Category: Opinion

LB: The TV Shows I Actually Watch

Glad You Asked Department 6/17/13

question_ditkoToday’s question comes from Lydia, who wants to know:

When you’re sitting back and chilling, what TV shows do you watch? Are you a fan of shows that are critical darlings, or do you secretly love the kind of genre stuff that most people won’t admit to getting into? For that matter, are you secretly a reality show fan? You can trust me with your secrets. I won’t be judgmental. Or not too much anyway.

I get asked questions like Lydia’s quite a bit – mostly when hanging out at my favorite coffee house (hey, it’s the Seattle area – everyone here’s got a favorite coffee house), so even though I know every reader is going to have a judgment about this (because every reader is, after all, human) here’s my reply: read article

Herbie J Pilato: It’s A “Mad Men” World (But We’ve All Been Here Before)

Patterns_Serling
All the elements of MAD MEN are here in Rod Serling’s 1955 drama, PATTERNS. For reals.

by Herbie J Pilato

According to a recent report from Reuters of Rome, Oscar-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci, during a tribute in his honor by the American Academy, claimed disappointment with the Hollywood feature film world that once inspired him. Instead, he prefers to watch television shows like Mad Men, explaining that such programming offers superior casting and direction above and beyond movie-house productions.

Bertolucci, who guided classic cinema gems like Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor and Novecento, said his “generation had an affair with American culture, there’s no doubt about it. A street lamp and a fire hydrant made me sing in the rain….But the American films I like now do not come from Hollywood studios but from television series, like Mad Men,” among others. read article

Alan Spencer: This Business We Call the Biz

Alan Spencer Capture

Alan Spencer is a genuinely cool guy. He’s the creator of the cult classic late ’80s TV comedy SLEDGE HAMMER! and the all-too-obscure IFC series BULLET IN THE FACE, and those are just for starters. 

In other words, not only is he a cool guy, he’s a funny one too. Occasionally, though, he gets a bit serious. Like here: read article

3DTV Is Officially Never Going to Happen

And for better or worse (um, we’re not on the “worse” side when it comes to this), it’s all because of ESPN.

That’s right. Sports killed the 3dTV craze, just like video killed the radio star:

espn3dby Kyle Wagner

That was it. That was 3DTV’s best chance. ESPN just decided to discontinue its push for 3DTV sporting events, deciding its time would be better spent focusing on traditional high resolution broadcasts and Tim Tebow daguerreotypes. And that, in a nutshell, effectively kills 3DTV’s chances of ever going mainstream. read article

Kathy Sees Epic

by Kathy Fuller

The gangs all here.
The gang’s all here.

I kicked off summer with a less than epic bang on Monday when I took my youngest daughter to the $5 showing of Epic at our local theater. A couple things I learned is that a) every mother and their kid under seven goes to the $5 matinee and b) I have no idea why they called this movie Epic.

As a kid’s flick it was enjoyable enough. The animation was pretty good. Not Pixar quality but little else is when it comes to movies like this. The story was okay–a girl shrinks and finds out there’s a hidden world filled with talking slugs, smiling plants, and leaf men. There’s danger–she must not only save the pod which saves this world but she has to get back to her world. There’s humor–a three legged pug steals the movie. And there’s romance–although I don’t know how that works now that’s she’s big and he’s the size of a bug. But it’s a kid’s movie, so I’m trying not to think too hard.

What it isn’t is epic. So why the title? Why set yourself up for epically bad epic jokes? What does epic mean in regard to the story, anyway? And when I peek on imdb.com, why did it take five writers to write a movie based on a book? A movie that wasn’t the least bit epic? read article