Tuesday, 24 December 2013
WORST MOVIE
It’s a tie between two supposed comedies that revel in political incorrectness while committing the fateful error of being entirely unfunny.
InAPPropriate Comedy: ShamWow! TV pitchman Vince Offer’s vapid sketch comedy fiasco earned zero stars from me while burying Adrien Brody’s career by casting him as Flirty Harry, a flinty-eyed cop dressed in capri pants who sneers, “Go ahead, make me gay.”
Linda Barnard
Movie 43: When this gross-o-rama slithered unheralded into movie theatres last January, I described it my review as the worst movie ever made. My opinion hasn’t changed. Produced and co-directed by Peter Farrelly, Movie 43 is discharge from an overloaded sewer, a series of sketches attempting to one-up one another for bad taste. It’s also the biggest waste of talent in cinema history, with such stars as Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Liev Schreiber, Kate Bosworth and many more punching a time clock for Farrelly’s creatively bankrupt laugh factory. My only regret is that I couldn’t give it a rating lower than zero stars out of four.
WORST CELEBRITY
Justin Bieber: Through bucket-pissing, brothel-visiting, unlawful graffiti, excessive partying, balcony spitting and misogynist song lyrics, our tiny national terror’s greatest crime is still his refusal to pull his damn pants up.
Malene Arpe
WORST GAME
Star Trek: With the arrival of the next generation of game consoles, it was a good year for gaming, as many stellar titles sent the old gen out with a bang. But that didn’t stop plenty of dreck from filling store shelves and hard drives.
Sure, everything is a matter of taste, but one game that easily sank to the bottom of the barrel was Seduce Me, a PC-only game that was supposed to be an erotic adventure, but instead is a silly card matching game that’s even more laughable than its premise.
But that’s not our worst, particularly if we take into account the unfortunate feeling of dashed expectations. Star Trek: The Game gave false hope to this life-long Star Trekfan for a decent action game featuring the young Kirk and Spock. A third-person co-op shooter with little personality, poor graphics and full of glitches, this was a bad game that went where too many games have gone before, and quickly ended up in the discount bins where it belongs.
Raju Mudhar
WORST STAGE SHOW
Fortune and Men’s Eyes: Birdland Theatre’s production of Fortune and Men’s Eyeshas to stand out as the worst stage show of 2013, despite some stiff competition from the Stratford Festival’s Romeo and Juliet.
Why was it so bad? For a variety of reasons. It made John Herbert’s classic piece of Canadian drama seem tedious and pointless, which it isn’t. It made a quartet of young actors look appalling, except for the brilliant David Coomber, who triumphed in this theatrical disaster. But, worst of all, it continued to destroy the once-promising reputation of Birdland Theatre, which used to do great shows like Assassins and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. Stefan Dzeparoski — who also helmed 2010’s worst showSoulSeek — directs in the kind of self-indulgent style I would call Eurotrash if I didn’t feel so fondly about Europe. Stop this man before he kills again.
Richard Ouzounian
WORST ARTWORK
The Miraculous Journey: Got to hand it to Damien Hirst. He makes it easy. In 2013, though, he outdid himself in sheer crass over-the-top extravagance. In fall of this year, Hirst unveiled “The Miraculous Journey,” 14 enormous bronze sculptures tracing human in-utero development, from conception to birth, ending with a newborn baby boy, all parts intact. To give an idea of the scale of things, the baby is 46 feet long.
That this happened on the behest of the royal family in Doha, Qatar, one of a handful of terrifyingly flush Middle Eastern republics bent on using its infinite purchasing power to buy artistic credibility overnight, should come as no surprise.
“The Miraculous Journey” is either the apex of self-absorbed hubris or an extension of the monumental in-joke Hirst has been plying with increasing transparency his whole career. I’ve always felt his more recent work, especially, has been an elaborate critical performance about the stratospheric excess of the international art market, and a dare to the public at large to call him on it.
Oddly, no one ever did. And so we have “The Miraculous Journey,” which I can imagine to be a miracle, in Hirst’s mind, in that someone was willing to fund such a monumental simpleton’s fantasy, to the tune of $20 million no less. Damien Hirst does things because he can; and so long as there are deep pocketed sources who believe he should, the joke will ever be on us.
