So what we have here are two worlds. One, without God and controlled by thoughts of evolution, is a spectacularly dreary, unhappy place without love or meaning. On the other hand, even a fictional God brings the world meaning, joy,
After a couple of weeks of unsubstantiated rumors, it has been confirmed that the forthcoming film The Invention of Lying is indeed intended to satirize religion and religious believers. New York Post critic Kyle Smith has seen the film and
As overly serious police procedurals have begun to saturate the primetime network TV schedules, the FOX network has quietly but wisely been exploring alternatives. Introduced a few years ago, the highly popular House varied the formula by moving it to
Given the huge advertising and publicity push, plus the presence of star actor Matt Damon (Bourne spy film series) and star director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s series of heist films), I thought The Informant! had a good chance to win the
The latest episode of PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery includes a surprise: criticism of communism. The U.S. TV network PBS and the British Broadcasting Corporation, both government-owned, tend to soft-pedal the evils of communism while placing every imperfection of life in the
Filmmaker George Romero has had exactly one good idea in his life: the original, 1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead. Since then, he has been coasting on a reputation as a maker of smarter than average horror films.
Director Ang Lee’s films tackle a wide variety of ostensible subjects and genres, but they’re consistent in conveying antinomian-individualist platitudes. After his big international success with the superb martial arts saga “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” Chinese-born film director Ang Lee
Following on the heels of the strong opening weekend for the relatively intelligent alien invasion story District 9, Quentin Tarantino’s World War II adventure Inglourious Basterds opened at number one at the U.S. movie box office this past weekend, taking
Proving once again its claim to the hotly contested title of Stupidest Television Network, ABC has canceled “The Goode Family” and “Surviving Suburbia,” continuing their business strategy of desperately trying new things and failing to give them a chance to
The return of the popular mystery-comedy series Monk and Psych for new seasons on the USA Network (at 9 and 10 p.m. EDT, respectively) is a bittersweet thing for most followers of the popular show featuring Tony Shaloub as the
Weighed down by a depressing premise made all too apparent by the theatrical trailer and advance publicity which made the film’s title too obviously sarcastic, Jud Apatow’s Funny People opened relatively poorly at the U.S. box office, taking in only
The Philanthropist (NBC, Wednesdays, 10 p.m. EDT) is a bad idea for a television series, but in the execution it manages to be even worse. In fact, in making extravagant claims about the value of philanthropy, the show actually undermines
This year marks the 70th anniversary of Hollywood’s greatest year, 1939. Accordingly, Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the anniversary this month by showing 39 films released in ’39, starting with The Wizard of Oz. Throughout the month, TCM will also
Actor Karl Malden, who died at age 97, was a fine performer who stood for good principles and conveyed a sense of moral responsibility in his performances. Malden was instrumental in pushing the Motion Picture Academy to give a lifetime
The new film Year One is definitely taking a beating from the critics, especially conservative ones. Two reviews by my colleagues at Big Hollywood exemplify the complaints. Comedienne Victoria Jackson expresses immense disappointment with the film’s high proportion of obscenity
It will be a good thing if the Sandra Bullock romantic comedy The Proposal continues its box-office success—if Hollywood draws the right conclusions about why it did well. The film had a rather surprisingly strong opening weekend at the U.S.
