The State of Scary TV
‘The Returned’ and ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ join ‘The Walking Dead’ in offering high-quality horror.
August 2, 2013
The Forgotten Pop-Punk Records of Summer
Well, it’s official: The Song of Summer 2013 is “Blurred Lines.” Or “Get Lucky.” Or maybe it’s “We Can’t Stop” or “Take Back the Night.” Either way, no one bothered to clear any of this with you. Which is just as well; you’re not really a joiner anyway. Still, there’s something perfunctory about the whole […]
Read moreThe Right Reasons Podcast: Des’s Bachelorette Devastation and The Challenge
David Jacoby and Juliet Litman talk about Des’s heartbreak on The Bachelorette, Diem’s dance moves on The Challenge, and much more from the world of reality TV. Listen to the podcast here: ESPN.com Podcenter. Subscribe to the Grantland Network on iTunes, and check out our podcasts page.
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Grantland Reality Fantasy League: Bachelorette Shockers and Ketchup Terrorism
With a brokenhearted Bachelorette, battle-rapping rivals, and mortuusequusphobia, reality TV killed it this week. The Challenge provided its usually oddity and idiocy, but The Bachelorette really exceeded expectations. It was emotional, it was shocking, it was weird, it was genuine — I have watched it four times and I still have no idea what the […]
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August Book Recommendations: Night Film, The Sound of Things Falling, and Necessary Errors
Night Film by Marisha Pessl Ashley, the 24-year-old daughter of cult horror director Stanislas Cordova, is found dead in a warehouse in Manhattan. (I don’t know my cult horror directors very well, but I kept imagining Dario and Asia Argento.) When the police rule the death a suicide, investigative journalist Scott McGrath takes it upon […]
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August 1, 2013
Afternoon Links: Young Adults
Today was a big day for the young-adult genre. CBS Films bought the rights to Children of Paranoia, the first part of a trilogy about “a secret war that’s been waged for centuries via assassins,” and nabbed Battlestar Galactica‘s Mark Verheiden for the screenplay; meanwhile, Columbia Pictures has Erin Brokovich‘s Susannah Grant working on the […]
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Rembert Explains America: Returning Home for an Emotional Move
“So what should I do?” my friend asked over the phone. I paused because I was officially overwhelmed with adulthood stimuli. Just minutes before he called, I was searching “How to get a P.O. box” on my phone. My friend’s question was regarding his upcoming engagement proposal, and the dilemma at hand was that we […]
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The Seven Amazing Movie-Star Beards You Meet in the New Lone Survivor Trailer
Beards have never been more popular. Don’t believe us? Ask the decimated razor industry, whose warehouses are overflowing with unshipped crates of 10-blade UltiProGlide X replacement cartridges with curdling LubriStrips that will never cut a Barbisol-slicked swath across a defiantly hirsute nation’s stubble-riddled faces. Exposed cheeks are becoming as socially unthinkable as exposed genitalia; decency […]
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Girls in Hoodies Podcast: Orange Is the New Black, Rating TV Theme Songs, and More
Appropriately, for a discussion of a show that is about hitting rock bottom and finding a way to thrive there, the Girls in Hoodies recorded this podcast from the plushly carpeted floor of the Grantland studio. Maybe it was our Pavlovian subconscious telling us that we were about to have some quality circle time or […]
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The Overthought Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Recap: Farts, Fracking, and Commitment Ceremonies
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo has become more than just a reality television show. It has become an important slice of modern American culture. Within each episode, there are many complex themes and hidden Easter eggs. This recap is intended to decipher the subtext of the show utilizing the critical vessel of the recap. Fracking, […]
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Eight TV Opening Sequences Better (and Worse) Than Orange Is the New Black’s
Today on the Girls in Hoodies podcast, Molly, Emily, and I talk about the greatness of Orange Is the New Black, which leads us, inevitably, to a discussion about opening credits. OITNB’s intro was not made with Netflix marathons in mind: fast-forwarding through it can seem like too much of a hassle (especially if you […]
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The Bridge Season 1, Episode 4: ‘Maria of the Desert’ Shakes Things Up
In the wake of TV’s boundary-pushing Golden Age, violent death has become an easy storytelling shorthand for showrunners, a tool not unlike a black border on Instagram: a dark and jarring juxtaposition that helps heighten and intensify otherwise uninteresting images. And, in fact, I’ve spent much of this week wrestling with the small screen’s out-of-control […]
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Simon Cowell’s Love Child, The Bachelorette’s Looming Gay Scandal … and Other Horror Stories From This Week’s Tabloids
US Weekly Simon Cowell Knocks Up His Best Friend’s Wife: Cowell, 53, once said “God, no, I couldn’t have children. With kids, you’ve got a routine you can’t escape from.” Looks like he had an accidental change of heart/affair with his best friend’s wife! Cowell is unexpectedly “expecting a baby with NYC socialite Lauren Silverman! […]
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2 Guns for Hire: Washington and Wahlberg’s Paycheck Roles of a Lifetime
If you want to know how seriously to take 2 Guns, just look at Mark Wahlberg’s face after he and Denzel Washington are forced to hop into the dusty bed of a pickup truck and cross the border from Mexico to Texas. The trip is meant to be a punishment inflicted by an exasperated drug […]
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