Posts by Mike Makowsky

Spring Break, woo!

“Out here in the fields,
I fight for my meals.”
- The Who, Baba O’Riley

Whoosh!  High tide shattered the shores of Panama City, Florida, retreating back into the ocean like a fickle woman. As I breathed in the sights and sounds of the wasteland affectionately known by the Delaware Fighting Blue Hens as “The PCB,” I wondered out loud to my compatriots – How did we end up here?

It was our spring break and we were just looking for fast kicks and a rip-roaring time. We were seniors, after all, on deck to launch headfirst into the real world. This trip was more than a superficial jaunt; indeed, it was an epitaph to the adolescent experience.

“I feel cold,” said Adam, the runt of our group. It appeared we had been sold on Panama City under false pretenses –not knowing the temperature would stay tepid at best. The pools too chilly to prove inviting, the wind gusts blowing sand into our eyes as we squinted helplessly for the path ahead. In such a climate as this, there was only one thing left for us to do.

For our beers, it was always Wal-Mart. I saw the mammoth structure as a landmark of a bankrupt culture, a consumerist nightmare pulled straight from Philip K. Dick. According to lore, this particular Wal-Mart had outsold all others in alcohol sales over the previous three years. The place was, simply put, a madhouse …

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This Sunday, RISD alum Seth MacFarlane will take the mic to host the 85th Academy Awards (7 p.m., ABC). It’s been a solid year for film, with nine incredibly diverse Best Picture nominees vying for a place in the Oscar pantheon.

Before we get into our predictions, we’d be remiss not to mention just how surprising the nominations were. There were audible gasps from the journalists at the live-streamed announcement ceremony in January when both Best Director frontrunners (Argo‘s Ben Affleck and Zero Dark Thirty‘s Kathryn Bigelow) were passed over for nominations, leaving us to wonder: Can Argo pull off the win everyone expects without Affleck on the roster? The Director category is a historical determining factor for Best Picture, given:

• About three-fourths of all Picture winners also win Director, and
• A mere three films ever have scored Picture without a nom for Director. And it’s only happened once (1989′s Driving Miss Daisy) in the last eighty years. Good luck defying those odds, Argo.

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Good news. This week, Disney struck an exclusive deal with Netflix to stream its catalog via Watch Instantly.

Touchdown for Netflix!

While theatrical releases won’t start cropping up on Netflix till around 2016 (!), yesterday Disney decided to make available some scraps of kiddie nostalgia just in time for finals period. Netflix is now officially the proud streamer of Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo, The Aristocats, The Fox and the Hound, The Great Mouse Detective and Pocahontas. Exponentially more enticing, the deal also includes rights to marginal Disney entities like The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and The Muppet Movie.

The most important revelation of all: some of the direct-to-DVD Air Bud movies are now on Watch Instantly. And because BlogDailyHerald truly doesn’t give a fuck, here’s exactly what you need to know about your favorite athletic Golden Retriever Buddy (and his miraculous English-speaking progeny!), FILM-BY-FILM. [Read more →]

As you gather your provisions for the looming Hurricane Sandy, you may find yourself searching for that perfect under-the-covers activity to pass the time. Look no further. We’ve decided to completely re-envision your most irritating Halloweek inconvenience this side of group costumes and blizzards — with a no-holds-barred marathon of the teen soap that convinced you to apply to Brown in the first place.

Welcome to The O.C., bitch.

These are BlogDailyHerald’s top ten episodes of The O.C. accompanied by the musical moments that made them so damned unforgettable, after the jump.

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To start, let me just explain that I never, ever, ever intended to go to King Richard’s Faire.

These mother@#$%ers have been haunting my nightmares since fall 2009.

Flash back to two weeks earlier, when I was in the midst of prepping an excursion to WaterFire. As a senior I’d still never been, cementing it at the top of my bucket list. This was the last scheduled event of the year. I’d driven downtown, lingered at the mall for a few hours, and upon exiting Looper, I fell subject to the rain that would shut out my hopes of ever actually witnessing the impossible balance between fire and water.

My friends couldn’t understand why I was so upset. As past attendees, they’d assured me it was nothing special, and that the seminal 2009 Brown Noser article “WaterFire” “Enthralls” “Audience” was apropos. But I wasn’t convinced.

