by Linda Holmes

In honor of the discussion of The Office's Mindy Kaling (in Neda Ulaby's Morning Edition story on the children of immigrants), we are proud to present just three of the many, many reasons to love Kaling and her character, Kelly Kapoor.

1. She gets to be mean to Pam. The clip above, in which Kelly "helpfully" compliments office sweetheart Pam on her glasses, is merely the beginning. Kelly and Pam also once had a smackdown regarding the Ping-Pong abilities of their boyfriends in the episode "The Deposition," as seen below.

More Kelly, after the jump...

Continue reading "'The Office': Meet Kelly Kapoor" >

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• This Salon piece about teen idols trying to transition to adulthood is well-written and well-reasoned, even if it's maybe a little early to suggest that Miley Cyrus is past her teen phase.

Rufus Wainwright, Ozzy Osbourne, and scandalous trips to the bakery, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Awkward Phases, Double Features, And An Unlikely Horror Movie " >

by Joe Reid

Leading a post with "Sad news for Joss Whedon fans" is usually a harbinger for the latest on the programming woes of a low-rated cult series. (Viz: Whedon's currently struggling Dollhouse.)

Sadly, today that preface has to accompany the news that former Angel star Andy Hallett passed away Sunday of congestive heart disease. He was 33.

Andy Hallett's contributions to Angel, and where to find some of his best work, after the jump...

Continue reading "Remembering Andy Hallett, Karaoke Demon Of TV's 'Angel'" >

Elton John and Billy Joel at a concert on March 30. Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

Pardon me while I check my pulse. Judging by this photo of Elton John and Billy Joel, I am now approximately 450 years old.

If you'll excuse me, I am off to look at pictures of Joan Rivers and conclude that I have not aged at all.

Careful listening: With the volume turned all the way up -- that's the only way to listen to one of this week's free downloads from iTunes. iStockphoto.com

 

by Marc Hirsh

If you've never signed up for an account at the iTunes Store, now's the time, because among this week's standard handful of free songs, videos and audiobook excerpts is one of the landmark compositions of the Twentieth Century.

That's right: for a limited time, you can own your very own copy of John Cage's 4'33" for nothing. The timing's a little suspect -- it's not April 33 yet -- and the audiophiles will surely argue over whether Apple's proprietary file format captures the piece with the same warmth and fidelity of vinyl.

But whoever wrote the description really understands the true essence of Cage's work, and the passage from 0:23-0:29 is genuinely gripping if you'll allow it underneath your skin. (No, really.) (No. Really.) Because it's only the first movement, though, it feels like it's over before it starts, just as it rises to a harrowing climax starting at 1:35. For the rest, you'll have to pony up another $1.98. Well-played, iTunes.

Drew Barrymore: Is her romantic-comedy reputation greater than her track record? Gabriel Bouys, AFP/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Quick, name the last Ben Affleck movie that (1) you really liked; or (2) you really liked him in; or (3) both.

Take a look at the evidence. It's pretty dismal. The Affleckian lean years, it is safe to say, have far outnumbered ... the year in which Good Will Hunting was released.

I've had this discussion with several friends over the last five years or so: Aside from his ability to be remarkably charming on talk shows, how is Ben Affleck a movie star?

(In fairness to Affleck, he also directed 2007's Gone Baby Gone, which was quite good, and he has at times shown some self-awareness about the possibility that acting may not be his particular gift.)

Comes now the news that Drew Barrymore will be teaming up with Justin Long in a romantic comedy called Going The Distance.

This might seem like welcome news to date-movie fans, who haven't had a great year so far. But is it, really?

The Barrymorian lean years, after the jump ...

Continue reading "Is Drew Barrymore The Ben Affleck Of Romantic Comedies?" >

Cupid: Bobby Cannavale plays a guy who's either very unusual, very detached from reality, or both. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

If something seems familiar about ABC's Cupid, which debuts tonight at 10 pm, it's probably because they canceled the same show — or a version of the same show — 10 years ago.

Back then, it starred Jeremy Piven instead of Bobby Cannavale as Cupid, who's been banished from Mount Olympus and sent to modern New York to unite 100 couples before he'll be allowed to come home. Or so he says.

For whatever reason, ABC has brought the comedy back for another try, still under showrunner Rob Thomas, who did the well-regarded if ratings-challenged Veronica Mars in the meantime.

And while Cupid isn't quite hitting its sweet spot yet, you might find it satisfying anyway.

The romantic comedy as confection, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Cupid' as Cupcake: ABC Reboots A RomCom, And It's Likable Fluff" >

Friday Night Lights: Don't look so glum, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler)! Looks like the show is coming back after all. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

It's true: Looks like Friday Night Lights has, with the help of its DirecTV deal, managed to just about secure a deal for two more seasons.

Those are 13-episode seasons, so the total is still only a little over one normal network season. Still: This is presumably going to take pressure off the show — and the fans — for quite a while.

And that's a relief unto itself. It's exhausting to love — and undoubtedly just as painful to manage — a show that's both wildly lovable and constantly in peril.

On the fans' side, you can't relax and settle into a story if you're constantly afraid it's about to be yanked out from under you. It's like following a stock — every rumor, with the ups and the downs and living on the bubble, makes you more likely to just disengage so it doesn't break your heart.

And from a production standpoint, having to plan every season as if it might be your last messes with everything writers know about structure and timing. Imagine this: "Please write this screenplay such that we can safely cut to black at either the 20-minute mark, the 45-minute mark, the 82-minute mark, or the 194-minute mark, and the whole thing will still hang together."

Having an end date has been great for Lost, not only because that show's writers have been pushed to keep moving, but because the issue of cancellation goes away.
Now, at least for a while, FNL's writers presumably get to indulge that luxury, and just think about where they'd like the show to go.

Given that they're apparently about to undergo some massive cast restructuring as a lot of the high-school students move on, that's probably a welcome safety net. It should let the writing staff worry about the story — instead of worrying about multiple contingency plans and whether they'll still have a job in three months.

This was unlikely: When an American Idol contestant meets a sex expert, what can't happen? Brad Barket/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

Occasionally, there is a photo that really speaks for itself, and this shot of the notoriously grimy Constantine Maroulis of Season 4 of American Idol meeting up with Dr. Ruth Westheimer at the 52nd Annual New York Emmy Awards Gala definitely qualifies. Seriously, I have nothing to add.

Stephen Colbert: NASA, it seems, still isn't sure exactly what to do with him. Comedy Central

 

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• The New York Times has a look at the current state of online television and the looming prospect of limiting online viewing to cable subscribers, as elsewhere, Disney/ABC considers making a deal with Hulu.

• NASA continues to scramble to figure out what to do about Stephen Colbert, and now a member of Congress is involved.

Note:

• The news that whether video games are good or bad for you depends on the content shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it probably will. Now go and play a nice round of Super Mario Puppy-Hugging Sugar-Coated Rainbow Junction.

Zac Efron, opera, House, and the Hokey-Pokey, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Colbert, A Writing Controversy, And Ignoring Celebrity Babies" >

by Linda Holmes

If you missed NPR's fantastic "What Makes It Great" discussion of Stephen Sondheim's "Send In The Clowns," I encourage you to listen to it immediately.

And then enjoy the above clip in which Sondheim teaches a singer to perform "Send In The Clowns." It's just wonderful; he's terribly generous and likable, and the things he tells her are entirely relatable even to a non-expert, despite the fact that it's information being passed from a legendary composer to a trained singer. This is the first of two parts; the second, involving a very different singer, is after the jump.

Hat-tip to the always surprising and impishly smart Metafilter, which offers even more like this in this post.

Continue reading "Your 'Send In The Clowns' Education Continues On YouTube" >

Mark Burnett: The intermittently successful reality superproducer (seen here in early March) is pretty sure your next TV heroes are the kinds of guys who say "monetize" a lot. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

Quick, whose problems do you care about the least right now?

ABC is really hoping you didn't say "extremely rich people who capriciously hand out money like candy" or "people looking to make a quick buck in a shortcut fashion," because their next reality show, Shark Tank, is all about those two populations.

The show is brought to you by Mark Burnett -- who is always mentioned as the creator of Survivor and less commonly as the creator of Pirate Master, On The Lot, and My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad. ("What, what, and what?" you ask. To which I say: Exactly.)

Based on a highly successful U.K. show called Dragon's Den, Shark Tank will apparently feature the kind of "I got a plan!" guy who is always telling you how, for instance, he's going to genetically engineer the skinless potato and live off the proceeds for life. You will follow along as he begs a bunch of rich people to bankroll his project.

What will and will not fly in a bad economy is always hard to predict, but I have to wonder whether Burnett and the network are experiencing a fundamental lapse in reading the room on a national level. Aren't there a lot of people figuring that this kind of mad speculation is what got us in trouble in the first place?

A different kind of vigilante: If you're on the New York City subway, look out for the guy snapping photos over his crutches. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

Courtesy of the Best Week Ever folks, I encourage you to enjoy a blog that goes by the name People Who Sit In The Disability Seats When I'm Standing On My Crutches. And it has the URL to match.

(Caution: Language.)

Philosophically, I have a lot of doubts about guerrilla blogs like this. As the writer points out himself, you can't always tell whether people have a disability themselves just by looking. At the same time... I can sort of understand how he became frustrated, and he's certainly right that a good number of these people are working hard not to see him.

TV multiples: Finally, we have come up with a theory to explain this rather bizarre genre. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

Believe it or not, there is yet another reality show about a giant gaggle of children premiering tonight on TLC. Called Table For 12, it's about parents who have two sets of twins and a set of sextuplets.

This joins, of course, Jon & Kate Plus 8, and also the Duggar family chronicles (they are, incidentally, Quiverfull followers).

The Duggar stories started with 14 Children And Pregnant Again and are currently up to 18 Kids And Counting, and will one day be called, presumably, something like, 29 Kids And Okay Now We're Starting To Get Kind Of Tired.

The TLC/Discovery/Health Channel group has certainly been the center of this particular phenomenon, but it's not alone -- ABC's Supernanny frequently features families with one or more sets of twins. Multiples are absolutely everywhere.

It took quite a while, but I have finally figured out what I think drives the national fondness for multiples.

The Disney movie that's responsible for this whole thing, after the jump...

Continue reading "A Bold Theory About Television's Bizarre Obsession With Multiples" >

The movie ticket: Still an alluring purchase, even for a cash-strapped public iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

Everybody feels broke, everybody feels pinched, but U.S. box-office receipts are up, not down.

If you stop to think too hard about spending $10 for less than two hours of entertainment, it doesn't hold up all that well, compared to what Netflix costs, or what cable costs, or what books cost. (And those are just the standard options — obviously, you can use your local library or watch free stuff online or whatever.) Also, 10 bucks assumes you don't buy a four-dollar drink.

Are you going to the movies at the same clip you were, say, a year ago? What movies have you chosen to see in theaters since, say, the first of the year?

And if you're still going, what is it about the theater experience that makes it worth the money? Would you go more often if there were more movies to your liking? Do you still prefer to see big, lavishly produced movies in a theater?

Or is it the crowd itself? It strikes me that movies are one of the only things the public still does in large numbers that involves placing yourself in a crowd where everyone is paying attention to the same thing at once. Are we paying to immerse ourselves in a sea of humanity, despite the seat-kicking and cough-drop-unwrapping and aisle-running?

Update: In a not-very-surprising side note, ticket sales may be up, but concessions are down, so theaters aren't as happy as you might think.

ER: Yes, this really is a scene from ER. And if you don't recognize those actors, they are Parminder Nagra and Leland Orser. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

Okay, ER hasn't been around quite as long as fire.

But the show, which comes to an end this Thursday, has been on since 1994. Fifteen seasons. Don't feel bad if you are currently having the same sensation that accompanies the "In Memoriam" segment at the Oscars when mention of someone's death makes you think, "Wow, that guy was alive until just recently?"

