Ashton Kutcher

Lights, Camera, Headaches

The quickest way to ruin a music festival? Get actors to show up.

How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Music Festival: Actors

So Ashton Kutcher allegedly got in a fight at the Stagecoach Music Festival. I know, it's a little mind-boggling, that whole idea. Ashton Kutcher was not only at a country-music festival, but reports say he somehow managed to stay true to his douche-roots and get into a fistfight with a security gua ... More >>

15 Things Rocks Off Learned Watching The ACM Awards

Sunday nights, I usually like to watch The Amazing Race after 60 Minutes. I don't usually watch much reality television at all, but something about the combination of total incompetence, vicious backstabbing and exotic locales as several, two-person teams race around the globe is completely intoxica ... More >>

Capsule Stage Reviews: Deadly Murder, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, Motel Tropicana, The Temperamentals

Dumb-Ass Arizona Law Keeps University of Houston-Published Books Out of Schools

Like the dreaded butterfly effect (the phenomenon, not the Ashton Kutcher movie, although that was pretty bad, too), a bizarre decision by an Arizona school official to shutter a Mexican-American studies class means kids won't be reading a few well-regarded books published by the University of Houst ... More >>

Capsule Stage Reviews: Deadly Murder, Uncle Vanya,

Capsule Stage Reviews: Deadly Murder, Name in Lights...Diary of a "Mad Fat" Woman, Uncle Vanya

Deadly Murder from Theatre Suburbia: A Pastiche of Contradictions

The setup: A murder mystery combines suspense, humor, attempts at drawing-room comedy, bizarre twists, violence and sturdy actors in an unlikely medley offering something for everyone. The execution: While the audience must suspend considerable disbelief to enjoy this hybrid melodrama, just think ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian -- Can the Celebrity Marriage Be Saved?

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. Russell Brand stands to land $20 million or more from his divorce from wife Katy Perry, reports said Monday. The British actor and comedian told New York magazine last year that he and Perry did not sign a prenuptial agreement. And since the two were marr ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Is No Celebrity Marriage Sacred?

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. Russell Brand stands to land $20 million or more from his divorce from wife Katy Perry, reports said Monday. The British actor and comedian told New York magazine last year that he and Perry did not sign a prenuptial agreement. And since the two were marr ... More >>

The Revival of the Silent Film and 7 Movies We Would Like to See Without Words

In a big step forward, or step back, however you would like to think about it, the silent film The Artist was just named the best film by the New York Film Critics Circle. This comes on the heels of the stunning response it has already received from the festival circuit, including a best actor award ... More >>

Bye Bye, Black Eyed Peas. And Take _____________ With You

I suppose "taking a break" before that Super Bowl performance was too much to ask: The Black Eyed Peas have denied rumors that they are breaking up but say they are taking a break from making music together for a while. "We are not breaking up," band member Taboo told Reuters on Monday at a lau ... More >>

The 10 Best Food-Centric TV Episodes on Netflix, For Your Post-Thanksgiving Food Coma

Before I had cable, I invested in Netflix's streaming video service. It continues to be the best $7 I spend each month, despite the service's recent, public misadventures. And anyway, Netflix is where the new episodes of Arrested Development will eventually air, and that news more or less made up fo ... More >>

Pop Rocks: A Brief Cinematic History of Lachrymatory Agents

By now you've seen the photographs and videos from UC Davis last Friday, where brave campus police officers defended themselves from a group of seated and docile OWS protestors the only way their extended law enforcement training would allow: by dousing them in pepper spray. The chancellor of the ... More >>

Pop Rocks: A Cinematic History of Pepper Spray

By now you've seen the photographs and videos from UC Davis last Friday, where brave campus police officers defended themselves from a group of seated and docile OWS protestors the only way their extended law enforcement training would allow: by dousing them in pepper spray. The chancellor of the ... More >>

Ashton Kutcher Tweeting Wisdom Lost To America Because He Hadn't Heard About Joe Paterno

The fail whale was strong in this one​Weep, America. Ashton Kutcher is no longer tweeting. He says he has handed management of his twitter account, which has eight million followers, over to his media team. Why? Because he is apparently the only self-described football fan not currently on ... More >>

Is J Lo the Calmest Driver Ever?: Five Questions About Current TV Ads

We got some questions.​Given the confluence of football season and the World Series, we're watching a lot of TV these days. Unfortunately, there's often not something to switch to during commercial breaks, so we're seeing more ads than usual. They've left us with a few questions we hope the w ... More >>

Houston Texans Game 2 -- 4 Winners, 4 Losers (And A Jennifer Lopez Appearance)

2-0! (again)​I hope everyone had a good weekend of football. I was two plays away from going 6-0 on my picks, my alma mater finally won a game and the Texans are 2-0! On the flip side, college realignment struck a blow in my home part of the country, as the Big East that I grew up with essen ... More >>

