I’ve been looking through a new edition of Ansel Adams in Color, a book first published in 1993, nine years after his death, that’s been re-issued this year with 20 additional photographs. It’s a book full of subtle, long-deliberated pictures, which is pretty much what you would expect of Adams, and it led me to think about Adams and …
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FNL Gets the Ball Back
Friday Night Lights returns to DirecTV tonight, and my review (which was held for a week in the print magazine) just posted at time.com. So far, season 4 is not just characteristically excellent, but it’s reinvigorated by the device of sending Coach Taylor to start over at the down-and-out East Dillon High.
I don’t have DirecTV, but …
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The Best Episodes of 2009
Yes, it’s that time of year, when people who work at magazines with lengthy production schedules must start thinking about lists of The Best Things of a year that still has two months to go. And I’m asking for your help.
It’s no state secret that I do two 10-Best TV lists: best series of the year, and best episodes of the year. Best …
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The Morning After: Not the Fault of My Receiver
My live-primetime-TV viewing is going to be limited for the next week or so, and for once, it’s not my Tivo’s fault. I’m having some house work done which has put my primary TV in storage for a while. So I’ll be more dependent than usual on Hulu and on whatever episodes I get in advance on DVD; for everything else, my morning-after posts …
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Ex-Letterman Writer on Dave's (and Late Night's) Problem With Women
Throughout the David Letterman blackmail/affair imbroglio earlier this fall, part of the debate was: was it just sex, or was it sexual harassment? The latter question depends not just on whether Letterman’s lovers felt pressured, but on whether other female staffers felt the affairs created a hostile work environment.
Well, now at …
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TV Tonight: You Gotta Be Sincere
ABC airs It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown tonight at 8 E.T. I don’t know if Charles Schultz ever read Albert Camus, but there’s something about the whole Peanuts body of work that espouses a kind of hopeful existentialism. The characters are in absurd situations; like Sisyphus, they are doomed to suffer the same failures over and …
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In Other News, Turns Out That Talking Paper Clip Was Annoying
So Microsoft has a new operating system to launch. It wants your attention. It wants to reach the young people, who like the Family Guy, which is on the television machine. So Microsoft hired Family Guy’s creator Seth MacFarlane to produce a comedy variety special on Fox sponsored solely by the new Windows 7. Then Microsoft watched the …
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BSG Returns (on DVD Only) with The Plan
In the DVD era, fans of series and movies have come to expect commentary tracks, with directors, stars or writers talking over scenes about what was going on in their heads or offstage at crucial moments. Today, the makers of Battlestar Galactica—who are already keeping the franchise alive with next year’s Caprica prequel—are …
More on Terry Riley’s Resignation in Miami
The big surprise on Monday was the announcement by the Miami Art Museum that MAM Director Terry Riley, who came to the museum just three and a half years ago, will step down immediately as director just one week after the museum unveiled the design for its new building. On Monday night Riley sent out a “Dear Friends” e-mail to clarify …
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This Was CNN: Where Have Its Viewers Gone?
CNN is a sister company to TIME within Time Warner, so let me be unambiguous and without corporate favor when I say that its latest round of primetime ratings are in the dumpster. Bill Carter of the New York Times reports that for the first time, CNN will finish October in fourth place among cable-news networks in the advertiser-followed …
Terry Riley Leaving the Miami Art Museum
That was fast. I mentioned a few weeks ago that it’s not unusual for a museum director to step down after seeing through a major new building or addition at the museum. But it is a bit unusual for them to leave immediately after the architect’s plan has been unveiled, especially if they haven’t been in the job that long to begin …
Top 10 Concert Movies
From Hendrix to Hova—TIME rocks out with the greatest concert movies to ever hit the big screen.
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Ricky Gervais to Host Golden Globes
While we’re on the subject of awards-show hosts today, NBC has just announced that Ricky Gervais will host the previously host-less Golden Globes on Jan. 17, having semi-auditioned by being the funniest presenter/accepter at various awards shows past. With Neil Patrick Harris having brilliantly hosted the Emmys and Tonys, who’s left as …