Friday, August 19 2011
Comedy, Technology and DVD Extras: In Defense of a Dying Format
Media formats come and go, subject to the gale-force winds of technology and the retail market. Me, I'm still clinging to my Monty Python collections on VHS.
Thursday, August 18 2011
Zoë Howerska Dresses (Films) for Success
Creating a gypsy wedding dress, designing costumes holograms for of the far future, dressing actor Robert Carlyle, and finding the perfect prop for Rutger Hauer -- it's all just part of the job for costume designer Zoë Howerska.
Wednesday, August 17 2011
Weighing In: Fitness Films and Ordinary People
When fitness celebrities turn fat folks into fitness celebrities in their own image, self-preservation and betterment are eclipsed by the value of self-promotion. Remember the subjects undergoing these life-changing metamorphoses are “real” people.
Thursday, August 11 2011
The Return of 120 Minutes
120 Minutes returns to guide us through the alternative/indie/hip-hop/whatever-else universe. But what's a show to do when nothing's as hard to find as it used to be?
Tuesday, July 26 2011
Voluntary Amnesia in ‘Dollhouse’ and ‘Pygmalion’
Long before Dollhouse's Echo submitted herself to five years of memory loss, Eliza Doolitle of Pygmalion experimented with some personal tabula rasa.
Tuesday, July 19 2011
Talking About My Generation, ‘Mad Men’ Style
Getting older during the '60s was a cruel fate: it was unfair; it was depressing. But, in some respects, it was a party compared to getting older these days.
Tuesday, July 12 2011
Have You Seen This Man? Or Perhaps This Dalek? John Jenner and the Face of BBC Sci-Fi
Whether audiences see his face or that of a Dalek hybrid or robot, Cardiff-based actor John Jenner has a job to die for.
Monday, July 11 2011
Does ‘Treme’ Hate Modern Jazz?
Watching Treme, one might get the impression that modern jazz is the soundtrack for the soulless, and therefore has no place in New Orleans, pre- or post Hurricane Katrina.
Monday, June 27 2011
What Harm Can ‘Ice Road Truckers’ Do to Tender Young Minds?
We went into Ice Road Truckers with the best intentions for our eight-year-old, I swear. It's the History channel, right? It's educational!
Tuesday, June 21 2011
Reality, and Then Some, as Conveyed in ‘The Wire’ and ‘Oliver Twist’
The spoonful of sugar that The Wire employs in relating its harsh theme is all wrapped up in that medicine's themes of fatalism. The humor employed in Oliver Twist highlights the opposite: the needlessness of the system that allows orphans to starve to death.
In Praise of Silliness
They say you gotta laugh to keep from crying. A simple dose of pure silliness taken on a regular basis is much needed, these days.
Wednesday, June 8 2011
Characters, Compounds, & the Study of Change in ‘Breaking Bad: Season 3’
Walter White didn't just wake up one morning and decide he'd spice up his life by cooking methamphetamine and muscling his way into a business with life-or-death stakes. It was a chain of events.
Friday, June 3 2011
“Kill Yourself for Recognition”: The Odd Future of Young Celebrity
When anticipation of death combines with the cult of celebrity, stars are pressured to literally give up the ghost -- or at least produce the effect through artistic means.
Thursday, May 26 2011
Share the Stage, ‘Glee’—TV Feels a Song Coming On
The history of TV musicals is richer -- and stranger -- than you think. At least three sitcoms were singing long before Glee came along: That's Life, The Monkees and The Partridge Family. Before them, well, if I could sing it to you...
Wednesday, May 25 2011
Oprah May Say Goodbye, But I Say Hello
Not since the Beatles broke up has there been such a communal feeling of abandonment as there is with Oprah's final airing of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Tuesday, May 24 2011
Is ‘Glee’ the New Elvis, Really?
There's all this buzz that Glee has passed Elvis Presley for the most Hot 100 hits in history. But does this really put that two-year old show on the same level as the King of Rock 'n' Roll? Really?
Monday, May 23 2011
Comics Superheroes Leap Across the Great Cultural Divide
Bounding from the pages of comic books onto the screens of films and TV, our superheroes unite formerly divided interests -- comics geeks vs. everyone else.
Friday, May 20 2011
Killing Osama bin Laden and David Mamet’s Special Ops Drama, ‘The Unit’
Viewing the world through a haze of vaguely remembered TV shows, tough-guy dialogue and TV jingles, the news about Osama bin Laden’s death quickly turned thoughts to The Unit, the TV series created by once-great writer David Mamet.
Wednesday, May 11 2011
Dy(e)ing to be White: Whiteface Performance in Postracial America
On the surface, whiteface performers often exaggerate widely recognized and aesthetically pleasing aspects of white people and culture from a minority viewpoint: light eyes, light colored hair, swanky clothes, snobbish attitude...
Wednesday, May 4 2011
The Laughable Charm of Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen's idiosyncratic laugh colors both his film characters and his real-life persona. Like it or not, that laugh has a significant effect on how we watch his movies.
