“Racial Tone-Deafness” on “Girls”: Where’s the Black Best Friend?!?

[image stolen from NY Magazine's Vulture blog] I am actually kind of pissed off at this Jon Caramanica piece that begins, “Those looking for hints of racial tone-deafness on the second episode of “Girls,” last Sunday on HBO, wouldn’t have been let down.” The evidence for this?  “Jessa (Jemima Kirke), nervously facing down an abortion, [...]

Music Videos @ Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

Another visit in Cincinnati was to the Contemporary Arts Center, which for a while was the only building in the U.S. designed by Pritzker-prize-winning, Rem Koolhaus-protege, Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. From wiki: “A winner of many international competitions, theoretically influential and groundbreaking, a number of Hadid’s winning designs were initially never built: notably, The Peak [...]

*Louie* and experimental sitcom form

I’ve become sort of obsessed with Louie, the sitcom starring comedian Louis C.K.  Someone I know who’s in the comedy biz raved about him a while ago which finally prompted me to check out the show (which is on FX — I think the second season is currently going?  I have it set to “record [...]

Red-State shows: Breaking Bad and Friday Night Lights

We’ve been watching two Red-State t.v. shows, Breaking Bad and Friday Night Lights. In the recent NYT Magazine piece about Breaking Bad and its show-runner Vince Gilligan, the author pointed out that although BB has an audience as big at Mad Men‘s, it’s less visible than that show in the media, perhaps because whereas it’s [...]

This is Your Life, Genocide Edition

I take This American Life for granted and often it can seem too familiar and predictable. Some of the more famous voices on the show grate on me, and the giggles, awkwardness and teenager-y cuteness can feel contrived; sometimes I just want them to sound like grownups.  Yet, not so rarely they come through with [...]

America’s Got Aerial Dancing

Somehow it seems that whenever I turn on the t.v. I’m assaulted by Howie Mandel’s irritating goatee on America’s Got Talent.  I usually turn the channel ASAP, but the other day I got sucked into the Michael Lipari/ Ashleigh Dejon “aerial dancing” performance.  This completely cracked me up and I had to catch up a [...]

Curb Your Enthusiasm, shark, jump?

For a while this season I felt that Curb Your Enthusiasm had jumped the shark.  (No huge spoilers here, btw.) Or probably that’s the wrong phrase in its suggestion of a Rubicon-crossing into sudden badness; more a sinking into repetitive tics and self-indulgence of some of the show’s worst qualities.  Is it possible that every [...]

Kenneth Branagh as Kurt Wallander

Watched the first (of three, I believe) installment of PBS Mystery‘s versions of the Henning Mankell Kurt Wallander thrillers.  Last night was Sidetracked and I think in the next two Sundays they’re doing Firewall and One Step Behind. It wasn’t bad at all, was a creditable version, but was still mildly disappointing.  I didn’t really [...]

Amy Poehler as Kaitlin

I’ve only seen the first episode of Parks and Recreation so far.  This is the (sort of) spin-off of The Office, a mockumentary starring Amy Poehler as Leslie Knopes, a very enthusiastic parks-and-recreation officer in the fictional Indiana town of Pawnee.  Indiana’s national reputation took a boost when we went blue last November, but this [...]

What the Frack?: Battlestar Galactica

We’ve been making our way through the first season of Battlestar Galactica.  I’d heard good things about it, but I’m not the biggest filmed sci-fi fan and it felt like a big commitment.  What finally inspired me was running into an old acquaintance who has pretty hip/smart taste who declared that he believes it may [...]