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Rock Center with Brian Williams: When Bad Titles Happen to Good Anchors

This morning, NBC announced the title for its long-awaited primetime newsmagazine: Rock Center with Brian Williams, which will debut later this season, marks a big entry into the nighttime news business, with the network throwing its primary anchor and some of its greatest resources into a—oh, stop. I can’t do this. Because all I can [...]

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Entourage Finale: Bros Before Closure

HBO

The idea of doing a finale for a series like HBO’s Entourage seems to go against the very idea of the show. Whereas some series, like Lost or The Shield, demand a final closure or reckoning, Entourage has always been dedicated to the idea that things just go on. This is not to say that [...]

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Breaking Bad Watch: Thin-Ice Road Truckers

AMC

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, get off Google Earth and watch last night’s Breaking Bad. There have been a couple of mysteries hanging over the last few episodes of Breaking Bad. First: what does Gus hope to gain by cultivating Jesse and separating him from Walt? Second: what are Gus and the cartel [...]

Warrior: The Pugilists Are Restless

Chuck Zlotnick / Lionsgate

Compelling acting puts up a fight against some plausibility issues in this story of a mixed-martial-arts family feud

Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ No Longer A Teenager

Michael Linssen / Redferns / Getty Images

The seminal single from Nirvana’s Nevermind was released twenty years ago, on September 10, 1991. A look back at Nirvana on the cusp of stardom.

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Louie Watch: The Waving Is the Hardest Part

CK_HORIZ

I’ve been generous with the praise for the second season of Louie, so I’ll also be honest about last night’s finale, “New Jersey / Airport”: it was not one of my favorite episodes of the season. (If you’re wondering, I would include “Eddie,” “Country Drive,” “Duckling,” and the one or two other episodes that you [...]

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Dead Tree Alert: Ten Years After; Plus, Showtime’s Rebirth

I don’t have a piece in this week’s TIME magazine, but this issue, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, is a sweeping enough undertaking that I wanted to point it out. Rather than fill out the issue with stories and essays by bloviators like me, the issue focuses on the first-person stories of [...]

Top 10 Epidemic Movies

Mary Evans / Warner Bros / Ronald Grant / Everett Collection

You might find yourself wanting to hole up at home away from others after watching Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. Here’s a look at ten other pandemic-focused films to watch during your self-imposed quarantine.

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Breaking News! HBO Picks Up Sorkin’s Cable-News Series

While this may not count as the most stunning development in TV, HBO has made it official: it’s greenlighted a season of Aaron Sorkin‘s yet untitled drama set at a cable news network, starring Jeff Daniels as a talented but difficult high-profile anchor. With little to go on but the premise and Sorkin’s history, I’m [...]

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Rescue Me Watch: Taking the Cake

FX

Spoilers for the series finale of Rescue Me below: The easy shorthand for Rescue Me has always been that it was a show about the aftermath of 9/11. It was and it wasn’t. In a way, the question for the guys of 62 Truck is a question you could ask about America: what did 9/11 [...]

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The Morning After: Perry Shoots from the Hip, Wears Bullseye at His First GOP Debate

The positioning of the candidates at last night’s NBC News / Politico debate at the Reagan library told you all you needed to know: squarely in the center were Mitt Romney, the longtime varsity letterman in the GOP primary race, and Rick Perry, the hotshot new quarterback just transferred to the school who suddenly has [...]

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The Morning After: Whatcha Going to Do When You Get Out of Jail?

FX

Yesterday I posted some advance thoughts about Sons of Anarchy‘s season four debut and about the path it’s taken in the three years leading up to it. No time for a long writeup of the premiere, “Out,” but here are a few things that I found encouraging about the first episode (I’ve been sent the [...]

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Oscar Wants to Party All the Time: Eddie Murphy to Host Academy Awards

In one of the most stunning news flashes since the shooting of Buckwheat, Eddie Murphy has been announced as the host of the next Academy Awards broadcast, next Feb. 26 on ABC. Murphy was apparently recruited as Oscar host by awards co-producer Brett Ratner, who directed him in the forthcoming movie Tower Heist. Murphy will [...]

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TV Tonight: Sons of Anarchy Goes Back to Cali

FX

The third season of Sons of Anarchy was, shall we say, divisive. The chief issue that divided fan from fan, critic from critic, and creator Kurt Sutter from people who criticized creator Kurt Sutter was the season’s long sojourn in Northern Ireland, where the abducted son of protagonist Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) was spirited away [...]

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Plenty of Chances to Meet Fox’s New Girl

Fox is deeply convinced that you will love Zooey Deschanel this fall in its comedy New Girl. But if you are not thus persuaded yet, then by God, Fox is going to help you learn to love her by any means necessary. To that end, Variety reports, the network today will begin previewing the show’s [...]

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Breaking Bad Watch: Chickenman! He’s Everywhere! He’s Everywhere!

Ben Leuner/AMC

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, ask your elderly criminal uncle if he would change the channel so you can watch last night’s Breaking Bad. This month at the Emmys, Breaking Bad is going to step aside and make some room for other dramas at the acting-categories podiums, because it didn’t air a season [...]

Soderbergh's Contagion: Don't Touch Gwyneth Paltrow!

Everett

With Contagion, the real fear comes when you leave the theater. The film dramatizes, with brisk ruthlessness, the dangers of touching anyone who may be infected — or anything he or she may have touched

Top 10 Sweatiest Movies

Universal Pictures / Everett Collection

The arrival of Labor Day means one thing: our favorite season is coming to an end. To mark the end of summer, TIME takes a look at movies with copious amounts of perspiration.