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Every year for more than a decade, the Star-Telegram has run year-end lists of babies born to celebrities, celebrity marriages and splits and deaths. This year, we've run them over several days' worth of the Live page. But someone always does something in the last week of the year, after one or more of the lists has been published. This time, it's Sean Penn and Robin Wright -- they're splitting up after 11 years together.
--Robert Philpot
The former The O.C. star is the latest celeb to be arrested in connection with DUI. When you weigh as little as Mischa does, it probably takes less than a shot.
--Robert Philpot
I don't really care for his music, but I do admire his actions.
--Robert Philpot
Dallas-Fort Worth Christian-music station KHVN/970 AM "Heaven 97" has been nominated for a Stellar Award as major-market radio station of the year, per AllAccess.com. Here's the cut-and-paste. -- Robert Philpot
Finalists for the 2008 STELLAR RADIO STATION OF THE YEAR awards were announced recently. The winners in each category will be announced during the STELLAR GOSPEL MUSIC AWARDS SALUTE TO RADIO AND ANNOUNCERS on SATURDAY, JANUARY 12TH at the ACUFF THEATRE in NASHVILLE. The awards finalists include:
Major Markets:
WGRB-A/CHICAGO
WNAP-A/PHILADELPHIA
KHVN-A/DALLAS
WLIB-A/NEW YORK
WPZE/ATLANTA
Large Markets:
KPRT-A/KANSAS CITY, KS
WXEZ/NORFOLK
WHAL/MEMPHIS
WTLC-A/INDIANAPOLIS
WBBP-A/MEMPHIS
Medium Markets:
WGOK-A/MOBILE
KHLR/LITTLE ROCK
WYLD-A/NEW ORLEANS
WAGG-A/BIRMINGHAM
WREJ-A/RICHMOND-VIRGINIA BEACH-SUFFOLK, VA
Small Markets:
WOAD/RIDGELAND-JACKSON, MS
WFMV/COLUMBIA, SC
WHLH/JACKSON, MS
WFLT-A/FLINT, MI
WGRM/GREENWOOD, MS
--Local radio-heads Chad Hoker, Mike Shannon and John Lewis return The Hi-Fi Club, their salute to Dallas-Fort Worth radio history -- and radio history in general -- to the air from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday on KMNY/1360 AM. Click the link for more info, including how to get streaming audio in case you have a hard time getting KMNY at night in Tarrant County.
--To divide your attention or challenge your channel-surfing, Dale Gleitz's The Rock Menagerie, which you can find out more about here, will air an expanded edition from 7 to 11 p.m. Sunday on KTCU/88.7 FM. Gleitz usually does a theme-based show that pulls in all sorts of classic rock and pop, including album cuts and lost classics the commercial stations don't play. But this week, he's sticking to 2007:
"I'll count down the Rock Menagerie Top 50 of 2007 from 7-11PM," he e-mails. "For one week out of the year I play all current music answering the question: 1) what would I have played the most in 2007 if the Rock Menagerie emphasis was current music or ... 2) what nationally successful music was most tolerable this year."
--Robert Philpot
Pop Cultural District is largely quiet till the New Year, because of vacations and other things. But Oscar Peterson is too big a jazz death not to post about. So here's a clip in memoriam of the pianist, who died Sunday at age 82. -- Robert Philpot
TVGuide.com provides an update on Jamie Lynn and her pregnancy, and responds (albeit not directly) to a Pop Cultural District comment about whether this is a case of statutory rape.
--Robert Philpot
TV might be the most fluid of all entertainment forms -- movies are pretty immediate, with only a rare few that get better with each viewing; albums may grow on you over time, but the songs on them remain the same. TV switches gears from season to season, and even episode. Some shows got better this year (Big Love, Lost); some got worse (Friday Night Lights, Heroes); some shows that looked iffy to me at first now have my attention (The Big Bang Theory, Aliens in America); some that I thought would be addictive turned out to be disappointments (Cane, Bionic Woman).
My 2007 Top 10 that appears in the print edition today is largely made up of shows that have hooked me from the beginning and kept me hooked (the one exception is Pushing Daisies, which really had to break down my resistance). (UPDATE: In one of my more embarrasing goofs in recent memory, I included The Wire in the list. It's a great show -- it just didn't happen to air a new episode in 2007. I've promoted The Closer to the Top 10, whenever that gets adjusted online.) The honorable mentions below are shows that I like, but have more trouble embracing In order of preference
11. Dexter, Showtime: I'm not on board with the whole Showtime Is Now Better Than HBO thing yet -- too many of Showtime's series have flaws that outweigh their virtues. This is the one I like the best, but it's because of Michael C. Hall's tightly wound performance as a nice-guy serial killer and because of the paperback-novelesque plotting. Keith Carradine was a good guest star this season. Now if they'd only come up with a supporting character I cared about.
12. The War, PBS: Ken Burns adheres so strictly to a formula -- somber narration, talking heads, film clips and still pictures -- that his mega-documentaries can become a little monotonous, and it was sometimes a challenge to sit through all 14 hours or so of his World War II epic. Yet only by sitting through all of it can you get the full emotional effect of the final episode, with the horrifying events that led up to the end of the war, and the fallout for the people who fought it.
13. Aliens in America, CW: I almost put this little CW sitcom in the Top 10, but I couldn't get past the self-consciousness of putting it there just because it's a little CW sitcom. I still have reservations about its central premise -- i.e., it often treats Midwestern Americans as dolts who can only learn from a Pakistani Muslim exchange student -- but when it gets into the high-school world of put-upon teen Justin Tolchuk (the wonderful Dan Byrd), it feels painfully funny and accurate.
14. How I Met Your Mother, CBS: The tale of five friends -- two married, two broken up, the other a self-styled and smarmy ladies man -- is inventive and funny, and when it hits bull's eye it finds the middle ground between Friends' sunniness and Seinfeld's cynicism. And yet it's often forced and awkward, and Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel's performances overpower the rest of the cast.
Other candidates: Battlestar Galactica, Sci-Fi Channel; Life, NBC; Supernatural, The CW; Top Chef, Bravo; "Supernatural Saturdays" (Hex, Jekyll, etc.), BBC America.
--Robert Philpot
Entertainment Weekly reports that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will return to the Comedy Central airwaves with new shows beginning Jan. 7.
--Robert Philpot
If this link is correct and this is the next cast of MTV's The Real World, it will be the first time in nearly 20 seasons of the too-long-in-the-tooth reality show that it will have a predominantly minority cast. Anything has to be better than the current Sydney crew.
---Cary Darling
