I am so looking forward to the start of the new season of Mad Men in two weeks that I have gone to work at the agency. That’s my self-assembled avatar being welcomed by Don Draper and Roger Sterling (right), as Peggy, Pete and Joan look on (left) . If you want to make one …
In case you missed it, Jon Stewart‘s merciless evisceration of Wall Street and CNBC on The Daily Show was a sight to behold. Someone could have stopped this fight in around the fifth minute, but I’m glad they didn’t.
You’d think that HBO, the network that for seven seasons gave us a perfectly pitched story of the personal and professional life of a criminal monster, would have done a better job with the story of Saddam Hussein, but House of Saddam, a four-part miniseries that begins airing Sunday, disappoints. The son of an interfering …
At the Burns Center Monday night, Ginny and I were part of an audience that premiered American Fervour, one of a four-part BBC series by Professor Simon Schama called American History: The Future that will debut in January. Monday’s episode was about the intersection of religion and politics in America, and would probably be a …
I got my set of Mad Men Season One DVDs (in the clever Zippo lighter-like box) the other day, and, in anticipation of the start of Season Two on July 27th, immediately plunged into a review of the opening dozen episodes of what is now clearly the best show on television. What’s most interesting about …
Had a happy lunch today with HBO’s endlessly delightful Kat Pongracz at Un Deux Trois. She swore that their new series Generation: Kill will be the greatest thing in military-themed TV since Sgt. Bilko. Plus she paid. (From right to left, above: Kat, me, waiter’s finger.)
Political buffs, malcontents, and those who wish to stay home and avoid Indiana Jonesy-crazed throngs at the tenplex are in for a treat this weekend when HBO debuts Recount, their new film about the most absurd moment in American political history, that is, the election interruptus of 2000. Although the film was directed by Jay …
Being the world’s most reliable consumer of historical dramas, I obligingly clicked on HBO for the first two episodes of its seven part series on John Adams, which was titled, with no-frills certitude, John Adams. The show was as dutiful, as earnest and as joyless (and ultimately less moving) as a big bowl of All-Bran. …
Was The Wire the most existential drama in the history of television? Episode in and episode out, all those with dreams or standards, no matter which side of the law stood on, were brought low if not destroyed in a world in which cynicism, corruption and indifference governed human affairs the way gravity governs the …
Had a lovely time today talking to Matthew Weiner, the Executive Producer of Mad Men, the most excellent AMC series. I was talking to Weiner for USA Weekend about The Apartment, the Billy Wilder classic now in a Collectors’ Edition DVD. Weiner was so smart and articulate about the film, and very generous with his …