The State of Scary TV
‘The Returned’ and ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ join ‘The Walking Dead’ in offering high-quality horror.
November 12, 2013
Afternoon Links: Forget the Entourage Movie for a Sec and Consider Wahlburgers
Mark and Donnie Wahlberg and their brother Paul own a restaurant in Hingham, Massachusetts, called Wahlburgers. It’s enough to just know that; we can all die happy and hungry. But because that’s not enough — because we need to die happy, hungry, and with a reality show about every remotely interesting thing — A&E has commissioned […]
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The Andy Greenwald Podcast: Jeff Garlin
For more than two decades, Jeff Garlin has been one of America’s funniest working comedians. But he’s also been one of comedy’s most generous and dependable listeners: as Larry David’s put-upon manager/sidekick on Curb Your Enthusiasm, as a sounding board and director for many of his peers (including Jon Stewart and Denis Leary), and, recently, […]
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A 100 Percent Spoiler-Free Guide to Why You Should Watch Black Mirror Tonight
I have given myself the unenviable task of encouraging you to watch the U.K. series Black Mirror, which makes its long-awaited legal-platform debut on DirecTV’s Audience network. (If you don’t have DirecTV and are interested in watching it, I’m sure you can or have already found a way around that.*) The show originally debuted last […]
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Please Stop Throwing Excrement at GQ Man of the Year Justin Timberlake, Because It’s Bumming Him Out
When you think about Justin Timberlake, you don’t immediately envision him covered in feces. Having said that, Gentlemen’s Quarterly has just announced its Man of the Year issue, and one of those men is Justin Timberlake. Congrats to Justin Timberlake. Accompanying the accolade was an intimate feature on Timberlake, with the author spending time with […]
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Let’s Talk About Celine Dion: Why She Still Matters
Do you watch American Idol? Have you ever watched American Idol? Of course you have! It’s popular. But it’s sad, too. Every year the country spends half a television season watching contestants sing. They vote for their favorite performer — or against yours. The weeks grind on. Someone wins, even though we all realize that […]
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Go to College, Learn About Springsteen
Given the time, resources, and encouragement, any music lover could teach a half-decent college class on any Springsteen-size artist. Drunk Uncle could improvise semester-long masterpieces on most of the acts featured in Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” But a course that explores “the theological underpinnings of Springsteen’s lyrics, and the songwriter’s reinterpretation […]
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News Alert: It Is Possible Kate Upton Will Be the Female Lead in the Entourage Movie
The Entourage movie — a go, if you hadn’t heard, a delicious, delicious go — produces news at such a breakneck pace that we’ve added four analysts to the beat, lest some tray-passed morsel fall to the floor before we can greedily devour it. When you’re on 'Rage duty, eternal vigilance is required; there is […]
Read moreAttention, Robin Thicke: Lily Allen Has a New Song and Video
With today’s official release of Lady Gaga’s tepidly received Artpop and the generally disappointing feeling of having opened all our presents and not gotten what we really wanted, Lily Allen has come to the rescue with her comeback single, “Hard Out Here,” the accompanying twerk-happy video, and a very important message for Robin Thicke. Whether […]
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Freak Show & Tell: Just a Classic Girl-Meets-Train Love Story
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That’s where I come in! Here’s an unflinching look back at TV’s Week in Freak Shows. What!? Logo Documentaries: “Animism: People Who Love Objects” (Logo) Who […]
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The Internet Is Magic: Exploring the Wonderful World of My Little Pony Fandom in Bronies
There was a time not all that long ago when subcultures were birthed offline. To find other people who shared your interest you had to travel long distances, hunt down zines, and shout at people on the street wearing T-shirts related to the thing you like in the hopes they would recognize you as a […]
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The Princess Bride Musical No Longer Inconceivable
The theater is dead; long live the theater. Just as the musical production of Big Fish announced that it would be closing on December 9, Disney Theatrical Productions revealed that it will be partnering with William Goldman, the author and screenwriter of The Princess Bride (another fantastical story framed by two genetically linked dudes having […]
Read moreHollywood Prospectus Podcast: Homeland, Star Wars Sequels, and A Tribe Called Quest
Regular listeners of the pod may have noticed that Andy and I are having some issues with Homeland. For the last couple weeks, we’ve kicked the tires, keyed the car, and basically lit the old jalopy on fire. This week is no different in the sense that neither of us were all that impressed with […]
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Idris Elba Will Save Paris in Bastille Day
