What’s good, bad and happening, from pop culture to high culture | Page 4

Idol Watch: Down to a Diddy-Dirty Dozen

Quick spoilers for last night’s American Idol elimination follow: Per usual, I watched the elimination round of American Idol on extreme fast-forward—the only way it should be watched—so sadly, I have no insights on what must have been the absolutely stunning preview of Red Riding Hood. A few highlights and thoughts, though:

+322 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: Dept. of Homeland Sincerity

By James Poniewozik

When I first pitched my editors for a return review of Parks and Recreation in its third season, the last thing I expected is that the show would end up being politically timely. But while TV’s best sitcom is scarcely a hard-hitting political statement, it’s hard to avoid the coincidence of a show about quirky [...]

+News Media | 322 days ago

Quake/Tsunami Takes Over TV News (Mostly), Will Test Foreign Depth

By James Poniewozik

TV news and social media snapped to attention early this morning (U.S. time) as news came of a 8.9 earthquake that hit off the coast of northern Japan and the tsunami that caused massive devastation and rolled across the Pacific. As I write, most news and broadcast networks are wall-to-wall in coverage—as well as The [...]

+Review Movies | 323 days ago

Red Riding Hood: My, What a Ridiculous Plot You Have!

By Mary Pols

Kimberly French / Warner Bros. Entertainment

A sexed-up, dumbed-down cross between the children’s fairy tale and ‘The Wolfman,’ ‘Red Riding Hood’ is mostly a snack for tweens between meals of ‘Twilight’

+Uncategorized | 323 days ago

Nostalgia Marches On: '90s Kid Classics Return to TeenNick

By James Poniewozik

Twentysomethings: welcome to old age! TeenNick—Nickelodeon’s teen channel, formerly The N—is planning to bring back a block of Nickelodeon kids’ shows from the 1990s in a late-night block, aimed at the original fans who are now college-aged, or older. Much older—like me, because I went through a period of obsessive fanhood for the surreal, indie-rock-laced [...]

+News Media | 323 days ago

The NPR-Elitist-Funding Battle: Mostly, Not About NPR or Elites

By James Poniewozik

Public broadcasting is one of the great bargains of government spending. For $400-odd million a year—the cost of a handful of Charlie Sheens—public subsidy gives us TV and radio networks that reach the most remote corners of a huge country. It also gives political culture warriors a convenient regular target to rally their base voters [...]

+324 days ago

Judging American Idol: The Final 13

By James Poniewozik

It was the first live night for American Idol‘s 13 finalists, and the theme was: songs by the Idols‘ idols! Who was worthy of worship and who had feet of clay? Click the pictures for my take: Read Last Year’s Review of the American Idol Final Performances

+Uncategorized | 324 days ago

Julianne Moore Is… Sarah Palin! Cast the Rest of HBO's Game Change

By James Poniewozik

HBO announced today that it has signed Julianne Moore to play then-Alaska-governor Sarah Palin in its coming movie Game Change, a behind the scenes account of the 2008 election that dishes dirt on Republican and Democratic campaigns.* (The film is being directed by Jay Roach, who helmed HBO’s Recount, about the 2000 election’s aftermath.) Should [...]

+Remembrance | 324 days ago

Columnist, Pundit, MTP Eminence David Broder Dies

By James Poniewozik

The Washington Post announced today that 81-year-old political columnist David Broder has died of complications from diabetes. The dean of Washington journalists (an unofficial title he carried most of his professional life) was one of the most important chroniclers and explainers of the American presidency for over half a century. Since the 1960s, he was [...]

+News Media | 324 days ago

Video Takes Down the Radio Exec: NPR CEO Steps Down After Sting

By James Poniewozik

After another bad public-relations moment (following the Juan Williams controversy last fall) in the midst of a federal-funding battle, NPR’s board has ousted CEO Vivian Schiller, according to NPR’s own media reporter. The move follows on the release of an embarassing, unfelicitously-timed sting video in which NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation) met with members [...]

+Uncategorized | 324 days ago

Glee Watch: Drowning in Goop

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up. This week’s episode of Glee was the one about sex, because apparently the other ones weren’t. Like many first awkward adolescent sexual experience, this one began clumsily, lacked subtlety, involved some embarrassing moments and included too many unwelcome visions of Academy Award® Winner Gwyneth Paltrow. But toward the [...]

+Uncategorized | 325 days ago

Michael Chabon to Fight Nazis With Magic for HBO

By James Poniewozik

Novelist Michael Chabon is developing a series for HBO, titled Hobgoblin, about magicians fighting Nazis in WWII. Now keep in mind that the project—on which Chabon is teaming with wife Ayelet Waldman—is in an early, pre-pilot stage of development. So as with all such embryonic projects (Aaron Sorkin’s cable-news show for HBO, or the Hollywood-gossip [...]

+News Media | 325 days ago

NPR Exec Pranked, Calls Tea Party "Racist"

By James Poniewozik

You may recall conservative video hoaxster James O’Keefe from such films as the undercover ACORN videos that solicited employees of the group for aid in a prostitution business. O’Keefe’s outfit has embarrassed another target today, at a politically pointedly chosen time. In the video (edited version above, full two-hour version available here), a former NPR [...]

+Uncategorized | 325 days ago

The Morning After: Grand Re-Opening Event

By James Poniewozik

The cruel realities of TV-critic triage caused me to drop The Event after sampling several episodes this fall, but NBC’s aliens-in-Alaska drama isn’t done with us yet. It returned last night with a two-hour special airing that found the detainees at war with one another, introduced Virginia Madsen as a troublesome Alaska senator and featured [...]

+Uncategorized | 326 days ago

Charlie Sheen Gets Fired. But Two and a Half Men Could Go On

By James Poniewozik

Confirming something that I suspect most Americans thought had already happened, Warner Bros. Television announced that it is immediately terminating Charlie Sheen from Two and a Half Men, following the actor’s stints in and out of rehab, restraining orders, allegations of violence and rambling weeklong media bender. The decision means a likely bonanza for Sheen’s [...]

+Uncategorized | 326 days ago

The Morning After: Franchise Players

By James Poniewozik

NBC Universal is a good-news / bad-news story where TV is concerned: the broadcast network has a big name but low ratings, but it has a number of successful cable channels that pay the freight, The natural question is: how could you take a kind of show that has worked well for its cable properties—say, [...]

+Uncategorized | 326 days ago

Big Love Watch: The Fugitives

By James Poniewozik

Before you read this post, switch off that rerun of The Fugitive and watch last night’s Big Love. “This is just so incredibly effed up.” —Ben Henrickson Language, young man! It still startles me at times when I realize that Big Love is an adult HBO drama almost entirely without swearing. If you can gauge [...]

+Remembrance | 329 days ago

Remembering Jane Russell: Brunette Bombshell

By Richard Corliss

George Hurrell / John Kobal Foundation / Getty Images

Back then they were called bosoms. Jane Russell had some, and Howard Hughes knew what to do with them. Russell’s breasts — not actors Walter Huston and Thomas Mitchell — were the stars of Hughes’s 1943 western The Outlaw. Lovingly encased in flimsy blouses and a seamless brassiere that the millionaire engineer Hughes had designed [...]