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Current TV: We first dismissed this user-generated-content-crazed network as MTV’s “True Life” with cooler graphics, but lately we’ve been hooked on its view of TV 2.0. Documentaries from the network’s “Vanguard” series pulled us in with storytelling that rivaled the best of NPR, and comedy segments on “infoMania” tweaked mass media as well as “The Daily Show.” This current is picking up speed.

U2’s ‘Pop’: Yes, the Irish quartet’s latest album, “No Line on the Horizon,” comes out this week (and has already been streaming on the band’s MySpace page), but it’s worth revisiting this 1997 album that was considered a flop. Sure, there are some clunkers (think “Mofo”), but the band’s willingness to challenge expectations on the album is something we’ve been missing in recent years.

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Lily Allen’s internal monologue: Because the poor woman clearly doesn’t have one. Lily, we adore you and your music, but it’s clearly time to rise above tabloid-satisfying acts such as getting into a Twitter-feed slap-fight with the likes of Perez Hilton. Next time, instead of airing your every thought to a gossip-hungry blogosphere and beyond, you know what you should do? Go write a song about it.

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‘Jules and Jim’: We risk incurring the wrath of cineastes everywhere, but after finally taking in this 1962 Truffaut classic, we were honestly left underwhelmed, even a bit bored. Yes, it’s all very lovely to look at and filled with that very special variety of Gallic romanticism, but we couldn’t figure out just what made the erratic Jeanne Moreau so irresistible. Call us heretics, but we prefer Truffaut’s “400 Blows” any day.

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