Conor McPherson
photo by Fionnuala McPherson

The Tonys often feel like the forgotten stepchildren of awards. All the razzle-dazzle of Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys are over by March, but the Tonys take place in June — so far outside of awards season, yet so close to the MTV Movie Awards. And, if I'm being honest, given the choice between the two, I usually tune into MTV.

The calendar might still say spring, but here on Pop Culture Standard Time, summer has announced itself with a bang.

The first summer entertainment blockbuster out of the gate was, surprisingly, a video game. Not that Grand Theft Auto IV: Liberty City is just any video game. It is a true pop-culture event like any other with a passionate nerdy cult following, with fans lining up for hours in anticipation of getting their sweaty hands on a brand-new, just-out-of-the-box disc. The fever pitch for the game grew so high that some experts were predicating that GTA gamers would stay home and hurt the box-office numbers for Iron Man, the first big summer movie. (For a guide to the rest of the summer movies, read my Summer Film Preview. It's just 11 weeks until The Dark Knight comes out, y'all.)

Those experts were half right. A lot of people were crazed for GTA. US numbers haven't been finalized yet, but Yahoo reports that the game is a record-breaker in the UK, selling 600,000 copies in its first day. Those numbers make Grand Theft Auto IV the fastest selling game of all time in the UK. Sony claims that the game's release has driven sales of its Playstation 3 console, and the New York Times notes that, since its release, the publisher of GTA has seen its stock climb steadily. To say that sales are good would be a massive understatement.

But luckily for the folks over at Paramount, Grand Theft Auto did nothing to hurt Iron Man, which did quite well over the weekend. Number one at the box office, the film grossed $101 million its first weekend — more if you count Thursday screenings. That makes it the second-biggest opening of a non-sequel movie ever. (How's that for a useless pop-culture stat?) So, in a flagging economy where money is tight, what makes people go out in droves to support these two big cultural monoliths? If you think about it, on the surface, things looked bad for these two. Iron Man isn't even a second-tier superhero. (I know lots of comic fans, and nobody I know reads Iron Man.) Hanging a movie on his shoulders is pecking downwards on the superhero food-chain. And Liberty City is the fourth in the Grand Theft Auto series. If you think of other famous fourths (Alien Resurrection, Saw IV), it's a bad omen.

So what made these succeed? As far as I can tell, it's just because they're so good. Grand Theft Auto is currently rocking a 99 percent score on Metacritic.com, a website that aggregates critics' reviews. Iron Man follows with a nothing-to-sneeze-at 78 percent. The non-critics I've spoken with are even more effusive with praise. People marvel at the level of detail given to Grand Theft Auto's "Liberty City." Programmers thought of everything, from the lighting to the amount of change that background characters have in their pockets (so the audio engineers know how much jingling to use when they walk). Slate.com even said that the game has a "richness of narrative" previously absent in the GTA series. (I haven't owned a gaming system since the eight-bit Nintendo — don't mess with me and Super Mario Brothers 3 — and I seriously want this.)

With Iron Man, Jon Favreau isn't the best director around, but he knows when to step aside and just let Robert Downey Jr. do his thing. And "his thing" works: the crowd I saw the film with was so excited (especially during the after-credits ending) that cheers drowned out the dialogue. Compare that to last year, where the biggest movie releases were disappointing trilogy-cappers (Priates of the Caribbean: At World's End, The Bourne Ultimatum, Shrek 3) and the biggest selling game was I don't even know what, and you realize that people were just ready to go out and have fun with something new. On that front, it's looking like it's going to be a good summer.

Visit the Grand Theft Auto IV or Iron Man official website.

                    Into the Wild's Emile Hirsch is Speed Racer.

Finally, after reading endless dispatches from Cannes and Sundance, we get a film festival closer to home (at least on the East Coast). The Tribeca Film Festival is underway, opening with the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler vehicle Baby Mama last week. Here are some Tribeca films to keep an eye out for — movies I feel have a shot at getting a decent distribution:

Baghead
Mark and Jay Duplass's last film, The Puffy Chair, scored some attention when it was one of the first films to be released through Netflix. The film was lumped into an emerging movement called "mumblecore:" naturalistic, Cassavettes-style films about kids in their 20's that are very light on plot. Baghead is the brothers' next mumblecore movie, also about kids in their 20's, and also light on plot. This time, the characters are — what else? — actors trying to put together their own indie movie.

Bart Got a Room
Next in the line of Napoleon Dynamite-style films about lovable losers comes Bart Got a Room, a film about high school senior Danny Stein's search for a little love on prom night. He just needs to find himself a date. William H. Macy puts in one of his signature sad-sack performances as Danny's divorced dad. Did I mention it's a comedy?

