Why is this Mad Men Watch being posted on the weekend? Three reasons. Because I had to think through my initial disappointment and confusion about season 4, episode 4: “The Rejected.” (Indeed, my first impulse after watching …
Top 10 Killer-Animal Movies
Movies have constantly taught us that animals want nothing more than to hurt, devour and take us down. TIME takes a look at cinema’s most memorable angry creature flicks.
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Robo-James Time Machine: Lost Finale Rewatch
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This is the end of Robo-James’ Time Machine Week, but Flesh-James still has another week on vacation. So I’m going to set up next week’s robo-posts by setting the Time Machine back a mere few months: to May 23, the date of Lost‘s finale. Next week, the complete Lost series DVD set comes out, and …
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Robo-James Time Machine: Saturday Cartoons With Weird Al
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First of all, my apologies for the quality of this video clip, which is not great. The content, however, is awesome.
Nowadays, TV networks have all manner of media and devices by which to imprint their fall shows on your consciousness before they debut. Advance video downloads. …
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Robo-James' Time Machine: Godzilla vs. Ultraman
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Don Draper and I turn out to have something in common. In a recent episode of Mad Men, Don takes fellow divorcé Lane Pryce out on a bender that includes a trip to a Japanese monster movie. Which took me back: not to 1964, but to the late ’70s / early ’80s or thereabouts, when the …
StoryCorps on PBS: Must-See, Can't-Miss, Your-Life-Depends-on-It TV
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Robo-James' Time Machine: Quark Lives!
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Robo-James' Time Machine: M-M-M-Max Headroom
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In the issue of TIME on newsstands right now, I have a brief Short List item on a treasure of ’80s cult TV just released on DVD: Max Headroom, the Complete Series. Sitcoms can be good at critiquing TV (30 Rock, Larry Sanders, e.g.) but dramas have a mixed record at this. (I still have …
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Programming Note
I’m going to be on vacation the next couple of weeks, resting my weary eyes and working with a team of the world’s finest sports physicians on a specially designed strength-and-flexibility-building regimen to recondition my overworked remote-control thumb. While I’m gone, Robo-James has been loaded with not one but two theme weeks of …
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TV Weekend: You Might Want to C This
Technically speaking, this is really TV Next Monday material, but I’ll be out next week, so a reminder: Laura Linney stars in Showtime’s cancer dramedy The Big C, debuting Aug. 16. You can read my impressions of the first three episodes here. There are some broad supporting characters and more than an echo of earlier Showtime dark …
Top 10 Movie Duels
From a three-way gunfight to a limbless sword duel, TIME takes a look at some of the greatest movie battles ever.
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Baby Fever! Anderson Cooper Vs. Congressman On "Terror Baby" Claim
As a father of two, I can certify that there is every reason to be terrified of babies. They deny you sleep. They bleed you into bankruptcy. They spout effluvia in every direction imaginable. They are explosive, people.
So I suppose it was inevitable that the U.S. would eventually experience a Summer of Baby Fear. Politicians advocating …
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Dead Tree Alert: The Power of Myth
My column in the print TIME this week expands on this earlier post, about how and why myths, conspiracy theories and misinformation persist despite—or partly because of?—their debunking in the mainstream media. [The column’s not currently online; I’ll link here if that changes.] Thanks here go to commenter archstanton68, who pointed …