Toward the end of their Yakkity-Yak article, PoolMan insinuated to Clare that I hate Entertainment Weekly. As with many concepts that dribble forth from his fuzzy and deluded mind, this is not the complete truth. While there are certainly aspects of Entertainment Weekly that drive me to the point of a frothing temper tantrum, I maintain that I have a love-hate relationship with the weekly mag instead of an outright dislike.

I first got hooked on Entertainment Weekly back in 1994, when they sold cheapie college subscriptions to us students who couldn't even afford those $4 pizzas made primarily out of cardboard and tomato paste. It's remained a staple of my magazine subscription diet (in addition to EW, I subscribe to Reader's Digest, PC Gamer, and Game Informer).

It's a comforting and reliable thing to have in life: every Monday morning I receive that week's EW in the mail, which goes straight to my bathroom so I can read it while I groom myself (read: shave my head and bathe in a cloud of aerosol deodorant) in the morning. Along with Dark Horizons and IMDb, it's my primary source of movie and TV news. Many times it's given me the head's-up on an incoming cult flick (I remember back when they first mentioned Being John Malcovich and how that caught my attention).

This is Russell's most brilliant smile/scowl. But what is he doing on a "Best Of" cover, anyway?

So because I've spent so many weeks pouring through its covers, I thought I'd return the favor (and exorcise a few painful rashes the mag has given me) by reviewing it with MRFH flair. That's just normal flair, with the added ingredient of paprika.

(Since Entertainment Weekly changes its format and features more often than I fiddle with MRFH's review template, some of these things might not be in the magazine anymore.)

Mail

I once wrote in to EW about an article on Christian music they did, and although my letter was witty and contained mostly correctly-spelled words, it was not chosen for print. Thus, I've snubbed the Mail page each and every week in response. Take that, EW!

Letter From The Editor

This is always two things. Either it's an announcement how they're messing with the magazine's format, or it's the annual "Mothers Take Their Daughters To Work" article with a cute picture of kids that is of absolutely no interest to me. I have a "Take Your Dog To Work Day" almost every week, and you don't see me crowing about that on MRFH.

News and Notes

News and Notes seems like a dumping ground of sub-par stories not worthy of full Main Article status. Sometimes the news is rather interesting, particularly when they go behind the scenes of some movie that's tanking in production. More and more often, however, I've noticed a crapload of opinionated and biased writing in this section, which would be fine as long as they labeled the section "editorial" instead of "news". When it's news or an in-depth look into something, I'm fine with it, but when it's self-righteous liberal rants, it just makes me a little sad inside and green-mad on the outside.

Jim Mullen's Hot Sheet

From what I can tell, there's a huge outcry against this weekly feature, in terms of how not-funny and horrible it is. Frankly, it's vanilla to me. Not very funny, not very bad, just a list that's meant to be read and forgotten quickly.

The Real Estate Box

Now this just baffles me. Every few issues or so, they put in a little box about a house that some celeb is selling, complete with price tag. I cannot, for the dainty life of me, tell why this is interesting to anyone other than the buyer or seller. Okay, their houses cost a bunch, so what? Are they gonna start printing celeb's grocery shopping lists next?

The Bottom Scroll

Eh, it's EW trying to be CNN Headline News. Since they started this, I keep forgetting to read it until I'm like five pages past the start of it, so I have to flip back and re-read it.

The Deal Report

When it comes to entertainment news, there's two categories I just skip over when reading. The first is anything to do with a celeb's personal life, since if the celeb in question doesn't care to find out how I'm doing, why should I do the same? The second is the nitty gritty details of who's being hired for what project. I skip over the Deal Report because it's just about individuals involved with projects, not the projects themselves -- and that's what I want to read about.

Burning Question

Ooh, I like this. I really do. They should stretch this little box feature into a whole page, weekly. I like knowing behind-the-scenes answers to vexing questions.

The Shaw Report

Sigh. (pause) Sigh. While this is not my most hated aspect of EW, it's definitely second. If you don't know what this is, it's a little spreadsheet box where some lady tells you what is cool, what was cool, and what is definitely not cool. It's like a membership card to conformity and shallowness, which I'm sure goes over big in L.A., but it's SO TRITE to anyone with half an opinion. Anyway, it doubly sucks because you just feel depressed when you read something in the "Out" column that you personally like and think is cool. It's your weekly opportunity to have a magazine tell you, to your face, that you're a dweeb.

The 5 Year Plan

It's just a big picture of some random B-list celeb and little else. Thank you. My life is complete.

Monitor

Are you a celebrity of some sort? In the past week, have you died, been born, married, bought a house, sold a kid into slavery, divorced, gotten sick, gotten better from being sick, gotten sick at being better, been arrested, gone to court, left your career, returned to your career even though you PROMISED, you PROMISED you were done for good I'm looking at you Celine Dion, or done anything other than sneezed and stared at a wall for seven days? Then there's a good chance you'll be mentioned here, in the section filled with information about people that don't get a similarly-themed section about me.

Random Quote

Once in a while they quote a celeb, and it's usually pretty good. I really like the end year issue where they compile a whole bunch of quotes from the year into a 3-to-4 page article.

First Look

In their May 9, 2003 issue, this had a picture of Britney Spears yodeling. I don't need that.

Main Articles

Mostly, the big articles (there are two or three of them per issue) are well done, and feature interesting topics or previews of upcoming film or TV projects. Mostly. Sometimes they're about just one person, and if I cared enough about individual celebs, I would've gotten a subscription to US Weekly or People or some other useless factor in tree extinction.

