Author: Jeff Hammond

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (heretofore referred to as Blart) is a celluloid testament to the enduring spirit of the American moviegoer’s willful consumption of cinematic horseshit.

The average person tells three lies per 10 minutes of conversation.

It’s a sorry state of affairs in TV Land.

It never really seemed fair that a show as funny as Arrested Development was cancelled. The brilliantly hilarious sitcom featuring the highly dysfunctional Bluth family launched Michael Cera’s and Will Arnett’s careers, as well as re-launched Jason Bateman’s (face it, it’s hard to come back from Teen Wolf Too).

This Sunday, FOX’s hit show 24 returns to the airwaves as a two-hour TV movie, 24: Redemption, bridging the gaps between season six and next January’s season seven. Frankly, I couldn’t care less. If you’ve been living in a cave for the past seven years (like many of the show’s antagonists), 24 is FOX’s action-laden dramatic response to 9/11, featuring the fiercely patriotic counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer. Each episode takes place over the course of an hour. So if an hour passes while you sit on your couch, an hour passes in the show. Each season, in turn, has 24 episodes.

When a television show is edgy, people love to talk about “the line.” This apparently invisible scratch in the hypothetical dirt that represents a standard of decency, which, if crossed, indicates a total disregard for civility. FX’s new comedy Testees doesn’t so much cross the line as much as it says “fuck the line!” takes a big shit all over it, then leaps, Matrix-style, hundreds of feet in the air past the line.

Quantum of Solace is not a Bond film. Well, not in a conventional sense at least. There’s no “Bond, James Bond,” no “shaken, not stirred,” very limited quantities of PG-13 sex, and the film’s title? What the hell is that? But that’s not to say the film itself is bad. In fact, it’s pretty good. It’s simply missing some of the classic Bond elements that will undoubtedly disappoint 007 purists.

If you haven’t been watching 30 Rock, first, slap yourself. Second, go buy seasons one and two and watch them. If you’re still reading this, chances are you watch 30 Rock or you simply don’t care for humor (it’s OK, someone’s got to keep Two and a Half Men on the air).

The vampires that populate popular culture, be it Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Sesame Street’s Count von Count, are primarily based on our modern interpretation of the vampire, a derivation of the legendary creatures of Eastern European folklore originating in the 12th century. But that’s not to say that the region where Asia and Europe meet is the only region in the world featuring legendary bloodsuckers.

It may have been a late class, a study group, an incarceration or maybe you just plain lost track of time. Whatever it is, you missed your favoritest show last night, and given that you’re an honest international-copyright-law-abiding citizen, you’re not about to go downloading some sketchy torrents so you can catch what you missed. Or maybe you are. But be forewarned, statistics* indicate that 97 percent of torrents are mislabeled and feature Canadian goat-sushi porn.

As Americans, we revel in the delights of imported goods. We tell ourselves that everything is better imported: wine, cheese, cars, films.