So when I was asked if I’d have any interest in checking out King Richard’s Faire, I immediately said yes. There was something instinctive about it. The opportunity was just so out of the ordinary, a complete departure from that comfortable routine I’ve fallen into as a fourth-year Brown student. I’m not sure if I wanted to do it, but I knew I had to. Who knows, maybe I could even find a nice wench maiden to bring home to Mom and Dad.

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Our first thought, and yours: Was Brown’s former dean and erstwhile free-speech advocate Alexander Meiklejohn moonlighting as an obscure mononymous silent film star?

No he wasn’t, but apparently William Meiklejohn (1903-1981), also known as “The Starmaker,” was a renowned talent agent who represented Lucille Ball, Nat King Cole and Judy Garland. Today he is best remembered for discovering a young Ronald Reagan. As far as Wikipedia knows, he bore no relation to the Brown guy. His first name didn’t make it onto the star because he inexplicably had to share the honor with brother Campbell Meiklejohn, who managed the Grauman’s Egyptian Theater.

The Dean and The Starmaker, a side-by-side comparison.

If you dare venture down the cavalcade of blood, grime and tears that is the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you can find the Meiklejohn star at 1777 Vine, between Hollywood and Yucca.

Images via and via.

The Netflix Files works to find the hidden gems of Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature, the films and TV shows that have gone largely unnoticed by the streaming community. This ever-popular column has been on indefinite hiatus all semester due to other commitments.

You don't want no part of this shit.

While you decide how you want to spend this glorious Friday of Spring Weekend, April 20th of the last year before the earth implodes, be sure to stay cognizant of the dangers of Marihuana addiction, as highlighted by the 1936 classic Reefer Madness.

That’s right, the “new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers” might even find its way onto our beloved campus. Think of how much less fun the What Cheer? Brigade would be if you spent the whole concert wanting to rape, murder, run over pedestrians with your new T-Bird and/or leap out a third-story window just because you think you can fly. Because that’s what you’re looking at with Public Enemy Number One — La Marihuana. [Read more →]

In anticipation of the 84th Academy Awards ceremony to be held this Sunday night (7pm, ABC), BlogDailyHerald is once again breaking down the major categories for you.

If anything, 2011 was a year marked by nostalgia. Martin Scorsese’s 3D family film Hugo explored the birth of film as an imaginative medium, while its rival The Artist functioned as a love letter to the long-gone silent film genre. Gil Pender, the protagonist of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, contemplated whether nostalgia for a past decade should dominate one’s opinion of the present. The Muppets reminded us of the ragtag band of puppets we’d left behind with the birth of CGI. Of the Best Picture nominees, only one (The Descendants) didn’t take place in the past.

That being said, it’s appropriate that we take another look into the past, to celebrate the films of 2011 that awed and inspired (and sometimes underwhelmed) us. [Read more →]

Although you may not have known about it, this past Monday, Netflix released its initial venture into original programming to American subscribers. The entire eight-episode first season of Lilyhammer, a fish-out-of-water dramedy about a mafioso trudging his way through snow-coated Lillehammer, Norway, is now available at the click of a button. But is it worth watching?

Norway seems to think so. One million Norwegians tuned in to watch the pilot of Lilyhammer when it premiered there last month. That’s roughly one-fifth of their total population.

It’s also a very, very weird show.

Steven Van Zandt, the star, co-writer and executive producer of the series, is perhaps better known for his role as “Little Steven,” the guitarist and backing vocalist for Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band. He is also recognizable to American audiences for his first and only acting role prior to Lilyhammer as consigliere Silvio Dante on HBO’s The Sopranos. [Read more →]

For Netflix, 2011 was a pivotal year in determining the company’s sustainability in the face of a flagging home video market and the push toward streamed content. The near-fatal price hike announced in July lost Netflix 800,000 subscribers, and CEO Reed Hastings’ seemingly endless flow of apology emails (as well as one particularly stubborn pothead on Twitter) continued to diminish brand loyalty. In the midst of this, Netflix examined new ways to stay relevant, initiating its unprecedented foray into original content with Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards and the highly-anticipated Arrested Development mini-season. The year culminated on an optimistic note, as stock began to recuperate and Netflix regained 610,000 subscribers.

In light of this, let’s reflect on the significance of 2011 by taking a look at Netflix’s streaming selection of films released last year: the good, the bad and the direct-to-the-bargain-bin-at-Tedeschi shit Nicolas Cage churned out so he wouldn’t have to sell another home. [Read more →]