Over the past few months I’ve been having a series of conversations with museum directors about the controversies over “cultural property” and the demands by nations like Greece, Italy and Egypt that museums in the U.S. and elsewhere return treasured antiquities. I sat down recently with Philippe de Montebello, director of the …
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JPDVD: Futurama Back on TV! Kinda!
TWENTIETH-CENTURY FOX
Nearly five years after its cancellation by Fox, Futurama returns today with the release of Bender’s Big Score, a straight-to-DVD movie. Although intended to ultimately be sliced and diced into half-hour episodes for rerun by Comedy Central (which acquired the reruns of the series), it actually hangs together well …
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Celebrity-Addicted Network Networks with Celebrity Addicts
You know what the problem with network press releases is? Not being able to hear the authors laughing maniacally to themselves as they type. But it’s easy enough to imagine when you look at VH1’s announcement for Celebrity Rehab, debuting Jan. 10, a reality show hosted by Dr. Drew Pinsky (Loveline), which is exactly what it sounds like. …
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Heroes Watch: Adam and Evil
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, secure your viruses and watch last night’s Heroes.
“When you’ve been around as long as I have, patterns become clear. Constant war, famine, disregard for the environment…”
Wow. At NBC, green really is universal. So at last we have a motivation of sorts for Adam. A plausible one, though? Keep …
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The Morning After: Chuck Upped!
NBC Photo: Paul Drinkwater
A little good news to jump-start your discussion of last night’s TV: Chuck has been picked up for nine more episodes this season by NBC, as has Life. If, you know, anyone ever actually writes new episodes of TV again. Did last night’s leave you wanting more?
National Gallery Brain Drain
A few weeks ago I posted about the drawn out process to find a replacement for Charles Saumarez Smith, who resigned way back in March as director of the National Gallery in London. Today the London Evening Standard is reporting that the job will go to Nicholas Penny, curator of sculpture at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, …
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JPTV: What I'm Watching Tonight
Sundance Channel
I briefly reviewed Sundance Channel’s new documentary series, Nimrod Nation, in the current TIME. I’d hoped to expand on that in Tuned In, but a couple deadlines are nudging me in the ribs and saying that’s not gonna happen anytime soon, so let me just suggest again that you check it out.
Think Friday Night Lights …
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Strike Watch: Levitating Hollywood With Our Minds
Add to your to-do list today: send positive thoughts to L.A. The negotiations between the studios and writers resume today, and with them, the last best chance for ending this thing by Christmas and salvaging the TV season. At Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikki Finke passes on word from a source that a deal may already be in the works. She …
Adventures in Donor Servicing
What’s more embarassing than doing a museum show devoted to a private collection that your museum hopes someday to get? Doing the show and not getting the collection. Ask the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
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Thanksgiving Aftermath: When Viewing Habits Collide
Bravo Photo: Barbara Nitke
Family holidays are about bringing back together what has been torn asunder. Children are reunited with parents, brother with sister, young with old. By getting back together, of course, families also discover how their members have grown apart, or re-discover differences they always had to begin with. …
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The Morning After: Cut to the Chase
SCI FI Channel Photo: Carole Segal
We’ll dedicate this thread to discussion of anything from the long Thanksgiving weekend, including, and especially, the Battlestar Galactica Razor movie, which I already reviewed below. Did your mileage vary?
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The Morning After, After: Praise for the Singing
ISABELLA VOSMIKOVA/ABC
Amid all the hype and schadenfreude around Viva Laughlin this fall, it’s worth noting that we already have a successful primetime TV musical on the air: ABC’s Pushing Daisies. While the knives came out for Laughlin, Daisies has quietly–which is to say, not so quietly–been having characters burst into song, to …
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New York City Attacked By Bears
“They call us Care Bears… because we care for human flesh! Mwahahah!” / NBCU Photo: Ali Paige Goldstein
Happy Thanksgiving. Now stop surfing the Web and avoiding your family! That’s why you have a television.