Joel Murphy It’s safe to say that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had a pretty good opening weekend. The latest chapter in Michael Bay’s Transformers saga earned $201.2 million, which set the five-day record for a Wednesday launch (handily beating Spider-Man 2 , which earned $152.5 million in its first five days). On Wednesday alone, it earned $60.6 million, which broke Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ’s one-day record for a Wednesday premiere. In fact, there is July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

Let me just start off by saying that “Drugs are bad, mmmmkay…” and being a drug dealer isn’t really something that should be celebrated… However, this is a film site, this is a top ten list and Hollywood is littered with immoral, narcotic obsessed scumbags… Enough about producers though, what about the actors and the drug pedalling characters they have portrayed on the big screen…? Modern cinema loves a good drug tale and we have seen everything from the cautionary to the straight up encoura July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

Online communities are starting to take over the internet, and are now even more popular than blogs. From the giant online communities like Facebook and MySpace , to smaller niche online communities like Marketing 2.0 or my very own Classic Rockers Network . In fact now anyone can fairly easily create their own online community social network for free by using great tools like Ning.com or KickApps.com . But even though its pretty easy to setup an online community, its entirely much ha July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

Actor Tony Bonner today lost a long battle with the producers on 1960s hit television series Skippy The Bush Kangaroo for a share of the show’s profits, says the ABC. Bonner, who played helicopter pilot Flight Ranger Jerry King in the series in 1968, had taken action in the NSW Supreme Court against Fauna Productions Pty Ltd. He had argued the production existed years before DVDs and contracts that remunerated actors for merchandise and related spin-offs. “When I signed the agreement wit July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

Published on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 2:37 am Off The Record is a recurring feature here on the Drunkard that marries two of my greatest interests; music and travel. Having a locals perspective when visiting a new locale is the difference between experiencing it through the lens of a tourist and of that of a native.Off The Record gathers some of my favorite artists, asks them to reflect on their city of residence, and choose a handful of places they could not live without — July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

Director: James Gray ( We Own the Night , The Yards , Little Odessa ) Screenplay: James Gray, Ric Menello Producers: James Gray, Donna Gigliotti, Anthony Katagas Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Isabella Rossellini, Elias Koteas, Moni Moshonov MPAA Rating: R Running time: 110 min. ****½ (4.5/5) I recall walking away from James Gray’s We Own the Night thinking that I’d just seen the beginning of something special. Though the film was overlooked July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

From the Cadillac to the Apple Mac, the skyscraper to the Tiffany lampshade, the world we live in has been profoundly influenced by the work of American designers. Below is an extract from Design in the USA by Jeffrey L. Meikle, part of the Oxford History of Art series, which discusses automobile design and the marketing strategies by Ford and General Motors in the 1920s. The automobile was the most significant technology of the twentieth century, transforming the way almost all people July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

M ost musicals and comedies made during the 1930s were escapist fluff, meant to take audiences’ minds away from the troubles of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl for a couple of hours of music and laughter. Fred and Ginger’s dancing at RKO, Bing Crosby’s singing at Paramount, MGM’s Broadway Melody series, the screwball comedies of Hawks and Leo McCarey, the slapstick stylings of the Marx Brothers - all of them sparkling and calculated to ignore the economic woes of the world outside. But July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

Micah L. Sifry writing in the Independent , explores this idea, On his first full day in office, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive memorandum that may someday be seen as signaling the most important shift in how government works in America since the rise of the New Deal. His subject? Not jobs or health care or the environment, but transparency and open government. In five succinct paragraphs, he promised to create an “unprecedented level of openness in gove July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off

It’s no secret that I think Michael Mann is the greatest director of all-time, dead or otherwise. One can throw all the Scorsese, Kurosawa, Ford, or Spielberg they want and I’ll still conclude that Mann is better than all of them. His style is unparalleled and has influenced my own approach to the way I make films. Maybe it’s how cool he makes everyone appear in his movies, or maybe it’s how no one does action better than him. Mr. Mann just has a touch to his films that really speaks to me. I’m July 1st, 2009 by autoparts | Comments Off