Finding Amanda
Just like in Election, Matthew Broderick teams up with a younger actress (Brittany Snow) for a pitch-black comedy. Finding Amanda, the directorial debut of the Larry Sanders Show producer Peter Tolan, is about a sitcom producer and recovering addict who decides to redeem himself by rescuing his young niece from a life of drugs and prostitution in Las Vegas — but can he resist the lures of Sin City himself? The hilarious Steve Coogan has a small role as a casino pit boss.

Redbelt
When you think of writer/director/playwright David Mamet, I know Jiu-Jitsu isn't the first thing to come to mind. Yet here he is, bringing his trademark grittiness to a story about an honorable Jiu-Jitsu teacher. Chiwetel Ejiofor (you know him, even if you can't place his impossible-to-pronounce name) plays the lead role, a man who, after leading a peaceful life as a teacher, suddenly has to enter the prizefighting circuit. I never knew prizefighters to be a talky bunch, but in Mamet's hands, they're sure to be.

Savage Grace
Oh, the perils of being wealthy! As in The Hours and Far From Heaven, Julianne Moore puts in another performance about the inner sadness of well-to-do families. This time, director Tom Kalin tells the true story of the dissolution of the Baekeland family, the heirs to the Bakelite plastics fortune.

Speed Racer
Directed by the duo behind the Matrix trilogy, Speed Racer, based on the old cartoon, is the antithesis to arty festival fare. The Wachowskis zoom through the candy-colored, hyper-kinetic, special-effects saturated Speed universe for nonstop, family-friendly thrills. It comes out soon, an see it in IMAX if you want a true stomach-flipping experience.

The Wackness
This film already screened at Sundance, and with an extreme love-it-or-hate-it reaction from critics. And, with such an insane premise, you can see why: Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck, or Josh of Drake and Josh) is a weed dealer who dreams of becoming a hip-hop star, but, in the meantime, he'll spend his days trading drugs for sessions with a therapist (Ben Kingsley?), who also happens to be the stepfather of his big crush (the awesome Olivia Thirlby.) Also, Mary-Kate Olson is in it somewhere, and I think she gets an on-screen kiss with Ben Kingsley. Now that is wack.

Visit the Tribeca Film Festival official website.

This week finally sees an end to the presidential primaries in Pennsylvania — hallelujah! With so much time, so many similarities between the candidates (at least on the Democrat side), and so little to do between primary contests, people have started complaining that the focus of the presidential campaigns has moved away from the real issues and towards more superficial matters. But while we're judging the candidates on inconsequential things, why not take a look at their tastes in popular culture?

Hillary Clinton
Favorite Movies:
Usually in interviews, Clinton gives the short answer of Casablanca when you ask for her favorite film. However, she does go into more detail on her Facebook profile, adding to the list Out of Africa and The Wizard of Oz, because "I just loved imagining myself being there with Dorothy and being part of that great adventure she had."

Favorite Books:
Clinton delves into her favorite books in O, the Oprah Magazine, and her list is thorough and varied: Little Women, The Poisonwood Bible, The Color Purple, The Clan of the Cave Bear, Wild Swans, West with the Night, and The Joy Luck Club. Her MySpace page lists Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin as her most recently read book.

Favorite TV Shows:
Uh-oh, someone's a McDreamy fan. Hillary told Essence that Grey's Anatomy is her favorite show. She also admitted to TV Guide that she has a soft spot for HGTV makeover shows (perhaps she's planning renovations for her Chappaqua estate—or the White House), and she also watches Antiques Roadshow, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars. Her favorite TV program of all-time is The Ed Sullivan Show.

Favorite Music/Campaign Song:
While her Facebook page lists Carly Simon as a recent purchase and Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, and U2 as faves, when it came time to pick a campaign song, she left it up to her supporters. According to MSNBC.com, the pool of possible songs included U2's "City of Blinding Lights," KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See," Smash Mouth's "I'm a Believer," the Temptations's "Get Ready," the Dixie Chicks' "Ready to Run" (a gutsy move considering the Dixie Chicks's run-in with Bush), Shania Twain's "Rock This Country," U2's "Beautiful Day," Jesus Jones's "Right Here, Right Now," and The Staple Singers's "I'll Take You There." The winner was declared: "You and I" by Celine Dion (a Canadian who presumably can't vote in the election). Later, however, Clinton tired of the Las Vegas show-woman and took to entering events to "Blue Sky" by Big Head Todd and the Monsters, at least according to ABC News.

