Dots & Slashes

What ARE "Dots" and "Slashes"...?

In the TV world there's "cheers and jeers." In the movie world there's "thumbs up" and "thumbs down." Well, here in cyberspace, there are  (...) dots and (/) slashes. Such are the icons for this web site's own quickie "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" list, which is added to whenever the latest entertainment news requires it.  What news bytes hit their mark, and which should be slashed? Here are the latest of them.

 

Past Lists:

 

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Winter/Early 2005

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DOT :  ...to coming back with a bang. The Amazing Race 7 may not have the cutest teams, but it certainly has the most intriguing lineup in over two seasons. Not one team in the game --even upon the premiere-- leaves you with a boring "who were they again?" feeling. From a gay son and his mom to Survivor's Rob and Amber, and even a former military POW and his pageant winning girlfriend; there is barely any possibility this won't be the best season ever. Does this mean the series has finally earned its place in prime time, and not the summer-repeat abyss where it was for over two full seasons? One can only hope so.

 

Slash : ...to the inane "one month of repeats" scheduling falderal of ABC's hit series, Lost. Okay, fine; there are only three sweeps months per season. That's no excuse to suddenly go on entire one month "vacations" from new episodes, only to return one month later and offer an episode that --let's be candid-- simply wasn't worth the wait. In fact, when the series went into repeat-month status back in December, the returning episode acted like the big cliffhanger --Claire's abduction-- barely even happened at all. Now we know that the hatch Locke wants to open is cursed --or, something to that effect...maybe-- and who wants to take bets on how this too will be overlooked upon mid April, over a month after the last new episode aired? Enough. 

 

DOT :  ...to using well known video game characters for multiple projects. This February marked the release of a new third person action adventure from Namco for the Playstation 2, Death by Degrees. What makes the title so interesting is that it stars the character "Nina Williams," who is often one of the fighters in the Tekken game series. This is a brilliant plan; to reuse intriguing video game characters for multiple projects. Hey; why not guest spots? I'm serious! Give Kate Archer a cameo in a James Bond game. Put Lara Croft in a game with Indiana Jones. In the film world, people are given cameos all the time; same thing happens in television. So why can't a video game character in one video game make a guest appearance in another? It sounds fabulous!

 

Slash : ...to Playboy magazine, for vainly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It's immaterial if you care or not that a staple in 1980's teenage pop music history, Debbie Gibson, finally decided to pose for a sexy pictorial in the March Playboy. The point is she deserved the cover when doing so, and Playboy knows this...but didn't give it to her. Some doofus decided to give it to Paris Hilton instead, who's barely even mentioned in the magazine at all. Oh yeah; a shot of someone who is barely even in the actual magazine is going to sell more magazines than the one who's actually in the magazine. Come on. For shame Playboy.

 

Slash : ...to the stupefying video editing of the recent season of The Amazing Race 6, and how it made winners Freddy and Kendra almost impossible to root for, despite the fact they inevitably won. Seriously; did we need to hear Kendra's comment of how the poverty stricken people in a third world country "keep on breeding"...? No. Yet show that clip they did --twice!-- making the finale far more disappointing along the way. If they hadn't shown Kendra's many spoiled-rich-girl, snooty little euphemisms, maybe we could've rooted for them far more, making the finale far less unpalatable. So why'd they show them?

 

DOT :  ...to Brad Pitt, who left the banter of the Western tabloid journalist behind, while promoting the premiere of Oceans Twelve in Japan. Sure, it seems a bit rude to have only Asian reporters allowed inside the press event (and even then, only reporters who would sign a waiver to not bring up Brad Pitt's separation from Jennifer Anniston). Then again; it's a press junket for the film, not Brad, so for Brad to suspect that Western journalists would suddenly make the event become the "Brad and Jennifer" news hour...? That sounds like a reasonable assumption to us. Kudos must go to Brad, then, for keeping a press event for the movie limited only to journalists interested in the movie, and not making a press junket all "Me, me, me." After all; if they weren't interested in the movie, why did they think they could go there asking about something almost entirely different?

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