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...Hangover is a pretty swell movie, according to early returns from critics, who on the Rotten Tomatoes website give the picture a generous 85% approval rating. (The Will Ferrell Land of the Lost, the weekend's other big release, has so far earned an almost historically abysmal 6% - that's right, six. As in: You got every answer wrong on this test, young man, and you didn't even spell your name right.) The reviewers see The Hangover as a return to top form by director Todd Phillips, whose raucous buddy comedy Old School was Ferrell's first real...
...that way with almost all the humor here: virtually every joke either is visible long before it arrives or extends way past its expiration date. There's no question that Phillips's Old School had a high quotient of shambling fun, and he can frame catastrophe with a certain comedic elegance, but he's hamstrung by another reductive script from Lucas and Moore, whose Four Christmases and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past boasted clever structures and no acuity at all in the character and gag departments. Even Galifianakis's pervy charm, and a deeply weird cameo by Mike Tyson...
...Soviet-designed Tetris remains one of the most popular and ubiquitous video games ever created. It has sold over 125 million copies, been released for nearly every video-game platform of the past two decades and even been played on the side of a skyscraper. Yet creator Alexey Pajitnov almost never saw a ruble for his creation...
...more stringent measures will likely be lifted once the anniversary is over, some commentators believe that a new era of restriction on all forms of political dissent is here to stay. "It all started long before the Olympics," explains a diplomat. "The authorities jailed or intimidated into silence almost all independent voices, and kept it that way. It gets worse around the time of 'sensitive' anniversaries like June 4 or when the National People's Congress is held, but basically it's a question of degree." (Read "Hong Kong Dissidents Get Organized...
...bubble.) In two generations, by contrast, Japan and South Korea, developed two of the world's most vibrant, innovative economies out of the ashes of truly devastating wars. On the foundation of successful economies, both built a superstructure of robust democratic societies - in the case of South Korea, one almost thinks, at times, too robust. And yet, as Obama pointed out, they have been able to maintain their cultural heritage; more than that, as anyone who buys Japanese designer goods or watches South Korean TV soap operas knows, they have been able to export their cultures around the world...