The State of Scary TV
‘The Returned’ and ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ join ‘The Walking Dead’ in offering high-quality horror.
October 3, 2013
The Bridge Season 1 Finale Recap: A ‘Crazy Place’ With the Promise of a Brighter Future
It’s been a big week to talk about TV endings. So, now that The Bridge’s unique first season has come to a close, let’s talk about beginnings. Deciding when and how to start your story is much more critical to a television show than the way you decide to finish it. (That’s why Walter White’s […]
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Silk Road Blues: Shutting Down a Corner of the Dark Internet
If Silk Road — the “anonymous marketplace” that sold illegal drugs, passports, ATM hacks, and dried reindeer meat (but mostly drugs) — had a headquarters, maybe manned by a fleet of office workers fueled by ill-begotten blow, you would have thought that yesterday would have been a pretty chill workday. The government is in the […]
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‘A Strategic Hot Mess’: Miley Cyrus’s MTV Documentary Special
Zero shots to Miley Cyrus, but I’m not entirely sure what else there is to say about her at this point. These are the perils of a purposeful and successful campaign (or, in Miley’s words, “a movement”) to be talked about all day every day by everyone everywhere. She did it. She won. Everything that […]
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John Mulaney Series Heads to Fox, Keeps SNL’s Nasim Pedrad Aboard
Stand-up comedian and former Saturday Night Live writer John Mulaney has a sorta-autobiographical sitcom that has gone through some ups and downs — mostly with NBC — before getting a series order from Fox this week. Entertainment Weekly calls Mulaney “one of the most promising-sounding pilots from earlier this year.” Splitsider, in an impassioned piece […]
Read moreOctober 2, 2013
Afternoon Links: Damon Lindelof Ready to Sweep Lost Under Breaking Bad’s Rug
In case you missed it, Lost co-creator/showrunner/apologist/explainer Damon Lindelof loves Breaking Bad. He wrote a Heisenberg = Batman piece for Vulture last week, and now he has taken to The Hollywood Reporter to talk about how he’s ready, post-BrBa, to stop discussing the divisive/awful/pretty OK (no? just me?) end of Lost. “I’m sick of myself […]
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October Book Recommendations: The Circle, The Night Guest, and Thank You for Your Service
The Circle, by Dave Eggers At the airport the other week, I met someone wearing Google Glass. Or more accurately, he introduced himself so he could tell me all about his tech-y eyewear. He was a well-meaning (though somewhat smug) software developer, and I nodded politely as he detailed all of Glass’s features: It could take […]
Read moreDo You Like Prince Movies? Podcast: Drake, Don Jon, and Walter White
On a special All-Narcissism Edition of Do You Like Prince Movies?, Alex and Wesley discuss Drake, Don Jon, and talk to an actual psychiatrist about Walter White. Listen to the podcast here: ESPN.com Podcenter. Subscribe to Grantland Pop Culture on iTunes, and check out our podcasts page.
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Ten Works Stephen King Could Revisit for Sequels While Still Moving Forward
On the screen, Stephen King is the guy who writes guilty-pleasure pulp that spawns lifeless, seven-installment, direct-to-video franchises. On the shelf, King’s creative output glitters with originality and a constant sense of momentum. Prior to the new novel Doctor Sleep, King had a part in precisely one sequel — Black House, coauthored with Peter Straub, […]
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No Future: Filmmaker Adam Curtis Brings His Vision (and Massive Attack) to New York
I knew this guy in college whose senior thesis involved setting up a TV in one of the most crowded buildings on campus and playing Faces of Death, a then-legendary videotape that collected scenes of real-life people meeting the gnarliest of ends — alligators, cannibals, falling from skyscrapers, the electric chair, a pistol to the […]
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YouTube HOF: Space
Gravity arrives in theaters this weekend, and we here at Grantland are all hyped up on space, despite what appears to be director Alfonso Cuarón’s best efforts to make it look like a losing proposition. Here are our favorite moments from every corner of the Milky Way … and beyond.
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Tom Clancy Dies at 66
Tom Clancy, one of publishing’s biggest name brands for the past three decades, died Tuesday night in a Baltimore hospital at the age of 66, cause of death currently unknown. As a thirtysomething insurance salesman, Clancy sold his first novel, The Hunt for Red October, to the Naval Institute Press for $5,000. “After the book’s […]
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Escape From Pop Purgatory: Starship’s Loveless Fascination
Welcome to Escape From Pop Purgatory, where we check out new music made by people who are more well known than 98 percent of the oppressively “cool” artists over whom the media obsesses, and yet are commonly perceived to be years past the point of their cultural relevance. (Pop Purgatory is fame plus time.) Because […]
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Which Simpsons Character Will Die This Season?
Over the weekend, Simpsons executive producer Al Jean told The Hollywood Reporter that a recurring character would be killed off during the show’s upcoming 25th or 26th seasons, adding that he was aiming for “Breaking Bad–type numbers” for murdering one of his creations. The only detail he offered was that the doomed cartoon’s voice actor […]
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Streaming Miley Cyrus’s Bangerz in a Post-Government America
It’s officially October, the United States government is currently shut down, and Miley Cyrus just put out an above-average pop album — three realities no one wants to hear, but that we all have to accept as fact. I can’t explain where September went. As for the government shutdown, I could explain it, but it […]
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Mystery Girls: It’s Like 90210, But Donna and Kelly Are Detectives
Striking while the ’90s revival iron is hot, iconic Beverly Hills, 90210 divas Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling may be teaming up for an ABC Family sitcom pilot called Mystery Girls, according to TV Line. The show will be written by Shepard Boucher, from TBS’s Men at Work, and sounds like it’ll be a hybrid […]
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Drake Gets His Third Chart Winner and 658,000 New Reasons to Say He’s the Best
It’s hard for the half-dozen or so megawatt rap stars on planet Earth to each stunt about being the best out there and for us to take it seriously, but this round goes to Drake, no contest. Nothing Was the Same topped the Billboard chart with 658,000 copies sold in its debut week. The third […]
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