Leave a comment Posted on December 26, 2015December 25, 2015 by J Entertainment, Link-Off

Entertainment Link-Off: Happy Retail Therapy Day!

It’s the Christmas long weekend! By the time this post goes up, it should be boxing day already. Anyway, hope all the Lowdown readers are having a wonderful holiday season. Now let’s get to the links shall we? Kicking things off is Emma Robert’s latest shoot for Allure. Now suddenly I feel like watching Scream Queens since I missed out on the initial 13 episode run.

After the jump, Johnny Depp is severely overpaid, more Star Wars related news, less sexual violence for Game of Thrones, Jimmy Fallon is winning the late night battle and celebrate the 12 days of Deadpool with the brand new red-band trailer! Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on December 25, 2015December 25, 2015 by Steve Murray Entertainment

Santa With Muscles

It’s sort of a Christmas tradition at The Lowdown to feature terrible Christmas movies on Christmas Day. I think this year’s might not just be one of the worst Christmas movies of all-time but one of the worst movies period of all-time.

At one point in time, Hulk Hogan wanted to be a big movie star. The Hollywood moniker he used as a heel wasn’t too far off the mark. While the Hulkster would pave the way for The Rock to become Hollywood’s biggest draw, Hogan’s career film never escaped kid’s movies and basically died in 1996 when he made the children’s Christmas disaster known as Santa with Muscles.

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Leave a comment Posted on December 24, 2015December 23, 2015 by Steve Murray Entertainment

What if the Star Wars Prequels Were Good?

When I was looking for content for the run up to The Force Awakens, I came across a couple of videos with hypothetical re-writes of the Star Wars prequels by Belated Media. Now that I’ve finally seen The Force Awakens and (spoilers) found out that the prequels really had no impact on the new trilogy so far, I think it would be fun to go back and reexamine the prequels.

So the suggested re-writes aren’t perfect but they’re a reasonably good summation of what went wrong with the prequels and what could be done better.

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Leave a comment Posted on December 23, 2015December 23, 2015 by Steve Murray Link-Off

Wednesday Link-Off: Eve Eve

You know, I really think that this Christmas Eve Eve and yesterday’s Christmas Eve Eve Eve shit is just dumb. Today is December 23rd. If you need help remembering that it’s the day before the day before Christmas, I’m not sure that calling it Christmas Eve Eve will be that much of a benefit to you in the long run. I probably sound like a surly old bastard but kids these days just don’t make any sense. I wonder if they think they’re being funny. That’s not how humour works.

Anyway, it’s Wednesday so it’s time for us to do the links. Normally, I’d kick off with someone but I didn’t find anyone before I dozed off watching StarCraft last night. More on that at the bottom of the post.

Donald Trump could win the Republican primary but could he beat anyone in an election. A new poll has Bernie Sanders 13 points ahead of Trump. (The Hill)

Many Canadians can’t afford homes and blame foreign buyers. Will banning them help at all? (Quartz)

PostMedia is disintegrating from the inside. Maybe if they focused a bit on journalism and being a news organization, things would be different right now. (iPolitics)

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Leave a comment Posted on December 22, 2015December 21, 2015 by Steve Murray Randominity

The Science of Grocery Shopping (Infographic)

If I’m not getting the usual fare at the grocery store, I often find it damn well near impossible to find things. For example, this weekend, I was looking for tomato paste. I would have thought it would be next to the crushed tomatoes (kinda necessary for sauce). Instead, it was down at the other end of the aisle next to the pasta sauce. I’m sure there was a reason for why some items in a grocery store are in a particular place. To find out, I found this handy infographic about the science of grocery shopping.

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Leave a comment Posted on December 20, 2015December 20, 2015 by Steve Murray Link-Off

Sunday Link-Off: Have You Felt It

I know Jackie gave his quick thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens yesterday but I don’t think I’m capable of doing it quickly. Our review podcast could either be 30 minutes or 3 hours depending on how much we argue about. I think we’ll both agree that we loved it and will be going multiple times. We’ll let you know when to expect the review.

Anyway, that’s a problem for a future date. For now, we’ve got to focus on some links. Let’s kick things off with Erin Heatherton.

America’s Omnibus budget bill also included the dreaded CISA, Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. I hope you don’t value your privacy. (Engadget)

Fox News’ “fair and balanced” slogan might get mocked but it’s not off the mark when it comes to the Republican primary. They’re giving a good grilling to the frontrunners. (The Fix)

Carly Fiorina was near the head of the GOP polls for a little bit. Now, she might be talking her way out of any chance. She has a pretty poor relationship with the facts. (Salon)

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1 Comment Posted on December 19, 2015December 18, 2015 by J Entertainment, Link-Off

Entertainment Link-Off: The Force is Here!

Steve and I will likely go into more detail in a possible upcoming podcast but I’ll share my quick thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Overall, it was a good flick. While it doesn’t quite match the highs of the original trilogy, it is still miles ahead of the prequels. At times it feels like a quasi-rehash of A New Hope but the new characters are compelling and I’m definitely excited to see where the new journey will lead to. Anyway, the notable star of the flick is Daisy Ridley as Rey, so let’s kick off the ELO with her at the European premiere of the film.

After the jump, quick look at the new Ghostbusters, more Star Wars tidbits, trailers for a lot of sequels next year and watch Spider-Man take on Darth Maul in a death battle. Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on December 18, 2015December 18, 2015 by Steve Murray Entertainment

Everything Wrong with Star Wars in 140 Minutes

Everybody had their own way to celebrate the start of a new era of Star Wars. We’re doing a bunch of Star Wars themed posts capped off by our The Force Awakens review podcast. We’ll definitely do one. It’s just a matter of synchronizing our schedules halfway around the world.

The folks over at CinemaSins did their usual thing to celebrate The Force Awakens. They did the Everything Wrong With videos for all six Star Wars movies (no love for Clone Wars?) in nine videos and over two hours worth of sins. The funny thing was that I thought this was fantastic and I’m a massive Star Wars fan.

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1 Comment Posted on December 17, 2015December 17, 2015 by Steve Murray Entertainment

The Jar Jar Binks Sith Theory Explained

This theory has been floating around the internet lately but intrepid YouTuber Vincent Valentine (probably not the same one from Gaia) has compiled the evidence that fans have put forward for this one. With The Force Awakens hitting today, fans are suggesting that the big villain of the prequel trilogy was actually Jar Jar Binks. When you go over the evidence, there’s actually a pretty compelling case for suggesting that Jar Jar was more than he seemed.

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