Fenway Fanatic Bunts a Book
By Jake Brooks | May 23, 2008 | 12:32 pm
THE CROWD SOUNDS HAPPY: A STORY OF LOVE, MADNESS, AND BASEBALLBy Nicholas DawidoffPantheon, 271 pages, $24.95... MORE >
Jake Brooks
The Week in Music: Madonna, Portishead, The Roots, Robyn, Constantines
By Jake Brooks | April 28, 2008 | 6:40 pm
A curious (and perhaps shameful) thing has happened since Madonna's single, "Four Minutes to Save the World," off her new album Hard Candy (due out today), hit the Internet almost two months ago. At the time, in this same space, I wrote, "fans could be forgiven for cringing a bit at Madge's cool-as-a-cucumber delivery being drowned out by the 'urban,' brassy hip-hop beats. Was it Mommy telling us to turn the music down?"... MORE >
Manhattan Weekend Box Office: Baby Mama Drama! Harold and Kumar Dethrone City's Queen of Comedy
By Jake Brooks | April 28, 2008 | 1:54 pm
Baby Mama’s (no. 2) opening weekend in Manhattan should have been the cherry to Tina Fey’s box office sundae. As the former lead writer of Saturday Night Live and writer and star of 30 Rock, Ms. Fey is New York’s comedic mistress. She even managed to have the movie open the Tribeca Film Festival, the film festival designed to save downtown from the economic downturn of 9/11. This was to be a celebratory... MORE >
The Week in DVR: House Is Where the Heart Is; A Very Hairy Tuesday
By Jake Brooks | April 28, 2008 | 7:12 am
MONDAY There’s something comforting about the predictability of House (Fox, 9 p.m.), which returns tonight. Sometimes it’s nice to have a show where you can set your watch by its familiar plot points, like the show’s every climax where Dr. House has reluctantly ordered some incredibly invasive procedure to cure a patient, only to have it interrupted at the last moment by a new symptom or a phrase that triggers one of Dr. House’s... MORE >
The Week in Music: Ashlee Perseveres; What Is a Tokyo Police Club? Blind Melon Album Raises Ontological Questions
By Jake Brooks | April 22, 2008 | 8:20 am
When Ashlee Simpson began her rise to fame (and later infamy) in 2004, the last thing the world needed was another pop star in her sister's mold—which was lucky for Ashlee, who does not have Jessica's vocal range (nor, need it be said, her Barbie looks). Packaged and primed, Ashlee was groomed to be the anti-Jessica, the Pat Benatar to Jessica's Olivia Newton John. With dark brown hair and that nose, she even managed... MORE >
Manhattan Weekend Box Office: Welcome to Judd Country
By Jake Brooks | April 21, 2008 | 2:07 pm
What Judd Apatow backlash? For every New Yorker who happily proclaimed the end of the producer/director’s run of luck after the flops of Walk Hard and Drillbit Taylor, there was one (if not two, three or four) who ran out to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall (no. 1) this weekend. The comedy racked in $382,590 dollars of its total $17.5 million take here in the city with an incredibly strong $42,510 per screen... MORE >
Manhattan Weekend Box Office: Welcome to Judd Country
By Jake Brooks | April 21, 2008 | 2:07 pm
What Judd Apatow backlash? For every New Yorker who happily proclaimed the end of the producer/director’s run of luck after the flops of Walk Hard and Drillbit Taylor, there was one (if not two, three or four) who ran out to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall (no. 1) this weekend. The comedy racked in $382,590 dollars of its total $17.5 million take here in the city with an incredibly strong $42,510 per screen... MORE >
The Week in DVR: Three's Company! Gossip Girl, Grey's Anatomy, Lost Return in Time for May Sweeps
By Jake Brooks | April 21, 2008 | 7:21 am
MONDAY OMFG, Gossip Girl (CW, 8 p.m.)! (Is OMFG even appropriate slang anymore? Honest to blog, who can keep up?) Too many murdered brain cells to remember exactly where the show left off? Here’s a primer. Blair’s secret affair with Chuck Bass had recently come to light after her reconciliation with Nate. He’s angry, while she’s mortified because being a “whore” undermines her leader status amongst her prim ladies. (Uh, really?) Jenny Humphrey, Dan’s... MORE >
