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Reviews of last night’s Idol performances are here. People who write “Discuss” in their blog posts are annoying, but–discuss.
Bottom line, it was a night of not-their-best perfs from the best singers (LaKisha, Blake, Melinda, etc.) and of fairly good outings by some not-the-best singers (Gina, Phil), so most of my reviews are somewhere …
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A reminder that my weekly Judging American Idol feature will be up again tomorrrow morning at time.com. The best thing about my reviews, for all of us, is that they get one contestant shorter every week.
I want to address a criticism, by the way, that has been made–well, not by any actual reader that I know of yet, but by the little …
Just last Thursday the Senate, at the instigation of Iowa’s non-profit-institution-spanking Sen. Charles Grassley, voted to freeze a $17 million budget increase for the Smithsonian as a way to create pressure for reform in the operations of the office of Lawrence M. Small, the high living ex-banker who is the Smithsonian’s Secretary. Or …
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Attention, Viacom executives: See that TV-looking thing above this post? It’s called “embedded video.” It’s what you get when you don’t lock up your content like Rapunzel in a tower, and when you let people who actually like your shows share them with other people. These people are called “fans.” The sharing is called “free publicity.” …
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Hola! Soy James!
I’m not sure if you need to be a parent to find this TV Funhouse Dora the Explorer parody funny. But if you’re a parent of a Dora-aged child, it’s likely you’re too beaten down by propagating the species to actually stay up for Saturday Night Live. So thank God for YouTube, Mommy and Daddy’s Little Helper.
It’s not …
A few weeks ago I posted about the threat of demolition faced by a Paul Rudolph office building in Boston that was in the way of a planned new tower and plaza by the architect Renzo Piano. Now it turns out that Piano has quit the project. He had been hinting earlier in the press that he had disagreements with the developer, Steve …
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God help me, I actually find myself defending Katie Couric for the second time in a week. Couric’s 60 Minutes interview with John and Elizabeth Edwards (see it here, read the transcript here) has been criticized–at Swampland, among other places–as an insensitive hit job.
Watching the entire interview (rather than the excerpts that …
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SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched Battlestar Galactica yet, stop. I will not talk falsely now; the hour is getting late.
SCI FI Channel Photo: Carole Segal
So that was kind of a big one, yes? The makers of BSG had promised that the end of this season would be shocking and would entirely change the direction of the show, which on …
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The vampire squid compels you with his hypnotic eye to watch Planet Earth. Discovery/Stephen Downer
Is it worth spending $1000 or more to watch a single TV series? I’m generally as tightfisted as the next TV watcher, but if I hadn’t already loosened my deathgrip on my purse strings to buy an HDTV, Discovery’s Planet Earth might just …
Just yesterday, after having spent days reading about the travails of the free spending Smithsonian Secretary, Lawrence J. Small, and then about the somewhat helter skelter collection and exhibition policies at the Smithsonian American Art Museums, I posted this fleeting thought:
“What’s up with me? I just can’t seem to get into
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In my TIME column this week: Charles Gibson is ascending, Katie Couric is floundering–and with her may be going the last ambitions that network TV news can ever draw in new, non-aged viewers again. Here’s a taste:
Gibson’s success has been seen as a vindication of old-fashioned gravitas over flash. Which is fair enough; Gibson is a
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Let’s see, lots of museum news this week. Bad day for the Smithsonian, check. The Albright-Knox counting the new millions from its de-accessioning binge, check. But what’s up with me? I just can’t seem to get into spanking big institutions today. Am I just counting on Charles Grassley — ranking Republican on the Senate Finance …
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Calvert DeForest, best known as the diminutive, maniacally laughing Larry “Bud” Melman from David Letterman’s talk shows, has died at age 85. There’s probably no figure who captures the brilliant absurdity of Letterman, especially his early years, than DeForest, who appeared for years as Dave’s regular figure of bizarre, sprite-ish …
