Linda Holmes

Are Women Really Missing From Film Criticism?

Linda Holmes — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:37:00 +0000

A new study from the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film has led to headlines claiming that women are missing from film criticism. "Female Movie Critics' Influence Shrinking, Says Study," reads the headline in the Chicago Tribune.

Breakin' The Rules: 20 General Principles Suspended In 'Fast And Furious 6'

Linda Holmes — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:49:00 +0000

1. Newton's Laws Of Motion

2. The Reluctance Of Brilliant Criminal Masterminds To Freely Confess

3. The Inability Of Two Things To Coexist In The Same Physical Space

4. The Integrity Of Vending Machines

5. Gravity

6. Gina Carano's Ability To Snap Most Of These People Like Twigs Pretty Quickly, If We're Being Honest

7. The Hardness Of Cars, Which Are Actually Kind Of Uncomfortable To Land On From Great Heights

8. The Assumption That Even Innocent Bystanders Who Do Not Have Speaking Parts Have To Not Die In Order For The Good Guys To Be Considered Entirely Successful

Really Most Sincerely Bad: Fox's Nasty 'Does Someone Have To Go?'

Linda Holmes — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:26:00 +0000

The biggest problem with pretending all of reality television is categorically odious is that it denies us the opportunity to identify and hold accountable what is actually odious. To those who insist that it's all gross — that no matter the documentary aspirations or good-natured competitiveness of plenty of unscripted television, it all belongs in the same giant dumpster — I am your Crocodile Dundee of distaste: Those aren't destructive and grotesque and irresponsible.

'Before Midnight': Jesse And Celine Are Older Now, And So Are We

Linda Holmes — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:42:00 +0000

[Note: Before Midnight is an especially difficult movie to write about, simply because for some people, even what has become of Jesse and Celine since Before Sunset is information that they don't want. But it's impossible — absolutely impossible — to write about the movie without talking about where they stand and what the premise is. I did my absolute best to spoil as little beyond that as possible.

Reaction Saturation And Sunday Night Television

Linda Holmes — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:57:00 +0000
Consider what goes on in your brain when you, for instance, you watch an episode of Mad Men.
First, you have a reaction. "That's weird" is a reaction. So is "yuck." So is "wow." "This doesn't make sense" is a reaction, "that's a great dress" is a reaction, and "WHAT?" is a reaction.
Next, you might choose to push on your reaction until it matures into a thought. "I didn't buy that conflict because I don't think Joan would take that position on this issue, based on past events" is a thought.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Cancellation Blues And Cultural Etiquette

Linda Holmes — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:24:00 +0000
To mark network upfronts week, we talk in this episode about the cancellation of shows, including the ones that came and went that we honestly can hardly remember as well as the ones — like ABC's delightful, hilarious Happy Endings — that break our hearts.

Notes On A 'Scandal': Fitz Is The Most Dumpable Man On Television

Linda Holmes — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:32:00 +0000
If you watch Scandal, you know that there, Fitzgerald Grant is the President of the United States, and that he goes by "Fitz." Now "Fitz," let's face it, is already a pretty punchable name, given that combined with his personality, it makes him sound like somebody with a beanie and a lot of polo shirts grew up, got even richer, had a son, and taught him how to give swirlies to the math team.

While The Audience Turned Away, 'American Idol' Found Some Great Singers

Linda Holmes — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:11:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMet8T87JU8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-aAwKQ2CMQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp1x6Mbs5SA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beUD20VZ8Fg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64S5Rn9mlxs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRTVnSioKDQ

A Farewell To 'The Office': The 10 Best Episodes

Linda Holmes — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:39:00 +0000
It really only hit yesterday: It's the end of The Office.
After nine seasons, Dunder Mifflin is going dark Thursday night, with an hour-long retrospective at 8:00 and a 75-minute episode at 9:00 that may or may not feature a cameo from Steve Carell.

What's On TV This Fall? The Networks Roll Out Their New Shows

Linda Holmes — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:31:00 +0000
This was the week of the broadcast network "upfront" presentations, which are the splashy ads for new programming that networks show to advertisers to entice them into ignoring their fears that everybody is fast-forwarding through all the commercials anyway.
Because the trailers for the new shows are ads, just like movie trailers are, it's critically important not to draw conclusions about what will be good and bad based on those ads when you bump into them. For one thing, a lot of shows will be retooled to some degree before they actually air.

