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Wednesday, November 11 2009

POV: The Way We Get By

The Way We Get By focuses on the troop greeters' mix of loneliness and determination, the pleasure of feeling needed and the pain of growing old.

Tuesday, November 10 2009

V: Series Premiere

Any familiarity with the original V miniseries would mean that none of last week's premiere plot turns would be a surprise.

Tuesday, November 3 2009

By the People: The Election of Barack Obama

Now that the U.S. government looks mired in acrimony and frustration, it's good to remember when change seemed inevitable.

Monday, November 2 2009

The People v. Leo Frank

The People v. Leo Frank indicts not only the shoddy police work and lawyering, but also the public hysteria advanced by local newspapers.

Thursday, October 29 2009

Independent Lens: Journals of a Wily School

The first shot in Journals of a Wily School is filled with pockets, in motion, on a crowded sidewalk in Kolkata.

Tuesday, October 27 2009

Frontline: Close to Home

Like many of the subjects in this week's Frontline, Close to Home, Emma and Andy are surprised to feel uncertain about money.

Friday, October 23 2009

White Collar

In White Collar's premiere episode, the crime-to-be-solved-in-50-minutes is intertwined with sufficient long-term storylines to craft an appealing emotional texture.

Wednesday, October 21 2009

Independent Lens: Butte, America

Butte, America shows that as copper mine owners focused on exploiting resources, relations with workers deteriorated over decades.

Tuesday, October 20 2009

Frontline: The Warning

The Warning reveals that at least one person, CFTC head Brooksley Born, spoke out against OTC derivatives, over a decade ago.

Monday, October 19 2009

Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags

According to Schmatta, the garment industry's early energy and hopefulness had roots in the workers themselves, their immigrant backgrounds, their ambitions, and their loyalties to one another.

Sunday, October 18 2009

Occupation

Tensions between beliefs -- business and family, religion and nation -- provide a thematic focus for Occupation, a four-hour miniseries airing on BBC America.

Wednesday, October 14 2009

Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak

Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak is appropriately erratic and weird, part documentary, part video diary, and part cunning fantasy.

more Features

Friday, November 6 2009

Fast Food TV

The Next Iron Chef is not a show about cooking. It is a show about people freaking out; cooking just happens to be what they’re doing while they’re freaking out.

Thursday, October 29 2009

Syfy ‘Ghost Hunters’: Living Normally Within Paranormal Pop Culture

Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of Ghost Hunters have transcended the paranormal entertainment niche, become lasting pop-culture mainstays, and are busiest men in the ghost business.

Friday, October 23 2009

PopMatters @ 10

PopMatters celebrates its birthday this week with a series of essays on cultural changes over our 10-year lifespan. Today: Mark Reynolds on "The Long and Short of Long-Form Journalism" and Nikki Tranter on "Exit from Nowheresville: My 10 Years with PopMatters".

more Columns

Wednesday, November 11 2009

So You Think You Can Make Me Like Dance?

Rubenstein views dance much like his girlfriend watches a baseball game; the subtleties are lost on him.

Wednesday, October 28 2009

A Ghost Story of Dubious Origins

No matter the vercity of the tale, The Haunting in Connecticut has just enough creep quotient to keep me engaged, especially since I grew up a few miles from the house.

more DVD Reviews

Wednesday, November 11 2009

Man Stroke Woman: The Complete Series

This is an hilariously off-kilter sketch comedy filled with often unexpected payoffs and utterly hysterical visual gags -- in addition to its wickedly funny cast.

Zorro: The Complete First and Second Seasons

Thanks to Disney's desire to preserve its heritage for future generations to enjoy, these limited edition box sets are like stepping back in time and witnessing the series premiere as it originally aired.

Tuesday, November 10 2009

Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection Remastered

A TV gem from decades ago finds itself compiled in a DVD set that will delight its viewers, whether they've seen "The Germans" a thousand times before, or have never been anywhere near a Flying Circus.

Monday, November 9 2009

Merry Sitcom: Christmas Classics From TV’s Golden Age

The overarching theme among these stories is an often unacknowledged tension between affluent postwar consumer culture and a more austere mode of living.

Friday, November 6 2009

Adult Swim in a Box

This is a compilation for that large demographic that yearns for narratives about a large, talking milk shake ordering a wife from Chechnya, or the micronauts going on a breast-climbing expedition. You know who you are.

more Blogs

Wednesday, November 11 2009

Thursday, November 5 2009

Channel Surfing: V for Vacancy

Wednesday, October 7 2009

Tuesday, October 6 2009

Monday, September 28 2009