The State of Scary TV
‘The Returned’ and ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ join ‘The Walking Dead’ in offering high-quality horror.
September 13, 2011
After Point Break, Which Patrick Swayze Movie Should Hollywood Remake Next?
Patrick Swayze passed away two years ago tomorrow and yet his spectral presence is still felt in Hollywood. The reason? Everyone keeps remaking all of his movies! Perhaps serving as proof that the poor man should be allowed to rest in peace, none of these projects seem to be particularly successful. Finally scheduled for release […]
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September 12, 2011
Powerless Rankings: How Do the Impotent Men of Breaking Bad, Curb, and Louie Measure Up This Week?
How are television’s favorite angry white males of a certain age feeling put-upon and impotent this week? Let us count the ways. 3. Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm Predicament: The season finale of Curb’s New York adventure has everything you’d want: pre-gay seven-year-olds, Mayor Bloomberg, Nazi iconography, narrative symmetry, and the highest concentration of Parkinson’s […]
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At Least Conan’s Shrinking Audience Has Its Youth
In yesterday’s New York Times, Bill Carter — the Homer of the late night talk show Odyssey — penned a depressing, reality-checking piece about the state of the desks. The takeaway: the era of glib, monologue delivering, band-having, big-chinned raconteurs is over. Comedy Central’s one-two punch of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert — with their […]
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Why Aren’t There More Female Writers in TV?
Why are television writers’ room still so predominantly male? This is the question Maureen Ryan attempted to answer in a column last week after a study revealed that number of females employed on broadcast TV shows dropped from 35 percent in 2006-07 to 15 percent this past year. Moreover the pay gap between women and […]
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Oscarmetrics: Four Best Actor Candidates to Save a Seat For
Last week, while seeking evidence of how quickly Academy Awards campaign rhetoric can hit bottom, I came across the following Huffington Post headline. I know it’s still early, but we may have already found, in five words, the perfect storm of hysteria, prematurity, and inaccuracy. Here’s the headline: “Madonna Bombs; Oscar Hopes Dead?” Let me […]
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Why the Entourage Finale Was Allowed to Suck
After spending eight seasons with a cast we loved to hate, Entourage is finally over, and the entire nation is searching for meaning in the lives of the individual characters. What can we learn about the human condition from Vinny, Turtle, Drama, E and Ari? More importantly, where will Entourage rate historically amongst the greatest […]
Read moreThe X Factor Preview: Singing Teenage Robots and Boring Sob Stories
Last night, as the second slate of NFL games came to a merciful close, Fox aired an extended preview of the The X Factor. For the most part, the footage was recycled from the sneak-peek the network released back in July: Simon — back in V-neck — talked about walking away from the biggest show […]
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True Blood Recap: GTFOBT
Lafayette and Jesus are having a porch talk about feelings, except Lafayette doesn’t talk too much because if he did Jesus would realize he’s been POSESSED. Jesus kisses his boyfriend goodbye on the mouth and suddenly realizes that Lafayette is no longer Lafayette, just in time to get stabbed in the hand with a fork. […]
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Colin Firth Volunteers for Torture
Colin Firth will star in The Railway Man, an adaptation of British officer Eric Lomax’s book of the same name, which recounts his torture by the Japanese during the construction of the “death railway” during World War II. Usually we’d make an attempt at some lighthearted commentary here, but, you know, “death railway.” Grade: A- […]
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