Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey, last seen basking in praise for his support of public television at the opening of WGBH's new building, isn't getting much applause from the founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET). During a House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection hearing, Markey said that BET represented “the lowest common denominator of cheap and tawdry music videos and other questionable programming.” As connoisseurs of lowbrow culture, Bostonist would like to point out......

--Well, if the homicide rate jumps to 36, and it's only July, maybe it's time to make some changes in management. Commish Ed "Pragmatist" Davis has removed homicide chief Daniel Coleman and superintendent for the Bureau of Investigative Services Paul Joyce Jr. from their posts. Replacing them will be Thomas Lee at homicide and Bruce Hollaway for Investigative Services. In another move, Davis moved his chief of staff, Daniel Linskey, to be the head of......

Coming into a Monday after a long weekend feels so wrong. Friday's off are usually arranged through vacation time or, cough, a sick day. Last week the veterans made us do it. But it's back to work and it's raining buckets with no sun in sight for the first part of the week. Luckily we've got some great music to keep us going this week. From enduring jazz superstars to indie rockers you might......

New Edition and New Kids on the Block arrived on the scene about the same time as MTV, or after the music video station had already become engrained in pop culture. Other Boston bands had been around a lot longer than the music television station. Aerosmith found new success in a younger market when they released Get A Grip. It surged in radio play and with the wild popularity of the music videos. Crazy, Amazing,......

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies. In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries. One moviegoer who can be in three places at once. Thursday 8/3 Stolen One of the things that endears the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to us (along with the dim lighting, strict ban on electronic devices, and terse signage) is how the frames of missing paintings hang empty on the walls. (As per Mrs. Gardner's......

In celebration of 25 years of MTV we're digging around in the archives of music videos that we can find on YouTube. There are almost too many to choose from, so we've decided to go with the group synonymous with break out boy band and Boston. Back when they were still the New Kids on the Block (before the NKOTB refresh), Jonnie, Joey, Jordan, Donnie, and Danny made a musical breakthrough using a whistle in......

On August 1, 1981 MTV started transmission as it began its illustrious incarnation as the first cable music television network. Twenty-five years later to the day we're bringing you that famous video from The Buggles that started it all. There isn't much that we can do to connect this to Boston except to note that many of us grew up with MTV as an integral part of our teen years (tomorrow be on the lookout......

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies. In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries. One moviegoer who can be in three places at once. Friday 7/28 Cubamor Gigolos, students, goddesses and tourists dally in Joshua Bee Alafia's musical, fantastical Havana. The Roxbury Film Festival is showing this and many other feature films, as well as experimental shorts, music videos, and some non-fiction: a 25-minute deocumentary called Bootyful World asks......

The rains come again this weekend and there's something that will keep you busy inside. VH1 and MTV won't be showing you non-stop videos like they once did. MTV2 doesn't even seem to have that type of programming – but the internets is not killing the video star. If anything the flame has been reignited (we haven't watched so many videos for years). YouTube plays host to myriad videos; live and production. Everything from Gnarls......

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies. In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries. One moviegoer who can be in three places at once. Wednesday 5/3 Dolls & Being John Malkovich Beat Takeshi's bunraku-inspired drama Dolls is paired with Spike Jonze's puppetry-obsessed black comedy Being John Malkovich: two surreal tastes that taste surreal together. Harvard Film Archive 7 pm (Dolls), 9pm (Malkovich), $8 Dolls: IMDB | web site |......

R. Kelly's Trapped In The Closet is the story of Sylvester, a hapless philanderer whose simple one-night stand with a preacher's wife leads him into a tangled and ever more preposterous web of lies, betrayal, asthmatic midgets, and telenovela-quality cliffhangers. Lauded by some (notably R. Kelly himself) as a work of genius and enjoyed by many as "the Plan 9 of music videos," this shamelessly operatic R&B melodrama has spawned its own Wikipedia entry,......

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies. In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries. One moviegoer who can be in three places at once. Tuesday 3/21 Open Screen Like an open mic, but for filmmakers. Bring your movie and the Coolidge Corner Theatre will show anything that's under ten minutes long and screen it all in order of submission until they run out of time. Coolidge Corner Theatre 7:30......

As you all probably know, tonight is Boston's 64th Offical Holiday Tree Lighting beginning at 6:30 PM and ending at 8:00 PM. This is not what suprises Bostonist, the great debate is over our fine city's decision to have the likes of Jordan Knight as a performer. We get the connection, The New Kids are Boston boys and there is a lot of pride in something like that - but we are not sure......

Bostonist has a love for things that are a little quirky. Michel Gondry is a quirky, and we love him for it. The winner of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (which he co-wrote and directed) will be at MIT this evening for a presentation. Bostonist has to admit it wasn’t until the second time that we watched "Eternal…" that we really understood what was going on,......