The Week: Most Recent Arts+Life Posts

LISTEN: Beyonce's leaked new song 'Grown Woman'

The Week — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:57:00 -0400

The song: After months of teasers and snippets, Beyonce fans can finally hear the first full song from Beyonce's upcoming, currently untitled fifth studio album — and the song finds Queen B back in fine form. "I'm a grown woman, I can do whatever I want," sings Beyonce. Titled "Grown Woman," the Timbaland-produced track — which is widely speculated to be a leak — debuted, in part, in a Pepsi ad earlier this year. But this is the first chance fans have had to listen to Beyonce's latest in full. Does it live up to the sky-high expectations?

The reaction: "It's likely that Beyonce...

The long, troubled history of Ghostbusters 3: A timeline [Updated]

The Week — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:43:00 -0400

Strap on your Proton Packs, Ghostbusters fans: After years and years of troubled production, Ghostbusters 3 — a sequel that many concluded was deader than the ghosts busted in the first two films — may actually be happening. With a storyline that will allegedly introduce a series of newer, younger ghostbusters, the film will reportedly be directed by original Ghostbusters filmmaker Ivan Reitman — but will not, to the disappointment of many fans, feature franchise star Bill Murray.

Of course, this latest bit of Ghostbusters 3 optimism is hardly the whole story. Over the past two...

The cool backstory of the Slurpee

The Week — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:15:00 -0400

A happy accident
Like so many great inventions, the Slurpee was created by accident. In the late-1950s, Omar Knedlik of Kansas City owned an old Dairy Queen whose machinery was always breaking down. When his soda fountain went out, he improvised by putting some bottles in the freezer to stay cool. However, when he popped the top, they were a little frozen and slushy. Folks loved them and started requesting "those pops that were in a little bit longer."

Realizing he had a surprise hit on his hands, Knedlik built a machine in the back room using the air conditioning unit from a car that would create...

Mom vs. the paper piles

The Week — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:25:00 -0400

Spring seems like such an arbitrary time to organize your life, clean your closets, and generally get your house together. Still, I always hold out hope that when spring comes I will undergo some sort of metamorphosis and tackle my growing paper piles.

You see, Future Me loves this sort of thing. She tackles paperwork with passion, she scrapbooks, she RSVPs on time. She carries tissues in her purse! She is detail oriented and dangerously fit. I just adore her. But today all I have is Present Me.

Present Me doesn't really mind the great mass of paper strewn around my kitchen. But I suspect my...

The politics behind Kanye West's 'New Slaves'

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:56:00 -0400

Kanye West has never been afraid of politics. This is, after all, the man who said "George Bush doesn't care about black people" during a live telethon after Hurricane Katrina.

Still, his recent appearance on Saturday Night Live saw him take his political game to the next level. A quick recap: Kanye, framed tightly on a dark stage, performed intense versions of two new songs, "New Slaves" and "Black Skinhead," while images of snapping dogs and the Ku Klux Klan flashed behind him (watch the video below, NSFW language).

So what was Kanye West singing about? (Besides, oddly enough, an out-of-nowhere...

WATCH: The wacky new teaser for Anchorman 2

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:05:00 -0400

After nearly a decade, Ron Burgundy and his Channel 4 News Team are finally ready to hit the silver screen for a long-rumored sequel — and the new teaser for Anchorman: The Legend Continues doesn't exactly lower the already sky-high expectations. "Jesus, MacArthur, Jay-Z… The great ones always return," says the monologue that opens the brief teaser. "And when they do, one thing is for sure: Their hair will be perfect."

Though the sequel's overarching storyline is unknown, Anchorman: The Legend Continues reunites the news team from 2004's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. That...

The daily gossip: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have allegedly broken up again, and more

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:37:00 -0400

1. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have allegedly broken up again
Bad news for Twilight fans: Just when it seemed like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson might actually run sparkling into the sunset together, sources have reported that the troubled couple have broken up once again. People reports that the relationship deteriorated to the point that Pattinson did not attend the 27th birthday Stewart had planned for him, though a source said that "it would not be surprising if the on-and-off-again pair got back together again." Just in case that wasn't clear from the other half-dozen times...

Game of Thrones recap: 'Second Sons'

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:30:00 -0400

Weddings, by and large, are not happy affairs in Westeros.

When Ned Stark's elder brother died, Ned dutifully stepped in to marry Catelyn, spending a single night with her before riding off to fight in Robert Baratheon's rebellion and returning with a bastard son. Cersei spent her first night as a wedded woman in bed with Robert as he drunkenly called her Lyanna Stark, the woman he really loved. And long before Daenerys and Khal Drogo shared any actual affection for one another, she spent an evening shivering and crying as he stoically had sex with her for the first time. "A Dothraki wedding without...