Murray Whyte
WORST INTERNET MEME
Harlem Shake: The backlash started in March. But the damage was already done. By early February, the Harlem Shake was a meme, a retina-singeing, eardrum-detonating series of copycat videos that proved talent was not a strict condition of popularity in 2013.
The dance craze inspired more grainy replicas than any other video this year as athletes, celebrities, soldiers and worker drones from every social rank gyrated in front of cameras, convulsing like they’d been jolted with billion-watt stun guns.
As the meme took hold, corporations rushed into the YouTube hinterlands. And the proletariat groused about the myth of grassroots virality. Or something like that. Not that it really mattered. Rich, poor, the Harlem Shake transcended class. Anyone could be a dancing fool provided enough sitting fools were willing to click.
Vinay Menon
WORST TV SHOW
Dads: Maybe it’s just funnier when you have cartoon characters being profane. Or here’s a novel idea — being borderline racist isn’t funny, period. One thing is for sure:Dads, the sitcom by Family Guy creator Seth Macfarlane and starring Seth Green, Giovanni Ribisi and Martin Mull, is the biggest television dud of 2013. The plot centres around two thirtysomething guys who have their lives interrupted when their dads move in with them. The show fails on so many levels that the rare zero percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes may actually be generous. Of course, that didn’t stop Fox from ordering another half a dozen episodes in October.
Tony Wong
WORST BOOK
The Demonologist: While anyone can write a bad book, it takes a bit of talent to write a truly terrible one. Andrew Pyper can write, but his relentless pursuit of blockbuster bestsellerdom lands him in a hot mess — one might also say, with a wink to one of 2013’s biggest bombshells, an inferno — of epic proportions in The Demonologist, a misguided attempt to channel the spirit of Dan Brown.
Pyper’s hero is David Ullman, an English professor specializing in Paradise Lost — he may well remind you of Brown’s Robert Langdon — who must drive across the U.S. unlocking a series of riddles in order to recover his daughter, who was kidnapped by a demon.
Like a lot of great bad books, the kind you actually enjoy, one wants to read The Demonologist as a parody. Of course, this makes its earnest tone even funnier. Indeed, the plot is so ludicrous and finally incoherent that one wonders if the whole thing was only meant to represent the frantic delusions of a bookish middle-aged man having a bad day.
Alex Good
If Google Glass blossoms into the everyday wearable of Google’s wildest dreams, we’ll have every incentive to keep the smart visor glued to our faces all the live long day. Glass is handy for travel, commuting and generally being out and about, and it could also mean big things for that nebulous future we’ve collectively dubbed “the connected home.”
This realm roughly extends from just beyond the threshold of our smart-locked front doors through our automated thermostat-rigged walls on into the kitchen—a potential smart gizmo playground—to that epicenter of home life turned tech marketing cliche, the living room.
Few would argue that such smart homes aren't one of the next big things. Homes in the U.S. already boast over half a billion internet-connected devices. Many of these are designed to work with smartphones and tablets, which may be approaching a saturation point, but a whole new class of gadget is about to barge in the front door.
And Glass? Well, Glass is with us all of the time, in this hypothetical future scenario at least. So let's play along.
Glass As A Command Center
We don't surrender our smartphones as we cross into our homes—in fact, home smartphone usage shows quite the opposite behavior. For the connected-home relevance of Google Glass, that's a good thing. Glass is the perfect smartphone proxy. In fact, one of my favorite places to wear Glass is in my home office. It keeps me focused on the task at hand by freeing my mind from the digital itch to check email and have my attention whisked off by the ever-spinning social carousel.
Smart home automation company Revolv clearly saw the potential for Glass at home too, releasing an early walkthrough of its Google Glass app, which replicates the features in its Revolv for smartphones.
Other home-tech innovators should take note, particularly as Glass picks up steam with a wide consumer release and future hardware updates. Revolv has the right idea, tying an array of smart home devices into a single cloud controller (for $299, it's worth mentioning).
The Contextual Home
With its heavily modified Android guts, Glass is essentially a vessel for Google Now, Google's eerily accurate software effort to serve up the information we need before we even know we need it. Triggered by cues like time and location, Glass knows when we're at work—it happily lets us know how long it'll take to get there in traffic—and it knows when we're back home too.
It's not hard to imagine the possibilities with all that sensor data and the geofences that Google Now (or Apple's Reminders) use as cues. Wearing Glass, you walk into the kitchen and are met with the relevant apps—Allthecooks' recipe list, for instance. Settle down on the sofa, and Glass conjures up a directory of the night's best TV listings.