Movies

Every time I reach the Movies section, my soul flutters and valiantly leaps out of my chest in an attempt to escape the slipshod evil of this section. People on our forum know that I go off on rants against the Movies section of EW, and I'm not alone in my stance. My problems are too many to completely list, but I will begrudge them one compliment: the titles of the movie reviews are usually witty and well thought out. That doesn't distract from the atrocious reviewing style of Lisa Schwarzbaum and Owen Gleiberman, who are not only banal in almost all respects, but they have an even worse sense of what's a good, entertaining movie, and what plainly sucks sour milk. The Movies section is completely unbalanced to favor artsy-fartsy flicks (which almost always receive an A or A+; a rule of thumb is, if you've never heard of the film they review and it gets an A, it's a stale art flick). Not to mention that they don't give proper reviewing space to each film: some get a full page or two pages worth of words, some get a measly paragraph. There's no sense of fairness or standards here. I honestly don't read the reviews any more, they're such a waste of space.

Here's an example of movies that EW has given A's to recently: The 13th Warrior, A.I., Die Another Day (given an A in the same issue that The Two Towers was given a B), From Hell, Serendipity.

Here's a quick sampling of flicks they've panned (D's or F's): Equilibrium, Kung Pow: Enter The Fist, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

You be the judge.

Winner/Loser of the Week and Box Office

These are useful and informative little boxettes, and my eyes are always drawn to them.

What To Watch

aka the "We Screwed Up Yet Another Movie Review and Rating, So Here We Are Eating Our Words" column. Yes, I realize that it's written by someone else, and I do like how they have a second opinion, but I always get the sense that the guy who does the second opinion is usually apologizing for the original review or trying to appease the masses. "New to DVD" is on this page, too, and they're usually good about pointing out the best new DVD releases.

Remember when life was simpler, and B.Af had a paper-thin girlfriend?

The Page of Many Boxes

I don't know what to call these two pages, but I guess they're continuing on with the whole "gone to video and DVD" theme. Their mini-reviews are very off as to not be useful, and they're too short to be entertaining.

Television

Ahh. The jejune (just call me Thesaurus Man) part is over, we can try to enjoy what's left of the magazine. Television is my favorite section, because they always kick off with an interesting article about a show, and try to convince me to watch it. Since I don't watch too much TV anymore (outside of cartoons and the Daily Show), it's nice to keep in touch with what dreck is out there. I like how they sometimes compare two or more shows in a similar vein, that gives good perspective.

On The Air

Tiny spoilers for shows, and hints as to the changes they may make in the future. Good.

Winner of the Week

Is the person who draws the accompanying cartoon really into cubism or what? They've had some real oddball illustrators on staff at EW.

Sound Bites

Yes, yes, YES, I'll have what she's having! The all-out best section of the whole mag. Four little quotes hand-picked from recent TV (mostly late night talk shows, but some scripted shows, too). It makes my week if John Stewart gets quoted and I remember that show.

What To Watch

The TV section keeps getting better, cause Dalton Ross steps into my home and makes life worth living. Maybe not so melodramatic, but this is a great feature. Ross goes through a week's worth of programming and highlights various TV shows and movies, and makes pretty darn funny comments about them. What strikes me as weird is that this section just seems out of place in EW, because it's well-written and funny, and Ross seems to have a free hand in what he wants to highlight. In any case, don't skip over this -- read it from start to finish. Savor it. Maybe, just maybe, plant a little kiss on the page and thank it for a job well done.

Music

With the TV section over, the magazine is just about finished. Sure, there's this chunky music section, but I, personally, do not see the point in reading about music. Music is more subjective than TV and movies, I think, and articles on music flail between trying to describe how something sounds in a printed format, and giving up on that to talk about the band members' lives. Again, I just don't care about any stranger's life that much to be devoting time to reading about how their cat Fluffins inspired them to write "Mud Love Poetry" and how much better they are than the average schmoe, now that they have a coat made out of $100 bills and take a helicopter everywhere. If you want to write about music, just tell me what good songs I should be checking out, and then move on from there. Plus, and this is just an observation, every musician photographed either looks extremely pissed -- like you killed their grandma with a gardening trowl or something -- or starved. Where are all the sunny smiles? You're rich and successful, people!

Books

I'm glad they have a books section in an otherwise surgery pop culture mag, because it shows some integrity to the word "entertainment". I've picked up a few books recommended by these articles, including one on cadavers that I just love and can't stop quoting bits to family and friends. Any issue that they feature first lines out of novels is nothing short of brilliance, but they lose severe points by doing the occasional "Book in 60 Seconds Flat" box, where they ruin a book for you so you don't have to read it.

Stage

While talking about books does show maturity, talking about theater shows snobbish arrogance. Face it, the Stage section only caters to NYC residents or visitors, and the rest of us can just shove it and return to our uncultured lives. Why am I going to read about a play, for pete's sake? I don't like seeing plays, and reading about them just makes me feel guilty for not liking them in the first place. Plus, all the people photographed here have Tammy Faye Baker levels of makeup on, and that's creepy.

Internet / Personal Tech / Video Games

You can tell how embarrassed EW is about all of these sections by how infrequently they're featured. Although a good part of civilized society uses the internet, has a lot of gadgets, and plays video games (including a sizable demographic of adults), it's as if these things aren't L.A. enough to be given more than one or two shameful pages once in a while. Sporadically they attempt to cater to the geek, but it comes across like the beautiful girl in school stooping to saying "hi" to the pimply kid in the halls. Also, EW lost a lot of cred with MRFH when it never mentioned us in their internet section. But that's because they know how incredibly better we are at movie reviews.

The Joel Stein Show

This used to be the "Encore" page, which was a cool feature and a great note to end on, but they had to go bring some raging jerk to take a leak on the magazine and call it professional writing. What's worse is that Stein's style of writing is designed so that you're never quite sure what he's talking about or why, it's just some extended ramble that EW promotes as comedy. Or something.