Boredoms, the long-running Japanese noise and experimental music group, have always had a strange popularity. They are probably the only band who prefaced a career on Warner Bros. Records by releasing an EP called Anal by Anal. (They have since moved to the indie label Thrill Jockey.) But Bostonist was still taken by surprise when we learned that their Saturday show at the Paradise Rock Club had sold out. People have listened to this......

A few days ago, everyone cared about the Commonwealth. Senator McCain was here, Senator Obama was here, Senator Clinton was in Worcester, the Kennedys were everywhere. Now we won't even have our ex-governor parading around the country insulting us. It all happened so fast. To figure out exactly what went wrong, we headed to the epicenter of right-wing commentary: the National Review. And as it turns out, Romney's defeat was caused by something we're pretty......

Human Rights International Film Festival at the MFA The Axe in the Attic: Review follows. Sunday, January 20, 2 pm Friday, January 25, 5:45 pm Saturday, January 26, 12:45 pm Thursday, January 31, 6 pm Hot House: A probing documentary that explores the emergence of a Palestinian national leadership within Israeli prisons. Screens Sunday, January 20, 2008, 10:30 am. White Light/Black Rain: A film exploring the threat of nuclear weapons today while looking at mistakes......

Unlike the Top 10 Most Commented stories, the top 10 favorites represented a selection of all the fun, the playful, and just plain odd that this city has to offer. You loved sex scandals at the local schools, Vendetta Gunn, and the local productions On Broadway and "BU Tonight." But we were really surprised at how much you loved … Barbie. Yeah, Barbie. 10. Arlington School System Turns Into Peyton Place 9. Boston Blotter: Penis......

As Bostonist did with books, we've tackled best of/worst of lists for movies. Not only are we including the latest best of/worst of lists, but we dug through each list to find which movies impressed every single critic and which ones were absolutely appalling. Here are links for recent "Best Of" lists: American Film Institute Top 10 National Board of Review The Onion AV Club Golden Globe Nominees Metacritic (FYI: The amazing Killer of Sheep......

Four Stories The Bitter End: Stories of loss, endings, and final acts Featuring Jeremiah Healey, Drew Johnson, Julia Glass, and Joan Wickersham The Enormous Room 
(567 Mass Ave,
 Central Square) Monday, December 3 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Free! Four Stories is a unique reading series: Boston-based but also Japan-based, set in a bar, and featuring four writers instead of just one, the event proves that readings don’t have to be torture. The unorthodox setting and......

Harvard's not the only rich institution in town - or at least they have some competition. The Museum of Fine Arts received a gift of $10 million bucks from the State Street Corp. In return, the MFA will rename the Fenway entrance the "State Street Fenway Entrance" and open it after leaving it closed for 20 years. That's an appropriate gesture, but we thought that the MFA would blow it all with a spending spree......

It's college-ranking time. Of course, these rankings are about as scientific as a game of pin the tail on the donkey, but schools have a lot of fun learning about how other campuses see them. For example, the University of New Hampshire was named one of the top party schools. UNH is no West Virginia University, which appears to have abandoned the pretense of higher education altogether, but UNH was number seven on the party-hearty......

The big action in town Monday night was at the Garden. Finally, we knew some local teams would leave the big barn happy. The 55th Beanpot Tournament got underway, with B.U. knocking off Northeastern 4-0 and B.C. taking care of Harvard 3-1. There will once again be some icy glares on the B trains this week. Gerald Green got the nod to represent the Celtics at the Sprite Slam Dunk Challenge at the All-Star Game.......

If it hasn't been drilled into your head by now let us be the umpteen thousandth to tell you - Barack Obama went to Harvard Law. He was the first black president of the Harvard Law review. He is currently a US Senator from Illinois. He's also running for President of the United States, well, at least he's formed an exploratory committee to seek the Democratic nomination (thanks two-party system). Last week the New York......

Chuck Klosterman is currently considered a voice of a generation. The age range is about 19-25, and it was with his second book, "Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto," that he solidified himself as a name worth knowing. Starting as a news and sports writer, he moved over to rock criticism, but he's now writing a column for Esquire, and freelancing just about everywhere else. "Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade Of Curious......