Or say those listings were culled from a not-yet-hatched bit of Glassware, such as Netflix, Xbox or even a proprietary smart TV app for Glass. You could discover and navigate shows and movies just by swiping and tapping Glass, all via your home Wi-Fi—similar to how mobiles already work with Chromecast.
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Cholesterol: Top 5 foods to lower your numbers
Diet can play an important role in lowering your cholesterol. Here are five foods that can lower your cholesterol and protect your heart.
By Mayo Clinic
Can a bowl of oatmeal help lower your cholesterol? How about a handful of walnuts or even a baked potato topped with some heart-healthy margarine? A few simple tweaks to your diet — like these, along with exercise and other heart-healthy habits — may be helpful in lowering your cholesterol.
1. Oatmeal, oat bran and high-fiber foods
Oatmeal contains soluble fiber, which reduces your low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the "bad," cholesterol. Soluble fiber is also found in such foods as kidney beans, apples, pears, barley and prunes.
Soluble fiber can reduce the absorption of cholesterol into your bloodstream. Five to 10 grams or more of soluble fiber a day decreases your total and LDL cholesterol. Eating 1 1/2 cups of cooked oatmeal provides 6 grams of fiber. If you add fruit, such as bananas, you'll add about 4 more grams of fiber. To mix it up a little, try steel-cut oatmeal or cold cereal made with oatmeal or oat bran.
2. Fish and omega-3 fatty acids
Eating fatty fish can be heart healthy because of its high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which can reduce your blood pressure and risk of developing blood clots. In people who have already had heart attacks, fish oil — or omega-3 fatty acids — reduces the risk of sudden death.
The American Heart Association recommends eating at least two servings of fish a week. The highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids are in:
- Mackerel
- Lake trout
- Herring
- Sardines
- Albacore tuna
- Salmon
- Halibut
You should bake or grill the fish to avoid adding unhealthy fats. If you don't like fish, you can also get small amounts of omega-3 fatty acids from foods like ground flaxseed or canola oil.
You can take an omega-3 or fish oil supplement to get some of the benefits, but you won't get other nutrients in fish, such as selenium. If you decide to take a supplement, just remember to watch your diet and eat lean meat or vegetables in place of fish.
3. Walnuts, almonds and other nuts
Walnuts, almonds and other nuts can reduce blood cholesterol. Rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, walnuts also help keep blood vessels healthy.
Eating about a handful (1.5 ounces, or 42.5 grams) a day of most nuts, such as almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans, some pine nuts, pistachio nuts and walnuts, may reduce your risk of heart disease. Just make sure the nuts you eat aren't salted or coated with sugar.
All nuts are high in calories, so a handful will do. To avoid eating too many nuts and gaining weight, replace foods high in saturated fat with nuts. For example, instead of using cheese, meat or croutons in your salad, add a handful of walnuts or almonds.
4. Olive oil
Olive oil contains a potent mix of antioxidants that can lower your "bad" (LDL) cholesterol but leave your "good" (HDL) cholesterol untouched.
Try using about 2 tablespoons (23 grams) of olive oil a day in place of other fats in your diet to get its heart-healthy benefits. To add olive oil to your diet, you can saute vegetables in it, add it to a marinade or mix it with vinegar as a salad dressing. You can also use olive oil as a substitute for butter when basting meat or as a dip for bread. Olive oil is high in calories, so don't eat more than the recommended amount.
The cholesterol-lowering effects of olive oil are even greater if you choose extra-virgin olive oil, meaning the oil is less processed and contains more heart-healthy antioxidants. But keep in mind that "light" olive oils are usually more processed than extra-virgin or virgin olive oils and are lighter in color, not fat or calories.
5. Foods with added plant sterols or stanols
Foods are now available that have been fortified with sterols or stanols — substances found in plants that help block the absorption of cholesterol.
Margarines, orange juice and yogurt drinks with added plant sterols can help reduce LDL cholesterol by more than 10 percent. The amount of daily plant sterols needed for results is at least 2 grams — which equals about two 8-ounce (237-milliliter) servings of plant sterol-fortified orange juice a day.
Plant sterols or stanols in fortified foods don't appear to affect levels of triglycerides or of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the "good" cholesterol
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