Television

Television Review: “Six by Sondheim” on HBO — A Fabulous Musical Showcase

December 10, 2013
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It’s possible to argue with several of Stephen Sondheim’s selections. Are all of these his best achievements? Yet it hardly matters, because the composer’s tales of his artistic life, culled from probably a dozen interviews, are completely fascinating.

TV Review: “Breaking Bad” Ends Well — “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”

September 30, 2013
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Over the past five years of Breaking Bad, the chemistry of fate has run its course.

Television Review: “Glickman” — A Rousing Sports Biography

August 26, 2013
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Before he was a broadcaster, Mary Glickman was one heck of an athlete, a youthful hero in New York known as “the Jewish Red Grange.”

TV Feature: Finding “The Inner Light” at the Star Trek Convention

June 14, 2013
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Google the favorite Star Trek episodes of all time and “The Inner Light” is on just about every top ten list.

TV News: “Mad Men” and the Mystique of the Sixties

June 11, 2013
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“Mad Men” gets all manner of undeserved attention. Yet I attend to it.

TV News: HBO’s “Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer”

June 8, 2013
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In Russia, the defenders of Nadia, Masha, and Katia have compared their plight to the victims of the infamous Stalinist “Show Trials” of the ’30s.

Television Review: Christopher Guest’s Humble “Family Tree”

May 16, 2013
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The only way to sort of enjoy “Family Tree” is with modest expectations; and indeed, this is the most modest of series, as Christopher Guest cuts his molars on TV with a program which rarely tries to be more than fairly amusing, mildly ambitious, a kind of bemused apprentice work in a new medium.

Book News: Forget the Insufferable “Mr. Selfridge” — Turn to Zola’s “The Ladies’ Paradise” Instead

April 15, 2013
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Mr. Selfridge drives me nuts because the storyline, the rise of a mercantile empire, calls for edgy  Darwinian conflict rather than paternal benevolence sprinkled with layers of powered soap opera.

Short Fuse: Meditating on the Psychedelic Realism of “Mad Men”

April 6, 2013
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But there’s something else going on in “Mad Men,” all the more because it’s latent, unannounced, episode by episode. It’s this thing about art and advertising, and the difference, circa that era, if any.

Fuse News: Rdio Creates Vdio, An Online Video Service

April 4, 2013
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Yesterday the folks behind Rdio.com, the online music subscription service, started unveiling Vdio, an online video rental and sales service.

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