Contest: Downton Abbey DVD Set
Posted on November 1, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Reminder: My policy on conflicts
HBO: Frances McDormand in Olive Kitteridge
Posted on November 1, 2014 at 7:00 am
Olive Kitteridge
Nell Scovell Pays Tribute to the Under-Used Women Alumnae of SNL
Posted on October 28, 2014 at 3:37 pm
The wonderful Nell Scovell, who helped Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg write Lean In
Critic Ann Hornaday made this point very tellingly in the Washington Post:
“That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”
That line from Richard Linklater’s classic 1993 comedy “Dazed and Confused” came back with an ironic vengeance this week, and die-hard fans of the film will know why: It’s spoken by a 20-something stoner named David Wooderson after a cute-looking teenager walks by. Wooderson is played by Matthew McConaughey, and the girl is a young actress named Renee Zellweger.
Is This the End of Television?
Posted on October 22, 2014 at 3:24 pm
Last week both cable giant HBO and broadcast giant CBS made announcements that signal the end of television as we know it. Both responded to the clear message of the market and said that they would make their content available in the form and via the delivery system consumers prefer — the internet. For the first time, viewers will be able to watch HBO movies and series via their HBO Go platform with a separate subscription, even if they do not get HBO via cable. And CBS will start showing its programs online in real time, as they are broadcast on television. It is certain that the other networks, premium and basic cable, will follow suit.
We will look back on the 1950’s-2000’s as the last time people watched the same program via the same medium at the same time. Once television sets had only four or five channels. Then, with cable, there were more than one hundred. Online-only content from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and YouTube and webseries on “stations” created by individuals and small groups will be at the same level as big-budget series like “Scandal” and “Game of Thrones.” This is great news for creators and consumers, but the big businesses behind the large-scale productions will need to be nimble to maintain revenues.
Clip: How We Got to Now
Posted on October 6, 2014 at 12:42 pm
How We Got to Now is a new PBS series with Steven Johnson explaining how six inventions and innovations transformed the future to create our world.
They are:
- REFRIGERATION – How our mastery of “cold on demand” helped give birth to at least four million babies, created the golden age of Hollywood and unlocked the secrets of the universe.
- CLEAN – How our battle against dirt created the sidewalk, the swimming pool, the flat screen and the iPhone.
- LIGHT – How our quest to harness light changed our genetic make-up, gave birth to Times Square, Las Vegas, video downloads and an artificial sun.
- SOUND – How the journey to harness sound created the modern world of instant communication, but also helped put thousands of planes in the sky, changed the face of warfare and created a new way for teenagers to rebel.
- TIME – How our journey to calculate time helped create international trade and travel, victory for the North in the Civil War, GPS and understanding of the origins of human life.
- SIGHT – How our quest to see better helped us see the world differently, whether right in front of our noses with the birth of eyeglasses or far beyond our visible universe with the creation of the telescope.