entertainment

97.5 The Oasis

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97.5 The Oasis

There’s a new radio station in Salt Lake City that I personally view as an intriguing social experiment. 97.5 The Oasis is a contemporary Christian station, but, unlike most (probably all) stations of its kind, it also plays contemporary LDS music. Just this morning I heard Kenneth Cope and Michael W. Smith back to back.

The station is owned and operated by Simmons Media Group, which also operates my favorite alternative rock station, X96. Being a secular station, The Oasis doesn’t run pledge drives like ministry operated CCM stations (e.g. the only other CCM station broadcasting in Salt Lake, 89.7 K-LOVE), but instead they play commercial advertisements. They also hold a rather postmodern, inclusive attitude toward the music they play.

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Akeelah and the Bee

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Akeelah and the Bee (Widescreen Edition)

My wife and I watched a wonderful movie a few days ago called Akeelah and the Bee. After watching it over a week ago, my wife’s Granny called it simply, “The best picture I’ve ever seen.” I couldn’t put it any better, myself.

When I was a kid, I read Charlotte’s Web probably a dozen times. Every time I read it I cried when I got to the page where the spider dies. I mention this only to illustrate that I’m quick to cry (and I’m not ashamed to admit it—all real men cry), and I tend to enjoy and return often to stories that bring tears to my eyes. Akeelah and the Bee has secured its place in my DVD collection by making me cry twice.

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Robots

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Upon hearing that Robots was more action-packed than most computer animated films, I was looking forward to another The Incredibles. Unfortunately, Robots was a huge let-down.

To it’s credit, the movie had some fun characters. Robin Williams is good in just about everything he does, and his character, Fender, provided some much needed comic relief. Shamefully, nothing else in this film was funny.

The plot was sub-par and the characters were two-dimensional. The animators really pushed the envelope in terms of complexity on a lot of scenes, but that only served to make those scenes seem disjointed from the rest of the movie.

Unless you really love CG eye-candy and aren’t opposed to sitting through a crummy plot, my advice is to spend your money somewhere else.

The Amazing Race 6

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“[“The Amazing Race 6″:http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race6/]” kicked off last night. I first started watching this show during “season 5”:http://joeyday.com/2004/07/11/amazing-race-5 this summer, and I highly recommend it. If you missed last season, now’s a good time to start watching!

The Amazing Race airs Tuesdays at 9:00 pm Eastern and Pacific.

Amazing Race 5

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I’ve found my new favorite show. I watched _[“The Amazing Race 5”:http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race5/]_ last night and loved every minute of it. I’ve seen advertisements for this show many times before and was always mildly interested, but somehow I never got around to watching it. I’m not sure how I missed four whole seasons, but I’m definitely hooked, now.

I’ve never been a big fan of reality TV, since most of it is pure drivel — steamy romance, bickering, foul-mouthed slander, etc. — but this show is clean and has a great premise. Teams compete to see who can be the first to reach various checkpoints. They don’t know where the next checkpoint is until they read a clue found at the current checkpoint. At the end of each episode, they reach a pitstop, where the team in last place gets eliminated, and everyone gets to take a breather.

I’m hoping my brother-in-law will get interested, too. He and I, along with several other family members, had a bracket wager on the third _American Idol_. We’ll have to see about setting up something similar for this show.