Macca Is 68

Paul McCartney hadn’t been that controversial since he recorded Give Ireland Back to the Irish back in 1972.


I figure that I should mention Paul McCartney on his birthday every year, as long as he’s still around. Fortunately, this year, there’s the big news to talk about.

That, of course, would be him being named the third Library of Congress Gershwin Prize winner, after Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder. At an event with President Obama, McCartney created a bit of bluster with the right-wing bloggers when he made a joke at the expense of Obama’s precessor, GW Bush. Horrors! Paul hadn’t been that controversial since he recorded Give Ireland Back to the Irish back in 1972.

The event will be televised on PBS on July 28.

Here’s a live recording of Cosmically Conscious, written back when Paul was in India in 1968. A snippet of this song appeared at the end of his 1993 Off the Ground album

Check the June 17, 2010 episode of Coverville, #683; Brian Ibbott has promised a McCartney cover story.
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It’s also Roger Ebert’s 68th birthday. He just won a Webby award, indeed was named person of the year; he needed just three words in a dead language to express his appreciation of the honor. While he’s still writing his fine movie reviews, it is his journal about American flag T-shirts, racism, alcoholism, death, and how Twitter has empowered him now that he cannot speak that has been the truly amazing part of his narrative.

Spoilers QUESTION

I haven’t been watching LOST, but I have it on good authority that the island is really…

As usual, I was watching JEOPARDY! recently, and the show had a whole category devoted to spoilers! In an unJEOPARDYlike fashion, I’ll give you the questions, but NOT the answers, until the end. Planet of the Apes (2001), The Sixth Sense, Chinatown, The Usual Suspects, The Crying Game.

So when is the RIGHT amount of time to give away the “spoiler” ending of a TV show or movie? In early 2005, noted critic Roger Ebert wrote about this regarding Million Dollar Baby when critic Michael Medved and faux critic Rush Limbaugh revealed the crucial plot point because they didn’t LIKE the crucial plot point. (I STILL haven’t seen the movie but learned that plot point at the time. Now I’m feeling the need to rent it.)

With LOST coming to a close, how long can someone recording the program to watch later expect NOT to hear the details? Will it be in the newspaper the next morning? Will it have a spoiler warning, and will that matter? (I haven’t been watching LOST, but I have it on good authority that the island is really little Tommy from St. Elsewhere.)

On a NORMAL show – one that isn’t getting near Super Bowl money for its ads – I think a week is about all one can reasonably expect before its common knowledge. (How long did it take before the greatest ending in history, Newhart, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month, become revealed?) Although I recall a critic being taken to task because the viewer was waiting to see the program when it was released on DVD. How does THAT work in the equation?

For movies it’s different. Films have two lives: in the theater, and then on DVD, et al. (There’s a third, on broadcast TV, but that may be years out.) It seems that 13 weeks after the release date of home release might be a standard. Of course, if home release becomes simultaneous with theatrical release, as may be coming to pass, that creates an awfully small window.

But what do YOU think about TV shows and movies? What should be the spoiler expectation, Rosebud?
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Those JEOPARDY answers.
SPOILER ALERT:::SPOILER ALERT

Show #5868, aired 2010-03-03 MOVIE SPOILERS $200: There’s a Washington, D.C. memorial to an ape general when Mark Wahlberg returns to Earth in this 2001 film
#5868, aired 2010-03-03 MOVIE SPOILERS $400: Bruce Willis is dead & doesn’t know it in this 1999 thriller
#5868, aired 2010-03-03 MOVIE SPOILERS $600: Faye Dunaway’s daughter is also her sister in this Jack Nicholson classic from 1974
#5868, aired 2010-03-03 MOVIE SPOILERS $800: The disabled Kevin Spacey seems to be the killer Keyser Soze in this 1995 film
#5868, aired 2010-03-03 MOVIE SPOILERS $1000: In this 1992 IRA thriller starring Stephen Rea, the “girl” is really a guy

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