Actually, let me kick off this blog by relaying Scott Shannon's recent on-air clarification regarding his recent "retirement."
He did NOT retire from radio as a whole.
He DID retire from his then-current radio station because they wanted a younger audience, and he couldn't and wouldn't change his style to satisfy that audience.
As for his former employee, Cooper Lawrence, we ARE still friends and I AM checking in with her and the rest of the WPLJ Todd Show crew.
I forgot to welcome the following countries to SteveNation:
BRAZIL
ECUADOR
ROMANIA
Welcome one and all, and I'm sorry I left you out last time, especially Brazil, what with the World Cup coming up. HOPE YOU WON'T LET ANY VUVUZELAS INTO THE STADIUM!
As for the final Olympic results, here's the medal count from Sochi, courtesy of NBCOlympics.com :
RUSSIA: 33 total medals, 13 Gold,11 Silver, 9 Bronze
USA: 28 total medals, 9 Gold, 7 Silver,12 Bronze
NORWAY:26 total medals,11 Gold,5 Silver,10 Bronze
Congratulations,everybody, and also to the Canadian Men's and Women's Hockey Teams on your Gold Medals!
AND NOW, TWO MOVIES I SHOULD HAVE REVIEWED A LOOOOOOOONG TIME AGO:
FROZEN(PG) With the Talents Of Kristen Bell, Adele Mamzeem (Oops, I mean, Idina Menzel!), Owen Wilson, and Josh Gad, Music by Robert Lopez, Lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Screenplay by Jennifer Bell, Inspired by "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen. Walt Disney Animation Studios in association with Disney, Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, available from Amazon, Netflix,and your local service provider.This particular pic has the distinction of being (A) the Best Animated Feature Of 2013 and (B) simultaneously classic Disney and not your mother's Disney. Like THE LITTLE MERMAID, the short subjects THE UGLY DUCKLING and THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES and THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER in FANTASIA 2000,it draws inspiration from the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, and in the tradition of all the classic Disney movies, it features songs that resonate with fans of all ages,(My favorites: "Do You Want to Build a Snowman," and, OF COURSE, "Let It Go")characters you can empathize with, lovable comic relief characters, and heart-tugging drama,but that's where the similarity ends. Maybe it's the fact that Marvel and Lucasfilm are now part of the Disney family, or maybe it's all the Shakespearean adaptations that Miramax produced for Disney, but what Marvel, the Star Wars canon, and Shakespeare's ouevere have in common are heroes who are not entirely good and villains who are not entirely bad. Anybody expecting the prince to be a traditional Prince Charming, the heroine to, as is the case in the post-Little Mermaid world of Disney, to be beautiful, smart, and practically perfect and the villain to be 99 and 44/100% impure is in for a shock, and if you STILL haven't seen FROZEN, you will get NO spoiler alerts here! (I WILL tell you that Josh Gad steals the show as the voice of Olaf, a dimwitted snowman who can't wait for Summer!) If you haven't seen FROZEN, DON'T let it go! See it! You'll be VERY glad you did.
THE LEGO MOVIE(PG) With the talents of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Ferrell, Will Arnett,Morgan Freeman,Liam Neeson,Nick Offerman,Billy Dee Williams,Colbie Smulders and Allison Brie,"Everything Is Awesome" Performed by Tegan and Sara, Produced by Warner Animation Group in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and Lego Systems A/S, Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
EVERYTHING is awesome about THE LEGO MOVIE? Not really. The "We Are The 99%" message that seems to be a major theme in this movie has been overdone, and the live-action Will Ferrell sequence in the middle of the movie kills the fun. The best thing about the TOY STORY series, to which this movie has been compared,has always been the fact that everything, including the sequences when we see the toys' owner, Andy, casting them in his own little dramas,is animated,and furthermore, the TOY STORY series doesn't overtly try to preach any corporate message the way this movie does. Look,I'm all for any movie that encourages imagination,and there ISN'T anything inherently creepy about grown-ups using Lego to create their own construction projects, heck, I know people in construction and I'm sure Lego is essential to their success, but stopping an animated epic just to let some Real Live Hummin' Beans drive that point home? If that isn't a dealbreaker, I would like to know what is! OTHER THAN THAT,MRS. LINCOLN,it may not have been the animated masterpiece TOY STORY and the aforementioned FROZEN were,but it was still an entertaining almost-two-hours at the movies, with great voice performances from Chris Pratt as an ordinary construction man chosen to be the Special One and Elizabeth Banks as his sidekick Wildstyle, and just TRY and say something bad about Morgan Freeman, who plays the voice of the old prophet! I just hope they build a better movie in THE LEGO MOVIE 2! See it...on video.
BREAKING NEWS: Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal's Tribeca Entertainment, which produces the Tribeca Film Festival and the sitcom ABOUT A BOY, among others, has sold half-ownership to The Madison Square Garden Company, which already owns The World's Most Famous Arena, the Beacon Theatre, Radio City Music Hall,the Chicago Theatre, the Wang Performing Arts Center in Boston, the Fuse music television network, the Knicks, Rangers, Liberty and minor league Wolf Pack and MSG Network.
The move allows Tribeca to do things it otherwise couldn't do. Does that mean Bobby himself will coach the Knicks? Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?
AND THE AWARD FOR BAD TIMING GOES TO: WABC-TV, Channel 7, the flagship station of the ABC Television Network, for programming an only marginally funny low-budget romcom called "Weather Girl" about a Seattle (YOU GUESSED IT!) weather girl who commits career suicide on the air by aiming an obscenity-laced tirade right at the Don Juan male anchor of a morning news show just a few days after some broadcast journalists lost their lives in that tragic chopper accident in Seattle. Hey, ABC 7, you guys are part of Disney, why didn't you schedule Michelle Pfeifffer in UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL, which is also a romcom about a weather girl, and was produced by your bosses in Burbank? (Or better yet, FROZEN?)
To borrow the one out-and-out truly funny line from "Weather Girl," "read a newspaper."
As for the Road To The NCAA Final Four, Duke,Pittsburgh,Syracuse and Villanova are all on the road to the golf course as Florida, Mercer, Louisville, and Connecticut continue to the Sweet 16. As they used to say in Brooklyn, WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR!
The one other good thing about that turkey (made by turkeys) I mentioned two paragraphs back was a statement that the weather in Seattle does what one does to a Life Saver, and that's all I'm gonna say about THAT! At least the weather HERE in the Big Apple has been better, but that stinking polar air is making its way back, so it's only a LITTLE better, and by that I mean, at least we have sun.
Now I'm going to "LET YOU GO...LET YOU GO..." Sorry, after seeing FROZEN, I just couldn't get that song out of my mind!
For now, friends, the blog is over. GO IN PEACE!
Steve
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