+Movies | 361 days ago

The SAG Signal: Why the Oscar Race Is Already Over

By Richard Corliss
Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

Cancel the office pool and forget the Vegas bookmakers, because a certain movie about a stammering monarch looks set to be the big winner at the 83rd Academy Awards

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 361 days ago

The Morning After: Fringe Self-Watch, and a Programming Note

By James Poniewozik

Some personal business is going to keep blogging here light-to-nonexistent for the next day or two. In the meantime, I’ll turn this post over for your discussion of Fringe, which came back with a roaring return a week ago, but whose Friday episode I have yet to catch up on at this writing. Or, feel [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 362 days ago

Big Love Watch: On Thin Ice

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s Big Love coming up: The first two episodes of Big Love this season were a pretty grim affair, as the repercussions of problems and bad decisions from last season walloped the Henricksons repeatedly. “Certain Poor Shepherds” was—well, pretty grim as well, as the family was walloped by some new problems and [...]

+Review Movies | 364 days ago

The Rite: Anthony Hopkins Speaks of the Devil

By Richard Corliss
New Line Cinema

As an old exorcist teaching a young seminarian a few new tricks, Anthony Hopkins does his best to animate the latest entrant in an already swollen film subgenre

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 364 days ago

The Morning After: Stop… Pooping!

By James Poniewozik

So here’s the deal: Now that Parks and Recreation is back and Archer has returned, on Thursday night we have several sitcoms that are capable of delivering a killer episode. Last season I tried for a while doing a picture gallery of Thursday comedies with paragraph reviews, but I felt I managed to hit everything [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 364 days ago

Office Watch: Kirk Meets Picard

By James Poniewozik

Though I had read long in advance that David Brent (Ricky Gervais) would be making a cameo appearance on last night’s The Office, I expected it to be a quick hoot of an encounter without much significance. Which in a way it was—but it was also, in miniature, a statement on how each version of [...]

+Review Movies | 365 days ago

The Mechanic Review: Can He Fix It? Well, He Can Blow It Up

By Mary Pols
Patti Perret / CBS Films /Landov

Jason Statham raises his taciturn action hero game opposite Ben Foster in this capable remake of Charles Bronson’s macho 1972 classic

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Tuned In+365 days ago

TV Tonight: Archer

By James Poniewozik

As a critic, there are screeners I watch out of obligation, screeners I watch studiously and screeners I gobble up immediately upon getting them, like a starving man gorging himself on chocolates. FX’s Archer is in the last category, a hilarious animated spy parody (with voice talent including H. Jon Benjamin, Jessica Walter, Chris Parnell, [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | 365 days ago

Snow Day Video Break; Plus, Media's Snowcabulary Challenged

By James Poniewozik

There’s a lot of snow where you are, right? You’ll have to excuse me; I live in New York City, so I assume that extreme weather events that affect me also affect and preoccupy everyone else in the rest of the world. That’s what morning news shows have taught me! In any case, if you’re [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 365 days ago

The Morning After: Sweet Emotion?

By James Poniewozik

While I don’t believe I’ve ever missed a performance round of American Idol, I don’t watch most audition episodes. Because I’m going to die someday and I’ll have to account for how I spent my time on Earth. But I caught the a chunk of last night’s tryouts in Milwaukee, including perhaps the show’s most [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 366 days ago

Bachmann's Looking-Into-Camera Video Found! Mistake, or Genius?

By James Poniewozik

As I mentioned in my post this morning, there was a reason that Rep. Michele Bachmann was looking off at an odd angle during her Tea Party State of the Union response: she was speaking to the camera that was streaming her talk on the Tea Party Express website, rather than the media-pool camera. Oddly, [...]

+Movies | 366 days ago

Top 10 Historically Misleading Films

By Josh Sanburn
Everett

No one ever said that movies—even those about historical events—were obligated to reflect fact. Still, some have taken a few too many liberties.

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 366 days ago

The Morning After: Lights On?

By James Poniewozik

Lights Out, FX’s strong new boxing drama that I gave a positive review, has been on the ropes in the ratings,* and I have no time today to review last night’s episode at length. I am part of the problem. But I want to see if Tuned Inlanders have stuck with the series up to [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | 366 days ago

SOTU Roundup; or, What Is Michele Bachmann Looking At?

By James Poniewozik

When CNN announced that it would air not only the official GOP response to the State of the Union address but a live Tea Party response, given by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), I was skeptical. On the one hand, it gave the GOP two responses—a courtesy not afforded to opposition party factions, third parties or [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 367 days ago

House Watch: Back (Pain) to Basics

By James Poniewozik

Over at TIME’s Healthland blog (Swampland, Techland, Healthland—when will Tuned In acquire land?), my colleague John Cloud has been recapping House, M.D. From his writeup of last night’s “Carrot or Stick” (spoiler alert, kind of): They start Driscoll on an antibiotic (doxycycline), but soon he has another symptom: his leg muscles feel like they are [...]

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Tuned In+367 days ago

International Incident: Jersey Shore to Shoot Season 4 in Italy

By James Poniewozik

That’s right: MTV has announced that the fourth season of its hit Jersey Shore will send Snooki and the gang to The Boot, as part of the series’ ongoing effort to promote positive images of Italian American culture. I am hoping that it will look something like this (see above). Excerpts from MTV’s announcement after [...]

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Tuned In+Advertising | 367 days ago

The Morning After: Second Skins

By James Poniewozik

The MTV drama Skins is shedding advertisers faster than its cast shed shirts in their publicity photos. The past week, when controversy over the show’s sex-and-drugs content was compounded by purported fears that the show could constitute child pornography, saw a half dozen sponsors leave the show, including Schick, Taco Bell, GM, Wrigley, Subway and [...]

+Uncategorized | 367 days ago

The Night Shift: Larry King Breaks It Down For Conan – Stand-Up Comedy, Fashion Guru Ryan Seacrest, World’s Best Bagels

By Steven James Snyder

Larry King was on a ROLL last night on Conan, leaving the host dumbfounded when he wasn’t about to fall out of his seat laughing. The strangest assertion of all had to do with Ryan Seacrest and denim.