The first Dear Sugar letter I read was from a woman who called herself Stuck. She had had a miscarriage when she was six months pregnant. Her doctor told her the pregnancy might have failed in part because she was overweight. She …
Tuned InTelevision
Head-on-a-Pole-arizing: HBO, Game of Thrones Apologize for Decapitating George W. Bush
A recent study on TV brands by a research firm showed that HBO (along with Showtime) is one of the most politically polarizing channels on TV, loved by Democrats, not so much by Republicans. Here’s something that is probably not likely to ameliorate that situation: putting the severed head of the most recent Republican president on a …
Rock of Ages Is Sometimes Fun-Awful—But Mostly It’s Just Awful
Though Tom Cruise fire-breathes some life into this ripoff of ’80s hair-metal rock, it’s still a ludicrously bad Schlock of Ages
Q&A: Mark Duplass Is the Hardest Working Man in Hollywood
That’s My Boy: Is Adam Sandler the Man?
His core fans are likely to love him as a rude, crude and socially unacceptable dad to son Andy Samberg
Your Sister’s Sister A Smart, Unconventional Relationship Comedy
Director Lynn Shelton sends two women and one man to an island for a few days of secrets, lies and sex
Sex Sells: Get Ready for Fifty Shades of Grey Merch
We all know sex sells, but will it sell stationery? How about home furnishings?
Those questions and more may soon be answered. The team behind E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, the racy novel that has spent 14 weeks on the New …
Tuned InTelevision
If House Hunters Is Wrong, I Don’t Want to Be Right
I don’t watch House Hunters a lot. But when I watch House Hunters, I watch a lot of House Hunters. Get me in the right bored moment, a holiday weekend, an aimless evening with nothing compelling on the DVR, and if I flip on HGTV I’ll watch 3 or 4 in a row. (Maybe more. OK, many more.)
It’s partly the diabolically clever way HGTV airs …
The Next Big Thing in Music: A 60-Member Band Chosen By Its Fans
Japan’s hit girl pop group, AKB48, is about to go global
Lord of the Ringworld: In Praise of Larry Niven
The quintessential—yet underappreciated—”hard” science fiction writer deserves another look
Tuned InTelevision
TV Tonight: Dallas Returns, 20 Years Later
In the original 1978–91 series of Dallas, J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) and his brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) fought each other over the future of the family oil business. In TNT’s remake, they’re back, but now J.R.’s son John Ross …
Director Lynn Shelton on Breaking the Hollywood Glass Ceiling and Making Emily Blunt Blush
Filmmaker Lynn Shelton made her name as a mumblecore mainstay with movies like 2009’s Humpday—which, like many of her films, was made in the Pacific Northwest with a small cast and a heavy reliance on improvisation. Her latest …
Greed, Melodrama and the Unexpected: What Made Dallas TV’s Greatest Happy Accident
The revival of classic soap opera ‘Dallas’ may be able to breathe new life into the glamor and melodrama of the Texan oil world, but it will never reach the insane, amoral heights of the original