“Glee” Tuesday 9:28pm, Fox When we left the musical rejects of McKinley High last December, everything had been wrapped up nicely. The glee club won sectionals. Mr. Schuester discovered that his wife was a lying sociopath and hooked up with the adorable guidance counselor. Finn realized he didn’t knock up his girlfriend. And Sue Sylvester […]
When Ray Harryhausen first heard in 2006 that Clash of the Titans, the 1981 film that he stop-motion animated, was being remade, he had one thing to say: “Oh. I hope not.” Harryhausen’s contributions to the 1981 film, although impressive for being a more memorable performance than Laurence Olivier as Zeus, also had a way […]
“Chopped” Tuesday 10pm, Food Network While we patiently wait for a new season of “Top Chef” (the next will be set in Washington, D.C.; in the meantime “Top Chef Masters” returns this week), we have “Chopped,” which is essentially “TC” for the ADD set. Each episode of “Chopped” features four different chefs, who are given […]
I am currently working on a series of still-figure paintings and drawings that feature lather
Right now I’m working on the first draft of a play tentatively called “Seven Variations,”
Hot Tub Time Machine is a movie with the courage to ask, “Man, what happened to us?” and the honesty to answer, “Oh, that’s right: We came of age as acid-washed coke fiends during Reaganomics, heavy pastels and Poison concerts.” It’s a movie with the wisdom to remind us that those who don’t learn from […]
“V” Tuesday 10pm, ABC “V” was one of the most anticipated new shows of last fall—it had such good buzz, in fact, that ABC bumped it up from a mid-season premiere so that it could air the first four episodes before winter hiatus. That may have been a mistake. The general consensus is that while […]
It’s not writer-director Noah Baumbach’s fault if Greenberg, about a guy named Greenberg, makes me wish for a movie called Zoidberg, about the friendless, incompetent, vaguely Yiddish, attention-craving crustacean physician from “Futurama.” “Oh, it’s all so complicated, with the flowers, and the romance, and the lies upon lies,” Zoidberg once lamented, sounding a note that […]
“American Idol” Tuesday, 8pm; Wednesday 9pm, Fox There was a moment in the last week of the semi-finals where I thought we could possibly salvage this miserable season. But then Lilly Scott, Katelyn Epperly and Alex Lambert got sent home. They each had flaws, but they were musicians with unique voices and points of view. […]
What are you working on right now? We’re in Charlottesville about a third of the year, and when we’re here my wife [Ann Beattie] is teaching and I’m working exclusively on the mural at Old Cabell Hall. I’ve still got another staircase-and-a-half to paint. It’s expected to take about four more years. It’s a full-time […]