Why Angelina Jolie's Op-Ed Matters

Linda Holmes — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:28:00 +0000
Pop culture does not mean celebrity culture; I have perhaps said this more often than anyone you're going to meet. Who dates, who gets a divorce, who has a tantrum, who has surreptitious photos snapped of him by mangy, grim opportunists — these things are not culture of any kind, popular or otherwise, unless there is something else at stake. They are curiosities, and given that we are curious creatures, their pull is not surprising, nor is it new, nor was it invented by the internet, or television, or Americans.

Watch The First Trailer For ABC's 'Avengers' Follow-Up

Linda Holmes — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:05:00 +0000
Over the weekend, ABC posted a trailer for Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., its fall show (time slot and premiere date to come) that jumps off from Marvel's Avengers universe, as seen in all kinds of movies that have made all kinds of money.
The series, created by Avengers director and TV veteran Joss Whedon, focuses on Coulson (Clark Gregg), who is apparently doing a lot better than he might have been last time you saw him, by whatever good fortune.

Christopher Guest Comes To HBO With A 'Family' Comedy That's Serious

Linda Holmes — Sat, 11 May 2013 09:29:00 +0000
Christopher Guest has made so many people laugh since he started making mock documentaries with This Is Spinal Tap in 1984 that his fans might be surprised to hear his response to Scott Simon's question on Saturday's Weekend Edition about whether he ever thinks about making a serious movie.
Referencing Family Tree, his new show for HBO starring Chris O'Dowd as a man discovering his roots, Guest says that even with comedy, the emotional content can still be critical.
"To me, this is serious," he says. "And I'm not trying to be glib.

Loving 'Gatsby' Too Much And Not Enough

Linda Holmes — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:41:00 +0000
[I really hope it goes without saying that this piece about the film adaptation of a decades-old novel gives away the plot of a decades-old novel. But: Be aware.]
The sheer zazz that Baz Luhrmann introduces into The Great Gatsby is so imposing in quantity that it's surprising that it can get out of the way enough not to be the biggest problem in the movie.

PBS Continues The March Into Streaming Programming

Linda Holmes — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:14:00 +0000
Let's start with a brief tour of streaming television online.
For quite a while, streaming television meant sitting and watching it on your computer. It wasn't ideal, for obvious reasons. Then, it got easier to sit and watch it on your phone. That wasn't ideal, either, if you liked the living-room experience. Tablets do a better job than phones of delivering a portable but less tiny experience.
But people who want TV to seem exactly like TV, the solution is either a smart TV, or some version of a set-top box.

Yippee-Kai-Yay, Mr. President: 'White House Down' Looks Very Familiar

Linda Holmes — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:12:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Dnvay5S7w

If Jeff Probst Were President

Linda Holmes — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:07:00 +0000
Note: It is 100 percent true and 51 percent relevant that this entire story was written inside my brain while I was in the dentist's chair under the influence of anesthesia. I began to think, "Jeff Probst [the host of Survivor] will not be happy until he is more important than tribal council. Until he is king of CBS. Until he is President of the United States. President Jeff Probst." So the entire thing is numbness-induced in so many ways. Make of that what you will.
President Jeff Probst's State Of The Union Address, delivered Feb.

At The Met Ball, Those Are Some Crazy Dresses

Linda Holmes — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:15:00 +0000
Monday night was the big night for unusual dresses (you may remember a previous post about Madonna's bunny ears): the Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, known as the "Met Ball." It had a loose punk theme (because the costume exhibit it's celebrating is punk-centric), but everyone got up to quite a bit of her own thing.

These Dogs, Cats And Robots Have A Few 'Tiny Confessions'

Linda Holmes — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:54:00 +0000
Let me tell you a quick story from NPR's move from our old headquarters to our new one.
When I was emptying out my old desk and workspace, in addition to all the shoes under my desk and an alarming number of vessels designed to keep coffee warm, I had quite a lot of books lying around. Some were upcoming books, most were old books, and a few were books I neither had any use for nor could bear to get rid of.