How does a fifteen-season run stack up to the run of a typical show -- even a typical long-running show? Let's take a look.

The data, after the jump...

Continue reading "'ER': No, It's Still On TV. And Has Been Since Man Discovered Fire." >

Monsters vs. Aliens: DreamWorks Animation has reason to believe audiences are at least interested in 3D technology; how long will their interest last? Paramount Pictures

 

by Linda Holmes

Monsters vs. Aliens made enough money this weekend to keep DreamWorks throwing things directly at you for years to come.

(I, for one, would like to see DreamWorks return to live-action films and produce them in 3D also, because I doubt anyone could resist A Beautiful Mind 2 in 3D, in which Russell Crowe could seem to be drawing math problems in grease pencil directly on your forehead.)

At any rate, Monsters vs. Aliens made a plush $58 million according to current estimates, and a little more than half of that came from 3D tickets, which cost about five bucks extra.

(The surcharge covers the rad plastic glasses, which I learned this weekend make small boys look like Tom Cruise and small blonde girls look a little like the Old Navy lady, even though they're flat on top rather than round.)

The 3D receipts will certainly be good news for the DreamWorks animation outfit, which has committed to releasing everything in 3D from now on. At the same time, we are still in the very early stages of widely released 3D animated films. Coraline wasn't as mass-market as this, and both it and Bolt opened in substantially fewer 3D theaters than this.

Of the two kids with whom I saw Monsters vs. Aliens, one announced that the 3D was only okay and it gave him a headache, and the other got frustrated with her "uncomfortable" glasses halfway through and ditched them. This is one of the first hugely nonthreatening 3D kids' movies to punch the 12-and-under zeitgeist right in the breadbasket. The numbers certainly show audiences want to try it; whether they'll continue to pay a $5-per-ticket surcharge (which is pretty hefty when you're hauling a family) once the novelty lessens remains to be seen.

Speaking for myself, I'd pay an extra dollar; maybe two. But five? Not regularly. Not until they add Smell-O-Vision.

The Facebook redesign: The company promises changes, but is it too little too late? iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

It's always a bad idea to draw too many conclusions about the redesign of a web site until users have lived with it for a couple of weeks. Redesigns are almost always unpopular -- in part because they often aren't well thought out, but in part because people hate change.

But the new layout and functionality (or dysfunctionality) of Facebook (gradually introduced a couple of weeks ago) aren't getting any more popular with age.

[Here's an anecdote: I went to investigate the current landscape in new-design-hating Facebook groups so I could tell you about it, and I...could not find Facebook groups. I had to post a plea for help. I kick around sites of all kinds all day long, and I cannot remember the last time a redesign hid something that significant from me. I eventually found them in a little bar at the bottom that doesn't even look like part of the page. Bottom line: resistance to change aside, it is a very, very bad redesign.]

Facebook has now -- by utter necessity -- gone into damage control mode, vowing to make some of the changes to the new layout that are being most loudly demanded, but apparently taking a sort of "horse is out of the barn" approach to the fact that almost every aspect of the redesign is universally loathed. They're going to fiddle with it, but they're not going to just undo it, as they should.

There is nothing that can be tweaked that will get the company one-tenth of the goodwill they would get from, right this minute, announcing that they're rolling back to the old design. Despite the money they sunk into the changes, despite the long meetings they undoubtedly all suffered through, it's a failure. It's New Coke. And now there are peasants, and pitchforks, and it's only going to get uglier.

Duplicity: It's a better movie than you might think; is that saying too much? Universal Pictures

 

by Linda Holmes

Duplicity was a better movie than I thought it was going to be, and less predictable than I thought it was going to be.

And with that, some people would conclude I have said too much.

"You can easily guess what the 'predictable' elements are," they would reason, "so you have revealed that at least one of those predictable elements will be upended in some way, which gives away something about the ending, and you should not give away anything about the ending, at least not without spoiler warnings, because now I know that of the three or four basic things I expect from this movie, one of them won't happen, so I know something about what will happen, so you have ruined it for me."

"Well, have you seen it?" I might ask them.

"Are you kidding?" they might well respond. "No way. I assumed it was going to be totally predictable."

Therein lies the puzzle.

After the jump: Let us use an older movie as an example of a very current problem...

Continue reading "Explaining Without Spoiling: Julia Roberts As A Case Study" >

Read:

• Ricky Gervais' star continues to rise, and while it appears he won't be starring in the film Men From The Pru, it sounds like an intriguing project, and it would be awfully encouraging to see him become a guy who can get a movie made, even if he's not going to be the star.

• If you haven't checked out what David Simon is planning to do now that he's done with The Wire, PopWatch has been tracking the development of his new show, Treme.

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Ricky Gervais, David Simon, and Selling the Dharma Initiative" >

Walker Percy: Years after his death, a new short story has come to light. Associated Press

 

by Linton Weeks

Being a fan of the late Walker Percy, I was intrigued when my friend Logan Browning, a lecturer at Rice University, discovered "A Detective Story." It's a Percy short story that apparently has never seen the light of day. Until now.

It's being published in the April 2009 issue of The Hopkins Review, a literary quarterly produced by Johns Hopkins University Press.

For those who have never heard of Percy: He was a bourbon-smooth blend of Southern novelist, keen-eyed semiotician and worldly existentialist. He published a half-dozen exquisite novels - and several volumes of essays -- about the unsettlingness of being human. He was heavily influenced by the writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Soren Kierkegaard. He died in 1990, at age 73.

For those who have heard of Percy: "A Detective Story" is a breezy tale of William Pinckney, a Mississippi businessman who goes out for a pack of cigarettes and never comes home. The yarn is narrated by Jamie Rodgers, a long-time friend of Pinckney's. At the request of Pinckney's wife, and to appease his own curiosity, Rodgers sets out on a quest - to Memphis, Atlanta and other places -- to find the vanished man.

The pleasures and perils of posthumous discoveries, and how this one was made, after the jump...

Continue reading "Unearthing A 'New' Short Story By Walker Percy" >

In The Motherhood: The talented Megan Mullally can't prop up this very bad new show. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

I'm a big fan of Samantha Who?, which returns to ABC tonight at 8:30 p.m. Unfortunately, it's airing after the premiere of In The Motherhood, which is painfully, wretchedly bad.

Despite the presence of talented actresses like Megan Mullally (Will & Grace) and Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Motherhood is pretty much a total loss, unfunny, boring and insulting all at once. And it features Horatio Sanz, not exactly the Saturday Night Live alumnus viewers were most eager to see again.

ABC has been making slow inroads into non-laugh-tracked half-hour comedies for a while, and they've had some good ideas -- not only Samantha Who?, but Better Off Ted, which bowed last week.

But trying to program a comedy block against what will usually be not only NBC comedies My Name Is Earl and (starting in two weeks) Parks And Recreation, but also the still-powerful Survivor? That seems overly ambitious.

It also seems a bit cursed. Whatever good effect there is from the fact that Survivor is out of the way this week (because of NCAA basketball) got totally trounced by the fact that the Obama press conference Tuesday night shoved the American Idol results show to tonight. This is a really, really tough position to put these two shows in, and while In The Motherhood will get what's coming to it, it's a real shame for Samantha Who?, which deserves better.

Diablo Cody: The Juno screenwriter, seen here at the Vanity Fair Oscar party, is only one of the women who make up the -- gulp -- "Fempire." Michael Buckner/Getty Images Entertainment

 

Read:

• The Cinematical discussion of this New York Times piece about female screenwriters is much more interesting than the piece itself. Two points: (1) The word "Fempire" is nauseating; and (2) Cinematical's best point is its simplest: why, again, is this in Fashion & Style?

• The future of celebrity gossip magazines is looking bleak. Public fatigue? Too many cheap alternatives? Or is there just nothing more to say once we've all seen saturation coverage of Britney Spears shaving her head and bashing an SUV with an umbrella?

After the jump: Spike Jonze, Kenny Rogers, and woop-woop-woop...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Screenwriting Women, The Three Stooges, And The Benefits Of Kenny Rogers" >

Comic Book Comics: The history of the comic book is certainly interesting enough to inspire...a comic book. Evil Twin Comics

 

By Glen Weldon

The American funnybook boasts a long but as-yet-not-particularly-storied history. Only relatively recently have cultural historians and biographers begun to train their gaze on the men and women behind the comics medium.

Which is odd because they're, you know, a colorful bunch.

Take, for instance, the whole gang of cigar-chomping, mobbed-up publishers who decided, in the '30s, to switch from churning out porn to churning out comic books, to avoid getting hassled by the Feds.

Or the bondage-lovin', polyamorous psychologist/inventor who created:

1. Wonder Woman,
2. Her magic lasso (which compels people to tell the truth), and
3. The modern polygraph machine (or anyway a precursor thereof.)

Or the screwed-over co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, who gradually retreated into the life of a Pynchonesque recluse. (If you can imagine Pynchon really, really digging the collected works of Ayn Rand.)

Or the celebrity psychiatrist who blamed juvenile delinquency on comic books, and thus ushered in a new era of comic publishers .... getting hassled by the Feds. The guy made some fair points (yes, a decidedly creepy injury-to-the-eye-motif did in fact pervade the comics of the time). But his stubborn tendency to mistake the subtext for the text caused him to make a series of assertions (Batman and Robin = gay lovers, Wonder Woman = lesbian) that would go on to inspire generations of hacky stand-up comics.

After the jump: Comic Book Comics, funnybooks about funnybooks that are actually, you know, pretty funny books.

Continue reading "A Comic Book History of the Comic Book's History" >

by Linda Holmes

We told you yesterday about the controversy surrounding the subtitles for the Swedish film Let The Right One In, which underwent some kind of bizarre bowdlerization between theatrical release and DVD release. Over the course of about a day, this became a very big deal for those of us who see RSS feeds of blogs all day, and it became increasingly clear that some kind of response or explanation would be required.

Now, Magnet Releasing (which is handling the DVD) has responded to the controversy by agreeing to change the subtitles and use the theatrical subtitles for copies manufactured from this point on -- but, they are not offering exchanges for people who purchased the "bad" version. Or they're not...yet. Let's see if that holds up.

(You have to admire Magnet's pluck in referring to the cacophony of Internet outrage as "several fans.")

This is a great example of the power of blogs used for good: at their best, they can weaponize the short but intense bursts of attention that a story like this can draw and multiply it across popular sites to apply pressure that very quickly becomes overwhelming. If that sounds like a double-edged sword, it is: the same thing can happen whether the story is right or wrong.

But in this case, speed appears to have been on the side of the angels, and there was no way the wave of wretched publicity could be allowed to continue without a response. DVD sales are immensely important to acclaimed films that many people don't get an opportunity to see in theaters, and film purists make up a good chunk of the crowd; it's hard to imagine a movie that could less afford to have this happen to it.

by Linda Holmes

As yesterday's piece about Twittering celebrities noted, there are plenty of famous people you do not actually want to follow on Twitter. You will not like the result. (Though I admit to finding Shatner charming.)

There are others, however, who are fascinating little studies, and one of them is comedian Jim Gaffigan, who had apparently abandoned his Twitter feed for something like a year and a half and reemerged about a week and a half ago, partly to promote his Comedy Central special, King Baby, which premieres Sunday night at 9:00 p.m..

Since then, his feed has been a combination of the mundane and the baffling, but as he's gotten his feet under him a little, Gaffigan has started to use Twitter for a weird brand of real-time fever-dream comedy. Things start out normally enough -- "I'm tweeting from the plane. Way up in the sky. Now I can waste time even on a plane. Not that sitting on a plane is not wasting time" -- but gradually become stranger and stranger, with no obvious cut-off between reality and fiction, until you get to "I am now FLYING THE PLANE." (All of this happened last night.)

