Daytime TV Matters: Ellen and Chris Matthews

Ellen is a genius and if I didn't have a job I would watch her show everyday. What's so great about "the incident" is that I really do believe that Chris Matthews was probably a little sketchy back in the day.

Movie Matters: Family of Four Preview

When Morgan Riehl, line producer of Breathing Room (and my landlady) describes the characters of John Suits' upcoming feature, Family of Four, I can sense that he is creating an exciting piece of cinema. The above trailer further confirms my hunch. It's difficult to determine from a three minute trailer how successful the story telling is going to be, but I'm defiantly willing to spend ten dollars to find out.

Classics Matter: Wile E. Coyote -- Genius

Cartoon break.

Movie Matter: Wall Street - "Live" Blogging

During these tough financial times we must turn to the movies to pull us through. Oliver Stone's classic Wall Street chronicles the rise and fall of Bud Fox, played by Charlie Sheen, a young ambitious broker who becomes the apprentice of the ethically challenged corporate raider, Gordon Gekko, a role Michael Douglass parlayed into an Oscar, who leads Bud to the financial dark side.

John C. McGinley, commissioner of the More Taste League, plays a bit part in this film and his quirky smirk is amazing.

Martin and Charlie Sheen play father and son in this picture and it really helps Charlie sell his role.

This movie is replete with amazing one-liners, the most pertinent to a current crisis comes from Hal Holbrook's character early in film:

"Jesus you can't make a buck in this market, the country's goin' to hell faster than when that son of a bitch Roosevelt was in charge. Too much cheap money sloshing around the world. The worst mistake we ever made was letting Nixon get off the gold standard."

Geneva Roth Holding Corp is the name of the offshore account Gekko's legal council wants Bud to open. That's a bad sign.

Gekko's "Greed is good" speech, like so many Republican speeches about the economy, sounds almost right.

Dayrl Hannah almost ruins this film. She is truly terrible.

Magazine Matters: A New Bearing for The Atlantic

The Atlantic, whose parent company supports the Entertainment Matters editor, has just launched an interesting re-branding campaign. The goal of the campaign is to reposition The Atlantic as the magazine for the "New Intelligentsia," a group of thinkers who are smart and cool.

The campaign itself has borrowed some of the thought provoking questions The Atlantic has asked readers to mull over such as, "Why Do President's Lie?," "Is Porn Adultery?" and "Is Google Making Us Stupid?," and turned them into giant neon signs and placed them in unlikely places. Then they set up cameras and asked passers by to proffer answers. The videos are going up on a snazzy interactive Web site that will fully launch in the coming weeks. They have also endeavored to meet advertisers where they live by inserting these questions on their favorite restaurants' menus and shampoo price tags at the Madison Avenue CVS.

The tagline of the campaign is "Think. Again.," and suggests that The Atlantic can help keep your brain alive. Every liberal arts college boasts that the skill they pass on to students is the ability to think critically. To put that skill to use, and help justify the cost of your student loans, one needs to encounter fresh ideas that challenge the status quo. The Atlantic, whose 1857 mission statement reads, "The Atlantic will be the organ of no party or clique but will honestly endeavor to be the exponent of what its conductors believe to be the American idea" is dedicated to delivering the nourishment your mind needs to stay healthy.

For your mental health, subscribe today.

Satire Matters: Sara Benincasa's Sarah Palin #3

FAIL. The entire Web ad team at the McCain campaign needs to be fired.

Movie Matters: Ghost Town

As a self diagnosed Ricky Gervais fiend I was surprised at how heartwarming his first leading man major Hollywood picture, Ghost Town turned out to be. Don't worry, the character Gervais plays, Bertrum Pincus, is perfectly drawn to capitalize on his comedy of manners style of humor.

The plot is fairly simple, a misanthropic dentist, Bertrum Pincus, has a brush with death during a routine operation and now he is haunted by a legion of ghosts visible only to him. These ghosts are on missions to finish unfinished tasked. The leading ghoul,Frank ,played by a betuxed Greg Kinnear, enlists Pincus to break up his widow, played my Tea Leone, and her fiancé. Hilarity and self discovery ensue. If you're looking for a safe romantic comedy to share with that special someone, pick up Ghost Town today.