What’s coming out of the idiot box.
So, while I was researching yesterday’s post about NewsRadio and its tragic lack of availability on streaming media, I happened to discover that the entire series is available on YouTube, although the legality of the uploads is somewhat murky. But better than that, I discovered that if an uploader does not …
Yesterday, we discussed the way streaming media — which has long held out the digital era’s promise of easy access to all filmed entertainment, anytime, anywhere — has in fact led to a balkanization of programming and resulted in a situation where many movies and TV shows are less available …
It was recently announced by the minds that run 21st Century FOX that, going forward from season 15, The Simpsons would no longer be released in digital video disc format. Taken as a specific instance, this is no great loss; the critical consensus is that The Simpsons lost its bite a …
Last week, Matt Singer wrote a wonderful article at ScreenCrush with the title “Stop Telling Me To Turn My Brain Off During Movies”. It was a refreshingly welcome, and long-overdue, answer to the too-frequent claim that, by paying any attention whatsover to a movie’s idiotic qualities, we are somehow betraying …
In yesterday’s review of Wayward Pines, it was noted that the 2015 Grand Champeen of ridiculous TV camp roles is Oscar nominee Terrence Howard. About Howard we know many things: we know, for example, that he loves his own reflection, and does not love women and their dirty, filthy vaginas. We also …
It would be hard to find a director who squandered his early reputation for excellence more quickly and more thoroughly than M. Night Shyamalan. Sunk partly by his own ambition and partly by his adherence to a structure that allowed critics to easily stereotype him as ‘the twist endings guy’, …
Netflix’s newest original series, Daredevil, is also the latest attempt by Marvel Comics’ multimedia engine to dominate the world of serialized television the way it has dominated the world of blockbuster movies. It is also the most recent attempt to bring the story of Matt Murdock, the blind attorney who defends …
Perhaps it is best, given his reputation as a rather difficult person to work with, that Dan Harmon confine himself to a medium in which the cast need not be in his presence, and the majority of the crew be separated from him by an entire ocean. With the debut …
I’ve been to a lot of major league ballparks in my day. I’ve seen games at fully half of the existing 30 MLB stadiums, and if you count ballyards that are now defunct or no longer used for baseball, that adds four more. While I haven’t had the chance to …
About a month ago, IFC — not exactly a broadcast powerhouse, but the home of some appealingly quirky programming including David Cross’ sporadically brilliant The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret — announced that it would not be renewing Garfunkel and Oates for a second season. This came as a shock to …
With the birth of direct streaming and binge-watching, the average cable provider (if a handful of multi-billion-dollar conglomerates can be said to have an average representative) has to fight even harder for our entertainment buckaroo. Once the undisputed masters of their realm, they now throw anything that sticks at the …
Anthology shows are all the rage these days because if the show is a hit, you can avoid the actors asking for too much money to do the second season by just firing everybody and bringing in a bunch of scrubs. Thanks, True Detective! The latest offering in this vein from …
The latest from the comedic mind of Tina Fey (and her less media-friendly writing partner, Robert Carlock), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt made its Netflix debut this week, inviting fans missing the golden days of 30 Rock to binge-watch its 13-episode first season. Unfortunately, I was not among the 30 Rock faithful; I thought it was …
NBC’s The Slap is based on a very important novel, and if you weren’t aware of that already, you will be within two minutes of the first episode. The ponderous voice-over — by Victor Garber, no less! — drops with a thud, delivering lines like “For a moment, Hector luxuriated in …
No television program currently on the air has likely suffered more invidious discrimination than Comedy Central’s Broad City. Now in the early goings of its second season, the show follows the hapless misadventures of two directionless New York twenty-something women (Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, playing not even slightly veiled …