Barack Obama
Favorite Movies:
It seems Obama and Clinton agree on more than the need for universal healthcare. Both list Casablanca as their favorite movie. In addition, Obama's Facebook profile rounds out his top five with The Godfather I & II, Lawrence of Arabia, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Favorite Books:
Obama seems to favor the big literary heavyweights, listing Song of Solomon, Moby Dick, Shakespeare's tragedies, Parting the Waters, Gilead, Self-Reliance, the Bible, and Lincoln's collected writings as some of his favorite reading matter.

Favorite TV Shows:
The candidate told TV Guide that he enjoys Monday Night Football, SportsCenter, M*A*S*H, and even SpongeBob SquarePants, which he watches with his daughter. But nothing made a bigger splash than his admission that he's a fan of The Wire. After mentioning that his favorite character is the less-than-lawful Omar, Obama had to make sure that the Las Vegas Sun wrote: “That’s not an endorsement. He’s not my favorite person, but he’s a fascinating character.”

Favorite Music/Campaign Song:
Obama lists his favorites as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Johann Sebastian Bach (cello suites), and the Fugees. Yet the real story here could be how much musicians love him. CNN reported that Obama has been name-checked by hip-hop artists like Talib Kweli, Common, and an Asian-American rapper named Jin. "Jin's song is so popular online that the Obama campaign is offering it as a free cell phone ring-tone on its Web site," they wrote. As for Obama, CNN reports he says he's "old school, so generally, generally, I'm more of a jazz guy, a Miles Davis, a John Coltrane guy, more of a Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder kind of guy. But having said that, I'm current enough that on my iPod I've got a little bit of Jay-Z. I've got a little Beyonce." Yet when it came time to pick a campaign song, Obama left the Coltrane behind for the Bob the Builder-esque "Yes We Can," written by Andy Fraser of the band Free.

My $0.02
Judging purely by pop-culture preferences and not by politics or policies, I'd say this round goes to Obama. Clinton has been accused of "triangulating," and I can see a same process at work in her entertainment tastes. American Idol and Grey's Anatomy are two of the most popular programs on television, so there's no risk in getting behind them. And notice how her favorite books cross almost every major voting demo? On the other hand, Obama's quote about Omar from The Wire shows that he realizes your pop-culture preferences don't have to reflect your personal politics—it's just entertainment. This opinion reverses when it comes to the candidates' campaign songs.
Obama has really cool taste in music; I wish he had picked a better, jazzier, less market-tested-up-with-people campaign song. Clinton on the other hand tried to find a song that would appeal to a wide swath of Americans by using her Web 2.0 voting scheme—and when the song got annoying, she ditched it for another by a band few people have heard of. Way to go, Clinton.

Don't think the Republicans are going to escape my scruntiny:

John McCain
Favorite Movies:
McCain actually seems like a bit of a movie buff. His favorite film is Viva Zapata with Marlon Brando, but he told SlashFilm that he recently enjoyed "The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Identity, Mission: Impossible ('I like those kinds of things, the car chases'), The Departed ('It’s pretty rough, but I kind of liked it. Nicholson plays too much Nicholson'), and Syriana ('I enjoyed Syriana, although a lot of people didn’t')." In addition to action flicks, he digs political films. That's not a huge shock, but what did surprise me is that he's apparently seen both versions of The Manchurian Candidate. "I enjoyed both versions of The Manchurian Candidate, but in the first version Angela Lansbury was just phenomenal," he told Variety V Life (via Monsters and Critics). In that same interview, he says "My other favorite political film is All the King's Men because I think that Huey Long was a larger-than-life figure in American politics."

Favorite Books:
It's hard to find more about McCain's favorite books than what's listed on his Facebook profile (For Whom the Bell Tolls favorite book, Hemingway, favorite author), but the Chicago Tribune managed to break the news that he's currently reading Einstein, His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson.

Favorite TV Shows:
McCain told TV Guide that his favorite show of all time is I, Claudius, and his current faves are "24, Lost, Damages, The Daily Show, The Tonight Show, Late Show, The Sopranos—and Prison Break, 'because as a fellow prisoner, I always dreamed and plotted how I would break out of the Hanoi Hilton.'" Yet he didn't make the gossip pages of celebrity magazines until he got an unlikely endorsement from Heidi Montag, one of the teen stars of The Hills. John McCain told Time magazine's Swampland, "I’m honored to have Heidi’s support and I want to assure her that I never miss an episode of The Hills, especially since the new season started."

