“Everything a joke to you, Fletch?”

“Everything, Sam.”

It’s like the first notes of the first song that I ever heard. A song that I can’t stop humming.

See, I’m both afflicted by the plague of smartassery and fascinated by it; spending too much time analyzing it, absorbing it and writing about it.

It even affects my personality, which can — at times — seems like an amalgamation of the slacker-rebel, take nothing seriously character that I grew up idolizing when it had its heyday (but certainly not its birth) in the 80s with films like Fletch, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Police Academy and anything with Bill Murray in it.

In those films (and in some of the old TV shows ...

After a trip into drug-fueled crazy, last night’s Mad Men returned to its senses, focusing on the ever devolving state of Don and Megan’s marriage, Peggy and Abe’s political divide, and the repercussions that come with Roger’s “Peter Pan” mentality.

Playing House

Never saw this coming: after a saber clash between Don and Ted for Peggy’s attention, Don departs for the woods to visit Bobby’s summer camp. On the way, he stops for gas and spies a blonde that holds his and the gas station attendants gaze… surprisingly, that blonde is Don’s ex-wife, Betty Draper.

Since the ugly end of their marriage, Don and Betty have never really had a cordial moment — at least not since Don told ...

Every week, we’ll take a look at the biggest stories in entertainment news, sports, politics, news news, and pop culture, and we’re going to present them to you here on THE WEEKLY WIND-UP PODCAST in about 15 minutes. Good deal right? Yes, your choice for sound clips is filling you in on all the news you need every week with a quick-podcast that you can take with you and listen to anywhere. Enjoy!

This week on the show:

- The Boy Scouts have changed a divisive policy.

- Chuck Norris praises Tim Tebow

- The NBA Draft Lottery

- An NHL legend goes to the bench

- Quicksilver is set to appear in both Fox’ upcoming X-Men film and ...

A criminally under-worshipped film from the 1980s, Lost in America exists both as a comedic cautionary tale for all those who seek to embrace their inner Thoreau and the notion that well-fed boredom can be toppled by a mindless divorce from the swaddle cloth of society.

Co-written, directed and starring Albert Brooks, Lost in America tells us the story of David and Linda Howard, a successful couple on the verge.

When we first meet the Howards (played by Brooks and Airplane! actress Julie Haggerty) visions of burnt sienna tiles, Mercedes pleather and a long deserved promotion fill their heads as they prepare to take a great leap toward a bountiful future. Soon, though, David is in a hallway ...

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen some large sea changes on Mad Men, so many changes that we seemed due for a break. Last night’s episode, “The Crash” was a break in more ways than one and an unanticipated jaunt through the back alleys of show creator Matthew Weiner’s mind.

The Stalker

We’ve never seen this side of Don Draper before. He’s addicted to Syliva and jonesing for her touch. Don Draper begs in this episode, pleading with Sylvia for another stolen moment while she scolds him for standing outside her door in a pile of spent cigarettes.

A Death in the Family

Of the three Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough partners, we’ve seen Fred Gleason the least, yet his ...

Every week, we’ll take a look at the biggest stories in entertainment news, sports, politics, news news, and pop culture, and we’re going to present them to you here on THE WEEKLY WIND-UP PODCAST in about 15 minutes. Good deal right? Yes, your choice for sound clips is filling you in on all the news you need every week with a quick-podcast that you can take with you and listen to anywhere. Enjoy!

This week on the show:

- Time to get rich and buy a lightning resistant walking bubble.

- There’s something in the water.

- Robo-Cop to protect Detroit again.

- Joss Whedon says things, things about Avengers 2

- Zombieland the TV ...

As I said back when we looked at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, JJ Abrams’ Star Trek is not my Star Trek, but like Khan, it is a franchise saving spectacle from the mind of an interloper.

It’s another film that twists the nethers of purists while serving as a gateway drug to the uninitiated.

Sure, the film may not feel like Star Trek, and while its treatment of the Kobayashi Maru has spawned a fair bit of scholarly derision, it’s still — at its heart — a fun film that is filled with splodey, wow inducing action and half-formed impressions of some TOS favorites.

If I was able to take those positives, hold them tight, and forget the negatives like an ...

We knew that changes would come when Don and Ted merged SCDP and CGC, but while this week’s episode did show off some of those anticipated growing pains and redundancies, we also got a chance to pivot back to Don’s consuming love affair with his neighbor Sylvia.

The Treehouse.

Like a shoebox filled with valuable trinkets and forbidden treasures tucked securely into a treehouse, Don hides Sylvia away in a hotel room after she fights with her husband.

This relationship has always been about Don’s need to control a sexual conquest, but he takes it to an extreme level, dominating Sylvia and ordering her to follow an explicit set of orders designed to strip her of all independence, reducing ...

Every week, we’ll take a look at the biggest stories in entertainment news, sports, politics, news news, and pop culture, and we’re going to present them to you here on THE WEEKLY WIND-UP PODCAST in about 15 minutes. Good deal right? Yes, your choice for sound clips is filling you in on all the news you need every week with a quick-podcast that you can take with you and listen to anywhere. Enjoy!

This week on the show:

A Venezuelan prison/day spa Hot invisible women A Flying car Tim Tebow Soccer News Tom Cruise is going to make a movie, and you can’t stop him. Marvel Phase ...

 

I’m usually not a fan of issue movies. These films take impossibly complex issues and try to condense them down into bite-size portions, usually abandoning the true horrors of these situations in favor of unrealistic heroism, resolution, and a laundry list of cinematic tropes that cheapen the overall project and push people away from further investigation.

With Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond, though, I can’t say that I feel the same way, even though it is primarily an issue movie.

Based in the world of conflict diamonds, Blood Diamond tells its story by way of Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a morally conflicted big time hustler and Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), an imprisoned diamond mine worker who is desperate to ...