The death of television personality Ed McMahon at the age of 86 marks the passing of a true original. McMahon was one of the very first Americans to enjoy the postmodern status of being a celebrity solely by virtue of
The centenary of John Wayne’s birth passed in 2007 with hardly any attention from the U.S. media, which shows both how out of touch the critical community is and how much more astute audiences are than the great majority of
The new Will Ferrell comedy, Land of the Lost, based on an astoundingly bad mid-1970s children’s show produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, is typical of Farrell’s films–it’s funny, imaginative, action-filled, nonsensical, and essentially well-meaning. Unlike most of his comedies,
Prolific actor David Carradine, best known for the Kung Fu TV series, the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill, and a series of ads for telephone directories, has been found dead in the closet of his hotel room in Thailand, where
Conan O’Brien played it safe in his debut as host of NBC’s Tonight Show last night. That’s a good choice, actually. The big question is: Will it last? As I noted in an article reporting on NBC’s choice of personable
The “Terminator” films are about the takeover of the world by machines, and unfortunately the series has itself manifested that phenomenon, being increasingly taken over by special effects and action sequences at the expense of identifiable human concerns. Terminator Salvation,
On the heels of a public-relations juggernaut with the inspiring (and arguably false) message that it’s “not as anti-Catholic as The Da Vinci Code!”,the cinematic conspiracy thriller Angels and Demons finished first at the U.S. box office during the past
Despite early polling data showing a distinct lack of enthusiasm toward the Star Trek movie reboot by J. J. Abrams (Lost, Alias, Cloverfield, Fringe, Felicity), the film had an excellent opening weekend at the U.S. movie box office. The film
Conservative critics of U.S. television programming are correct to observe that TV drama and comedy fiction series have seldom had clergy as positive characters during the past couple of decades. However, that does not mean that network series television has
Like the best works of popular culture, the ABC mystery-crime series Castle is both entertaining and edifying. It exemplifies an increasingly strong trend in the American culture: the use of grim, sensual, bizarre, disturbed, or perverse imagery and subject matter
As is sadly the case for all good things, the video website Hulu.com may well come under attack by the government, specifically in the form of antitrust action by the Obama administration. Socialism’s great horde of media apologists has begun
Yes, vampires are still a hot media commodity, but zombies are vying to knock them off the cultural pedestal, with the rise of zombie movies as a cultural force and numerous books about zombies hitting the stores, capped by the
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the FCC’s authority to impose fines on broadcasters for allowing obscene language on the air. By a 5-4 majority the Court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission did not violate the federal Administrative Procedure
Escape has been the theme for U.S. moviegoers in recent months, but audiences aren’t avoiding attending good, serious films; Hollywood is avoiding making them. The newly released, highly derivative thriller Obsessed finished first at the U.S. office this past weekend,
Last week’s episode of the Fox Network medical-mystery series House included a Big Event meant to shock the show’s viewers and send the story line in an interesting new direction, as one of the main characters of the series was
As noted in my previous articles on the CBS TV mystery-drama series Eleventh Hour (here, here and here), the show consistently presents interesting, intelligent, and fair-minded discussions of science issues in a dramatic (if often far-fetched) context. In addition, the
A good many people will watch the final episode of NBC’s long-running drama series ER tonight, given the show’s popularity over the years. I, however, will be watching something else: the season-ending episode of the CBS-TV mystery-drama series Eleventh Hour.
The latest PBS adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic novel Oliver Twist demonstrates the urgent need for reform of the taxpayer-supported broadcasting service–or an end to taxpayer funding for it. The temptation to “improve” on classic works of culture seems all
It’s all too easy for those who dismiss U.S. television and the culture as a whole as leftist, immoral, and fattening to pick and choose (and misinterpret) episodes and scenes that seem to confirm their assumption that the culture is
Produced by the justly respected team of Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr., and starring Mira Sorvino as a brilliant archaeologist and martial arts expert, NBC’s miniseries The Last Templar is a likable though fanciful and indeed frequently silly
USA Network’s Burn Notice, one of the best shows on television, returns tonight at 10 EDT. The espionage comedy-drama features Jeffrey Donovan as a fired CIA agent–the “burn notice” of the title refers to his termination, which continually threatens to
The decline of the mainstream media–a very good thing–is the real story behind an interesting L. A. Times article about Ben Lyons, a film critic on the syndicated TV show At the Movies. Critics and informed movie buffs alike both
Continuing the beneficial meltdown of the mainstream media, including bastions of the erstwhile counterculture (which long ago swallowed up the mainstream culture), Village Voice magazine has laid off three editors, including longtime columnist/editor Nat Hentoff. Hentoff, who wrote about jazz