After recently outing himself as a shy bloke indeed, Idris Elba has lined up his perfect James Bond audition role. Lest you thought Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom indicated a permanent shift away from explosion-y fare like Pacific Rim, Prometheus, and Thor: The Dark World, this new project, Bastille Day, is an action-thriller. Variety reports that Elba will […]
Read moreNovember 11, 2013
Afternoon Links: Fall Break Forever
Spring Breakers was aggressively not for me. But without the experience — the money wasted on a ticket, the creepy-dude feeling I incurred while watching alone, the loneliness of having no one to vent my Franco-hate to — I couldn’t have fully appreciated Fall Breakers, an astonishing parody from a sketch-comedy collective called Lady Products. […]
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‘She’ll Grow Out of It’: The Lorde Backlash
I hate to start this off with a comparison between Lorde and her female contemporaries illustrating why she is so [gasp] different and refreshing and authentic because that’s exactly the kind of rhetoric that is starting to dig her backlash grave among both tweens and contrarian critics. But if nothing else, the one interesting thing […]
Read moreThe Boys and Men in Drake’s Life Collide in the ‘Worst Behavior’ Video
Drake’s father is Dennis Graham, a journeyman Memphis drummer known for his work with Jerry Lee Lewis. His adoptive uncle is Teenie Hodges, the legendarily silky Memphis rhythm guitarist. His other adoptive uncle was the late Willie Mitchell, the paterfamilias of Hi Records, the Memphis label that released knuckle-cracking love songs by Al Green, Syl […]
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Is Bill Cosby Ready for a Comeback? Is the World Ready for Bill Cosby to Come Back?
It looks like no one’s readier for the Bill Cosby revival than 76-year-old Bill Cosby. After a decade that only really yielded the divisive pound cake speech and a brilliant Late Night With Jimmy Fallon appearance, Doc Huxtable’s readying his first televised stand-up special in three decades. Premiering on Comedy Central just before Thanksgiving, it’s resolutely […]
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We Went There: Chugged Booze, Tentacle Porn, and Season 5 Spoilers at Archer Live
As a cultural mecca of sorts, L.A. has many extracurricular options on any given Saturday night. Catch your struggling actor friend’s one-man sock-puppet show in Hollywood’s theater row. Sip Pabst tall boys at your struggling stand-up friend’s UCB debut. Or flirt with a vegan while ignoring your struggling musician friends’ set at the Echoplex. But […]
Read moreWatch Sacha Baron Cohen Shove a Wheelchair-Bound Actress Offstage, But Only for Pranksies
The YouTube headline reads “Sacha Baron Kills Awards Presenter at the 2013 Brittania Awards.” That is, we think, a bit misleading. He merely breaks “Charlie Chaplin’s cane” — presented to him as he accepts the Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy, further details unimportant — then accidentally shoves the wheelchair-bound, “oldest living actress […]
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Rick’s Three Questions: The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 5 — ‘Internment’
It’s Monday, which means it’s once again time to worship at the Church of the Good Zombie and confront all those bouts of existential nihilism we suppress during the week by YouTubing puppy and baby videos. We can watch dogs licking laughing newborns all we want, but eventually we must face the fact that we’re […]
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Miley Cyrus’s EMAs Marijuana Stunt: Just Another Distraction
I have a theory that the harder Miley Cyrus is working to create controversy with her performances, the more she’s trying to distract us from digging into her personal life too deeply. Just before announcing her split from fiancé Liam Hemsworth, she created the distraction to end all distractions with her VMAs performance; after four […]
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Hello Ladies: Los Angeles Is Where Dreams (and Egos) Go to Die
Call it ironic or inevitable, but Los Angeles nearly always miscasts itself. In back-patting fiction from Entourage to Ray Donovan, writers often think they’re winking at L.A. stereotypes — vapid actors! Foul-mouthed agents! Traffic! — but they’re really just celebrating them, bravely exposing the city’s soft, perfectly toned belly for only the lightest scrape of […]
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Tom Cruise’s In Touch Lawsuit Dredges Up Some Parental Real Talk
How do you get Tom Cruise mad? Question his parenting! Cruise recently emerged from his fortress of solitude to sue In Touch for its cover story “Abandoned by Daddy,” which posited that Cruise had not seen Suri in eons. Cruise has long made a habit of suing tabloids for defamation. In 2003, he won $10 million in […]
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Box Office Top Five: Thor: The Dark World Reigns Supreme
1. Thor: The Dark World, $86.1 million (opening weekend) I’m not saying Thor “smashed” the box office, because that’s just not respectful to Thor/how Thor conducts himself/the enemies Thor opts to use his smashing abilities against. But the young Australian god did better than his first time out, earning almost $21 million more than his […]
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