Kris Rasmussen: July 2009 Archives

I am no flash in the pan Susan Boyle fan. I have been following her rising star with both interest and anxiety as she has navigated life after being runner-up on "Britain's Got Talent." Overnight singing sensation Boyle was hospitalized after the talent show's end and then much was written about her antics and missed performances while on tour in Britain.

Despite these setbacks, Boyle is getting in touch with her U.S. audience via a taped interview for "The Today Show" shown earlier today and an extended interview to be shown tonight on "America's Got Talent." On the "Today Show" interview Boyles seemed calm, downplayed her cosmetic makeover, and proclaimed she hoped her rise to fame wouldn't end just yet. Yet she also confessed in the same interview that she the celebrity attention has been "like a demolition ball." All of the negative press and the high expectations surrounding her upcoming album seemed to not have dampened this woman's moxie, and I for one still feel some hope that this reality TV story might actually have a happy ending. Let me tell you why...

If watching "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" over the weekend wasn't enough to curb your Harry Potter cravings, I have good news for you. There's a new "Harry Potter" movie you can watch and it's free. Best of all, access to it is as close as your computer. "We Are Wizards" is a whimsical documentary about the deep impact of the world of Harry Potter on generation that started reading the books as tweens and are still expressing their Potterish devotion now as twenty-somethings. The doc is available for viewing exclusively over at my favorite online movie site, Snag Films, and shouldn't be missed by Potter fans.

I knew this wasn't going to be your run-of-the-mill documentary when the movie started rather cheekily with a woman proclaiming in a dire tone the great and many evils of the "Harry Potter" series. Cut to two sweet, albeit nerdy looking, young men discussing how they created their band, Harry and the Potters and how they started playing the public library circuit when they were still in high school. Cut to a "Harry Potter" loving mom and dad who help their two boys and their "Harry Potter" influenced band as they sing the destined-to-be -a -classic "I am a Dragon and I Don't Care." Come to find out, there is actually a subgenre of rock called wizard rock and it has quite an avid following.

Many "Pushing Daisies" fans were left with only a small taste of the sweetness and richness that made up the crazy world of magical pie baker Ned and his resurrected childhood sweetheart Chuck because ABC played only a few episodes of the second season before cancelling the show completely. Would Chuck and Ned be able to continue their chaste ways, since any physical contact will cause Chuck's demise? Will Chuck's aunts learn the truth about Chuck and will one of the aunts finally admit she isn't Chuck's aunt at all but actually Chuck's mother? Fortunately, "Pushing Daisies" fans have to wait no longer to find out.

ABC promised to burn off the remaining few episodes this summer, but they didn't show up anywhere on my ABC network affiliate. I went to the ABC website and I couldn't find the final episodes there for viewing either. (Yes, ABC, I realize "Wipe Out" is the kind of inexpensive show you're making big bucks off of, but couldn't you show "Daisies" even a little love and put it on your website?) Fortunately, the entire second season is being released on DVD this week and the final missing episodes are already available for purchase on iTunes.

It seems no one is truly impervious to the Chosen One from Hogwart's spell after all. Although the Vatican has thoroughly denounced the" Harry Potter" series in the past (as recently as last year), the Vatican newspaper recently announced that everyone's favorite wizard now has the Vatican seal of approval for the latest film adaptation, "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince."

L'Osservatore Romano praised the film , which opens today, for its treatment of good and evil and also commended the way it handles teen romance. It's all a far cry from what the newspaper uttered last year, saying that the "Harry Potter" series portrayed "witchcraft as positive, the violent manipulation of things and people thanks to the knowledge of the occult, an advantage of a select few..."

Jerry Jenkins undoubtedly has a devoted fan base in Christian publishing and Stephen King is legend among horror novel devotees, but who would think these two would have much in common--much less have formed a friendship.

Just when I thought there was no interesting angle left to discuss on the Jerry "Left Behind" Jenkins empire, I stumble across a recent interview in Writer's Digest magazine which features both Jenkins and King. Seems that King called Jenkins one day out of the blue to ask him to help the family of a colleague. From there they discussed how they each had read the other's work, and a mutual admiration, as well as an email friendship, was formed.

When exactly the media reached the tipping point in its gluttonous, ravenous coverage of Michael Jackson's death, I don't know. The information, rumor and innuendo have been coming at me from my TV, my laptop, and my radio at a...

With so much of the world grotesquely fixated on every detail surrounding Michael Jackson's death, the news of yet another Hollywood legend's death was announced yesterday with little fanfare. Actor Karl Malden, known, to some, for being the voice heard...