The teasers for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” began appearing last November, and there are now four in all (with the last one released earlier this week). Just in case you would like to see all four of the teasers together, here they are.
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New Star Wars Trailer (fair warning: I’m about to go full nerd on you)
The new Star Wars trailer released during halftime of Monday Night Football tonight. And yes, I watched it and thought it was epic. Keep in mind that the one writing these words got a little verklempt at the release of the last trailer (Read: “Top 10 things I love about the new Star Wars trailer”). So fair warning: I’m about to go full nerd on you. Because it was da bomb.
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Ted Cruz gets booed on gay marriage in interview with Colbert
Ted Cruz appeared on the “The Late Show with Steven Colbert” last night and was booed over his remarks about gay marriage (watch above). Colbert had to turn to the crowd and ask them not to boo his guest, even though they disagreed with him. Some reflections on this appearance:
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ESPN’s “30 for 30” on President Bush’s “First Pitch”
Here’s the description from ESPN: On the night of Oct. 30, 2001, President George W. Bush stepped onto the mound at Yankee Stadium to throw out the first pitch at Game 3 of the World Series, just six weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. With New York City and the entire country still trying to heal, the ceremonial first pitch that night meant more than “play ball.” ESPN Films’ new 30 for 30 Short “First Pitch” looks at how important that famous pitch was to the nation, and how baseball became a part of the recovery after 9/11. The 23-minute film, directed by two-time Academy Award-winning director Angus Wall…
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The New “Star Wars” Teaser
There has been an awakening… #StarWars #TheForceAwakens A video posted by Star Wars (@starwars) on Aug 27, 2015 at 10:00am PDT Clearly, the best thing that happened to the internet this week is the video that you see above—which appeared exclusively on the Star Wars Instagram account. Now everyone has a reason to be on Instagram that does not involve taking pictures of food.
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Obligatory Letterman Post: The time I almost got on the show…
In July of 2009, my wife and I were in New York City for a trip that was both business and pleasure. I had a meeting to attend in the city, and we came a few days early before my work began so that we could see the Big Apple together for our anniversary. We got into town on a Thursday morning, and one of the first things I did was to ask the hotel concierge how to get David Letterman tickets. I’m not much of a late night TV guy anymore, but I cut my teeth as a faithful Letterman viewer back in the 80’s. Letterman was still New…
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Top 10 things I love about the new Star Wars trailer
I don’t know about you, but the second teaser for the new Star Wars movie got me all verklempt. No kidding. Or maybe it was just something in my eye. Whatever it was, the appearance of Han Solo and Chewey was the coup de grâce. J. J. Abrams is speaking the superfan’s love language. This is an absolutely brilliant preview. It conjures all the feelings of my childhood while pulling my interest forward into new storylines. It is everything you’d want out of a trailer. In fact, these first two trailers are already better than all three of the prequels. They have exorcised my Jar Jar Binks demons. The force…
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How has “The Breakfast Club” aged after 30 years?
John Hughes’ classic “The Breakfast Club” turned 30 this year. To put this in perspective, we are as far removed now from “The Breakfast Club” as the “The Breakfast Club” was from James Dean’s “Rebel Without a Cause” (let that one sink-in, GenXers). Daniel Drezner asks in The Washington Post how “The Breakfast Club” has held up after three decades. Drezner says that he watched “Rebel Without a Cause” in 1985 and found it completely outdated and unrelatable as a teen-angst drama. He wondered if that’s how teens would view “The Breakfast Club” now. So he decided to watch “The Breakfast Club” with his 14-year old son to gauge whether…
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A few thoughts about “American Sniper”
I saw American Sniper last night. Let me add my voice to the chorus of others saying that this is a great movie. When the credits began to roll at the end, every person in our theater sat in stunned, admiring silence. No one said a word. Eventually, we all began to file out with a lump in our throat and a full heart. The movie was hard to watch. It was very violent but successful in evoking in some measure the real horrors of war. And maybe more than anything, it portrays how wicked Al Qaeda in Iraq really was. Somehow that fact seems to have been lost on…
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Tooth & Nail: Do you know this record label?
Back in the 1990’s, contemporary Christian music (CCM) was at its zenith in terms of sales. Some of it was good, but a good bit of it was kind of not. It just wasn’t the kind of music that connected to younger listeners, especially college students. Enter an off-the-beaten path independent record label called Tooth & Nail. With a shoe-string budget, Brandon Ebel founded the company in 1993 and began signing Christian bands with a more modern sound. It was the kind of sound that the kids were listening to in those days. It was certainly the music that I was listening to back then—bands like MXPX (formerly known as…
