Category: TV & Movies

  • The Girl in the Spider’s Web isn’t terrible, isn’t great

    Over the weekend I zoomed through the new David Lagercrantz novel, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which is the not-written-by-Stieg-Larsson sequel to the Millenium Trilogy that started with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’ll start with some thoughts about the book itself — so you have your spoiler alert — but I’ll wind…

  • High Fidelity, Pillow Talk, The Music Man: on technology and on ideas that rhyme, but then don’t

    Hey, this looks like a piece about old movies, and it starts out that way, but it’s also about how to think about technology. I even throw in a little Douglas Adams at the end. Ideas can rhyme like words do. When words rhyme, the rhyme helps us position ourselves inside a poem: we know…

  • Stewart, Cosby, Williams: Tough Times for U.S. Comedy

    Take heed, sirrah, the whip.    —King Lear to his Fool Jon Stewart’s farewell episode of The Daily Show last night proved joyful rather than sad as dozens of people whose careers took root and bloomed under Stewart’s watch turned up to celebrate and — despite his resistance — to thank him. For the under-30 crowd,…

  • Michael Wolff’s Just-Released Book is a Puzzler

    The dust-jacket of Television is the New Television: the Unexpected Triumph of Old Media in the Digital Age describes Wolff as a man with unparalleled access to powerful figures in media and the book as something that will change the reader’s thinking. Moreover, it frames Wolff as an archly bitchy writer with enemies who would…

  • Looking Back on “The Fall Guy” — an Aria of 80s Sexism

    The Lee Majors-crooned theme song from his old TV show “The Fall Guy” snuck into my head this morning.  It’s a stumper as to why or how this happened, and it proves only that I watched way too much TV in my youth. The series (about a stunt man who is also a bounty hunter…

  • Is Netflix moving away from binge viewing?

    American culture’s long nightmare has ended. Breath can release from empurpling faces across this mighty land: we now know Chelsea Handler’s next move. This morning, Variety broke the story: “Netflix Announces Chelsea Handler Talk Show to Debut in 2016: Comedienne to create new talk-show format and specials for streamer, after seven-year run on E!” How…

  • From the Archive: Why does “on demand” feel so… demanding?

    A kind tweet today from my friend David Daniel reminded me of this post, first published October 1, 2006. A look through my site found it a casualty of a domain transfer, but the always-useful Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive brought it back from the dead. Original version (with original comments) can be found…

  • On Medium: Season 2 of “The Newsroom”

    Just published a short piece on Season 2 of HBO’s “The Newsroom” over on Medium.com –“’Newsroom’ Season 2 Delivers: The problems of S1 turn into triumphs in S2.” Here are the first few paragraphs: I was crankily devoted to the first season on HBO of Aaron Sorkin’s latest intense one-hour drama featuring geniuses who have memorized…

  • Everybody’s a Muggle in Rowling’s “A Casual Vacancy”

    As I type these words I have reached page 160 of J. K. Rowling’s new novel, “A Casual Vacancy,” so I’m about one third done and have made enough progress to know that I’ll finish the book and that I can draw early conclusions. Note: there are no plot spoilers here past the first five…

  • WSJ misses the point of “Recipe Rehab” going to ABC

    This morning’s Wall Street Journal has a informative piece by Amir Efrati about how Everyday Health’s popular YouTube show “Recipe Rehab” is heading to syndication on ABC stations and how the YouTube and ABC incarnations of the show will cross-promote each other. Most importantly, the Journal reports that YouTube is hoping that it’s $150 million original…