“American Idol” Wednesday-Thursday 9pm, FOX Simon is gone. Last season was a disaster. A slew of new singing competitions are set to launch in the next 12 months. “Idol” needed change big time, and that looks like what it got. Ellen and Kara are out; unfortunately some idiot signed Randy to a multi-year contract, so […]
“American Idol” Wednesday-Thursday 9pm, FOX Simon is gone. Last season was a disaster. A slew of new singing competitions are set to launch in the next 12 months. “Idol” needed change big time, and that looks like what it got. Ellen and Kara are out; unfortunately some idiot signed Randy to a multi-year contract, so […]
When Blue Valentine comes to a theater near you, it will be preceded by its reputation. Given the automatic buzz of indie golden-boy director Derek Cianfrance returning from documentaries to narrative features with a film reportedly a dozen years in the making, the dust-up about its rating—NC-17, until the Weinstein Company successfully appealed for R—seems […]
“Off the Map” Wednesday 10pm, ABC Shonda Rhimes, the producer behind “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice,” goes for a hat trick with another drama about sexy doctors having sex with each other. “Off the Map” at least has a novel twist: It’s set in a remote South American village, so expect some unexpected medical cases […]
What were you doing when we called? I was working on an essay for an artist book that Lydia Moyer, a local experimental video artist, is doing. It’s a collection of photographs of old houses. Mostly she does experimental video, and this is a side project. Hypocrite Press founder Matthew Ferrell says that he is […]
Having grown up with a strict father (Michael Gambon) and a prominent older brother (Guy Pearce), an otherwise capable and courtly fellow (Colin Firth) finds himself with a problem. He stutters, severely. Colin Firth plays Bertie, a stuttering Duke who finds himself crowned King George VI of England just as the country goes to war. […]
“Live to Dance” Tuesday-Wednesday 8pm, CBS I’m all for the resurgence of dance in pop culture, but I wonder if we haven’t hit the saturation point with televised dance competitions. I guess we’ll find out. CBS tries its hand at the genre with this new show, headed up by Paula Abdul, who acts as both […]
Of what does true grit consist? Grit, presumably. But also something else, something that makes it easy to distinguish from false grit. True Grit the film consists of a young teenage girl in 1880s Arkansas and the old, fat, drunk, half-blind marshal she hires to track down her father’s killer. For the girl, true grit […]
“Kennedy Center Honors” Tuesday 9pm, CBS The year is nearly over, and a new one is on the way (unless the mad serpent god Quetzalcoatl devours us all first, but that’s not scheduled to happen until 2012). That means that awards-show season is almost upon us. To get yourself warmed up for the red-carpet back-slapping, […]
Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman, premiered locally at the Virginia Film Festival in early November, but returns in wide release to Vinegar Hill Theatre this week.
Scrooged Saturday 10am-6pm, AMC If your family is as sarcastic yet sentimental as mine, this 1988 masterpiece—aired all day by AMC—should provide appropriate background viewing as you unwrap presents and deliver thinly veiled personal attacks. There have been countless take-offs of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol over the years, but I’d argue that this remains […]