Mad Men recap: 'The Crash'

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:30:00 -0400

After 73 episodes, Mad Men is still finding new ways to tell a story about a man who can't change.

Sunday's "The Crash" found Don Draper accepting an injected drug cocktail from the mysterious "Dr. Hecht." The drugs leave him unstuck in time, and Don loses most of a weekend in flashbacks to yet another unpleasant incident in his childhood, which feels more and more like a lost Steinbeck novel every week. And recalling a much older literary classic, Don's descent into the Inferno — which earned a none-too-subtle cameo in the season premiere — continued unabated in last night's bleak...

WATCH: Stefon's touching last hurrah on Saturday Night Live

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:18:00 -0400

This week's Saturday Night Live, with host Ben Affleck and musical guest Kanye West, was the last show for cast members Bill Hader and, reportedly, fellow long-timer Fred Armisen.

SNL has had an up-and-down season — some would say an up-and-down decade, but everyone has their own favorite period in SNL history. But one thing the show "has gotten really good at over the past decade is saying farewell to their own," says Logan Nicklaus at Rolling Stone. Saturday night was no exception.

The farewell sketch for Hader, after eight seasons on Saturday Night Live, featured his beloved New York...

The dishwasher washer

The Week — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:45:00 -0400

Let dirty dishes collect in your dishwasher and you can predict the result: a buildup of bacteria that can unleash an awful smell every time you crack the machine's door. The new Klin-Tec UV-C Stick ($31) blasts away this annoyance by automatically bathing the dishwasher's insides with germ-killing UV light once every 24 hours. Because the device ends its 12-minute run time instantly if the door of the washer opens, you can just set it in a rack and forget it — at least until you're ready to run a wash cycle. This gadget is "unfortunately not waterproof."

Therese Anne Fowler's 6 favorite books

The Week — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:15:00 -0400

Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (out of print). A modernist, semi-autobiographical novel about a tormented ballet dancer and her tormented artist husband. Published by Scribner's but heavily edited — first by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in order to "control the message" — it has moments of brilliance and begs for further care and development.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan (Ballantine, $15). To be a woman of passion and ambition in the early 20th century was to invite scandal, scorn, and personal anguish. Horan's 2007 novel gives us the real characters Martha Borthwick and her lover...

The daily gossip: Beyonce Knowles is pregnant again, and more

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:28:00 -0400

1. Beyonce Knowles is pregnant again
Another baby for Bey-Bey? Apparently so. According to E! Online, "multiple sources" have confirmed that Beyonce Knowles is pregnant with a second child, confirming speculation that her "dehydration and exhaustion" was pregnancy-related (and not just being-a-famous-globetrotting-performer-related). Now that the Beyonce's second baby is officially on the horizon, fans can begin speculating about possible names for it. (We're pulling for Green Sumac.)
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WATCH: The grim full-length trailer for Dexter's final season

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:34:00 -0400

The first full-length trailer for the final season of Showtime's Dexter is finally here, and things are looking worse than ever for the Morgan family. Season 8 opens with Dexter's sister Deb in a downward spiral after shooting and killing LaGuerta to protect her brother in last year's season finale. Dexter finds Deb shacked up with a sleazy guy and a laundry list of prescription meds. "You made me compromise everything about myself that I care about and I hate you for it," says Deb. "I shot the wrong person in that trailer."

But as bad as things are for Deb, they're not going any better for...

How Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can be a success

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:11:00 -0400

Earlier this week, ABC unleashed the first full-length trailer for this fall's much talked about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., offering our first significant glimpse at how Marvel plans to adapt its multibillion-dollar superhero franchise for the small screen. With a storyline set after the earth-shattering events of The Avengers, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is resurrecting Agent Coulson — Clark Gregg's fan favorite character, who was killed off in The Avengers — as the leader of a group of lower-level S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in a newly superheroic world.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is one of the buzziest...

Are injuries to All-Stars ruining the NBA playoffs?

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:51:00 -0400

The Miami Heat entered the season heavily favored to repeat as NBA champions, and they've never relinquished that front-runner status.

Yet their path to another title has grown steadily easier as crucial players from opposing teams go down, one after another, to season-ending injuries.

The list of sidelined players reads like an All-Star game lineup. The Bulls played all season without former league MVP Derrick Rose; the Celtics lost starting point guard and enigmatic roller skater Rajon Rondo to a torn ACL; the Lakers saw one of the game's all-time greats, Kobe Bryant, rupture his Achilles;...