Favorite Music/Campaign Song:
McCain doesn't even list his favorite music on his Facebook profile, and, when pushed, he just says “Fifties and Sixties rock ’n’ roll,” according to the Washingtonian. (They also report that his favorite song is "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and his favorite album is Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! by Frank Sinatra, neither of which is very rock 'n' roll.) As for a campaign song, once Edwards dropped out of the race, McCain swiped John Mellencamp's "Pink Houses" and "Our Country" to use as entrance music—until, as Rolling Stone reports, Mellencamp complained (he's an Edwards supporter). Maybe next time, McCain can get some advice about music from his daughter Meghan, a music blogger at www.McCainBloggette.com.

Last Wednesday, television juggernaut American Idol launched its Idol Gives Back campaign, raising funds for six charities serving kids in the U.S. and Africa, including the Children's Defense Fund, the Global Fund, Make It Right, Malaria No More, Save the Children, U.S. Programs, and the Children's Health Fund. A bevy of stars from Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale, to Brad Pitt and Bono, turned out for the event, all urging phone and online donations. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the special raised $22 million in one night, a number which continues to climb as donations still pour in.

One star missing from the lineup was new Kimberly Locke, who made the final three on the second season of Idol. Locke performed on a late-March episode of the show, and it would've been nice to see her again. But Locke fans need not fear — she doesn't need to sing on Idol to support her favorite charity. She'll be on this Thursday's episode of Don't Forget the Lyrics, where no doubt she'll be competing for her favorite cause, Camp Heartland, an organization with which she works often. Currently, she has plans to host a fundraiser for the camp this September.

So, without Locke, how was Idol Gives Back? As a sometimes-TV-critic, I can tell you that it was about as entertaining as any other telethon. (And I say this as someone who gets sucked into watching Idol every year, even though sometimes the hours it requires to be an Idol fan resembles a part-time job, as a cube-mate and I often complain.) Star after star paraded on stage to perform, followed by clips of different celebrities urging the audience to turn out their pockets and give some money. Some moments were amusing — like Miley Cyrus and Billy Crystal's comedy routine, where the young singer asked the comic if he was in show business — but nothing I saw was as good as Jack Black auditioning for the judges last year. And other moments, like Teri Hatcher singing Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats", were just plain awful.

Then again, I should suck it up. It's for charity, right? In between the celebrity performances, there were video segments showing how the money raised by Idol Gives Back helps children throughout the world. There were ailing families finally getting sorely needed health care. Orphans, used to sleeping three-to-a-bed in a one-room dirt-floor house, were finally able to attend schools and receive education. It was genuinely worthy, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't moved.

But even with all the, as Ben Stiller called it, "googillian" dollars the show was raising for these causes, I still couldn't really drum up much enthusiasm for it. I was creeped out by it, and I couldn't figure out why. This wary feeling crystallized when the show cut to three pre-taped bumpers, each featuring a different presidential candidate urging people to donate. Besides learning that McCain can't really tell a joke, that moment on the show was pretty revealing for me. Not to single out the presidential candidates unfairly, but I'm positive that their appearances had just as much to do with getting their empathetic mugs in front of an audience of millions of people as it did with raising money for children. The publicity-to-sincerity ratio was just a bit off. I'd much rather see stars do what Kimberly Locke is doing — sure, Don’t Forget the Lyrics is less of a ratings powerhouse, but she gets to serve an organization that she's personally invested in.

And what does it mean that millions of people responded to the special? I can't tell if it's better or worse that millions were raised just because an all-star lineup of celebrities said so. On one hand, it's better for the children of the world that we're in such a mindless, do-whatever-the-TV-says culture. On the other hand, what's the experience of donating to Idol Gives Back? You don’t do any hard work for the charity — you just donate over the Internet. You don't get to have a meaningful experience with those who you're helping. And hearing numbers like $22 million thrown around, most of which come from corporate sponsors like ExxonMobil (there's the publicity-to-sincerity alarm going off again), and it all seems too big to really have an impact and influence others to be charitable when the TV doesn't tell them to.

So, my mind is still split on Idol Gives Back. Is the laziest, easiest charity — donating money over the Internet or buying a song from iTunes knowing the proceeds go to help children — better than doing nothing at all? Is Teri Hatcher's out-of-tune "Before He Cheats" performance more admirable than other tone-deaf celebs who stayed home and didn't try to raise money for anything? Or is Idol Gives Back just another way for celebrities to feel good about themselves while cashing in on American Idol's massive built-in audience? What do you think?

Visit the Idol Gives Back official website.

Or visit a lesser-heralded, more hand-on community service organization.

With all of the news about Barack Obama's pastor and the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., race has been at the forefront of the national conversation recently. Yet few outlets in popular culture have stepped up to address the issue. One documentary, Meeting David Wilson set to air this week on MSNBC, is hoping to change that.

