Tasked with taking a headline from The New York Times and making a piece of art from it, the Work of Art contestants created some of their best and worst work to date, but the subhead that lingers over this season remains “Is this a vital reality show?” READ FULL STORY »
The Republican debate televised on CNBC on Wednesday night featured eight candidates engaged in an economics-themed tussle that will probably be overshadowed in the media by a Rick Perry gaffe and Herman Cain on the sexual-harassment defense. It took a mere 20 minutes for one of the questioners, Maria Bartiromo, to ask Cain about his extra-economic troubles. There were boos from the Michigan audience when she did, and cheers when the questioning was steered back to the issues. READ FULL STORY »
Work of Art this week was a graphic demonstration of the philistine sentiment uttered about modern art at least since Jackson Pollock first splattered paint on canvas: the old, “My kid can do better than that.” Unfortunately, this was indeed the case for many of the contestants paired off with child artists this night. READ FULL STORY »
They sit in judgment. Well, actually, they sprawl in judgment, their sneers at the ready. Beavis and Butt-Head may be the best TV critics ever, at least for a certain kind of TV. In the ’90s, they dissected the visual signs and verbal disconnects of music videos with the rigor of semioticians (Beavis and Butt-Head and Barthes). READ FULL STORY »
There’s a distressing pattern beginning to emerge in this season of Work of Art: When it comes time to determine which artist-contestant is going to be eliminated, there’s so much bad art lying thick upon the ground, picking a justifiably clear-cut loser is impossible. And as for the winner? It’s usually the creator of the least derivative piece, perhaps the one artist who provoked more than a “Meh.” Or as Lola said about another competitor’s work: “It’s kinda like, ‘Oh, yeah? And… ?’” READ FULL STORY »
The second week of Work of Art: The Next Great Artist was a mess; assembling the hour must have driven the show’s editors crazy. The hour started out with a demonstration of parkour, the strenuous, French-derived, running-climbing-leaping exercise done by daredevils on city architecture. The idea was to give the contestants and viewers a kinetic image for the week’s task: create “a piece about motion.” The artists were divided into two teams, told to come up with a theme, and put together two competing group shows. READ FULL STORY »
Finally, the second season of Work of Art: The Next Great Artist has arrived on Bravo, and with it, the Sucklord. Work of Art must have thought it died and went to heaven when this guy strolled in, disfiguring stormtrooper dolls and calling it art. The Sucklord — real name: Morgan Phillips — is a 42-year-old artist/huckster in the tradition of Jeff Koons who looks a bit like Jimmy Fallon doing an impersonation of a gelled twit. With this guy around, everyone becomes an inadvertent comedian. When another contestant, Michelle, said in the opening moments, “I don’t want to be the one who sucks” — well, Lordy, supply your own just-look-to-your-right punchline. READ FULL STORY »
The logo and stage set for The X Factor are dominated by a gigantic red “X,” presumably filled with the blood of contestants Simon Cowell has deemed unworthy and had drained. READ FULL STORY »
Predicting the Emmys, like trying to foretell any awards, is always a mixture of rooting for favorites and attempting to divine what the voting body of the Emmy Awards will do. By this measure, I didn’t do very well at all. In retrospect, I should have gone with shows and performers I really, really liked.
If you combine the number predictions I made here in Entertainment Weekly and on Goldderby.com, I attempted 24 categories. I correctly predicted nine. But if you look at my EW picks, they were divided into who “will” and who “should” win. Important lesson I learned here: If I had gone with my “should”s (that is, the ones I fervently hoped to win, but didn’t think Emmy voters would go for), my total would have been a much more respectable 14 out of 24. READ FULL STORY »
It’s rare that an awards show both rewards the people who really deserve those awards and is itself a rewarding show. But this year’s Emmy Awards was both. Led by spunky, clever host Jane Lynch, the Emmys were delightfully surprising — Margo Martindale! Kyle Chandler! Melissa McCarthy plus all the other Best Comedy Actress nominees onstage together! — and, in most ways, quite satisfactory. READ FULL STORY »