Gaffigan went on to explain that while he was in the cockpit, a man had burst in, angry that he was sending too many tweets, and had shot him. "I'm dead," he tweeted. And then, "Twittering from heaven. NIce up here. Very Echoey. 'Hello' (hello, hello, hello)." And finally, "In heaven at a buffet with Carlin. What is Stalin doing here? Hmm. Should I call him Joe or Joseph?"

The novelty is going to wear off for a lot of performers who are currently using Twitter. The ones who survive will be the ones who find a way to get so much promotional punch out of it that it becomes a fundamental arm of their marketing strategies, and the ones who -- and this is more interesting -- actually use it as a platform to perform.

Other performing Tweeters and why this may or may not be your thing, after the jump...

Continue reading "Jim Gaffigan Tweets His Ascent Into Heaven And Buffet Visit" >

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• Worth reading even if it's probably not true: Jacob Weisberg's Slate essay arguing that his experience with Amazon's Kindle 2 is evidence that "printed books, the most important artifacts of human civilization, are going to join newspapers and magazines on the road to obsolescence." Weisberg deserves special "wow" points for saying, apparently without irony, that an entire new publishing model could be oriented around "clever kids working from coffee shops in Brooklyn." He has not spent enough time in coffee shops in Brooklyn, let me humbly suggest.

• The New York Times has gathered a few writers to talk about why Sylvia Plath's story still resonates. While their thoughts are enlightening, they primarily focus on Plath's work, sort of missing the point that she is well known as a writer who committed suicide, even among people who couldn't tell you anything about her work at all. She has an almost folklore-tinged legacy as well as an actual literary one; it would have been interesting to hear an exploration of that.

The Colbert Nation scores another victory, Michael Sheen plays Tony Blair again, and the Woz rolls on, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: A Eulogy For Books, A Victory For Colbert, And A Dismissed Bond Girl" >

The blog debate: Variety may be responsible for a debate better than it entirely deserves. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

I see the Variety newsfeed every day, and I was surprised to see three separate pieces about how much they hate entertainment-industry bloggers.

It isn't really aimed at commentary blogs, but at "breaking news" blogs, and specifically at Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily, which was the target of most of the vitriol.

Obviously, some of the points about accuracy and speed sometimes pulling against each other are completely valid, and the distaste for blogs spending their time whining about each other instead of talking about...what they're supposed to be talking about is something most blog-followers are familiar with. At the same time, the generalizations are so broad that it's hard to know where to go next. Blogs vary in value just as much as print media does, and they're not all alike, any more than The Economist is the same as People just because they're both issued on paper.

Of many responses that have followed, I was most heartened by this excellent essay at Film School Rejects. FSR is more of a commentary blog and not really in the Variety line of fire, but the calmness and lack of defensiveness in the piece makes it much more substantive than, in fact, the pieces that started the conversation in the first place.

by Linda Holmes

Above is the video in which the ubiquitous Miley Cyrus and friends "teach you" how to do her new dance, the Hoedown Throwdown, which forms the centerpiece of her new movie, Hannah Montana: The Movie.

Normally, you could not get my attention with a Miley Cyrus instructional dance video even if there were fireworks and margaritas included, but I have to say, this one caught my interest. Why? Because it is absurdly complicated. This dance you are supposed to pick up from YouTube consists of a series of nineteen distinct moves, performed in sequence, and at no time during the "lesson" do they remind you of the sequence. I'm sorry, Miley Cyrus, but you will not start a "dance craze" trying to get people to learn a series of nineteen moves.

Here's the thing: When it comes to dancing, as a culture forced to occasionally operate in groups, we are stupid. Individually, we may be brilliant, but what do we do at weddings?

What we do at weddings, after the jump...

Continue reading "How Does The 'Hoedown Throwdown' Compare To Other Preposterous Group Dances?" >

Read:

• It's not often I say, "This is legitimately appalling." But the changes to the subtitles of the film Let The Right One In between theatrical release and DVD, which seem designed to make the movie stupider and less subtle, are legitimately appalling. (Hat-tip to Slashfilm.)

Anne Hathaway's new challenge, NBC's new comedy, and the early favorite for the most Ignore-able story of the year, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: 'Parks And Recreation,' Anne Hathaway, and Subtitles For Dummies" >

Late-night crowds: Two o'clock in the morning looks like this on Austin's 6th Street during South By Southwest. Nick Bischoff

 

by Elizabeth Nelson

We are driven back downtown, into the fray, leaving paradise for Oz. Not the "Wonderful City of." The prison. It is a chaotic, incoherent hell of people and wristbands and thundering Marshall Stacks.

We've been invited to a party hosted by a popular triumvirate of independent labels, co-hosted by You Tube. The club is insane. Ginormous. Labyrinthine. multi-level. Two-stages. Cacophonous. At all times, two bands are performing simultaneously at panic-inducing volume. It is impossible to determine if what we are hearing is a folk band or the sounds of jackhammers, drills and banshees tearing the place down.

Security intervenes, roosters crow, and what was lost is found, after the jump...

Continue reading "Day 3.5 And Day 4 At SXSW: Spilling Beer In The Final Chapter" >

How to party: Revelry spills into the streets on a regular basis at South By Southwest. Nick Bischoff

 

by Elizabeth Nelson

Another early morning, another sweltering procession from hovel to downtown Austin. I tell Timothy I think we should "party," but I don't really know how. I need some indicator, a rabbit hole, perhaps a gateway drug of sorts.

Fortunately, strolling down 4th Street towards Red River, I receive just such a jarring slap to the senses, a harbinger of the reckless fun to come: A voluptuous woman in her fifties, standing in front of the convention center, fumbling with a pack of cigarettes, wearing a pair of stained acid-washed pants and nothing else. Her tattooed nipples heave in our general direction, beckoning us to follow her and find our bliss. Oh Mermaid! I will do thy bidding.

And should this clarion call not have been enough to lead us into bosom of temptation, our mission is crystallized shortly thereafter when we see our friend and NPR Music editor Stephen Thompson, weathered, resolute, storm-tossed, in the middle of the 6th Street sea of humanity, equipment strapped to his chest and microphone in hand, recording sounds of drunken revelry. I salute him as we walk past, but he will not acknowledge us. Dedication!

And in a war, one needs like-minded confederates. Our strongest ally is Tim Quirk. Frontman of beloved alt-rockers Too Much Joy and now an executive at the burgeoning Viacom subsidiary Rhapsody, Tim says he's been to every SXSW since 1998, and the very fact that he is comfortable referring to the entire event as 'South By' confers legitimacy on his claims. We call him and secure our first high-stakes invitation to a SX day party. All that is left is for us to plot our coordinates, scope out the venue, and have our faces melted.

Navigating Austin, the power of cab drivers, and why people really attend this festival in the first place, after the jump...

Continue reading "Day 3 At SXSW: How To Party" >

by Linda Holmes

One of the documentaries newly available on Hulu is Dig!, a little-seen but much-discussed and award-winning 2004 film about the...rivalry? Friendship? Mutually assured destruction? At any rate, the relationship between two late-'90s bands: The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Notice how they both have quasi-playful, ironic, punny, wordplay-based, fundamentally annoying names? It's not a coincidence.

Two unlikable bands, two unlikable guys, one very likable movie, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Dig!' And The Art Of Self-Absorption" >

Dollhouse: Patton Oswalt appeared with Eliza Dushku in Friday's episode, "Man On The Street," broadly advertised as a game-changer. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

It doesn't seem, at first glance, like the end of Battlestar Galactica on Friday nights should have anything to do with Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. While both are on Friday nights, Battlestar aired at 10:00 p.m., while Dollhouse aired at 9:00. Shouldn't that scheduling have worked to everyone's advantage, creating a night of smart sci-fi/fantasy programming that would logically appeal to some of the same people?

Maybe, but note that that Dollhouse, despite scrambling the order of episodes somewhat, chose to roll out its sixth episode -- the one both Whedon and star Eliza Dushku publicly said would represent the real ramping-up of the series -- on the same night as the Battlestar finale.

It could be a coincidence, but there are a few reasons -- aside from the obvious logical crossover in audiences -- why it might be logical to think that the end of Battlestar is the right time to go for a Dollhouse push. Dollhouse, of course, has had more problems than competition, including so-so reviews and reported behind-the-scenes tinkering. But if they're going to make a move, this might be the right moment.

How the DVR is both a blessing and a curse for a Friday-night show, after the jump...

Continue reading "Will The End Of 'Battlestar Galactica' Help Revive 'Dollhouse'?" >

Sports fans: If you spent this weekend cheering for the team of your choosing, you may be in for a rude awakening. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

• While I share the sense that standing ovations have lost all meaning, I cannot sign on to the idea of the Silent Boo.

• One of the kinds of writing I trust the least is screed in which a person who hates something explains in detail why other people like it. (It can be done well, but is actually done well only a small percentage of the time.) I give you: this explanation of why anyone watches sports. (Warning: According to the article, if you watch sports, you are probably too stupid to understand.)

Unaired episodes of canceled shows come back to life, a classic book has a birthday, and more, and an unsettling media frenzy finally comes to an end, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Sports Fandom, New Lives For Old Shows, And Why Amazon Reviews Matter " >

by Marc Hirsh

Well, it finally happened. After a few seasons of steadily escalating lunacy, The Office got hit with a faceful of cold, hard reality last night.

Not that it's not fun to watch Michael literally prancing around the office dressed in a Willy Wonka costume (as happened last week) or Dwight taking it upon himself to destroy a $1200 baby stroller that doesn't belong to him in the interest of testing its structural integrity (as happened in the repeat that preceded last night's episode).

But last night's episode was, in many respects, a long time coming. There's only so far a show that purports to shine a light on the mundanity of modern work can take its wackiness before it flies completely off the handle. With the introduction of new Dunder-Mifflin VP Charles Minor (played with no-nonsense focus by The Wire's Idris Elba), the show addressed the elephant in the room by saying, "This is how this sort of behavior would actually be received."

Most notably, of course, there was Michael finally coming face-to-face with an authority figure who refused to indulge his obsequiousness (to both his superiors and his underlings) one iota. Unlike corporate head David Wallace, who has made a habit of cleaning up Michael's messes while still attempting to humor his desperate need to be loved, Minor had no compunctions putting Michael in his place.

Jim's very bad day, and why this may be one of the most important episodes in the show's history, after the jump...

Continue reading "'The Office' Finally Faces Reality" >

Party Down: Ken Marino and Adam Scott are two of a large bevy of talented people at work on Starz's new cater-waiter comedy. Starz

 

by Linda Holmes

It's hard to overstate just how much talent is attached to the new Starz comedy Party Down, which starts tonight at 10:30 p.m., so let's just roll-call a few of the folks:

Executive Producer/Writer/Director Rob Thomas was the showrunner at both Veronica Mars and Cupid, both classically beloved shows that didn't last.

Executive Producer/Writer Paul Rudd is...Paul Rudd.

Ken Marino was part of MTV's sketch comedy The State, and went on to be a wildly versatile and reliable comic actor in lots of projects including the cult classic comedy Wet Hot American Summer.

Lizzy Caplan is an interesting and underappreciated actress who was in Cloverfield and Mean Girls, but who goes back to the Judd Apatow shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared.

Jane Lynch is the rare Christopher Guest troupe/Judd Apatow troupe crossover: she was hilarious in Best In Show and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and has a resumé that's worth reading just to appreciate her prolificacy.

Martin Starr also goes back to the wonderful Freaks and Geeks, where he played Bill Haverchuck.

You get the idea. It's a pretty impressive group. But do they come together into a good comedy?

The verdict and the details, after the jump...

Continue reading "Cater-Waiters Are Delicious: 'Party Down' Reviewed" >

by Linda Holmes

Julia Roberts is 41 years old, and here's a look at her new movie.

On March 6, Newsweek asked, in anticipation of the opening of Duplicity, "Is Julia Roberts' Box-Office Reign Over?", and declared her "Hollywood ancient."

And so, again, we find ourselves embroiled in a debate about age and women, money and Hollywood, and -- oh, yes -- jokes about support hose, because really, what's fresher than that?

Of course, Newsweek didn't say they think she's too old; it simply said Hollywood thinks she's too old. It's the "some people say" brand of little dig: "We're not saying anything; we're just saying." Traditionally, of course, there's plenty of truth in the bruising realities faced by actresses over 40. But there are other questions about that piece that need asking.

Being on a first-name basis, the irrelevance of Ashley Judd, and much more, after the jump...

Continue reading "Julia Roberts: Can You Hear Her Ancient Bones Creaking?" >

It's tournament time: UCLA almost -- but not quite -- blew yesterday's opening-round game against Virginia Commonwealth, ultimately winning by one point. But what's one point, really? Jim McIsaac/Getty Images Sport

 

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• Tonight is the Battlestar Galactica series finale, so it's a good time to look back -- as with Alan Sepinwall's list of the show's best episodes. (Spoilers, obviously. But you knew that, right?)

• If you're among the many people currently glued to NCAA basketball, check out the intensive nerd explosion going on at the Freakonomics blog, where they're discussing research that seems to show that teams behind by one point at halftime win slightly more often than teams ahead by one point at halftime. (Note to #16 seeds: This does not apply to being, say, 25 points behind at halftime.)

James Franco against the world and putting your temper on a five-second delay, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: 'Battlestar,' Basketball, and Biathlons" >

Wristbands: At South By Southwest, it's all about who you know. Well, who your wrist is allowed to know, really. Elizabeth Nelson

 

by Elizabeth Nelson

Early on Day 2, we descend upon downtown Austin. It is very hot here, and our walk is a two-mile trail of tears. I pass the pawn shop/check-cashing place near the cottage and head towards 6th Street, towards the action. Dubious-looking entrepreneurs who stop us to "just ask a quick question" give way to shrugging, hung over, skinny kids with green or yellow bracelets hanging off of their bony wrists.

Civilization turns to havoc shortly thereafter, with city streets closed to car traffic and monitored by non-threatening-looking city police. It is here that I first peep an unkempt beard and plaid shirt worn by the non-homeless and a preponderance of low-cut jersey tank tops worn with little else besides a pair of slouchy boots. It is exactly like being on either the set of Pirates of the Caribbean or on the ride of the same name, take your pick. Yo, ho, indeed.

It is noon, and already, people are drinking. They are alternatingly appearing not to care about what is happening, listening intently, and vomiting on one another. Area businesses have cloistered themselves with high white tents to facilitate the hosting of 'day parties,' a SXSW phenomenon that tacitly encourages drinking at this early hour.

Guitars, drums, and dirty Rhodes sounds punctuate the air. Is it possible to just walk into a day party without any credentials? It is not. Timothy has informed me that we need to go and pick up his credentials. I have decided to forego obtaining credentials for populist reasons, but evidently, he needs them for one reason or another.

Full NPR coverage at NPR.org/sxsw. Plus: the magic of credentials and the price of admission, after the jump...

Continue reading "Day 2 At SXSW: The Mechanics And Economics Of Access" >

Rock Band, indeed: These "partygoers" are rocking out playing Rock Band at the MTV And Rock Band Official Showcase at the South By Southwest music festival. Our correspondent is emphatically not doing this. Sasha Haagenson/Getty Images

 

by Elizabeth Nelson

Today is a travel day. A crying day.

Nine hours by train and plane to Austin with Timothy, my fiancé (who is accompanying me to play with a band) -- the sort of madcap itinerary that could only be devised by dint of late planning, "sky miles," and a broken pledge to never again book tickets following the consumption of a third vodka-filled "Health Smoothie." Why travel by train from Brooklyn to Baltimore-Washington International Airport in order to get to Texas? Well, I'm no travel agent.

Why do you think I am going to the SXSW festival for the first time ever this year? Am I performing in a rock band? No. Am I a music enthusiast anxious to marinate in the burgeoning talents of some promising and ascendant independent music favorites? Well, it's not that either. To be completely honest, I've had an incredibly hard time enjoying anything pertaining to popular music since Prince 'solved' the Problem of Excellence with his transcendent halftime performance at the Super Bowl a couple years back.

Full NPR coverage at NPR.org/sxsw. Plus: the real reason for attending the festival, and the hazards of air travel, after the jump...

Continue reading "Day 1 At SXSW: In Which Getting There Is, With Any Luck, Not Actually Half The Fun" >

by Linda Holmes

Hey, folks: sorry for the sporadic posting over the last 24 hours or so -- administrative stuff has had me pinned, but we should be back on track from here on out. Thanks for your patience.

• What does digital culture mean to you? In part, the need to act as your own editor and gatekeeper -- a role a lot of us are not as used to as we might think. This thought-provoking piece applies the principle to news, but it applies to other things as well. Increasingly, you are your own programmer.

• Remember that Idris Elba is coming to The Office? Sure you do. Well, that starts tonight.

Rolling Stone brings you up to date on the Ticketmaster/Live Nation controversies and VH1 brings back a semi-classic, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Curating For Yourself, Ticketmaster, And The Rise And Fall Of The Hair Band" >

Escapism: As you might expect, there are signs that the times are driving us into the arms of low-stress entertainment. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

There are at least some signs that Cheap And Happy is the most promising trend in entertainment at the moment. It's not the only thing that gets people excited -- witness the great anticipation of the sure-to-be-bleak Battlestar Galactica finale on Friday -- but Cheap And Happy is on a roll.

Take Dancing With The Stars. (Please.) Most shows do not thrive in their eighth seasons. They tend to at least show some signs of age. Instead, this relentlessly upbeat dance/variety show, which has a lot in common with all the relentlessly upbeat variety shows of the past, had its highest-rated premiere ever last week.

Cable is on the rise, choices are expanding, networks are struggling, and...more people than ever are watching the years-old Dancing With The Stars.

Contrast that with the fate of Watchmen, a moderately reviewed film that had a huge opening among eager fans but has failed to capture the attention of the public at large.

Sure, you say, we live in the age of perky reality television; isn't that the story of the last ten years? It might be, but there's one current moneymaker that has its roots in such old-fashioned media that it sure seems like a peek at the national mood.

The surprise moneymaker, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Rise Of Cheap And Happy: Is Recession Escapism Sneaking Up On Us?" >

The problem with preservation: This comic book recently brought a pretty penny, but at what cost do collectors court collectible prices? DC Comics

 

by Glen Weldon

On Monday, a copy of Action Comics #1 -- the 1938 comic featuring the first appearance of Superman -- sold for just over $317K in an online auction.

Most news reports couldn't resist the story's warm 'n' fuzzy aspects, of which admittedly there were a lot, including:

1. The seller purchased the comic in question back when he was nine.

2. At a secondhand shop.

3. In the early 50's.

4. For 35 cents.

But fewer noted this drier, vaguely bookkeeperish detail:

5. Only about 100 copies of the book are known to exist, in any condition.

Now, details 1-4 are potent stuff indeed; I get that. Reading them, you can't help but imagine a barefoot, tow-headed youth proudly sauntering out of the local malt shop with his new purchase, shoving it deep into the back pocket of his overalls -- next to the slingshot -- and joining his friends for a game of, let's say, marbles. Gee (you perhaps think to yourself) whillikers.

That more mundane, only-100-copies-in-existence detail? Well, it just doesn't have any of the same nostalgic, human interest, Dennis the Menace juice. Comparatively speaking, it's pure Mr. Wilson.

But it's really the entire point. It's the fact that so few copies exist that makes a $317K auction price possible. (Note, please, that I said possible, not understandable. Because, really people, $317,200? That noise is B-A-N-A-N-A-S.)

The other thing that makes it possible: The fact that the cohort of comic book collectors is essentially a deep turbid salty ocean of serious OCD.

After the jump: The collector's Sisyphean effort to seal his comics away forever in a safe, protected, unchanging and completely airless environment, which is not, like, symbolic or anything, and you really shouldn't go looking for any larger emotional truth about comics collectors anywhere in that. Because you won't find one. Because it's not there. So just shut up.

Continue reading "Bag, Board, And Slab: Why You Can't Talk About Collecting Comics Without Invoking the Grim Spectre of Death " >

by Linda Holmes

Quirky network comedies are uphill battles. Networks are not, after all, natural habitats for what's genuinely weird, which is part of what made, say, Arrested Development so striking. ABC's Better Off Ted -- premiering tonight at 8:30 -- isn't Arrested Development, by any means, but there are moments in which the same kind of enthusiastically cockeyed comedy is achieved.

A strong pedigree, a high batting average, and the sobering truth about smart, weird comedy, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Better Off Ted' Is Much Better Than Its Title" >

by Linda Holmes

There is absolutely nothing even remotely funny about George Clooney's trip to Chad with Dateline to document refugee camps. The fact remains, however, that even in terrible conditions, Clooney manages to keep his head, in part by clinging to his sense of humor. In the above clip, he shows you around where he's staying before closing with a better-than-average Andy Rooney impression.

Hat-tip to the sharp-eyed folks at Best Week Ever.

by Marc Hirsh

Every time I see Ricky Gervais appear on a talk show, awards ceremony or what-have-you these days, I always find myself thinking the same thing: "Yep, still funny."

I've watched too many once-hilarious people decay into bitterness, self-parody or irrelevance long before they ever get it into their heads to call it quits. Robin Williams is the gold standard, of course, having been reduced to manic schtick years ago, but you can also find a good example on the current season of Dancing With The Stars, where David Allen Grier spits out forced punchlines with an unbecoming desperation.

Gervais is right around the point in his career where things could easily start going south, which is why I get exceedingly nervous whenever he pops up. "This," I worry, "could be where he starts becoming Ben Stiller."

If that moment is coming, though, it's certainly not in Gervais's upcoming Sesame Street appearance, outtakes of which have been circulating this week and are in the video above.

In fact, those outtakes offer a clue as to the possible reason he's managed to avoid the fate to which so many of his comedic brothers and sisters have fallen victim: he still finds other people funny. Not himself, other people. Stephen Merchant, Jon Stewart, someone's hand covered in red carpet, whoever.

It's the difference between disrupting the award you're presenting by wandering around aimlessly in a Joaquin Phoenix beard and cracking up because Elmo's giving as good as he's getting. Maybe as long as what makes Ricky Gervais giggle goes beyond simply "Ricky Gervais," he'll still be funny.

But I'll still worry.

After the jump, another example as Ricky Gervais visits Jon Stewart...

Continue reading "The Ricky Gervais Outtakes: Elmo Tickles Someone Else For Once" >

by Linda Holmes

What time is it? NCAA time, of course, and the play-in game to determine who gets the 64th spot in the bracket happens tonight. Alabama State fans and Morehead State fans: you know who you are. (ESPN, 7:30 p.m.)

It's country night on American Idol, and you know what that means: songs comparing women to strong animals or birds, discordant cowboy hats, and people without a twangy bone in their bodies trying to twang. (Fox, 8 p.m.)

At last, they're throwing someone off Dancing With The Stars. Will it be Belinda Carlisle? Ty Murray? Will the Woz toddle off on his Wozzed-up broken foot? (ABC, 9 p.m.)

I keep meaning to catch an episode of Discovery's Wreckreation Nation, which stars Dave Mordal, a well-liked runner-up from the first run of Last Comic Standing. Tonight's installment visits vintage snowmobile racing in Wisconsin, so that should be appropriately arctic and hazardous for the adventurer in you. (Discovery, 10 p.m.)

by Sara Sarasohn

Jack Black is going to be on Yo Gabba Gabba. If Jack Black were going to be on any show that caters to toddlers, Yo Gabba Gabba is a likely choice, as it caters both to toddlers and tripping college students. In both cases, I guess, it's Teletubbies for the 21st century.

This isn't Jack Black's first foray into entertainment for kids. My kids loved him in Kung Fu Panda. They expressed less of a preference for his costar, Angelina Jolie. The fact that both of them have made their careers in movies that were violent or R-rated or both was completely lost on my children, but not on me.

What drives celebrities to kid fare, after the jump...

Continue reading "Jack Black Makes Entertainment Suitable For Children, Including His Own" >

by Linda Holmes

Sam Mendes didn't get quite the critical or awards response he might have expected for Revolutionary Road based on the response to American Beauty. But the trailer for his new film, Away We Go, suggests that he's stocked it with powerful weapons. Even though there are shots that look a bit self-conscious and insufferable, like that moment on the moving sidewalk, there's something about the trailer overall that appeals.

Mendes is working from a script by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, and he's lined up an awfully interesting cast. John Krasinski of The Office and Maya Rudolph of Saturday Night Live both seem to be working outside their usual arenas, Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels are both delightful as a rule, and nothing with Allison Janney in it has ever entirely let me down. (That's the underappreciated comedian Jim Gaffigan with her, by the way.)

It's hard to tell with this kind of "Look at me, I'm quirky!" marketing whether it's going to be quirky like the first half of Juno (bad) or quirky like the second half of Juno (good). But at least it's not another dull assault on the perfection of suburbia, and that in itself is a relief.

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• At South By Southwest, a panel on publishing and new media seems to have gone rather spectacularly awry when it turned out that the publishers on the panel about new ideas forgot to bring their new ideas. (Hat-tip to Galleycat.)

• An interesting update on the state of things at SnagFilms, an online destination offering free ad-supported documentary films, reports that while they haven't figured out how to make money yet, they've got an audience. Unfortunately, that's sort of the story of the entire Internet up to this point, but as the piece points out, many still believe a business model is possible, even if they haven't found it yet.

Sci-fi deals and David Chase's new project, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: SnagFilms, David Chase, and Brody Jenner" >

by Linda Holmes

Today is March 17th, and if you're not wearing green, drinking green beer, wearing a headband with shamrock diddlybobs attached to it with springs, or pretending to be Irish, you may be unsure exactly how to mark St. Patrick's Day.

Fear not! Simply enjoy the Ten Worst Irish Accents On Film, including my personal favorite, Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own, above. Not that Tom Cruise, who spends all of Far And Away seemingly chastising all of those who have stolen his Lucky Charms, isn't also a good choice.

Syfy: Doesn't this make you think greater thoughts with your huge imagination? Sci Fi

 

by Linda Holmes

Sci Fi, the network that's just closing out the enormous success that was Battlestar Galactica, has decided to change its name.

From "Sci Fi" to "Syfy." This is not made up.

According to this Hollywood Reporter story, the network has decided that because it's more than space aliens and traditional science fiction, it should continue to be called "Sci Fi," but it should spell "Syfy" in a way that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and has nothing to do with anything.

Oh, and it should also change its logo to look like it's the network that makes stain-resistant carpeting.

As if that's not enough, it's adding the nonsensical tagline, "Imagine Greater." I realize not all slogans are grammatically sound, but let us get serious. "Imagine Greater"? That sounds less like a network tagline and more like the result of noodling with a management consultant's magnetic-poetry kit.

Music and the brain: Research says studying music literally expands a child's mind. Now, go practice! iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

It may not be good news for kids who don't want to experience a forced march to piano lessons, but it is good news for those who like to believe that skill in the arts can be acquired and does not entirely have to be foisted upon you by an accident of birth.

British researchers have found that areas of the brain related to auditory and motor skills grew in six-year-olds who studied music for 15 months, and not in those who didn't.

It's no secret that school arts programs are eternally imperiled, but it will be interesting to see what it contributes to that debate to have better evidence that, particularly for kids who can't afford private lessons, a lack of exposure to music in school may literally make for a smaller mind.

House: Hugh Laurie looks like he's heard the thing about not working with children or animals. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

Will Steve Wozniak out-goof the pink feather boa? Does Lil' Kim have anything further to say about her friends in prison? Only by watching the performance show of Dancing With The Stars can you find out. (ABC, 8 p.m.)

The delightful Judy Greer (of Arrested Development, among other things) shows up on a new House, where she plays a woman who suffers the misfortune of being snuggled up to by a sort of death-sniffing cat. (Fox, 8 p.m.)

Laura Prepon of That 70's Show continues on How I Met Your Mother as Ted's unpleasant former and current flame. (CBS, 8:30 p.m.)

With the series finale approaching on Friday, Battlestar Galactica presents "The Last Frakkin' Special." Not all wrap-ups and remembrances are worthwhile, but let's face it: the show's audience is made up of people who are passionate, so they won't mind. (Sci Fi, 10 p.m.)

by Linda Holmes

It seemed harmless enough when I received a copy of the first two seasons of Mr. Belvedere on DVD. (To be released tomorrow.)

It seemed harmless, that is, until I watched a few episodes of this show I barely remember and realized that the theme song (above) had been locked in my brain for years. But I have somehow unlocked the trunk in which it was stored, and now it has grown out of control. It is stomping around my head like a monster in a black-and-white movie, capable of taking out the entire city of other things I once was capable of humming to myself. All I hear is this. It is all I hear.

It is stuck in there. It is going 'round and 'round, no ordinary earworm but some kind of nightmarish horror show, which got me thinking that maybe it's like that one scary movie (I won't spoil it by saying which one). You know what I mean, where you can't get the thing to stop menacing you until you pass the thing along to someone else? Maybe it's like that. Maybe only by encouraging you to hear this music can I release myself from its iron grip. Believe it or not, the clip above is a shortened version, so you are not getting as much exposure as you could be. I do have some sense of mercy. After all, I have relived the brief cultural moment of Bob Uecker, and you have not.

Someone once told me that the Charlie Brown theme music was a sort of earworm antidote, so I am trying to soothe myself with Snoopy while simultaneously trying to ignore the possibility that, like one of the afflicted people in Oliver Sacks' book Musicophilia, I will never get rid of it and will actually go insane.

Because of Mr. Belvedere.

This could only happen to me.

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• I don't know how Marie Claire rounded up such an amazing lineup of interviewees -- from Phyllis Diller to Margaret Cho -- for this oral history of women in comedy, but the result is fantastic. (From Lisa Kudrow: "I've heard guy writers say, 'I don't think women are funny.' But if the only funny thing they get to do is knock over a glass of water, then, yeah, women aren't as funny as men.")

• Steve Martin is offering to fund an off-campus production of his play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which was set for performance at Oregon's LaGrande High School until a parent objecting to what she considered "adult content" collected signatures from other parents and got it cancelled. In his letter making the offer, Martin presents the offer as a way for the play to be seen by those who wish to see it without offending those who think it's inappropriate for students.

A drop-off, a stampede, and MacGyver news, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Women In Comedy, Steve Martin, and 'MacGyver'" >

Charlie Papazian: Homebrewer Charlie Papazian encourages you to relax and enjoy the beverage you make with your own hands. Charlie Papazian

 

by Rob Sachs

Hello Monkey Seers, Rob Sachs here, from What Would Rob Do?

I've decided to leave the good old WWRD blog behind. But never fear: We're trying out a move over here, where I'll be chiming in occasionally on the same sorts of topics.

For my first foray, Linda joined me for a podcast on homebrewing -- you know, making beer at home. And you can hear it right here.

To prepare, I interviewed Charlie Papazian, who pretty much wrote the book on homebrewing.

Charlie says that making beer at home is as simple as boiling ingredients in a pot. I hung out with some homebrewers more recently and learned it's a little more involved than that, but Papazian's overall message rings true: making your own beer isn't as hard as you'd think. In fact, the more I learn about homebrewing, the more I can understand how widespread the hobby has become.

Little known fact, former swimsuit model Kathy Ireland was once a homebrewer. (I called her for an interview, but her manager declined.)

After listening to descriptions of how easy it is, and after seeing how its done, I think I'm going to jump into it. St. Paddy's Day is rapidly approaching, and I think if I get a batch going this weekend, I have a shot at it being ready for the 17th. I'm going to try to make a stout, since I hear those are easy to make.

Besides, if I screw it up, the strong flavor will mask my mistakes.

by Linda Holmes

Jon Stewart's appearance with CNBC's Jim Cramer last night was one of the most highly anticipated late-night appearances in recent memory, and if you were looking for a serious confrontation, it did not disappoint. Asked at one point why there were shows on CNBC promising to teach people how to get rich without doing any work, Cramer said, "There's a market for it." "There's a market for cocaine and hookers. So what?" Stewart asked, somewhat incredulously.

You can watch the full episode as it aired, but Comedy Central has also posted the full, unedited interview, which is substantially longer and is, I will warn you, un-bleeped. Above, the first of three parts of the unedited interview. Second and third parts are after the jump.

Continue reading "The Extended, Uncut 'Daily Show' Jim Cramer Interview" >

Idris Elba: Hey there, how'd you get to be so cool? Malcolm Taylor/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

As if my tenth-grade-girl's heart doesn't have enough to contend with given that Paul Rudd was on with Jon Stewart last night (my name is written on my Trapper Keeper as "Mrs. Holmes-Rudd-Stewart"), now Idris Elba is coming to The Office. Come on! That's just sensory overload. Specifically, it overloads my sense of what is awesome.

Idris Elba played Stringer Bell on The Wire, where he was...appealingly murderous? I guess? Gorgeously menacing? Hey, I don't make the rules. And he's done much other highly regarded dramatic work as well.

And now, he's on Fresh Air, where he will undoubtedly elaborate on his career and his Scrantonicity and perhaps answer the hardball question on so many of our minds: What's it like to be so great?

Izzie Stevens: Is Grey's Anatomy's most polarizing character ready to begin a death rattle? ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

I'm not sure "terrifying mother" is the highest use of the talents of Christine Baranski, but she will appear on Ugly Betty tonight in just that role: mom to Betty's boyfriend, Matt. Also continuing his guest run is Ralph Macchio, who seems only a handful of years older than he was in The Karate Kid, frankly. (ABC, 8 p.m.)

Tori Spelling completists will want to note her appearance on tonight's Smallville. (CW, 8 p.m.)

We're entering the boring part of the Survivor season, where everyone seems to outlast his or her abilities and the annoying people never leave as soon as you want them to. But at least the continuing adventures of Coach, who has not read my admittedly forthcoming book, Ten Ways To Lose At Survivor Beginning With Appointing Yourself Everyone's Coach, continue to amuse. (CBS, 8 p.m.)

Continue reading "3.12.2009: Prepare Izzie's Skis For Waxing; Prep Coach For A Fall" >

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• This piece about the state of affairs at the Columbia Journalism School certainly stakes out a position about old media and new, but it's the comment thread where you'll really find the clash taking place. If you want to see "blog" and "Twitter" used as if they are swear words, look no further.

Mickey Rourke, the latest in Heathers happenings, and Heidi Klum needs a little perspective, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: New Media, Mickey Rourke, and the Bravo/Lifetime Smackdown" >

Mice Templar: We can only hope this will be one of many mouse epics. Image Comics

 

by Glen Weldon

It's not all that surprising: I mean, there's certainly a precedent for stirring tales of anthropomorphized medieval warrior members of the genus Peromyscus.

There is. You got your Reepicheep, from the Narnia books. Your Matthias, et al, from Brian Jacques' Redwall series.

You got your .... uh, Reepicheep....

Not .... a long list, granted, but enough to have inspired two contemporaneous comic book epics about noble (and ignoble) rodents:

Mouse Guard by David Petersen, the first six issues of which are now collected in a nifty hardcover ("Fall 1152") from Archaia Studios Press, and

Mice Templar by Bryan J.L. Glass and Michael Avon Oeming, the first six issues of which are now collected in a hardcover of coequal niftiness (The Prophecy) from Image Comics.

It's striking how very different these two books feel, despite the remarkable number of surface similarities they share.

NOTE: That's remarkable as in "inspiring remarks", not remarkable as in "get the lawyers on the phone."

The first issue of Mouse Guard hit stands in February of 2006, and Mice Templar debuted in August of 2007, but both books, we are told, had been in the works for many years. (The backmatter found in the Mice Templar hardcover is understandably emphatic on this point.)

So this isn't a Wife-Swap-and-Trading-Spouses type situation. It's more a The Prestige and ... That-Other-Movie-About-Magicians type situation. [Ed. Note: The Illusionist?]

After the jump: Their similarities, their differences, and an answer to the burning question, "Yeah, but which one brings the Cuteness?"

Continue reading "From The Surprisingly Well-Stocked Department Of Comic Book Epics About Chivalrous Sword-Wielding Mice" >

Adam Lambert: He's a judges' favorite; will they protect him from the brutal operation of their own show? Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

UPDATE: Apparently, this twist is harder to understand than I thought, because it's making headlines that aren't even accurate.

There are probably a hundred reasons why winning American Idol is not important. Winning doesn't mean you'll be successful; losing doesn't mean you won't be; you don't actually find pop stars by making them sing Andrew Lloyd Webber; the public is fickle; the list goes on.

You may now add the fact that you can obtain a free pass from a bad week just because you are favored by the judges, who have never been able to reach their grubby little hands in to fiddle with the results...until now.

What's going on and why it's so stupid, after the jump...

Continue reading "The 'Judges' Save': 'Idol' Throws Chum To The Craziest Sharks In The Ocean" >

Don't forget -- if you haven't signed up for the mailing list so you can be apprised of developments here if you (and I realize it's hard to imagine this happening) forget to stop by because you are working or something, the signup is over to the right. See it? I knew you would. If you don't, it's also here.

We're also trying out uses of the Twitter feed, which I took advantage of last night to get all of my random American Idol opinions out of my system in a semi-organized fashion. It's ramping up gradually, currently in periodic use for pointing out noteworthy blog posts or mentioning bizarre happenings that don't need or deserve more than 140 characters. Further updates as events warrant.

Audiobooks: The loss of a beloved narrator drives home the value of a great voice. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

I am an audiobook person and also a kicky chick-romance-novel person (at least some of the time), and for the several years that I've been carrying audiobooks around on my various MP3 players, I've been listening to romances by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Comforting and entertaining in a way that's harder than it appears, these are reliably diverting and very silly stories I tend to listen to while I'm walking or riding the Metro or doing the dishes, and the first six or seven I heard were narrated by an actress named Kate Fleming, who recorded many (many, many) audiobooks under the name Anna Fields.

[Side note: Coincidentally, Fleming also read Molly Ivins' book Who Let The Dogs In?: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known, which was one of the first audiobooks I ever heard. If you were to invent a voice you'd give Molly Ivins based solely on her writing, it would be the one Kate Fleming used for that book. (You can hear a sample here.)]

Kate Fleming drowned in the basement recording studio of her Seattle home during a flood in December 2006. (You can hear an NPR remembrance here.) Obviously, projects spend a lot of time percolating, and my particular audiobook provider doesn't necessarily get everything right off the bat, and old books and recordings have a way of bubbling back up. So for almost another two years, there would still be a Phillips book now and then that featured Fleming. But I knew it wasn't going to last.

A sad little change in my routine, after the jump...

Continue reading "A Bittersweet Listen, And Why Authors Needn't Worry About The Kindle 2" >

by Glenn McDonald

Sometimes pop-culture reporting can be perilous. For instance, I was preparing for the Watchmen movie last week by re-reading the original graphic novel. Then two new DVDs came across my desk -- a reissued documentary on Watchmen creator Alan Moore, and a 2-disc Watchmen "motion comic" that ports the original pages to digital format.

Foolishly, I attempted to digest all four of these pop-culture artifacts in a single weekend. Bad move. I keep hallucinating about Malin Akerman and I haven't blinked in 72 hours. Don't try this at home, young people. Leave it to the professionals.

Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic, issued and marketed in conjunction with the theatrical film, is a fascinating specimen that offers a third option for those debating the merits of the film versus the graphic novel. It is an attempt, essentially, to apply film language to the comics format and sell a DVD version that you can watch instead of read.

Exploring the motion comic, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Watchmen' Movie vs. Graphic Novel: Is There A Third Option? " >

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• I will say this for the unusually dressed Arlo Weiner, whose father Matt is the creator of Mad Men: he is unusual. I know the right thing to do is to admire his stylish individuality, but to me, this says, "I live in all the most annoying neighborhoods in Brooklyn at the same time." (via Tara Ariano)

Games with movie posters, SAG drama, and how HBO landed in hot water, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Foppish Children, HBO, and A 'Real Housewife'" >

by Linda Holmes

Tipped off by Alan Sepinwall (see how useful Twitter is?), I see that Entertainment Weekly's usually reliable Michael Ausiello has great news on a possible pickup for the adored Friday Night Lights. I was extra-worried once they handed over five nights a week to Jay Leno; I'd sure like to see this turn out to be true. It would be good news for the show and its fans, but also an interesting victory for unusual distribution deals like the one that aired the most recent FNL season on DirecTV before it came to NBC.

(Latest episode is above.)

Internet land mines: Do you recognize these guys? They are #7 on the list. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Don't do it. You may want to do it, but don't do it. You may think you are among friends, but you only think that because you have not brought up any of these topics yet. Tempers will flare. Nothing good will come of it.

1. Home schooling. This one combines the explosive issue of child-rearing with religion and stay-at-home versus work-outside-the-home parents. Always a delicious stew of vitriol. Wait for the moment when someone brings up that girl who spelled "euonym" to win the National Spelling Bee.

2. Bikes versus cars versus pedestrians. In this discussion, every car is that one that opened its door and almost clobbered you while you were ferrying a basket of native prairie grasses for replanting in an urban greenway, and every bike-rider is that one that swerved in front of you while giving you the finger and wearing a T-shirt that says "Anarchy." Eventually, someone will wish broken bones upon someone else, and it's all downhill from there.

3. Chiropractors. People with bad backs can be extremely cranky. Alternative medicine in general is a dangerous area, but for some reason, clashes between people who consider chiropractors to be miracle workers and people who consider them the equivalent of head-bump readers always sets off the fire alarms.

4. Declawing cats. I am seriously not even going to describe this debate, because I am that afraid of it.

The last six, including an HBO cliffhanger, the clash of the titans, and that one band you hate, after the jump...

Continue reading "Ten Toxic Things You Should Never, Ever Attempt To Discuss On The Internet" >

American Idol: The big-voiced Lil Rounds outclassed the competition last week; will she do it again? Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

As is often the case, Idol fever pushes everything else to the background. During the two hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., everybody's just leaping out of the way, leaving a tough climb for shows like Reaper -- the only scripted network show airing a new episode in those two hours -- specifically at 8 p.m. But on with the evening.

• The top 13 American Idol contestants compete for the first time tonight. Sadly, they do not include Arianna Afsar, my pool pick who was tragically booted last week, just as I knew she would be. Why, Arianna, why? (Fox, 8 p.m.)

• I very much enjoy ABC News' What Would You Do? specials, which are kind of like Candid Camera with moral dilemmas instead of comedy. They ran a great segment a couple of weeks ago in which people reacted (or didn't) to a real-estate agent at an open house strongly implying to a couple of color (all three were actors) that they wouldn't be welcomed to the neighborhood. Fascinating. Tonight, a bad mother of the bride and hazing! (ABC, 10 p.m.)

• Law & Order: SVU has seen less cast turnover than Law & Order: Original Flavor, but it's seen some, and tonight brings the return of ADA Cabot (Stephanie March), who has been in witness protection for several years. (NBC, 10 p.m.)

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• To the list of things someone is very upset about somewhere in the world, you may add people taking pictures of the Mona Lisa. Take a moment to enjoy the comments, which are deliciously spiked with every brand of cultural elitism -- "I hate riffraff tourists who attempt to visit museums!" "The Mona Lisa is sooooo obvious" -- to the point where it becomes a little funny.

• Courtesy of the Freakonomics blog: a piece in The Economist about how the recession has stoked interest in Atlas Shrugged.

More about the Watchmen opening, West Side Story, and a nerd collaboration that will warm, melt, or possible blow up your heart, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: 'Dancing,' Ayn Rand, and Tom Green" >

by Linda Holmes

CBS's The Big Bang Theory is an odd little show. The Fall 2007 pilot was so atrocious that I couldn't wait for it to be over, but since then, I've gradually seen friends give in to it, to the point where it has many followers in common with How I Met Your Mother. There are two good comedic performances at its center from Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons as roomates and nerds Leonard and Sheldon -- I am not a fan of Kaley Cuoco, who plays their obligatory hot neighbor, but two out of three really isn't bad for a show that airs on the same night as Two And A Half Men.

Tonight, Big Bang welcomes Dr. George Smoot, the actual originator of the actual Big Bang theory, who is playing himself after (the story goes) becoming a fan of the show and asking to be on. Of course, tonight's episode also features an appearance by Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles star Summer Glau, and she -- not the Nobel laureate -- is the one who's been on the commercials all week.

Still: Nicely played, nerds. Nicely played.

Steve Wozniak: Here, he seems not to be entirely in tune with his partner, Karina Smirnoff. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

Look, I'm not saying Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak won't do a great job on Dancing With The Stars (which returns tonight at 8 p.m.), but this rehearsal photo is not filling the heart with confidence.

by Linda Holmes

There are days when all the oxygen seems to have been devoured by things about which there is little left to say -- in this case, Watchmen, which reviews suggest you will either find kind of fantastic or find yourself nearly unable to endure, depending.

When I saw a computer monitor serving as an ad hoc screen to show Watchmen propaganda between the registers at the bookstore this weekend, I hit my limit.

A different sort of roundup and the bottom line on the Watchmen box-office breakdown, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: When The Crickets Descend" >

by Linda Holmes

Are you familiar with shippers? Or, technically, 'shippers? A shipper is a person who self-identifies as a fan of a show based on a rooting interest in a particular romantic relationship ('shipper, get it?).

In most places where television is discussed, the most devoted shippers are, frankly, the bane of everyone else's existence, because there is not an episode, a scene, a shot, or a camera angle that doesn't somehow relate to whether or not there will be kissing.

Will there be kissing? When? Where? What music will be playing? What will everyone be wearing? Will this episode contain kissing? How about next week's? How about in the season finale? Do you think the "dramatic development" in TV Guide is about kissing? Did you see that screenshot that one guy posted from that one episode where there seems to be smudged lipstick on that one actress? I wonder if it's because she was just busy kissing. KISSING KISSING KISSING, and have I mentioned...kissing?

Truly single-minded shippers are not fans of the show: they are just turning the crank and waiting for Jack to spring out of the box. All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel... You may know them by the twee, mashed-together names they invent for couples. You don't "ship" Lost's Sawyer and Kate: you ship "Skate."

Shows run into trouble when there is so much pressure built up for so long about the kissing or not kissing that it obscures every other dramatic element, so when Jack does pop out of the box, nobody knows what to do next. You get an explosion of excitement, but then what? This is why shows like Grey's Anatomy are stuck breaking everybody up and putting them back together, again and again. If all you've got is Jack in the box, then once he comes out, you'd better...put him back.

And while it seemed to be a comedy, I'm not sure I've ever seen a show more imperiled by shippers than The Office. And against all odds, it's defeated them and become far more romantic, as a story, than it was when they were exchanging all those pained, tense stares.

How the kissing enthusiasts were overcome, after the jump...

Continue reading "In The Post-Shipper Era, 'The Office' Is The Most Romantic Show On Television" >

by Linda Holmes

If you're familiar with Avenue Q, the Broadway hit that is, in fact, a raunchy puppet musical while being much more than a raunchy puppet musical, you know that the closing number, "For Now," features a line about George Bush that generally got a roar during the opening years of the Broadway run.

Now, of course, the line -- which you can hear above in a performance of the song by the cast at an appearance in Bryant Park in 2007 -- is a little outdated, so the show started auditioning possible replacements. Ultimately, though, they kept it. I saw the show on tour here in D.C. in February, and I have to say, I think the line got a stronger response now than when I saw it on Broadway in 2005. I'm not surprised it wasn't fussed with.

If you're considering seeing the tour, by the way, I'd highly recommend it -- I enjoyed the touring production just as much as the Broadway production, much to my own surprise. You never know what you're in for with a touring show you know well about which you have lots of expectations, but it was very satisfying.

Watchmen: Does there always have to be a movie? Warner Brothers Pictures

 

by Marc Hirsh

There's a movie opening today called Watchmen. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's gotten a bit of press lately, most of which has involved some variation of the headline "Who watches Watchmen?," because headline writers are just that clever.

Most of the coverage has also fixated on the long, roadblock-studded path from the original 1986-1987 run of the comic book to the silver screen. To hear the media tell it, those of us who love Watchmen have been waiting for this day eagerly for over 20 years.

The thing is, I don't think we have.

The comic as its own fully realized form, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Watchmen' And The Myth Of The Movie As The Ultimate Form Of Storytelling" >

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Friday adventure show starring Lena Headey is only one of many currently waiting to hear final verdicts on another season. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• Variety has a good rundown of where we stand as far as bubble shows and their chances for renewal, especially at NBC, which will lose five hours of prime-time to Jay Leno this fall.

• Hey, are you a writer and not independently wealthy? Don't read this. Or at least don't read it on an empty stomach. (Thanks, Bookninja, for the complex!)

• Perhaps one of the greatest blurb-abusing advertisements in movie history -- okay, the greatest -- showed up yesterday in Torontoist. It must be seen to be believed. (Hat-tip to Tara Ariano.)

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Shows on the Bubble, Comics Go Mainstream, and Unlikely Professional Wrestler News" >

Nerd glasses: Just one of the most popular props for Sexy People. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

I'm not sure whether most of the portraits submitted to Sexy People come from the SPs themselves, the SPs families, the SPs vengeful exes, or disgruntled Olan Mills employees.

But no matter where they came from, the sexy people of Sexy People may very well make your day. By which I mean, "steal your afternoon." Today's Sexy Person is Bernard.

(Hat-tip to my good pal Dave Cole, who occasionally, as in this case, sends out a random link that is not something hideous like a guy touching his own eyeball or something.)

by Linda Holmes

The process of selecting the American Idol finalists is -- I swear! almost over. Tonight's wild-card show will feature eight singers who didn't make it through the normal process, and the judges will put three of them through to the finals. Will Tatiana Del Toro shriek, no matter what happens to her? Oh, I think so. (Fox, 8 p.m.)

CBS claims that a "strength record" is in danger on tonight's Survivor. I'm trying to remember a time when Survivor has even kept strength records. But no matter: records will be broken! (CBS, 8 p.m.)

My Name Is Earl features an appearance tonight by Curtis Armstrong, best known as Booger (of Revenge Of The Nerds) or Herbert Viola (of Moonlighting) or, if you go back far enough, Miles -- Tom Cruise's friend in Risky Business. The man has had a career.

Do you enjoy Top Chef but wish it had more swearing, more spoiled food, and less actual ability to cook? You'll love Fox's Hell's Kitchen, which features people who, quite seriously, are worse cooks on average than the people you would retrieve if you put a giant magnet down in the middle of an IKEA and took the first people whose keys stuck to it. (Fox, 9 p.m.)

After several weeks away, The Office finally returns with a new episode called "Blood Drive." I like it already. If we're placing bets, put me down for Dwight having some very bizarre theory about better ways to collect blood than using needles. Like stabbing people. (NBC, 9 p.m.)

My patience for the 30 Rock "Liz wants a baby" storyline is growing thin, so perhaps they'll put it to rest on tonight's show, where she befriends a teenager in the hopes of adopting her baby. (NBC, 9:30 p.m.)

VH1's very weird Sober House -- a much more pointlessly salacious follow-up to its oddly interesting Celebrity Rehab -- has been playing out as a "Relapse Of The Week" tragicomedy, and tonight, it appears to be Mary Carey's turn. Yes, Mary Carey the adult-film star who ran for Governor of California. (VH1, 10 p.m.)

The Rubik's Cube: At the 2007 Rubik's Cube World Championships, gold medalist Anssi Vanhala solved the cube with his feet. We have an easier way. Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

 

by Glenn McDonald

Everyone has a weakness, and mine is spatial thinking. Also, bad Italian horror films. And exotic beef jerky. But these are stories for another time -- let's get back to spatial thinking. I really am terrible at it, a pattern that has shown up in standardized tests since I was six years old. As such, the ubiquitous Rubik's Cube has forever been a thorn in my side.

Once again, technology has come to the rescue. CubeCheater is a new iPhone app that will solve your Rubik's Cube puzzle for you, in 20 moves or less. The genius of it is that all you have to do is take a picture of your unsolved Rubik's cube with the iPhone itself. The app then analyzes the image, crunches the numbers, and provides a step-by-step solution via the 3D interface.

See CubeCheater in action, after the jump...

Continue reading "Better Cheating Through Technology (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Rubik's Cube Again)" >

by Linda Holmes

Rick Santelli of CNBC was scheduled to be last night's guest on The Daily Show, but he canceled. Which wasn't a good idea, if the idea was to avoid being a target for Jon Stewart. It's an anti-CNBC free-for-all.

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• Things look very grim for the employment of artists, says the NEA -- even more so than for everyone else. The peculiar risk of that, it seems to me, is that artists who become unemployed will leave artistic fields entirely and return to something more stable, and they may or may not return.

• Courtesy of Best Week Ever, The 25 Stupidest Outfits You Will Ever See. I'm not sure they are the stupidest, but they are undoubtedly in the running.

• Concerned about your burgeoning number of Facebook friends and curious about how many friends you can actually have? Hey, there's research on that! (Hat-tip to Lifehacker.)

Snuggies and Jeremy Piven, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Stupid Outfits, Snuggies, And Surreptitious Tuna Consumption" >

by Linda Holmes

My new Internet hero is Clara Cannucciari, a 93-year-old great-grandma who has her own YouTube cooking show where she cooks meals from the Great Depression. It sounds like it would be...hopelessly corny, or treat her with the patronizing "old people are adorable" attitude that's so hard to avoid.

Her shows are nothing like that, though. She's just a lady who has been cooking since many, many years before most of the people watching her were born, who has a completely different attitude about food from what you typically see on video when people talk about cooking. Her ideas about what's tasty and good for you are, for people who have followed the wild swings of the low-fat/low-carb pendulum, amusingly consistent with current thinking: her attitude about olive oil is, "We use a lot; it's good for you," and almost everything has a vegetable in it. It goes without saying, of course, that the times are also right for food that truly stretches the budget.

Mostly, though, she's just...lovely to watch. Warmly funny but not at all a ham, she tells stories without rambling, isn't hesitant to say when she's checked with her brother for details of something she forgot, and never seems to be talking down to anyone about the ruination of the culture or how much better or stronger everyone was in the Depression. I just love watching her, and I encourage you to run-don't-walk to her YouTube channel.

(Hat-tip to The Simple Dollar, which wrote a lovely piece about Clara.)

Dracula on the moon: It's really better enjoyed than analyzed for its relationship to archetypal heroic blah blah oh look, we just fell asleep. Marvel Entertainment

 

by Glen Weldon

It comes with the territory: When you're someone who hits his local shop every Wednesday to pick up the week's new comics, you tend to find yourself hip-deep in one-sided conversations.

I've shrugged my way through my share of Who-Would-Win-a-Fight conversations, for example. I get why they exist. Never saw the appeal.

And you can't spend more than four minutes in a comics shop without hearing from the vocal contingent of Comics Suck Now, Unlike in [Year Speaker Was Twelve Years Old], When All Comics Were Brilliant and Awesome and Shiny and Cured Rickets.

Most troubling/enervating/tiring are those comic book buyers who, for whatever reason, seem incapable of embracing their fondness for funnybooks without first struggling to contextualize that fondness in the language of graduate-level Humanities seminars.

This lot have so thoroughly internalized Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces that they've grown a little too damn comfortable with words like "mythos."

Can we all agree that "mythos" is a not an everyday word, and should not be treated as such? And further, that dropping "mythos" into a conversation when one is sporting a t-shirt upon which Wolverine is engaged in an act of disembowelment tends to leach the word of its power?

To these folk, the Avengers aren't the Avengers, but instead a pantheon of epic archetypes around which mythopoeic narrative tropes have organically accreted.

Superheroes, they assert to all who'll listen and to many who won't, are our contemporary gods and demi-gods, whose adventures embody the modern mythic architecture that we, as a society, collectively construct to house our cultural fears and ambitions.

Thing is: all that heady circumlocution smacks of a desperate thirst for validation.

And some things shouldn't be validated.

Some things don't need to be.

Some things, like, for example, when Dracula launches vampire missiles from the moon.

After the jump: Dracula launches VAMPIRE freaking MISSILES. From the freaking MOON.

Continue reading "It's Comics, People, or: On Moon-Launched Vampire Missiles and the Need to Lighten Up" >

by Sara Sarasohn

Another dispatch from the Monkey See infomercial desk:

In my house, we call Billy Mays "the yelling guy." In that, I don't believe that we are all that unique. Billy Mays is a guy who yells on television. He yells about Orange Glo, the Big City Slider Station, OxyClean, iCan health insurance, and various other products with practical uses, some of which have capital letters in the middle of their single-word names.

My nine year old son likes to imitate Billy Mays, probably because Billy Mays is ridiculously easy to imitate. His does his research while watching his favorite TV channels, all of which are prime Billy Mays territory: Discovery Channel, The Science Channel and The Military Channel.

The Yelling Guy gets big news and a big new opportunity, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Yelling Guy' Billy Mays Winds The Production/Promotion Universe Around Itself Once Again" >

Above: It's like The CW is specifically trying to promote America's Next Top Model as an unbelievably idiotic Tyra Banks showcase. Clever scheme!.

by Linda Holmes

The world is divided into America's Next Top Model people and people who absolutely do not understand America's Next Top Model people. If you are in the former group, you are currently squeeing over the fact that tonight marks the two-hour season premiere. If you are in the latter group, I congratulate you on your restraint and your avoidance of unnecessary Tyra Banks exposure. (The CW, 8 p.m.)

But wait! Believe it or not, there are two model-search shows starting new seasons on the same night. Bravo's pretender to the throne, Make Me A Supermodel also starts tonight. Acceptable excuses for watching include: (1) Tyson Beckford is attractive; and (2) Tyson Beckford is still attractive. (Bravo, 10 p.m.)

Okay, but seriously, in the realm of actual meritorious television, there's a new Lost tonight, in which Sawyer is apparently plotting and lying -- always the best part of any Lost episode. (ABC, 9 p.m.)

One more, as they say, reality bite: Top Chef wraps things up with the reunion special, and if history is any guide, they'll be rolling out the annual Funny T-Shirt With A Saying On It. I think it's safe to assume the quote will come from Fabio. Note that this is an hour earlier than you'd usually find the show, to make way for the Supermodel premiere at 10. (Bravo, 9 p.m.)

There's a new Damages, too, for the Glenn Close partisans among you, and this one is called "You Got Your Prom Date Pregnant." So there's that. (FX, 10 p.m.)

By Trey Graham

So, Linda's mildly dispiriting note about the Sleepless in Seattle musical — not to mention last week's aside about the current Broadway season's penchant for star-driven dramas — got me thinking about the commercial theater's on-again, off-again love affair with familiar names and famous faces.

As noted in the item Linda linked to, it tends to heat up when times get tight, not least because producers know big names will work cheap in a "classy" project — and classy projects often involve playwrights too dead to demand royalties.

(Still: Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon in Exit the King? Isn't that overkill, even if you're trying to sell Ionesco?)

There's an upside, of course. Some of those famous faces actually remember how to be good onstage. (As opposed to, say, Kelsey Grammer in Macbeth. Or poor, miscast Jena Malone and Lili Taylor in that viciously reviewed new revival of Mourning Becomes Electra.)

And when an actor with chops clicks with a solid project, whether it's a new-minted show or a canonical chestnut, you get theater with both glamour and guts. The gold standard in recent years? Vanessa Redgrave, mopping the floor with both Brian Dennehy and Philip Seymour Hoffman in that 2003 revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night.

After the jump: a few prospects for this season, and why high hopes might be in order for at least one or two of them ...

Continue reading "Look! On Broadway! People You've Actually Heard Of!" >

Zac Efron: Wildly ill-advised hat aside, can High School Musical 4 survive without this mug? Kevin Winter/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• I'm not sure I'll read David Plotz's entire book about reading the Bible, in part because I can't help thinking it will repeat things I learned in A.J. Jacobs' terrific The Year Of Living Biblically, but the essay in Slate about what he learned is well worth a read.

• Also in Slate, how can we not mention this piece on the 10 most effective strategies for public radio pledge drives?

• Agatha Christie continues to be an enormously popular writer, in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- widely acknowledged shortcomings in the actual quality of her writing, from a literary perspective. Here's an interesting look at why that is. (Hat-tip to Bookninja.)

Plenty for noting and ignoring, including Disney's new project, library prospects, and the dumping that would not die, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Agatha Christie, 'High School Musical 4,' That Show About That Guy" >

by Linda Holmes

Some combination of looking around for that clip of "The Letter" yesterday and looking around at talk-show buffoonery has managed to land me, twice in the last two days, on clips of this afternoon's lull-buster: the Shangri-Las. It's a perfect example of one of the Internet's most wonderful hazards: the tangent that eats an hour.

If you aren't familiar with them (poor you!), the Shangri-Las were a '60s girl group best known for a series of songs that were mostly about teenagers dying in car crashes, often after being oppressed by their parents in some horrible manner or another. That's them up top, introduced by Steve Allen and singing to Robert Goulet, who's camping it up as Jimmy, who comes to a bad end in "Leader Of The Pack."

Other delights, after the jump...

Continue reading "Afternoon Lull-Buster: The Shangri-Las" >

by Linda Holmes

As we mentioned this morning, Jimmy Fallon had his Late Night debut last night, and now that I've had a chance to see it, I have to say...it's not terrible. Parts of the first episode were terrible, but parts are pretty good, and I laughed out loud once, which isn't bad for a late-night show on its first night out.

The whole thing's up top, but we've got a full "good parts" dissection with clips, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon' Is Uneven But Not Terrible" >

Michael Jackson: It's like he's not even back yet, and we already have the fatigue. Dave Hogan/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

So it appears that Michael Jackson may be preparing to come back. In a series of concerts.

I don't think I can take a Michael Jackson comeback. Not as a music consumer, but as a comedy-product consumer. I cannot take the return of Michael Jackson to late-night monologues, The Onion, or, quite frankly, the entire Internet.

If this plays out as anticipated, all that's going to happen is that he's going to show up in public with the zoo animals and the oxygen tanks and the...whatever, Jedi costume, and there will be pictures of him in magazines where he's in a nun's habit, walking an ocelot and carrying a watering can, and then his nose will fall off during a charity benefit, and he'll make some weird new best friend like Joe The Plumber or Miley Cyrus, and we'll all be back on the Michael Jackson Express Train To Weirdsville, and I cannot take it.

Scott MacIntyre: Let's see if Ryan Seacrest can get through tonight without any more...embarrassments. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

The nights when there is a new American Idol tend to be nights when everybody else is leaping out of the way with their new offerings, so there isn't much else to watch. If you are an Idol person, tonight brings the final group of 12 to the stage, including Scott MacIntyre, the blind contestant Ryan Seacrest memorably attempted to high-five (yes, really); early favorite Lil Rounds; and sixteen-year-old Arianna Afsar, whom I picked (among others) in my American Idol pool, for reasons I'm not sure I remember anymore, and who will undoubtedly be bounced with great enthusiasm, leaving me out of the running. (Fox, 8 p.m.)

There is an episode of The Biggest Loser, a show I haven't been following but have been told is officially having its Yelliest Season Ever, so if you like being hollered at by personal trainers instead of subtly cut to shreds by Simon Cowell, there you go. (NBC, 8 p.m.)

The CW's struggling Reaper returns for a second season tonight, but early signs aren't promising, and being thrown into the jaws of Idol won't help. (The CW, 8 p.m.)

The fifth-season finale of FX's Nip/Tuck arrives at ten, so prepare to have your face lifted. (FX, 10 p.m.)

by Linda Holmes

That's right: they're bringing Sleepless In Seattle to the stage. For a musical. With songs. And maybe dancing. I, for one, happily look forward to the pas de deux featuring Sam and his deceased wife as he ponders whether to go to the Empire State Building. But what else might we expect? I don't want to be pushy, but I am hoping the following ten songs are already being written.

1. "I Want A Stranger For A Mom"

2. "Take It From Your Sassy Friend"

3. "This Pea-Soup Fog Of Grief"

4. "I'm Somewhat Sorry I Called You A Brat (A Father's Apology)"

5. "The Unaccompanied-Minor Negligence Lawsuit Blues"

6. "Marry That Mope, Annie"

7. "The First And Only Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

8. "Am I Looking Too Hard For A Sign In The Form Of The Lights In The Shape Of A Heart?"

9. "It's Tiramisu, Buddy!"

10. "You Can't Spell 'Kismet' Without Me"

Above: The Spinal Tap boys are on the road again. Read more below.

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• My nephews are bullish on Guitar Hero; The Atlantic wonders what it means for the future of music. (Judging by my nephews? Adolescents with a highly refined understanding of '80s hair bands.)

Much worth noting and ignoring, including Jimmy Fallon's debut, a Broadway/film collision, and -- yes -- Spinal Tap news, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: Guitar Hero, Spinal Tap, Lauren Conrad's Novel" >

Above: Jillian, dumped before the train-wreck finale, talks about how it feels to get dumped. She's probably feeling pretty good about it now.

by Linda Holmes

If you want to know just how true it was that the increased interest in this season of The Bachelor arose from the perception that bachelor Jason Mesnick was less of a moron than those the show had offered up in seasons past, observe the large, pitchfork-wielding mobs calling for his head after last night's finale.

In which — spoiler alert! — he picked (and proposed to) Melissa and dumped Molly. Then on the "Where Are They Now?" special, filmed six weeks later and broadcast right after the finale, he dumped Melissa and went back to Molly.

What happened next, after the jump...

Continue reading "'I Do...Not! Psych!': The Final 'Bachelor' Post, With Spoilers" >

by Marc Hirsh

I have to tip my hat to Vince Offer. The rising-star TV pitchman's weirdly, creepily fascinating delivery has surely brought more folks than would have thought themselves susceptible to such things perilously close to picking up the phone to say, "My goodness, I really do need a Shamwow in my life." The man may be a huckster, but he's a damn good one. No wonder Billy Mays himself is feeling the pressure.

But I'm not remotely tempted to buy Offer's latest product, the Slap Chop. For one thing, I've owned almost the same tool for about ten years (more specifically, the one he dramatically chucks over his shoulder in a perfect arc into the sink because of the Slap Chop's greater ease of cleaning, which is the only difference); he's not exactly revealing a new invention to the world. But the commercial is a gem of carnival-barker hyperbole and mesmerizing, wallet-loosening wordplay.

The genius therein, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Strange And Wonderful World Of Vince Offer" >

Above: The Box Tops sing "The Letter." But you knew that.

by Linda Holmes

Do you occasionally forget to come by? We always miss you, but we understand you're busy. But you'll be thrilled to see, over there to the right -- see it? -- the link to sign up for our newsletter, which will allow you to see what's going on in the event you forget to drop by. If you don't get an NPR account for any other reason, you can use it to get the newsletter, which will give you a daily rundown of what we're up to and keep you thoroughly looped. And then you'll have an account, which you can use for commenting and whatnot, so why not sign up today? I promise not to return too soon to Celebrity Apprentice.

by Linda Holmes

My word of honor, I wrote the following text message last night: "In other news, Herschel [Walker] and Clint Black have just been accused by Tom Green of throwing Andrew Dice Clay under the bus in a cupcake-making task."

The context, of course, was NBC's Celebrity Apprentice, the show for people who thought the regular version of The Apprentice had too much of a substantive connection to their day-to-day lives.

No, really: Feel like watching an anonymous copier salesman hawk lemonade to impress Donald Trump hits a little too close to home? Okay, let's make it Joan Rivers selling cupcakes to impress Donald Trump.

Poor Herschel Walker, trying to lead the unleadable, after the jump (with Celebrity Apprentice spoilers, as if you care)...

Continue reading "'Celebrity Apprentice' Is Less Painful If You Watch It With Your Thumbs" >

by Linda Holmes

Jimmy Fallon has had a rough go of it, critically speaking, as we head into tonight's premiere of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, when he will take over for the departing Conan O'Brien (who's taking over for Jay Leno, who's taking over for Hill Street Blues and ER and L.A. Law, which is where the whole thing starts to look a little hinky).

Where the dubious prognosticating is right and where it's wrong, after the jump...

Continue reading "Jimmy Fallon Takes The Reins — But Can He Drive?" >

Dean Cain once was Superman, kind of: I am very embarrassed. Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

The idea of this particular game is to name the most embarrassing pop-culture/fandom object in your collection. You must either still have it or, if you no longer have it, you must have held onto it for at least, say, five years. You don't have to tell the story, you don't have to apologize; you just have to name the item you would least like to have found among your possessions if you suddenly were eaten by a fire-breathing dragon and the forensic investigation that followed asked the question: "Did this person have good taste in entertainment?"

Mine: A black-and-white 8x10 headshot of television's '90s-vintage Superman, reading: "To Linda: Super Wishes, Dean Cain."

The Jonas Brothers: Here, they pop in on a screening of their film on Saturday in West Nyack, New York. So that's three tickets, anyway. Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

Read:

• I absolutely cannot stand it when perfectly good writing is made into a needless, pointless, slow-loading nightmare of bad presentation, as it is in the Los Angeles Times feature asking people what they'd do if they ran the National Endowment for the Arts. Nevertheless, some of the responses are interesting, like Noah Wyle's. And, I happily point out, Neil Patrick Harris throws some love to NPR.

• One of the more disingenuous things I've read recently is this farewell post as Defamer closes down and is folded into Gawker. The "I never thought about the fact that I was so negative" argument rings slightly hollow when you work for a site that is called Defamer. I'm just saying. It takes a lot of effort to lose my sympathy when your outfit is folding, but...come on.

Broadcast television sputters and Bono has a few things to say about Coldplay, after the jump...

Continue reading "Read/Note/Ignore: The Definition Of Defamation, The Jonas Brothers, Bono Hates Chris Martin" >