The lack of originality from Hollywood

Over the last decade, it has been hard for anyone to not notice that the entertainment industry has gotten just plain lazy. TV producers have decided to put on as much "reality" shows on the tube as possible with the adverse effect being that any original programing that fails to reach the network's (think of the big broadcast networks) arbitrary benchmark gets canceled at the first chance while crappy reality shows stay on for time indefinite (as long as it's the right kind of crappy).

In the arena of movies, the creative deficit has been resulted in sequels, prequels, remakes, and countless adaptations of books and comics getting green lit all the time. At first, I thought that it was based on Baby Boomer nostalgia, but that was until I more or less found out that Generation X was making its mark in Hollywood. So, my mindset went to thinking that it had to be Gen-X nostalgia from older Xers. However, as the years have passed, the lack of original movies is based on nothing more than the Hollywood studios being risk-averse--i.e., lazy. They are so afraid to lose money that they only go with safe bets. This assessment was confirmed on the "2 Guys Named Chris" show yesterday morning when Deidre told film critic Mark Burger about how her friend wants to get into the film business. The friend told Deidre that Hollywood gets original ideas all the time but that the studios want to only go with the givens (all of this was confirmed by Burger).

We have become our parents

That is the only logical conclusion that can be reached for those of us born between 1965 and 1985. Like our parents before us, we bemoan the lack of "good music" today--rap continues to decline, rock hardly feels less irrelevant, country music is what it is, other genres come and go fadwise, and I won't even mention pop.

Back in the day--'80s and '90s for you youngsters--we mocked or laughed at our parents when they talked about music from "the good old days" being better than our kind of music.

Now, the shoe's on the other foot as the music on the radio sounds all the same and most TV networks have shunned music for reality shows and reruns of old television shows. This has taken place with seemingly no end in sight.

Back to the NCAA tourney

The Wolfpack are going dancing for the first time since 2006--Herb Sendek's final season in Raleigh. As it turned out, we were the last name to be announced...talk about cutting it close.

This is the second time in the at-large era that a first-year NC State coach has been able to get the Pack into the NCAAs. Mark Gottfried is the first on to do it since Les Robinson got Jim Valvano's leftovers in 1991 to the Round of 32.

It would have been significantly better if those crooked refs hadn't decided to play the judge, jury, and executioner roles in yesterday's game.

Anyways, this is a checklist for Wolfpack Nation:
1. Return to the NCAA Tournament. Check
2. Return to being a Top 25 team with consistency
3. Win an 11th ACC Tournament title. It's coming next year--a year late
4. Consistently compete for and win regular season and conference titles
5. Be a consistent Sweet 16/Elite Eight team
6. Be ranked #1 in the polls
7. Return to being a Final Four caliber team
8. Win another national championship (among many, that is)

Check out this great MSN video: How to Save Money on Healthy Foods

Check out this great MSN video: How to Save Money on Healthy Foods

Clark talks Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan and his own tax policy idea

Clark talks Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan and his own tax policy idea

Superconference watch: Breaking news

It has now been confirmed: Pittsburgh and Syracuse have been added as new members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. This is way beyond shocking given that the conventional wisdom was that the ACC was just sitting on its hands as superconference talk heated up again with Texas A&M recently saying adios to the Big XII--which is really the Big XII minus II. (other rumors involved NC State, Virginia Tech, FSU, and Clemson being courted by the Southeastern Conference and that the ACC really wanted UConn and Rutgers)

Texas has been the spark for most of this. There's been talk of the Longhorns going independent. It was that kind of talk last year that prevented the Pac-10 from becoming the Pac-16 coupled with UT wanting their own network, which the now Pac-12 shied away from because it wanted all of its member schools to have a channel more like the Fox-owned Big Ten network.

All I had been hearing for the past month in wake of TAMU's jump to the SEC was that the ACC was in danger of being raided by the SEC and/or the Big East. The talk, as recently as last week, then moved to whether Texas, Kansas, Missouri, or some combination of the three would be added by the ACC. As it turns out, the ACC has once again raided the Big East, which was on pace to become a basketball superconference upon adding Mountain West defector TCU next year.

Another Earth review

The movie was less about parallel worlds than the protagonist Rhoda coming to grips with what she did as a teenager. She killed a former Yale professor's wife, son and unborn daughter and put him in a coma for months while driving drunk after leaving a high school graduation party. She was set to go to MIT. Instead, she spent four years in jail for the deaths. After she leaves jail, Rhoda gets a cleaning job at a high school. She also cleans ex-professor John Burroughs's house. An essay contest is held for people to win a trip to Earth 2. The SETI spokeswoman ends up talking to an alternate version of herself. Rhoda decides to give her ticket to Earth 2 to John.

I was surprised at how little dialogue there was throughout the movie.  I was expecting the filmmakers to do more with Parallel Universe Theory, but there was no view of life on Earth 2, just a view of the duplicate planet in the sky. I would be creeped out by a spitting image of myself (like Rhoda did in the end) as opposed to other intelligent beings from another planet.

Stars: 2.75/4