+Movies | 596 days ago

Top 10 Movie Franchises That Won't Die

By Nate Jones
Everett

Why won’t these film franchises just go away already?

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Tuned In+TV Ratings | 597 days ago

Ratings: He Shoots… He Just Misses!

By James Poniewozik

Last night, in the what-I’m-told-was-exciting final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs (um, spoiler alert, I guess), the Chicago Blackhawks won in overtime to capture the title for the first time in half a century. But the exciting finish was not quite enough to take the night’s ratings over Fox’s So You Think You Can [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | 597 days ago

Journalistic Disgrace 2.0

By James Poniewozik

When the story broke about Washington journalist Helen Thomas getting into trouble for saying Israeli Jews should “go home” to countries like Germany and Poland, I thought about Mike Wallace. My first year at the University of Michigan, there was a controversy over his being asked to speak at commencement. At issue were some racist [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 597 days ago

The Morning After: …But Is It Art?

By James Poniewozik

The good thing I can say about Bravo’s new art-competition reality show, Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, is that it surpassed my expectations. I expected it to be lousy, however, so take that for what it’s worth. My big concern about the show is that the various genres of visual art—painting, photography, performance, [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 597 days ago

Test Pilot: Running Wilde

By James Poniewozik

Test Pilot is a semiregular feature sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next fall’s shows. These aren’t reviews, since these pilots can be rewritten, recast and retooled before airing, and the shows that eventually get on the air can prove much better or worse. But, premature opinions are why God invented the Internet, [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 598 days ago

The Morning After: Hoop de Do

By James Poniewozik

It’s NBA finals time, which means that last night, of course, I was watching Glee. Because I am that confident in my masculinity. Far and away the biggest show on TV last night, though, was the hoopsketball match, so I leave it to the sports fans here to assess: how has the primetime coverage on [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 598 days ago

Justified Watch: Gun Daddy Gun

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for the season finale of Justified coming up after the jump: Justified started this season as a show about crimes of the week, but from the beginning, and increasingly as the season went on and improved, it was also about crimes of the past. On a social level, it was about the culture of [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 598 days ago

Glee Watch: Hold On to the Feelin'

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for the season finale of Glee coming up. The first season finale of Glee was called “Journey” for a reason. At regionals, New Directions retraced their steps back to their roots, performing “Don’t Stop Believin’” as they did in the show’s pilot, as part of a Journey medley. Likewise, the show Glee [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 599 days ago

Idris Elba Gets on the Right Side of the Law

By James Poniewozik

Idris Elba, whom Tuned Inlanders may remember in particular as Stringer Bell from The Wire, is starring in a new crime thriller for the BBC, Luther, which will air on BBC America later in the year. But this time, he’s one of the good guys. Maybe. And depending how you define “good.” At least according [...]

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Tuned In+Advertising | 599 days ago

Nike Discovers the Flash-Sideways

By James Poniewozik

Nike has launched a new ad—at three-plus minutes, a mega-ad—for the World Cup, and it’s a doozy. Directed by Alexander Rodriguez Alejandro González Iñárritu, the hyper, kinetic, hyperkinetic commercial, “Write the Future,” follows several international footballers through the throes of game play—and beyond: it flashes out into the wider world to spin the reactions to [...]

+Books | 599 days ago

Top 10 Post-Apocalyptic Books

By TIME Staff
apocalyptic_books_tout

There’s something satisfying in imagining the end of the world. These ten books did it best.

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 599 days ago

The Morning After: Summer People

By James Poniewozik

The summer broadcast season is less of a burn-off zone than it used to be; besides reality shows, networks are occasionally more willing to use it for scripted series (like The Good Guys) that they seem to believe have the potential to be authentic hits. But old habits die hard, and the networks still undercut [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 599 days ago

Nurse Jackie Watch: Intervention

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for the season finale of Nurse Jackie after the jump:

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 600 days ago

The 2010 TCA Awards Nominees: How Did We Do?

By James Poniewozik

Last week, the Television Critics’ Association, of which I am a member (though I often don’t attend press tour), released its nominees for its 2010 awards, which will be given out this summer at press tour. I’ve already voted from among the nominees—I didn’t want to seem as though I were taking a poll before [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 600 days ago

Treme Watch: Farewell to Flesh

By James Poniewozik

Quick spoilers for last night’s Treme follow: Mardi Gras, the event that Treme built toward—much as the New Orleans calendar builds toward it—came to the series last night. “All on a Mardi Gras Day” began with a kind of montage, showing various characters eating king cake and prepping for the holiday. And then the entire [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 600 days ago

The Morning After: Sold With a Kiss

By James Poniewozik

I may not be entirely qualified to comment on last night’s MTV Movie Awards, seeing as how I am old—old enough never to even have fantasized making out with a vampire. Also, between a choppy cable connection and the constant (yet inconsistently applied) language beeps, the event was often more like watching a slideshow than [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 600 days ago

Breaking Bad Watch: One of Us

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for Breaking Bad coming up: One of the most fascinating dynamics on The Wire was the juxtaposition in season 3 of Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale and their approaches to running the drug business. Avon was old-school and driven by emotion and pride as well as money: you held your corners not just for [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 602 days ago

FNL Watch: The Good "Son" Returns

By James Poniewozik

I’m not sure how much appetite there is for a Friday Night Lights Watch here at Tuned In—devout fans may have already watched it on DirecTV, and the NBC run of season 3 elicited relatively few comments on those occasions I covered it last year. But season 4, with Coach Taylor taking over the struggling [...]