So Much For Bowling Scenes: What Is And Isn't Wrong With Number-Crunching Scripts

Linda Holmes — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:16:00 +0000
The words "grossed out" evoke enough of a watery 1980s vibe that they need to be saved for the times when they really apply: movie scenes where somebody sticks something in somebody else's eye, sewage spills, and so forth.
Having said that, it was hard not to be grossed out by a story in Sunday's New York Times about Vinny Bruzzese, an entrepreneur who offers "script evaluation" services, meaning that for $20,000, he

MTV's Musical Legacy: How 'Unplugged' Sold The Radio Star

Linda Holmes — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:30:00 +0000
It's generally understood that something about MTV was revolutionary.

Entirely Real Photos: Greetings From These ABBA Puppets

Linda Holmes — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:55:00 +0000
Of all the museums opening tomorrow that are devoted to supergroups of the 1970s, surely none is more hotly anticipated than ABBA The Museum.
You can dance. You can jive. You can visit the gift shop.
And you can see these puppets, which also appeared in a video in which you can see them in action. Are these more or less creepy than wax museum figures? It's a toss-up.

Shut The Door, Have A Suite: 'Mad Men' Steps It Up

Linda Holmes — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:53:00 +0000
[CAUTION: This is all about Sunday night's Mad Men. Obviously, if you haven't seen Sunday night's Mad Men and you still intend to, you might hold off.]
It's reductive to conclude that on far too many episodes of Mad Men, nothing happens. Of course something always happens: someone feels something, or learns something, or is locked in a continuous internal struggle with something. A dynamic continues to simmer, a memory comes to the surface, angels and demons battle for somebody's soul.
But it can feel a lot like nothing happens.

Armor And Anxiety: Tony Stark Is The New Captain America

Linda Holmes — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:10:00 +0000
Meet Tony Stark at the opening of Iron Man 3: insanely wealthy, possessed of every toy, and traumatized by an attack on New York that has left him restless, anxious, belligerent, and given to both hunker-down security measures and fate-tempting swagger.

Discovery's 'Big Brain Theory': Not That Kind Of Nerd TV

Linda Holmes — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:45:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0e6l7vwOFs

How 'New Girl' Got Smarter, Sexier, And A Lot Less Annoying

Linda Holmes — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:19:00 +0000
In the early days of New Girl, Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel) was a toddler-sized tutu made flesh: cute, affected, hard to actually dislike, but earning grins largely by doggedly evoking childhood's clumsy and doomed attempts at grace.

Can Online Shows Be Habit-Forming? Soaps May Provide Some Clues

Linda Holmes — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:01:00 +0000
In the world of television, there's nothing quite like a soap habit. People watch characters evolve not over the 10 or 15 seasons that might mark a long run in prime time, but over 30 or 40 years, until they have kids and grandkids — sometimes played by the same actors the entire time.
That's what has made the cancellation in recent years of big chunks of the soap lineup so upsetting to people — most recently in 2011, when ABC canceled both All My Children and One Life To Live.

Everywhere But Here, 'Iron Man 3' Is Already Huge

Linda Holmes — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:31:00 +0000
Iron Man 3 doesn't open in North America until this Friday (May 3), but this weekend, it's already up and whomping The Avengers at the international box office. The new adventures of Tony Stark, directed and co-written by Lethal Weapon screenwriter Shane Black, brought in $195.3 million. That beat a mere $185.1 million when The Avengers opened internationally to make it the biggest opening weekend ever in a bunch of countries, including Argentina and Indonesia.

How 'The Office' Took A Scene From The Heart And Shot It In The Foot

Linda Holmes — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:27:00 +0000
This has been a difficult year for The Office. There are only three episodes left after "Paper Airplanes," which aired Thursday night, and where 30 Rock rallied as it headed to the finish, The Office has seemed lost, particularly by devoting substantial time to world-building Dwight's beet farm, a remnant of a failed spin-off effort.

Ryan Lochte And The Easy Life Of The Professional Public Dummy

Linda Holmes — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:56:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZLqDHzWptI