“The new compact synths resembled an orchestra in a box; you didn’t need to have a whole band of instrumentalists. Suddenly pop was packed with duos who divided labour neatly between the composer-operator, and the singer-lyricist: Eurythmics, Yazoo, Tears For Fears, Blancmange, Pet Shop Boys. The shape of a synth-pop outfit was subversive, or at [...]

I was excited to get this three-disc set from Netflix, mostly because of the opportunity to see a rare mid-Seventies interview with David Bowie. After watching it the other night, I realized that I got more pleasure from the small idiosyncrasies of Cavett’s style and the show as a whole than any individual performance or [...]

It’s been widely reported that CBS’s “Love Monkey” is not much more than a mutual hand-job between the network and Sony/BMG—Teddy Geiger (his Sony debut drops in February, y’all!) as the new Beck, Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To” (distributed stateside by Sony) popping up in the background of a club scene, and main character [...]

For those of us who exclusively blame Fox for dropping from its lineup one of the most brilliant television comedies ever to make the airwaves, an article by Jason Mitell in Flow, an academic TV crit journal, will set us straight. Or at least give us the full picture. From Mitell’s perspective, Fox had perfectly [...]

I long for the days when mainstream dramatic television made a point of lecturing its viewers. Owing much to the ideology of government-issued “educational” films of the previous two decades, producers and networks, mainly during the glut of dramas that appeared during the late 70’s/early 80’s, would often take a schoolteacher’s stance on a hot-button [...]

Today’s Salon.com has the first in what promises to be a very interesting 4-part series about the increasing visibility yet astounding secrecy of Scientology. Apparently Cruise’s string of fascinatingly obnoxious behavior lately is a result of his ascending to the level of “OT-VII” within the cultish religion. It’s worth clicking through the advertisement.

Also, last [...]

I have a confession to make. I came very close to crying at the end of the final episode of the BBC’s “The Office.” No spoilers here for those who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it, but the remarkable balance of humor, empathy and pathos it elicited I had never before experienced, and I [...]