My Five Favorite Controversial and Hilarious Pop Culture Moments on TV

By Ann Clarke

I rarely care about what the famous (and the infamous) do that stirs up controversy or awkwardness . . . but sometimes that shit is just hilarious! I am not talking about “Reality TV” either; I’m talking about the stuff that you weren’t really expecting—but were NOT surprised once it happened—and over which you had a good laugh. There have been plenty of moments like this in pop culture, but I’m only going to list the ones that I could watch over and over again and still laugh at hysterically. In fact, some of these things get funnier upon multiple viewings!
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They Came From The ’70s: Five Faves I Still Enjoy

By Julie Finley

Although for some of these artists, fame came before or after the 1970s, I am solely focusing on their 1970s stuff.
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Top Five 1970s Films Directed by Women

By Chelsea Spear

If your knowledge of the American New Wave begins and ends with the studio films of the era and Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, you may regard 1970s Hollywood as a roiling cauldron of testosterone. The pictures of the day may have featured more complex female protagonists, and may have ushered in an era of unconventional actresses like Shelley Duvall, Ellyn Burstyn, and Barbara Streisand. However, the exploits of Altman, Bogdanovich, Hopper, and Scorsese and their second-string peers left little room for emerging distaff talent.

As any good artist does, however, the female directors of the 1970s found a way around the system and were able to make feature films. Many of these saw distribution at mainstream houses, while others languished, undiscovered until recently. Here are five features helmed by intrepid lady lensers during the Easy Riders/Raging Bulls era.
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Five 1970s Ads That Make Me Facepalm

By Emily Carney

Apparently in the 1970s, taste and class were elements not yet added to advertising pitches. I have several interesting books related to 1970s ads including some truly classy ones. I actually bought these when I briefly studied ad writing in college. I am just going to provide a brief capsule summary of “the best” and I will allow you, dear reader, to write the rest of the scenarios depicted in your skull. Good luck and have fun.
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Five Ubiquitous Scents From The Seventies

By Emily Carney

I was born in 1978, at the tail-end of the 1970s. Most of my formative memories stem from the early 1980s, which were basically an extension of the 1970s well into 1984 (at least in Florida—culturally we got it together kind of late, save for the space shuttle maybe). Many of the most ubiquitous scents from the 1970s still wafted around into the 1980s and beyond. Hell, you can probably walk into any Bealls Outlet store and find these scents on sale. Without further ado, here are some smells you couldn’t escape during the heady times of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
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Five Things You Should Know About NASA Fandom

By Emily Carney

The 30-year-old Space Shuttle program is winding down to its end, scheduled for a last launch of the shuttle Atlantis in June. Sadly, NASA currently has few plans to extend space travel after the shuttle is phased out.

Given this bleak situation, a few loyal “space hipsters” on Blogger and Tumblr have put together some rather unique, often completely hilarious tributes which hearken back to the Good Old Days of Space Flight, specifically from 1961—beginning with the first Mercury missions—through the early days of the shuttle program.

Internet memes which originally were created about cats have now been carried over to legendary astronauts such as Gus Grissom, Alan Shepard, and John Young. Without further ado, here are five things you should probably familiarize yourself with if you’d like to acquaint yourself with the new fandom, the NASA Fandom.
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My Top Five Favorite Sci-Fi Films

By Ann Clarke

I’ll be honest; I’m not that crazy about most science-fiction films. If I like them at all, it’s when they have an underlying theme about some sort of society based in the future, but with a skewed slant that isn’t even typical of a sci-fi film! I’m not into Star Wars, if that gives you any idea of what you wont be seeing in my list.
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Five Horror Movies For People Who Don’t Like Horror Movies

By Chelsea Spear

The autumnal season is upon us, and with it, the onslaught of Halloween in all its grease-painted, fun-sized glory. This is great news for the gorehounds and horror-movie fanatics . . . but what of us petite flowers who faint at the sight of blood? You, my friends, are in luck! Herewith are five feature films that eschew the viscera in favor of suspense and chills.
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The Rotary Phone of Doom: My Top Five Scariest Things

By Emily Carney

5. Recurring dreams about high school

I have had the same dream continually over the last few years. It’s about high school. Mind you, it’s not a bittersweet, Breakfast Club-style reminiscence; the dream involves me having to go BACK to high school after being informed not-so-politely BY MAIL that I had somehow “forgotten” to attain my high school diploma. The same thing happens in every damn dream: for some reason, I start skipping classes, I fail most of them, and thus I become trapped in high school, never being able to get out. Suddenly, the halcyon greenish-blue corridors of good old East Lake High school become a horror show on par with Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. By the way, I generally had a good high school experience in real life, so I have no idea where this dream is coming from.
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Top Five Nerd References In Hip Hop

By Matt Demers
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