Arts

It’s summer, so the airwaves are flooded with cheap, easily digestible reality series.

Actually, yes, the United States did flirt with eugenics for a while, and Nazi Germany did try to vaporize whole populations. But the end results of those experiments were a lot less wholesome than the plot points in Captain America: The First Avenger.   Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a schmoe too wimpy to serve […]

“Man vs. Food Nation” Wednesday 9pm, Travel Channel My niece and nephew are wild about this show, which features “food enthusiast” Adam Richman as he crosses the country stuffing his face in restaurant challenges. The current fourth season features a twist, in which Richman takes on locals at each stop and coaches them through the […]

“Web Therapy” Tuesday 11pm, Showtime Lisa Kudrow takes another stab at the sitcom with this new, improvised series. Kudrow plays a self-absorbed psychiatrist who got bored with 90-minute sessions, and now bullies her clients into three-minute, web-based hit-and-run counseling bursts that are about as ineffective as they are offensive. Kudrow is of course best known […]

This week affords a unique opportunity to come in from the cold of the multiplex. You know what’s playing on the big screens. Did you also know that Thai writer-director Apichatpong “Joe” Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the top-prize winner at last year’s Cannes, has arrived on DVD? Uncle Boonmee Who […]

I was checking e-mail and puttering around the house cleaning. Very exciting.

Buck Brannaman is no ordinary horse trainer, which is unfortunate for some. Thanks to Cindy Meehl’s film about him, ordinary horse trainers now have a lot to live up to.

“Damages” Wednesday 10pm, DirecTV Channel 239 Satellite-TV provider DirecTV scores its biggest coup yet, snatching up FX’s critically acclaimed but only moderately watched legal drama as the latest in its exclusive-content offerings. “Damages” returns for a fourth season (it’s also been renewed for a fifth, to air next year) with Glenn Close returning as tough, […]

What were you doing when we called? Sleeping. You woke me up.   Tell us about your day job. I don’t have a job. Every day, I wake up, and then I write and practice lyrics for at least two hours. And then what I usually do after that is go to the Music Resource […]

“Torchwood: Miracle Day” Friday 10pm, Starz This popular spinoff of the “Doctor Who” series returns for a pseudo-reboot, with a much more American slant. That’s because this is a co-production between the BBC Worldwide and Starz, and us Yanks actually get to see it before the Brits. The sci-fi series will feature the three remaining […]