As the title suggest, the documentary is about David Wilson. Two David Wilsons, in fact. The first is a 28-year-old African-American news producer who lives in Newark, New Jersey. The second David Wilson is white, 62 years old, and owner of a small chain of barbecue restaurants in North Carolina.

Now, here's where the situation with the two men gets interesting: The white David Wilson's family, if traced back generations to the antebellum South, once owned the African-American David Wilson's family as slaves.

The documentary brings the two Wilsons together for a candid talk about race. MSNBC will show the film at 9 pm on April 11, and it'll be immediately followed by a 90-minute live discussion on racial issues in America. The talk will take place at Howard University, and it'll be moderated by Brian Williams.

I chatted with Pete Menzies, one of the executive producers of the film, about the experience of making a documentary about such a thorny issue. "It was a story that needed to be told," he says. "And it's such a timely story now. The timing couldn't be better—the planets really aligned for us."

Menzies got his start at MTV, putting together news segments and documentaries like My Life Translated about soldiers in Iraq, so he was used to working with a skeleton crew like the kind used to shoot Meeting David Wilson. "We pulled together a documentary the old-fashioned way, with four guys piling into two cars with five cameras, and just documenting everything that was going on," he says, adding, "it was like a college road trip."

Of course, that doesn't mean the shoot was easy. "The couple nights before the shoot, everyone was nervous for a different reason," he says. "It was like having pre-wedding jitters. Everyone was on edge. Dave, especially, because he had so many questions he wanted answered."

In the end, though, Menzies couldn't be happier with the way the documentary turned out. "It tackles a lot of questions that people on both sides of the equation have," he says. "We were very direct in the questions we asked. We tackled touchy subjects, like reparations. Dave was terrified to ask about them. We didn't want to offend the white David Wilson. But he wanted to get answers."

"I can't wait to hear what people are going to say," he continues. "It's going to be a highly charged conversation, especially now."

Visit the Meeting David Wilson official website.

Meeting David Wilson on MSNBC.

In some ways, I think Shrek's success hurt future animated films more than it helped them. Sure, the character designs were cool and the films have their funny moments (especially when Puss in Boots is involved), but the franchise set a precedent of inserting lame pop-culture references and Top 40 songs in lieu of real jokes. References can be amusing ("Hey! It's just like The Matrix!"), but they're rarely really funny, and they become dated faster than the actual cultural touchstones that they're referencing. Plus, listening to children singing along with a cover of a pop song originally done by a band that was derivative to begin with is basically my personal No Exit style of hell. (Thank you, Smash Mouth's "I'm a Believer.")

So then comes the news that Dr. Seuss' classic children's book, Horton Hears a Who is transitioning to the big screen. Dr. Seuss is timeless. He makes no pop culture references. His jokes are witty, clever, and barely in English. I figured I was safe.

Then I see the commercial for Horton, and what's he doing? Singing "I Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon. (Don't believe me? Click here to see a video.) I love Dr. Seuss and my feelings for REO Speedwagon are neutral at best, but the combination of the two makes me want to personally option the rest of the Theodor Seuss Geisel oeuvre to keep something like this from happening again.

Yet even as I was running to the bathroom to go retch, I noticed how gorgeous the animation looks. That comes courtesy of Blue Sky Studios, headquartered in White Plains, NY. The animation studio is also behind the wildly popular Ice Age movies, along with the lesser-seen Robots. Horton's bright colors pop even on a small TV screen, and while Seuss would never commit the sin of quoting arena bands in his work, at least the movie stays true to the spirit of his wildly inventive character designs.

These Blue Sky kids might be on to something. Horton was No. 1 at the box office this weekend, making more than $45 million dollars after opening on almost 4,000 screens. (10,000 BC, spiritual kin to Blue Sky's Ice Age, was No. 2 with $16 million.) Ice Age opened to similarly huge numbers, and Ice Age: The Meltdown opened even stronger; its first weekend brought home more than $68 million. Say what you will about the combination of elephants and REO Speedwagon, but kids seem to like it.

My personal favorite Blue Sky offering, however, is a little-known short they did that came out of nowhere to be nominated for an Oscar. "Bunny" comes from a simpler time: 1998, to be exact, before Shrek unleashed itself on the population and all animated movies thereafter were forced to dumb themselves down with lame attempts at pop-culture-related humor. As such, it's a little darker, the plot has a bit of the classic little-guy-can't-get-ahead tension to it (later seen in Ice Age's scrat), and is all-around more enjoyable. If Horton Hears a Who gets people to go back and rediscover "Bunny," the desecration of Dr. Seuss will be worth it.

Watch "Bunny" on Yahoo! Movies.