The snarkiest film review you'll read this year.

Turning the floor over to Scott Marks of the SAN DIEGO READER, with his five-star review of Morgan Spurlock and Simon Cowell's ONE DIRECTION: THIS IS US:

At around the 30-minute mark, Martin Scorsese and his young daughter appear backstage after a concert at Madison Square Garden for an audience with the boy band sensation. Marty speaks of how He and Francesca exchange music and then proceeds to offer the group His personal dispensation. With a forced chortle, He’s off. It’s 16 of the most divine seconds ever committed to film. Five stars! A must-see! The greatest concert movie since Shine a Light! Compared to this, The Last Waltz is a masterpiece! Starring Martin Scorsese, Francesca Scorsese, Chris Rock, and The New Monkees. Directed with measured anonymity by Morgan Spurlock. 2013.

Read more: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/movies/one-direction-this-is-us/#ixzz2ewCZZBaH

John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten not a fan of AMERICAN IDOL and THE VOICE.

Remembering an interview Bill Maher once gave where he voiced his strong dislike of contestant-elimination reality shows ("You're off the island!")

Now, here's John Lydon (who recently resurrected his seminal post-Sex Pistols band Public Image Ltd) with a similar-to-Maher take on THE VOICE and AMERICAN IDOL:
http://www.nme.com/news/sex-pistols/64031?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fanpage-nmenews-johnlydon

Tales of two contrarians--the always-true-to-himself Christopher Hitchens and the trying-to-go-mainstream-again Howard Stern.

RIP to Christopher Hitchens, the talented writer and pundit (and unfortunate acolyte of Championship Wrestling Atheism) who was unafraid to take sometimes-perplexing contrarian decisions (rightly, in my mind, calling out Bill Clinton for his excesses while, sadly, swallowing the Bush/neocon party line on the Justness of the now-officially-ended-yet-again Iraq War):http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_162-57344017/christopher-hitchens-militant-pundit-dies-at-62/

Here's a compilation of articles Hitchens wrote for the SLATE.com website;
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/12/christopher_hitchens_his_greatest_slate_hits_.html

Also RIP in advance to the forthcoming career choice of the King of All Media:
Howard Stern has, in past decades, tried to mainstream himself in other ways besides the artistic success/so-so boxoffice film version of PRIVATE PARTS; the chief examples being an unsold five-night talk-show pilot for the Fox network and a straightforward interview series for the E! network dating from the early 90s.

And now, as the SiriusXM satellite radio series winds down, Stern is again offering a relatively defanged version of himself as a judge on Simon Cowell's GONG SHOW/AMATEUR HOUR dual homage AMERICA'S GOT TALENT:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/story/2011-12-15/Howard-Stern-is-new-judge-on-Americas-Got-Talent/51961412/1?csp=34

Ken Tucker of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY offers a more-optimistic-than-I-am take on this:
http://watching-tv.ew.com/2011/12/16/howard-stern-americas-got-talent-nbc/

For a second year in a row, AMERICAN IDOL plays it ultrasafe.

Awhile back, I guessed that AMERICAN IDOL would give the prize to someone that Simon Fuller and his management team could easily control--relegating the more individualistic talent to runner-up.

And, for the second year in a row, it has happened.

Obviously, rootsy-bland Lee DeWyze is destined for AlternaLite radio formats in the U.S. (while 3rd-place Casey James--who did a not-bad duet of "Every Rose Has Its' Thorn" with miracle man Bret Michaels--will probably go the Chris Daughtry route).

As for Crystal Bowersox, what she should do (even if there's dumb gossip-column backlash) is order Fuller to leave her alone while the album is being recorded. And Crystal should pick her own producer; my top two suggestions would be Rick Rubin and T-Bone Burnett.

Think of AMERICAN IDOL as an interview process for a corporate job.

When it comes to pop culture discussions, New England-by-way-of-California poet Victor Infante (who I've often disagreed with on poetry matters) and I have a little bit of common ground.

Here's a repurposing of a comment I made on Victor's blog (found at http://www.victorinante.com ) about AMERICAN IDOL:
Here are my thoughts on the show (and I've watched entire segments over the years):
There's something about the AMERICAN IDOL judging process that goes beyond "niceness" or the myth of necessary roughness to prepare people for stardom. It is the sad collision between individuals with dynamic, individual, not-easy-to-categorize talent--Adam Lambert being an example from last season--and the myopic demands of Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment, which produces IDOL. In Lambert's case, you get an artist struggling to reach gold-album status.

But with more malleable artists like Kelly Clarkson (excepting her brief rebellion with the MY DECEMBER album) and Carrie Underwood, you get adherence to formula--and, overall, huge sales to people who don't want or expect much from pop music. Think of AMERICAN IDOL as essentially a screening process for a high-level corporate position. Of course, I could compare the show to what some poets feel they have to do to please professors and fellow poets on the Masters of Fine Arts trail. But I'll decline for now.

Wish I could get more excited about Joe Wilson and Ellen being chosen as AMERICAN IDOL judge.

[Before proceeding with this insignificant post, let's take a moment to remember the people who were victims of unspeakable terrorism in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania eight years ago today.]

Received an e-mail from MoveOn. Haven't opened it, but I'm sure it's asking me to make donations by using Wednesday's outburst from Joe Wilson (acolyte of legendary racist Strom Thurmond aka the Man Who Gave Us Spiro Agnew As Vice President, among other sins) as a fund-and-consciousness-raising tool.

Wilson said what he said. He's foolish--and it's time to move on and not make his bricklike obstructionism an endless media topic which distracts from the real concern post-Wednesday's speech: what President Obama's truly willing to stand for in terms of creating the final health care legislation.

On to a much more trivial subject--Ellen DeGeneres as the "Nice Judge" for next year's AMERICAN IDOL. Leaving the "jump the shark" arguments aside, Fox and 19 Entertainment have essentially signaled that continuing IDOL as a broad-based "television show" is more important than hiring a mainstream celeb who actually has some music biz experience.

For that matter, someone like David Hasselhoff (who works for Simon Cowell on AMERICA'S GOT TALENT)--with a former big-star-in-Germany recording career--would have been a more appropriate choice.

And probably with a lower price tag per season than Ellen.

The inconvenient truth about AMERICAN IDOL.

Yes, the aging AMERICAN IDOL still gets ratings for Fox. But can you even count on one hand the number of winners/runner-ups that have the kind of mainstream success the show allegedly grooms contestants for (i.e. CD/download sales in the multimillions--plus not being dropped by his/her IDOL-arranged record label)?

Another irony: at least two successful ex-contestants who have done just fine by not following the Simon Cowell/Simon Fuller blueprint (i.e. Chris Daughtry and Jennifer Hudson).

I have my doubts that Megan Joy Corkery (of the seagull-wings imitation and last night's f--- you to Simon Cowell) will enter the latter category.