Not a fantastic Office last night, but you know what? Thanks to the strike it’s the next to last one we’ll get for God knows how long, so for the moment I’m inclined to be grateful anyway. Michael’s going Survivorman in what appeared to be Pennsylvania’s only sequoia redwood forest was amusing enough, but this week the B plot beat the A …
South Park Watch: Carry On, My Wayward Sons
It may defy union solidarity to say it, but thank God we have South Park for at least one more week. “Guitar Queer-o” wasn’t the work of animation brilliance that “Make Love Not Warcraft” was, but it was pretty brilliant in its own right. Like that earlier episode, it showed Parker and Stone’s gift for getting nerd and game culture …
MSNBC Offers Too Little Green,* Gets No Rosie
“everything happens for a reason,” Rosie O’Donnell philosophizes in her all-lowercase r blog, announcing that her potential talk-show deal with MSNBC has fallen through. The reason in this case, reports the LA Times, was money–she wanted network money, they offered basic-cable money. Someone, apparently, neglected to tell her that when …
The 10 Best Coen Brothers Moments
The Coen Brothers return with the thriller No Country for Old Men, starring Javier Bardem as a psycho killer, Tommy Lee Jones as a saintly sheriff, and Josh Brolin as a man on the run. A look back at the Coens’ best movie moments.
Richardson’s Picasso: Part II
Yesterday I laid out the broad themes of the new third volume of John Richardson’s ongoing biography of Picasso. Over the next day or two I want to look at a few of his topics a little more closely.
It’s a truism of Picasso studies, and also a truth, that his art …
Strike Zone: 24 86ed, Office Downsized; Will It Be Short or Long?; Send in Ari Gold!
Let’s take care of the morning’s strike news in a hail of bullets:
* The strike is already claiming its first schedule victims. Fox has postponed season 7 of 24 (disaster or silver lining?) so that it can be aired in its entirety whenever the strike ends. The network also …
The Morning After: A Little Bit Country
Actually, the only part of Tuned In that is even a little bit country is the part that watches American Idol, and Nashville before it got cancelled. (Well, my iPod includes a couple Dixie Chicks albums, but mostly because I’m one of those East Coast communists who hates America.)
But surely there’s a Tuned Inlander out there who wants …
More Talk With: Neil MacGregor
Let’s continue that conversation about the Elgin marbles with the director of the British Museum.
LACAYO: Your museum has repeatedly taken the position that it will not discuss even the possibility of a temporary loan of some of …
Oprah Meets YouTube. Who's Bigger?
Someone evidently informed Oprah Winfrey that there was a medium that she did not yet own a major piece of. And you know what happens when someone tells Oprah that. And so it came to pass that Oprah set up her own YouTube channel.
What’s on it? Front and center, of course, there’s Oprah delivering a message to YouTube, not unlike …
Animation Wednesday Continued: My Two Beefs with Beowulf
OK, this is not exactly a post about TV. Well, it’s about the subject of a TV commercial. Give me a break. If this strike goes on for a few months, you’re going to see me doing posts about the commercials for Swiffer mops.
So I finally saw a spot for Beowulf, which opens November 16. I’m tremendously curious about the movie, although, I …
South Park: Not Bigger, Not Longer, but Unstruck
Since the writers’ strike started looming, one of the most frequent questions among Tuned Inlanders has been what would happen to South Park, which–unlike most animated shows–is finished at the last minute and thus doesn’t bank episodes in advance. My most frequent answer had been, “Um, good question.”
As it turns out, we get our …
The Morning After: Radar Love
If Reaper is turning out basically to be just a procedural with damned souls, it’s at least a pretty charming procedural with damned souls. Last night’s “Love, Bullets and Blacktop” episode didn’t venture into especially new territory, but it did capture the show’s laid-back appeal, from the lengthy bachelorette-party …
Richardson’s Picasso
I recently finished reading A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years: 1917-1932, the third volume of John Richardson’s definitive biography, which hits stores this week. This is a massive, intricate project, and to do it justice seemed to call for something longer than a quick on-line review. So I’m going to work my way through it this …