The Week in Music: Mariah Carey, Phantom Planet, M83, the Plastic Constellations, American Princes
By Jake Brooks | April 14, 2008 | 6:31 pm
There’s no stopping Mariah Carey. Her single, “Touch My Body,” off her 11th studio album E=MC2, and its video have so many cringe-worthy moments—no one above the age of 18 should sing about youTube—that it's remarkable anyone can take this song seriously, let alone have it break the tie between her and Elvis for most chart-topping hits. (This is number 18 for Ms. Carey.) But Ms. Carey appears to have learned a couple... MORE >
Manhattan Weekend Box Office: Smart People? Demographic Doppelgangers Devour Holdovers
By Jake Brooks | April 14, 2008 | 2:45 pm
There was a clear division over the weekend between the haves and the have nots—as in those movies that had an audience and those that did not. Each of the top four movies in Manhattan averaged near or over $20,000, while every other movie in the top ten, except for The Visitor (no. 7)—which averaged $23,500 at two theaters—averaged below $6,000. ... MORE >
The Week in DVR: Extra! Extra! The Paper Premiere; Barack on Basketball; Real World Awards
By Jake Brooks | April 13, 2008 | 11:50 pm
MONDAY There should be something wrong when high-schoolers in Florida start to sound like their geriatric counterparts in Boca Raton. But when it's the stars of MTV’s The Paper [10:30 p.m.], it’s downright heartwarming. Though society seems to be "heading to the Internet and to virtual whatnot," 17-year-old Amanda Lorber, an editor on The Circuit, the student-run newspaper of Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla. says she and her mates "really wanna keep... MORE >
Manhattan Weekend Box Office: The Return of Clark Gable (but Not Clark Gable-Like Receipts)
By Jake Brooks | April 7, 2008 | 2:35 pm
There’s a simple explanation for why George Clooney’s Leatherheads (no. 3) performed well below expectations this weekend: it just wasn’t that good of a movie. Were 21 (no. 1) or horror flick The Ruins (no. 2)—both outgrossed Leatherheads here in the city, with 21 managing to more than double Leatherheads' receipts—that much better? No, at least not according to the critics, who panned each film in equal measure. But when a movie like... MORE >
The Week in DVR: The Office, 30 Rock Are Back! Plus, Look Who's Coming Back to Mondays
By Jake Brooks | April 6, 2008 | 3:37 pm
MONDAY Start fresh! That’s what ABC is begging its viewers to do tonight with Samantha Who? (9:30 p.m.). Its rookie run had been going swimmingly until the writers strike. Starring Christina Applegate and Melissa McCarthy (Sookie from the Gilmore Girls), the show returns in the midst of a heated battle for Monday... MORE >
The Week in Music: R.E.M.'s Make-Up Sex? Moby Is—Gasp!—Manhattan; White and the Black Keys
By Jake Brooks | March 31, 2008 | 6:22 pm
R.E.M. releases its 14th album, Accelerate, today. According to most accounts, it's a return to their Athens, Ga. roots. Spin writes rather breathlessly, "They haven't sounded this surprised with themselves since 1998's Up, haven't made an album this consistent since 1992's Automatic for the People, and haven't redlined so engagingly since 1986's Life's Rich Pageant." The emerging storyline is that like any long-lasting marriage, R.E.M. is surfacing from the depths of a dark... MORE >
Manhattan Weekend Box Office: Is There No Such Thing as a Sure Bet? 21 Would Beg to Differ
By Jake Brooks | March 31, 2008 | 2:18 pm
It’s been a decade since Rounders, the last (and perhaps only) good film dedicated exclusively to card-playing. And while this weekend’s box office winner, 21 (no. 1), doesn’t take over that mantle, it does raise the question why Hollywood hasn’t made this their bailiwick more often. Card-playing is always the bridesmaid, never the bride, good for a bit part, to add a little sense of danger and intrigue, but rarely the star of... MORE >
