Two factors dovetailed to make Thursday night’s Republican debate lively, occasionally cut-throat television: It was the final set-to before the Iowa caucuses and thus the candidates’ last chance to reach a wide audience, and it was hosted and broadcast by the Fox News Channel, which knew how to dangle the red meat in front of the seven participants. READ FULL STORY »
The TV nominations for the Golden Globes were such a predictable mishmash of well-deserved semi-surprises, the usual suspects, and dismaying disappointments that, like the SAG nominations yesterday and the Emmy nominations perennially, it makes me wonder two things: Why do I — and you; we — get so het up about awards, and is America ever going to reward John Noble? READ FULL STORY »
On Sunday night, HBO aired the pilot of Luck, the new David Milch-created horse track series, this first episode directed by Michael Mann. The opening hour was an entrancing mixture of beautiful horses, stumble-bum gamblers, exciting races, and a tightly controlled yet open, emotional performance by Dustin Hoffman. READ FULL STORY »
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ABC News hosted the latest Republican debate on Saturday night (the candidates seem to like trying to get on the air just before Saturday Night Live airs, thwarting SNL writers from making up-to-the-minute jabs). The two hours saw the front-runners-of-this-milisecond, Mitt Romney and Newt Gringrich, engage in a few head-to-head confrontations. Gingrich uttered the sound-bite of the night when he defended himself against the charge of being a career politician by sneering at Romney, “The only reason you didn’t become a career politician is because you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994.” Romney, as he does frequently when confronted with an ad lib, looked flustered in response. READ FULL STORY »
Louis C.K. has a new comedy special that you can watch today — but it’s not on TV. Go to www.louisck.net as of Saturday noon EST, and five bucks will get you an hour’s worth of wonderful, shrewdly observed, periodically profane, brand new Louie material. Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater starts with Louis making his own kind of please-turn-off-your-cell-phone announcement, and a warning not to text or tweet during the show: “Just live your life,” he asks. READ FULL STORY »
Clad in a warm-tan barn coat and exuding holiday cheer, Rick Perry unveiled a new ad in which he asserts “there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.” READ FULL STORY »
“It’s time to sell out,” host China Chow told the remaining six artists on this week’s Work of Art. Of course, some would say they sold out when they signed on to Work of Art. But what sounded like a banal idea — exploring, as Simon de Pury said, the “art versus commerce” conundrum by having the contestants make art, sell it on the street, and then display it in the gallery ended up with one of this series’ livelier episodes. READ FULL STORY »
So many subplots, so little time. Sons of Anarchy closed out its strong season with a finale that was both magisterially dramatic and oddly hasty. The final episode of season four began with Lincoln Potter getting the FBI ready to close in on the Sons of Anarchy’s summit meeting with the Irish Kings. READ FULL STORY »
As its current season winds down, it’s become clear that Dexter may have peaked with season 4’s Trinity Killer storyline. When John Lithgow took his perfect, small-mouth sneer and walked off with an Emmy from the series, much of the fresh air left the show –- its formula (a season-long Big Bad plus a big, bad-romance subplot for sister Deb) became obvious and mechanical. UPDATE FOR LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE BELOW. READ FULL STORY »
Oh, my, what a shocker that Larry King: Dinner with King special was on Sunday night. King hosted a dinner at his house with his wife Shawn and a camera crew, with guests Conan O’Brien, Seth MacFarlane, Tyra Banks, Shaquille O’Neal, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Quincy Jones and Russell Brand. READ FULL STORY »
