My column in the print edition of TIME this week is about this week’s travails of News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch, and how his empire has been rattled by the very forces with which he built it: tabloid gossip, political access and the sharp-elbowed pursuit of both. It includes a disclosure statement so long I decided to make it the lede …
dead tree alert
Dead Tree Alert: Breaking Bad Breaks Back
It may be Harry Potter day in the rest of the entertainment world, but here at Tuned In, it’s Breaking Bad weekend. The new issue of TIME carries my feature on the return of the AMC drama, including a set visit I made to Albuquerque last spring. (And no offense to the citizens of ABQ, but I am very glad not to have to spell …
Dead Tree Alert: Avenging Grace
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, my column in this week’s TIME will seem familiar. It’s essentially my post from earlier this week on judge-and-jury Nancy Grace and the Casey Anthony trial, tightened to fit a page in the magazine, and updated to cover her reactions to the not-guilty verdict that night and the next morning (when …
Dead Tree Alert: From Oprah to Olbermann
My column in the dead-tree issue of TIME out today looks at the return of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, not so much from a review perspective but looking at Olbermann as the latest example of a media star leveraging his or her brand. Oprah launched the OWN channel, Glenn Beck is turning his show into an online subscription network, …
Dead Tree Alert: Happy Father's Day, Louie!
In this week’s TIME, I have a feature on Louis CK, whose amazing, idiosyncratic comedy Louie returns to FX next Thursday. The piece looks at the unusual financial and creative deal that he has for the show, and how that allows him to make a show that’s a more individual vision than just about anything on TV outside, say, South …
Dead Tree Alert: The Twimmolation of Anthony Weiner
I’m writing on deadline for next week’s print TIME magazine, so in lieu of a fresh blog post right now, here’s the thing I wrote for this week’s print version of TIME, a.k.a., “My last thing I am writing about Anthony Weiner, I promise, I think.”
My recent column places Weiner in the recent but already storied history of celebrity …
Dead Tree Alert: High Manxiety
My column in this week’s print TIME magazine reports from the upfronts on a trend I noted more briefly here after the fall-schedule announcements: the peculiar and specious trend of sitcoms about the “emasculated” modern man. It’s most blatant in new comedies like Last Man Standing, Work It, Man Up and How to Be a Gentleman, though …
Epic Win: HBO's Game of Thrones
HBO’s fantastic (in more than one sense of the word) Game of Thrones debuts Sunday, and my review is in the new issue of TIME. It includes a few quotes from a long interview I did last month with author George R. R. Martin; I’m going to post the full (well, edited) interview in installments, starting this afternoon.
The series, as you …
Electoral Sweeps: Trump Said to Plan Announcement of Prez Announcement on Apprentice
According to Newsmax, Donald Trump will announce the next step in his political career on the season finale of his reality show. As did Jefferson and Churchill before him.
Reports the conservative website, Trump will use the finale to announce a press conference a few days later, at which he will in turn announce his candidacy. There’s …
Dead Tree Alert: Dramalot
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftchdNDF_kQ]
After months of controversy, the miniseries The Kennedys finally debuts Sunday on Reelz Channel, which is probably way up there in your digital cable guide somewhere. (Try looking near Golf Channel En EspaƱol.) In this week’s TIME, I look at the history of political-football …
Dead Tree Alert: The NPR Hit Job; Plus, Congress Votes to (Not Really) Cut Funds
When I planned to write my print TIME column this week on NPR and the James O’Keefe tapes, I was concerned that public radio might no longer be in the news by the end of the week. Silly me!
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to cut off federal funding to NPR. Here’s what the vote does not mean: that Congress will cut off …
Dead Tree Alert: Dept. of Homeland Sincerity
When I first pitched my editors for a return review of Parks and Recreation in its third season, the last thing I expected is that the show would end up being politically timely. But while TV’s best sitcom is scarcely a hard-hitting political statement, it’s hard to avoid the coincidence of a show about quirky Midwest bureaucrats …
Dead Tree Alert: Anthony Bourdain's Guilty Pleasure
Surprise: My column in the redesigned culture section of TIME this week is not about Charlie Sheen! The other day I posted briefly about the season-debut Haiti episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. For the column I screened more of the upcoming episodes and spoke to Bourdain about how his show uses food as a medium to explore …