THINGS I WISH MY KIDS WOULD ASK ME
Editor's note: Barry Courter has a 21-year-old son who is a junior in college and a 16-year-old daughter who is a sophomore in high school.
Q Dad, I NEED a new cell phone that will let me check all my social networking sites, e-mails and text my friends all at the same time. Why won't you get it for me?
A Because all you really need is a device that will let you tell me where you are when I want to know. There is a big difference between want and need. Cell and smart phones are wonderful things, but they come at a cost - which, you'll note, I am paying.
SCREEN SCENE
NOW SHOWING: "Salt."
The makers of "Salt" - the new action thriller starring Angelina Jolie as a CIA agent who may or may not be a deep-cover Russian spy - couldn't ask for a better bit of advertising than the recent discovery of a real-life Russian spy ring. Of course, none of those spies are anywhere near as smokin' (or as skilled with firearms) as Jolie's Evelyn Salt. Veteran direckes a welcome return to big-budget action filmmaking and surrounds his star with a stellar supporting cast that includes Liev Schreiber, Chewitel Ejiofor and Andre Braugher. - Ethan Alter
DOWNLOADABLE GAME OF THE WEEK
Were "Blacklight: Tango Down" a full-priced first-person shooter, its combination of generic atmosphere and tacked-on single-player offerings would make it almost superlatively insignificant. At $15, though, it's another story. "Blacklight" takes place in environments that look like areas you've seen before, and it's populated by soldiers engaging in battle for reasons that aren't necessarily important. The game's real purpose is as a multiplayer shooter (16 players), and like last summer's "Battlefield 1943," it provides a healthy return on investment without reinventing anything. All the usual multiplayer modes are here, the map count is surprisingly high at 12, and "Blacklight" looks, controls and sounds like a $60 game in a $15 game's body. - Billy O'Keefe
- McClatchy Newspapers
POP PICKS
READ: "Batwoman: Elegy" by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams, III
Not many superheroes get headlines in the mainstream press like "The red-headed lesbian is unleashed at last" or "Holy Lipstick Lesbian!" DC Comics' new incarnation of Batwoman has garnered both praise as a compelling character and wholly predictable criticism from homophobic culture warriors. Kate Kane's story holds in tension all the themes of identity, trauma and vengeance that are at the dark heart of the Dark Knight narrative. What could have been Lifetime movie of the week melodrama in the hands of some becomes almost Homeric here. - W. Scott Poole
LISTEN: I Am Kloot, "Sky at Night"
A note of reflection is immediately established in the first song, and will remain throughout. This is clearly an album to be listened to in a single, meditative sitting, presenting a series of reflective, quietly nostalgic vignettes that trace the path of one man's journey to the present. The three musicians of I Am Kloot continue to trace their version of that voyage, recording its moments of beautiful regret and uplifting melancholy in tuneful tales that want to hang around for endless retelling, beguiling listeners into believing they have the time for just one more. - Richard Elliott
-Popmatters.com
TECH TALK
Hewlett-Packard's MagCloud is a print-on-demand service that allows users to upload publications in Adobe PDF format and take orders online, then ship to the customer. It's designed for glossy magazines primarily, but now it has a new digital twist.
The company is releasing an application to allow the option to publish on the Apple iPad as well as in hard-copy format. I've always liked this service, and it will only become more valuable by embracing digital devices such as the iPad