Tuned InUncategorized
The premise of this post is flawed. Because it’s pretty clear that the Academy doesn’t want to fix the Oscars, isn’t it? It wants them to run for three hours and 52 minutes. It wants them to be dull and self-indulgent. And it wants you to shut up and sit there and remember how much you love the movies, dammit, before rushing out the next …
Tuned InUncategorized
In the print edition of Time, my Culture Complex column is on America’s love affair, or at least its like affair, with lesbian talk-show hosts. Is it a landmark, or entirely unremarkable, that Ellen DeGeneres is uncontroversially hosting the biggest mass-media event besides the Super Bowl? Or is it a landmark because it’s so …
Tuned InUncategorized
UPN’s Gary & Mike
In the Tom-Sawyer, I’ll-let-you-whitewash-my-fence-if-you-pay-me-a-dollar spirit of modern business, here’s another post lifted straight from an idea in the Comments, where filmex identifies him/herself as a fan of short-lived series Significant Others, The Lyon’s Den, That Was Then and Related. I watch TV for a living, …
Tuned InUncategorized
SPECIAL LOSTWATCH NOTE: Since I’m still not officially on the company clock, I’m going to keep this brief. You want detailed analysis, you’ll need to pay a special premium fee. Put a quarter in the slot on your computer, and the Internet will send it to me.
* A bit of a blah, going-nowhere episode, presumably meant to set up a …
Tuned InUncategorized
This year American Idol is holding its first songwriting contest, to choose new songs for the finalists. But what American Idol really needs is a competition among the old songs. Some of them need to be voted off. Last night, Mrs. Tuned In and I brainstormed the beginnings of an American Idol Retirement List–overused, battered warhorses …
Tuned InUncategorized
Finally caught up with The 1/2 Hour News Hour, Fox News’ experiment in conservative political comedy produced by Joel Surnow, executive producer of laff riot 24. And while I wasn’t surprised to see that the show was as limp as the YouTube leaked clips suggested, I was surprised that it was as dated as most of it was. I mean, jokes about …
Tuned InUncategorized
Still on vacation, but I was watching Heroes and had to tell this to someone: the bit with the guy killing the grass radiating around him in a concentric circle? Totally ripped off from Carnivale, no? (Look around the 7:00 mark on that clip.) Granted, it doesn’t seem like the grim-looking dude in question is planning on healing anyone, …
Tuned InUncategorized
I’m on vacation this week. I’ll probably post occasionally, because I’m a sad, lonely man who needs the attention.
In the meantime, why not entertain yourselves by fighting with each other in the Comments section? I’ll start you off. The Office–are you on Team Pam or Team Karen? I say Beesly had her chance and Jim needs to move on. Have at it!
Tuned InUncategorized
It seems like just the other day I was speculating that, with the shifting political balance in Washington from Republicans to Democrats, activists who want more regulation of primetime TV would shift their focus from sex to violence. Oh, wait: it was. Well, today comes news that, in fact, the FCC wants to ask Congress to pass …
Tuned InUncategorized
Sunday brings us the third, and it looks like unfortunately last, season of Slings and Arrows, Sundance’s Canadian-import backstage comedy set at a theater festival. (No relation, the producers swear.) In this season, the once-struggling New Burbage festival is struggling with success, flush with money and praise from a recent hit but …
Tuned InUncategorized
Has there been a better episode of The Office this year than last night’s? (I’d ask if there had been a better episode of any sitcom this year, but that would be redundant.) The show worked on so many levels, used so many characters well, hit so many different notes of comedy and pathos that it’s almost as if it were showing …
Tuned InUncategorized
Maybe Tuned In readers don’t need to be pointed to my essay on Anna Nicole Smith in the new TIME magazine, since it’s essentially an expanded version of this blog post. But think of it as the DVD director’s cut.
There is one other thought I didn’t manage to work into the piece. Was anyone else bothered by the sneering classism in the …
Tuned InUncategorized
My encounter with the rough-and-tumble world of confessional-parents’ literature continues, as “new urban parent” magazine Babble’s Strollerderby blog hosts the first part of a Q&A with me, about my thoughts about Strollerderby’s thoughts (and thoughts and thoughts) about my thoughts. That’s right: the first part–the literary …
