-long breaks between cycles, allows you to see how they handled the coming graduation and choices the teens are being asked to make. While the series has never really focused on the kids’ academics, there was almost zero interest in ACTs or college visits, so it was always in the ether but never the focal point of the stories. Instead, it was all about getting to Nationals in New York and succeeding. The season opened with the need for fresh members thanks to a rival Glee Club set up by Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel) while Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) ran for Congress on an anti-arts platform.
Clearly, the producers had no real idea of where to take the characters as motivations and the status quo changed, twisting them beyond recognizabilty. The most ill-served may have been Quinn (Dianna Agron) who started off trying to steal back her baby, given to Shelby for adoption, then embracing the final year of high school until her driving accident (don’t text and drive) and recovery. Somewhere along the line, this sympathetic character, who in season two recognized she was a small town girl stuck in Ohio, gained 50 IQ points and got into Yale and was Ivy League bound. Huh? The best teen villain has become a hero. All the edges to characters are gone, from Puck (Mark Salling) to the divas Mercedes (Amber Riley), robbing the students of interesting character variety. Santana (Naya Rivera) was also softened although her coming out as a lesbian and rising as a performer were among the season’s highlights.
Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), the romantic couple at the center of the storm, decided to get married and their arc dealt with that reality and the choices each need make for themselves and each other. This rang far more true than the disastrous marriage between Coach Beiste (Dot-Marie Jones) and Cooter Menkins (Eric Bruskotter), which formed a mini-arc in the final third of the season.
While each of the 22 episodes is entertaining and often heartfelt, as a season-long arc for the faculty and students it’s a mess and by now Ryan Murphy should have a very clear idea of who they are and where these characters are going. Instead, he seems to have lost any sense of edge in Sylvester, giving her instead a rival in Roz Washington (NeNe Leakes). Even the show’s most intriguing character, Burt Hummel (Mike O’Malley), somehow found himself running for Congress and winning, stealing him from Kurt (Chris Colfer), just as his son’s dreams of going to NYADA are crushed.
Musically, the show remains strong, aided by the welcome addition of Darren Criss’ Blaine to the New Directions. Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet) is also back after a brief contract issue. Some of the winners of the reality series, The Glee Project, wind up added to the cast but are little more than hangers-on with little learned about them and rarely given a showcase. The quest for a championship takes a backseat to the fall musical, West Side Story, which featured some terrific reimaginings of the classic numbers.
In the finale, eight of the cast graduate and turnover in the New Directions will fuel the fourth season as it begins in a few weeks. Most of the graduates will continue to appear so the ensemble swells which is not always a good idea.
The four disc set looks amazing and of course sounds terrific but we’ve come to expect that from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. A neat feature to the set is that the menus will help you keep track as you work your way through the season, remembering where you are.
As usual, the extras are heavy on the music, the show’s hallmark. We get more from the Glee Music Jukebox, although you get clips and not the full songs that were edited to air. Some of the non-musical bits include “Glee Under the Stars” (7:45), a kickoff event at Santa Monica High School. “Glee Give a Note” (7:46) shows stars Jayma Mays and Jones present Culver City Middle School a check for $10,000 for arts education.
You can enjoy some extended and deleted scenes throughout the discs. The highlight here is a Sue Sylvester flashback that should have found its way on air. “Glee Swap: Behind the Scenes of ‘Props'” (5:41) is a nice look at the fun body-swapping episode. “Meet the Newbies” (13:20) spends more time with the new cast members than the series seemed to. “Saying Goodbye” (15:19) is a good look at the emotional toll the finale took on one and all. Lynch’s acerbic Sylvester is found on “Ask Sue: World Domination Blog” (6:07) and “Return of Sue’s Quips” (2:58).
One can hope that the freshened cast will ignite some greater dramatic consistency to match its musical excellence. For now, we have this set which is maddeningly enjoyable while being frustratingly inconsistent.
The challenge in producing a teen-centric horror television show is that it will inevitably be compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon was note perfect with the casting and theme of high school is a horror movie. It takes a brave showrunner to come up with a variation that avoids duplication and can withstand the comparison. MTV, once the home for teen centric music videos, has gone from reality television to scripted series so it made sense that sooner or later they’d dip a claw into the horror genre. What few expected was how successful they would be.
The 1985 Michal J. Fox comedy Teen Wolf was a largely entertaining film capitalizing on the actor’s immense popularity from NBC’s Family Ties and certainly had a theme worthy of adaptation into weekly television. In both the film and the series, a teen encounters a werewolf and becomes one. The world knows they exist thanks to countless movies so his presence isn’t necessarily as shocking as one would expect. The transformation also allows the lead character to explore his true nature as he suddenly goes from lacrosse-playing social outcast to exceptional guy. Still, he keeps his hairy alter ego a dark secret.
