I don’t think there’s any doubt that Americans are a gambling people. As a nation, we love the appeal of get-rich-quick schemes, and it’s no surprise that the potential to make money by chance has made Las Vegas the country’s fastest-growing city. We’ll bet on just about anything, from sporting events to the chances of […]
Author Archives: Jake Tracer
Film takes shot at standardized testing but doesn’t score
“The Perfect Score” Directed by Brian Robbins Paramount Pictures Throughout “The Perfect Score,” characters refer to the Scholastic Aptitude Test, better known as the SAT, by rearranging the famous acronym to describe what the test is to them. One calls it “sick and twisted” while another refers to it as the “suck-ass test.” However, none […]
Stargazing better when coincidental
On Friday night, my dad, brother and I went out to dinner to a somewhat-expensive Italian restaurant in Brentwood. My dad was paying. As we began our meal, we noticed the restaurant’s staff working vigorously to prepare two tables near us. Waiters checked the tables meticulously, ensuring the clean sparkle in every piece of silverware […]
Comedy driven by star power ““ or lack thereof
Ironically enough, the key to making “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!” was in finding a movie star who wasn’t a movie star. “It had to be a nobody or a big somebody,” Josh Duhamel said of the actor who could play the title character. “It had to be Ben Affleck, or it had to […]
Time zone mix-up doesn’t detract from “˜Real’ brilliance
I made a mistake, but I’m only half-willing to take the blame. As far as I’m concerned, the other half goes to UCLA’s on-campus cable television setup. This column should be specifically about the first few episodes of “The Real World: San Diego,” the most recent of which aired Tuesday night at 10 p.m. However, […]
“˜Torque’ plays on car-themed movie trends
When it comes right down to it, sometimes people just aren’t as interesting as their cars. The trailer for “Torque” hails the new Ice Cube-led motorcycle extravaganza as coming from the producers of “The Fast and the Furious,” and rightly so. As the sleeper success of 2001, “The Fast and the Furious” seemed to single-handedly […]
Year-end Oscar deadline yields depressing holiday movies
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like Hollywood is trying to ruin my holiday season. As I consciously try to see all the Oscar-contending films before the nominations so I can complain about how wrong the Academy got it this year, Focus Features released “21 Grams” right around Thanksgiving. One of the more depressing […]