Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 558 days ago

David Cross to Re-Join Arnett, Hurwitz on Running Wilde

By James Poniewozik

It’s an Arrested Development reunion! According to The Hollywood Reporter, David Cross (formerly Dr. Tobias Fünke on AD) has been signed as a regular on the new Fox sitcom Running Wilde, starring his old castmate Will Arnett and produced by AD creator Mitch Hurwitz. Let’s just rename it “Running Bluth” and call it a day. [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 558 days ago

Lost vs. Inception: Solving the Puzzle of Ending a Puzzle-Story

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: This post totally spoils the TV series Lost and the movie Inception. If you haven’t watched either and don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading. I said stop! Over the weekend, Lost producer Damon Lindelof tweeted his admiration for Christopher Nolan’s new movie: “I wish that someone would break into my dreams and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+558 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: And Now, Your Moment of Men

By James Poniewozik

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to post any more Dead Tree Alerts here. Recently, TIME stopped posting full articles from its print edition online, requiring people to buy the print or iPad editions of the magazine to read the pieces. There is—as of now—no option to buy articles or issues [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 560 days ago

FNL Watch: Less Money, Mo' Problems

By James Poniewozik

Good news: my DSL pipeline has been restored, so I’m back in blogging business. Bad news: between at set visit today (to the downtown site of AMC’s Rubicon) and general falling behind from my computer problems, I don’t have time for a full blog review of Friday Night Lights, “Injury List.” Update: Whoops! And fortunately, [...]

+Movies | 561 days ago

Top 10 Movies That Mess with Your Mind

By TIME Staff
Everett

Too many movies make it a point to explain every single plot point. But there’s a certain pleasure to be found in confusion. TIME looks at the best cinematic mind benders.

Tuned In
Tuned In+561 days ago

Back to (Old) School for Fall Schedules

By James Poniewozik

Most of the big-network fall schedules are out, and the big news is what’s old about them. I’m referring not to the shows themselves but to the schedules. Over the last decade or so, the networks have tried to become more creative with their fall schedule launches, moving away from the old “premiere week” strategy [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 562 days ago

Which Would You Give Up: TV or the Internet?

By James Poniewozik

So a bit more background on my temporary kind-of radio silence: I’m working from home, where, thanks to a vaguely explained snafu on the part of our good friends at Verizon, I have been without DSL since yesterday morning. So I’ve moved “home,” for the moment, to a cafe with wi-fi. (Which, this being Park [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 562 days ago

Programming Note

By James Poniewozik

I’m on deadline Thursday and on a set visit Friday, and largely without Internet access both days. (I’m typing this post from my iPhone. It is not easy.) So expect posting to be sporadic. Feel free to use this space to talk among yourselves in the meantime.

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 563 days ago

Piers Morgan May Have Talent, But Is He Right for CNN?

By James Poniewozik

Reports are busily popping about that CNN is on the verge of hiring Piers Morgan as the next host of its 9 p.m. primetime show, replacing Larry King, who is stepping down in the fall. We Yanks may be most familiar with Morgan as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent (the network apparently cleared [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 563 days ago

HBO Places Its Bet on Milch and Mann's Luck

By James Poniewozik

And they’re off! HBO, which has been beefing up its regular-series roster heavily in the past year, has ordered to series Luck, a drama set in the horse-racing world, created by David Milch, starring Dustin Hoffman, and its pilot directed by Michael Mann. Given the roster of names in that previous sentence, I would have [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 563 days ago

Court to FCC: Clean Up Your Act on Dirty-Word Rules

By James Poniewozik

A federal appeals court yesterday struck down FCC regulations over “fleeting expletives” on the airwaves, ruling that the commission’s definition of “indecency” was so vague as to create an unconstitutional “chilling effect” on speech. But the ruling is subject to appeal to the Supreme Court, meaning that the victory for the networks may be fleeting [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 564 days ago

The Guild Casts Its Spell Again

By James Poniewozik

Those of you who, like me, don’t have an Xbox can now watch season 4 of Felicia Day’s online comedy, The Guild, at MSN, where its first episode (embedded above) posted today. Those of you who (also like me) are not gamers, and who think a comedy about gaming is not for you, should reconsider [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 564 days ago

Should Bret Michaels Take Over for Simon Cowell?

By James Poniewozik

Of course not. Would he like to? Evidently. Will he? Not if American Idol‘s producers have any sense. But Joy Behar knows that asking the question will get people to watch her talk show, and I know that embedding the video will get people to visit this post from search engines, and so here it [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 564 days ago

The Morning After: Standard Operating Procedurals

By James Poniewozik

I feel like I should just get a time-saving review template to use over the summer. “Hey, everybody! A basic-cable network is premiering a light, escapist procedural about cops and/or spies with personality quirks and gritty, but not alienatingly challenging, cases! It’s not Mad Men, but what the hey, who wants to think about stuff [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 564 days ago

Air-Kissing The Hills Goodbye

By James Poniewozik

People have mocked me for liking The Hills—behind my back! You think I can’t hear you but I totally hear you!—but I’m OK with that. Really. To be honest, I’ve drifted away from the show—which airs its last episode tonight—for the last year or two as it became even more totally dedicated to being a [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Remembrance | 565 days ago

Harvey Pekar, RIP

By James Poniewozik

Another loss for Cleveland: Harvey Pekar, the storyteller and jazz critic whose rants and tales of daily life were realized in the American Splendor series of comic books, has died at age 70. TV fans of a certain age—and maybe even under a certain age—will remember him as one of David Letterman’s most notorious regular [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 565 days ago

Ah-ooooooo! Werewolves of Louisiana

By James Poniewozik

As I mentioned before, I’m not enough of a True Blood cultist to do a weekly review, but one thing I have enjoyed about season 3 so far is the show’s depiction of werewolves and werewolf culture: namely, how it’s depicted this breed of shape-shifter as lustily and unapologetically animal. In the above clip, Alan [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 565 days ago

So Who Won the World Cup? ABC or Univision?

By James Poniewozik

I missed most of yesterday’s World Cup final yesterday, being, of all places, at a New York Liberty game. (Mrs. Tuned In’s choir sang the national anthem, which no doubt spurred the Liberty’s come-from-behind 57-54 win over the Chicago Sky.) But I was simultaneously following the match on Twitter, where some of the most entertaining [...]