The series focuses on Scott McCall (Tyler Posey), a Beacon Hills High School student who becomes a werewolf and keeps it a secret with the exception of sharing the news with his best friend “Stiles” Stilinski (Dylan O’Brien). Together, they spend the first six episodes dealing with what this means and trying to find a cure, leading them to the poorly named Dr. Lycos. Meantime, they learn there is another werewolf lurking on the outskirts of town, Derek Hale (Tyler Hoechlin), with secrets of his own. The second story arc involves a threat from the beast known as the Alpha which explores the werewolf pack mentality which is a fresh take. (more…)
We cannot begin to tell you how excited we are that this collection will be out in time for the holiday shopping season. An amazing adrenaline-fueled time capsule, it will give James Bond fans a treat as all their favorite actors, stunts, gadgets, and Bond Girls are in high definition in a complete set. Given the excitement earlier this week when the Skyfall trailer hit, it’s clear the appetitie for 007 has yet to wane. Here are the official press release details:
All the Bonds. All the girls. All the action. All in high-definition. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment mark James Bond’s monumental golden anniversary with the release of BOND 50, the complete Bond experience showcasing all 22 classic films on Blu-ray together for the first time ever, neatly packaged into one cool, sleek collectable box-set. The collection will be available beginning September 24 in the United Kingdom and September 25 in North America with additional international markets to follow that week. BOND 50 marks the debut of nine James Bond films previously unavailable in high definition Blu-ray and comes with a dossier of more than 122 hours of bonus features.
Set for release just prior to the theatrical premiere of SKYFALL, BOND 50 will offer a look at the latest Bond film through videoblogs shot with the cast and crew. The BOND 50 collection also provides two all-new pieces that spotlight the history of 007. “The World of Bond” takes a look at the style and attitude that is signature to Bond; pulling together the cars, the women, the villains and the music that have been a staple of these films for the past 50 years. “Being Bond” profiles the six distinguished actors that have had the honor of portraying 007.
“We have a whole program of exciting activities planned for our 50th anniversary year, beginning with today’s announcement, by Fox, of the release of all 22 films on Blu-ray for the very first time,’’ added Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, with Eon Productions. “We are also delighted that Fox has unveiled a specially designed anniversary poster which we hope the fans will love as much as we do. Our website, 007.com will be regularly updated with all the latest anniversary news and events.” (more…)
He’s not faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, nor able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. He doesn’t wear tights and a cape and he has only one identity. But, I hereby submit, he is a superhero – indeed, the only superhero who currently appears in a weekly television series.
He’s a kid named Jake. The show is Touch. You can see it on Fox on Thursday nights.
Okay, so lacking everything mentioned above, what, exactly, qualifies young Jake for superherodom? Well, that’s hard to say. In fact, the continuing subplot has to do with Jake’s father and some other sympathetic adults, trying to figure out what it is that the boy does and how he manages to do it.
What they (and we) see is: Jake looks at seemingly unrelated numbers and geometric patterns, discerns connections and consequences and acting on the information/intuition, prods his father into action that averts unpleasant consequences for strangers.
So: Jake uses extraordinary powers for a common good. That alone qualifies him for a membership in the superhero club. He seems to have a Big Mission, though maybe he doesn’t and if he does, neither his old man nor we know what it is. Finally, the matter of the costume: well… Jake is either autistic or doing a darn fine job of faking it and, I suggest, the oddities of autistic behavior serve as a kind of costume – something that distinguishes Jake from the guy downstairs.
Take a bow, Jake. You’re the twenty first century superhero precisely because you don’t resemble the others of the tribe. I mean… lifting heavy stuff and shedding bullets and crashing through walls and flying and…all so last century, abilities conferred on heroes when we as a species really didn’t know much about how the universe works, when we tended to identify power with physical force and rugged – in Superman’s case, very rugged – individualism. We now know, those of us who care to know, that our world is more subtle and vastly more complicated than the world of the costumed do-gooders who popped up in the comic books of the 1930s. Their creators worked with the information they had. We have different information, and if you want to claim that ours is better, I won’t be the one to contradict you.
As the biologist J.B.S. Haldane said, “My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”
What Touch gives us, in easily digested, plot driven melodrama, is a metaphor for a truth agreed on by Zen masters and quantum physicists alike: everything in existence – and especially everything on planet Earth – is interconnected. The collapse of an industry in Tokyo today will gobsmack Wall Street tomorrow and the most infinitesimal alteration in the components of subatomic particles would make human beings impossible.
Young Jake seems to know that and maybe we can learn from him. And if we can’t…well, what he does is still fun to watch.
SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
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The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
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