Last year Bloc Party headlined at the Paradise – this year it was the Bank of America Pavilion. What the hell happened? Did they release something new? Nope. Then what? Oh… MTV2 happened. OK, fair enough. They now have a large enough audience to (sort of) fill the Pavilion, but do they have a large enough set list? Objectively, no, not really. Bloc Party released its first (and so far, only) album, Silent Alarm, over......

Ever wonder what makes a city tick? That is exactly what the Boston Behind the Scenes webcast attempts to answer. This is a new webcast and only has a couple of episodes, but even so, it has already proven itself exciting. The latest episode of Boston Behind the Scenes talks about Mike's Pastry. Bostonist knows we don't have to tell you how good the cannoli are. You will find it interesting to learn a little......

First of all, Bostonist wants to make something crystal clear: This review is not an endorsement or critique of Mr. Patrick's campaign. This is simply a review of a podcast being used by a candidate in the upcoming gubernatorial election. With that out of the way, we think it’s interesting that a couple of the candidates are attempting to embrace podcasting as a way to mobilize their grassroots campaigns. Deval Patrick is certainly not the......

Bostonist likes to live in the fantasy that we are completely hip and cool and down with what is hot and fresh (see, that sentence proves we are living in a fantasy). One niche of hipness that Bostonist knows little about is sneaker fashion. Thankfully, there is a podcast that just might help educate us in the areas of sneaker art, clothing, and music: the Weeklydrop. Hosts Rob and Jeff bring the world of hip-hop......

NPR is sometimes seen as the "gold standard" of broadcast radio, and Bostonist thinks the same could be said for webcasts. The On Point with Tom Ashbrook podcast contains the same content that can be listened to on WBUR. Bostonist likes being able to listen to it when and where we want. On Point is a news show that delivers everything you could want from a news program. The show takes a close look at......

A little bit of comedy, mixed with political commentary, some pop culture, and interesting interviews. This is exactly what Baratunde delivers on his podcast, the Front Porch Podcast. When Baratunde Thurston isn't appearing in local comedy clubs or writing down his thoughts and opinions, he is creating some pretty darn good podcasts. At press time, there are only 15 episodes out for consumption, thus the show is in its infancy. Despite the show being young,......

When watching the Boston Marathon each year, we feel inspired by all the runners making the long, arduous journey from Hopkinton to Boston. We continue to dream, but running a marathon probably isn't in out future. Thankfully, we can live vicariously through Peter and Eliza's audio training travelogue, the Marathon Minute. This podcast is a record of two people training for the Boston Marathon. Listening to the podcast means listening to discussions of training, and......

Notwithstanding the fact that we're married, Bostonist does sometimes read the personals. No, no, no, it's not our cheating heart, it's the fact that they're hilarious (and frequently smack of desperation in a way that makes us that much more glad we're out of the game). Usually, since we hate spending money on anything, we're limited to craigslist, and we used to think that was OK. But then we came across this post on Gawker,......

Boston intellectuals are once again duking it out on the international stage, this time in the Wall Street Journal and the London Review of Books. Professor Ruth Wisse, Harvard Professor of Yiddish and comparative literature, has a piece in today's Journal (online version requires subscription) in which she assails Professors Stephen Walt, of Harvard's Kennedy School, and John Mearsheimer (of U. Chicago) for their article in the British publication, which suggests that U.S. foreign policy......

It’s been almost a year since Clocky hit our radar. Then the floor. Under the bed. Across the room. And scared the cat. Yesterday seemed to be one of those days it was hard for the blogosphere to awake. Perhaps it was all the after-parties at SXSWi that left them with a little sleep in their eyes. First, we stumbled across the Top 10 Coolest Alarm Clocks on the Hip Tech Blog. Mere hours......

After Boston was recently ranked11th for Fittest City in their spring issue, Men's Fitness Magazine has just released the top 20 Fittest (and Fattest) colleges and universities. With Boston already being a very healthy place (if you discount all the Dunkin Donuts in town), two local universities were listed in the fittest higher institutions of learning. Boston University came in third place, with Boston College taking the eleventh spot on the list. Men's Fitness worked......

Mitt Romney may have hid under his desk when his aides reported to him that the state had been slashdotted yesterday. The post on SlashDot filed a report on the Commonwealth government's possible future dumping of Microsoft Office in favor of software that would support an open document format compliant with OASIS. Bostonist has been using OpenOffice for a while now, and since our last computer didn’t come with office and dropping two bills on......