The State of Scary TV
‘The Returned’ and ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ join ‘The Walking Dead’ in offering high-quality horror.
October 15, 2013
The YouTube-ified Hot 100 Is Definitely Broken
According to Billboard, the Hot 100 chart ranks “the week’s most popular current songs across all genres.” How it has calculated that popularity has changed several times since its inception, most recently in the February decision to factor in streaming play alongside radio play, digital downloads and physical purchase [cue sound effect]. The YouTube change […]
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What’s With All These Open Letters?
It was a chilly fall evening in Toluca Lake, and the air of Miley Cyrus’s mansion was perfumed by a lump of wasabi in an empty sushi container. Miley reclined against the torso of a warm, cozy bear-person and reached into her giant mailbag. She removed an envelope from Sufjan Stevens, received a grammar lesson, […]
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Amy Poehler and Tina Fey Will Host the Golden Globes for Two More Years
Finally, a trilogy everyone actually wants to see. (If this doesn’t sound like you, please locate the X on your browser and click it. Or just grab a Sharpie and mark a fat X over your screen — that will also work.) Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, humor empresses and superlative Neil Patrick Harris hecklers […]
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Freak Show & Tell: Prayers for Marques
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with 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. Doomsday Preppers Bugged Out (Nat Geo) Who Is This […]
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January Jones Is Right at Home in the Existential Western Sweetwater
‘Tis the season for goth Westerns! Sweetwater, the sophomore effort from twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller, premiered at Sundance earlier this year. If your comedown from Breaking Bad has you yearning for beautiful shots of the Southwest’s wide-open spaces, Sweetwater may be just the thing to sate your needs. Shot in Santa Fe and Abiquiú, New Mexico, Sweetwater is a traditional […]
Read moreHollywood Prospectus Podcast: Captain Phillips, Homeland, and Fox’s Tuesday Night Comedies
This week’s pod comes to you from a room with a view (of Caracas). Andy and I start things off talking about haircuts, Captain Phillips, Tom Hanks’s particular brand of movie stardom, and whether Paul Greengrass’s movie is as much a technical achievement, in its own way, as Gravity. We move on to Sunday night […]
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Marvel Eyeing Paul Rudd and Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Ant-Man, Reportedly Developing Four More TV Shows
Let’s start with the starrier side of this superhero news. Evidently since Parks and Rec’s Chris Pratt won the lead in Guardians of the Galaxy, it’s all systems go for comedy-bred actors to lead future Marvel properties. To be fair, Ant-Man was always bound to be weird and stylistically detached from the big-screen Marvel universe. […]
Read moreOctober 14, 2013
Afternoon Links: Most TVs Are Now Just Walking Dead–Playing Devices
AMC’s Mad Men and Breaking Bad will always be remembered as cornerstones of Television’s Great New Age Characterized by the Shiny Mineral of Your Choice, but The Walking Dead, like it or not, is going to be remembered as the cable series that delivered the hardest punch to network TV. The Hollywood Reporter writes that […]
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Who’s to Blame for Jaden Smith 2.0 and His Amazing Twitter Account?
I’m not a parent. I don’t have any pets. This past week, I house-sat a friend’s place with no other responsibility but watering the plants, and I actually considered outsourcing the task to a botanist. That’s where I am in my life. With that said: School Is The Tool To Brainwash The Youth. — Jaden […]
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What I Learned About Grand Budapest Hotel From Its Poster
Wes Anderson has finally reached the point in his career when he can make a movie about a building and not have to apologize for it, as evidenced by the just-released poster for The Grand Budapest Hotel. This is great news for the Andersonians and terrible news for Sofia Coppola — just goes to show, […]
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Brian Eno? Stringer Bell? Damon Albarn’s WTF Collab-O-Generator Does It Again
Damon doesn’t sleep.
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Bill Murray Will Donate Some of His Magic to Cameron Crowe’s New Movie
Until now, Cameron Crowe’s next film has been whispered about only as “more Jerry Maguire/Almost Famous, less We Bought a Zoo,” which seemed like a good thing. Another good thing, though, is Bill Murray, who’s looking to join Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams, Danny McBride, Jay Baruchel, and Alec Baldwin in Crowe’s latest. The […]
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SNL: After 24 Years, Bruce Willis Returns to Host for No Apparent Reason
Last week, I broke my hands writing about Miley Cyrus’s SNL double-duty hosting gig. Electric currents ran through my fingers from my very soul, and I typed 580,000 words without blinking. I thought, I should scale back. I told myself, Shut up, you’re on Page 95. I couldn’t stop, and I wouldn’t stop, and some […]
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Breaking Bad’s RJ Mitte Already Hitting the Celebrity-Showing-Up-and-Getting-Paid-for-It Circuit
Look: We know you want to scoff at this, laugh at the two-for-$5 fireball shots, especially when the possibility of offering test-tube shooters of the many sky-blue liquors available at your finer binge-drinking establishments was a no-brainer. (We’ll look the other way on the $10 fishbowls; if they’re not served by dudes in hazmat suits, […]
Read moreRick’s Three Questions: The Walking Dead Season 4 Premiere
Don’t you just love October? The leaves are turning, whiffs of spiced pumpkin lattes fill your local Starbucks, and the decapitated heads are ripening at the zombie patch. That’s right, fanboys and hate-watchers: Basic cable’s highest-rated show is back. But after Ranger Rick and his ever-shifting backing band ended last season by vanquishing the one-eyed, […]
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Charlie Hunnam Unbridles Himself From Fifty Shades of Career Suicide
When the makers of the Fifty Shades of Grey adaptation promised that the movie would faithfully depict the book’s sexual torture and Twilight erotica vibes, it seemed unlikely that any major A-list actor would be willing to put his dick on the line for the project, no matter how hot the buzz. Better to cast hungry up-and-comers […]
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Homeland Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: Can Brody’s Return Save the Flailing Show?
Three episodes into its third season seems a bit early for a show to have split its fan base into distinct, warring factions — Breaking Bad, by contrast, waited until the very last hour. But Homeland has never been a particularly patient series, so here we are. On one side of the divide are the […]
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Box Office Top Five: Gravity Wins Again, But Plays Nice With Captain Phillips
1. Gravity, $44.2 million (last week: no. 1; $123.4 million cumulative) Everyone is writing about how Gravity’s intergalactic/planetary word of mouth kept it on top for a second consecutive week, which makes sense. It’s an amazing movie. It’s amazing in 3-D. It’s really amazing in IMAX. But can we pause to give a little credit […]
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