And Now, the Least Anticipated Movies of Fall/Winter 2011

​Pop Rocks will return Thursday. The fall/winter movie season kicked off last weekend as Contagion dominated the box office (the highly touted Warrior, not so much). I've already covered, in some depth, those releases coming up in the remainder of 2011 that might merit a closer look. We learn ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 2: Domenica Catelli of Catelli's

Photo by Matthew DresdenDomenica Catelli, outside her family restaurant in Geyserville, CA.​Yesterday on part one of our chat with Domenica Catelli, we discussed how she left Houston to reopen her family restaurant in Geyserville, California. Today, we discuss her work as a Food Network person ... More >>

Similar But Not the Same: 5 Pairs of Movies That Are Pretty Much the Same Thing

​Friends With Benefits opens July 22, and more annoying than the fact that some studio executive probably said, "You know who I want to see in a movie? Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis!" is the fact that this movie comes out a brief six months after No Strings Attached, which is basically the ... More >>

Underage Sex Trafficking: Real Men Get Their Facts Straight

Ashton Kutcher needs a fact-checker.​It's called "moral panic," and it's the kind of urban legend people like Ashton Kutcher cite when he told Piers Morgan two months ago in an nterview that 100,000 to 300,000 kids are forced into underage sex trafficking every year in America. In March, Vill ... More >>

Cold Weather Baby Names: Naming the Bundle of Joy You Started This Morning

It made sense in February 2011, kid​No doubt all of you people who don't work in the news industry are either off this morning or working from home. But we all know that no one gets any work done at home with all the distractions running around you. Television, NetFlix, Internet porn, food, wi ... More >>

Life After Black Swan

Natalie Portman follows up with — surprise — an awfully good romantic comedy.

NFL -- Bob McNair's Delusion, Twitter Madness And The Weekend's Best Bets

Orange slices for the Texans!​"I wanted the team to know not only how close we think they are but how close our competitors think they are to being an outstanding team." -- Texans owner Bob McNair, presumably not being held at gunpoint nor under the influence of any drugs or alcohol What Bob ... More >>

SUMMER GUIDE: (100) Days of Summer Movies

Enjoy the great indoors!

The Twitterverse

More than just cyberspace, the tweet life inspires people to make friends and adopt causes in person. It has a few problems, too.

Omotai Is Ready To Go All "Band Member Assassin" On Houston's Indie Scene

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. ​Fact: If Will Smith makes a m ... More >>

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

So many stars, so many storylines: It's a Valentine's Day massacre!

Game Time: When Good Practical Jokes Go Bad

I like a good practical joke as much as the next guy, just as long as it entails the following two things -- (1) the target of the joke winds up embarrassed beyond belief, and (2) I am not said target.Way back in the day, there was a show called Candid Camera (and make no mistake, the fact that I fe ... More >>

This Year in Deliciousness

Photo by This Is Freaking RidiculousAn AK-47 made entirely out of bacon? Yup, that's pretty much 2009 summed up.​ So this is the time of year when we normally say things like "Wow, another year gone by already!" and "Can ya believe it's almost 2010?" and "Say there, how come you just broke my ... More >>

Game Time: The Week In Tweets

​Maybe I'm biased because I use it all the time, but I'm going to make the bold statement that Twitter has surpassed "fad" status and that it's here to stay. Even at this point, people who don't use Twitter recognize kinda sorta how it works, and even recognize a Tweet when they see it -- "it's go ... More >>

Taking Back Sunday

Extreme Prejudice, Chained Dogs and Mixed Marriages

The Delightful Dud

That Sinking Feeling

Coast Guard epic succumbs to watery clichés

Welcome to Hooters

Jimmy Buffett inexplicably leads a kid movie to the big screen

Problems at Home

Brad and Angelina are out to kill each other. You may want a piece of them, too.

A Lot Like Good

A romantic fantasy made by people with brains -- go figure

Who'd Guess

Can it be that Bernie and Ashton are better than Spencer and Sidney?

Playbill

So You Wanna Be an Actor?

Here's a chance for your big break

Dude, Where's My Temporal Orientation?

In The Butterfly Effect, Ashton Kutcher comes unstuck in time

A Fan's Notes

Ideas that were forgotten but not gone in 2003

For Love of the Game

Kevin Costner doesn't make friends. He makes movies, dang it.

Uptown Down

Girls tries a tired lesson -- grow up, already

Back Door to History

Thank J.R. Quinn for the gay celebrations

Fallen Angels

Charlie’s high-flying heroines kick ass, but not the sequel syndrome

In the Company of Women

Neil LaBute's new movie turns the tables on which is the crueler sex

Honeymoon? Sweet!

In Just Married, Ashton Kutcher wonders, "Dude, where's the script?"