Elsewhere at time.com, TIME film critic Richard Corliss reviews Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, which airs in two parts on HBO tonight and tomorrow:
The “quiet Beatle” — the one who told an interviewer, “I’m even more normal than normal people” — was also the nicest
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The TV news-o-sphere has been buzzing for the last day or so about reports that Fox has threatened to stop producing new episodes of The Simpsons if its voice actors do not accept a substantial—as in, nearly by half—pay cut. Considering that the show has been one of TV’s biggest successes since it began life as a cave painting at …
Some might say that TV is too much a business of bean counters, but Arthur C. Nielsen, Jr., who died Monday, was perhaps the most culturally influential bean counter of them all. Because, after all, the beans whose counting he revolutionized were all of us.
TV is a commercial business, and shows (excepting public TV) are on the air …
In my review that posted earlier this morning, I neglected to mention one of the biggest reasons to root for the success of American Horror Story. It could give Ryan Murphy a full-time distraction, so that the new team of writers can get Glee under control, free from the need to throw in more and more insanity to fend off the boredom …
Friends, I am not here today to argue that American Horror Story is, if I may use a critical-theory term, “good.” At least if one judges it by such factors as coherence, consistency or plausibility of characters’ motivations. The new series (FX, Wednesdays) comes from producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. Like their current show, …
As the 2011-12 TV season begins its third week, it has claimed its first victim: NBC’s The Playboy Club, whose ratings plunged as low as its necklines, has been cancelled.
Playboy was one of the most hyped new fall shows this year, though the attention was hardly all positive; Gloria Steinem, some local affiliates and groups like the …
As I like to say, there’s one thing you have to give TV credit for: there’s a lot of TV on it. Too much for me to review, or even acknowledge, as one man with one blog. But if you have not noticed, my colleagues at Time.com’s NewsFeed have been beefing up their weekly TV coverage lately, today’s example being Melissa Locker’s recap of …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eF6vCv13bw]
As country singer and Monday Night Football jinglemaster Hank Williams Jr. learned yesterday, Godwin’s Law is real, and there are penalties for violating it. Appearing on Fox News’ Fox and Friends to talk politics, the conservative Williams, in a rambling interview, criticized Speaker …
Busy, busy, busy! As I mentioned in my Homeland post the other day, Sunday is quite the crowded viewing/blogging night for me right now, what with Breaking Bad wrapping up, Boardwalk Empire back in the regular rotation, and The Good Wife, Homeland and The Amazing Race, among other shows, competing for DVR space and time. In the …
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, put down that copy of Tom Sawyer—or David Copperfield, or whatever—and watch last night’s Boardwalk Empire.
Two men begin this episode of Boardwalk Empire, “Ourselves Alone,” in …
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, gather up the family and some of your closest armed guards and watch last night’s Breaking Bad.
When I take notes on any show I’m reviewing, I like to include little side …
As surely as there is always money in the banana stand, there is always eternal optimism—encouraged by remarks by Arrested Development principals every half year or so—that the cast members of the show will reunite again and make the much-rumored Arrested Development movie. Sunday at the New Yorker Festival in New York City, …
There may be nothing more gratifying and unifying for people than coming together in disdain for a past idea, now universally agreed on to be stupid. One of the greatest of these in American history is alcohol prohibition, not merely the impetus for the criminal events of Boardwalk Empire, but the case study for the idea that the best …
