burning-questions

Teenagers Fuck Redux: Is 'The Reader' the New 'Porky's'?

STV · 12/03/08 08:27PM

The Teenagers Fuck phenomenon has seen some compelling discussion this week, a desperately needed change from the fanged chastity that so overwhelmed us during the build-up to Twilight's tween windfall last month. And while a new essay in The Guardian suggests young men in particular are a more sophisticated lot since the days of Porky's, another critic of one upcoming film has a different phrase for that: Child pornography.

Is Killing a Great Series the Answer to Stopping Bad TV?

STV · 11/04/08 05:05PM

How do you know when campaign season is over? Maybe when the boldest idea of the week comes from film and TV critic Marshall Fine, who argues today for the termination of TV series after one year. Even the hits! (Especially the hits, in fact.) And we might even sign on — with a few exceptions.Fine's logic is exactly that: literal and emotionally detached from the enduringly riveting qualities of shows like Mad Men, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, Grey's Anatomy and a handful of others. But wouldn't the outrage following those and other great programs' predetermined self-destruction after 12 or so episodes would be preferable to their having eventually squandered their legacies on so-called stunt-casting and/or firing controversies? Doesn't going out gracefully a la Rome or The Wire allow for a better fan memory (and presuppose a bump in DVD sales)? Can't we avoid syndication hell with Friends and Two-and-a-Half Men? Yes, yes, and yes, writes Fine, who points to the UK as an example of doing things right:

Coldplay's 'SNL' Freak-Out: Easy-Listening Performance Art, Awful, Or Both?

STV · 10/27/08 05:25PM

Whether you take or leave Coldplay mostly depends on your taste for their brand of overproduced nursery rhymes and moody rock-star glowering. But what of the megaband's performance this past weekend on Saturday Night Live, with frontman Chris Martin bounding through Studio 8A like a sort of atonal Bono? What of that insistent pitchiness and those karaoke-grade moves underscoring his most recent album's title track "Viva la Vida" — the single on which Coldplay's label EMI was counting to help rescue it from certain insolvency in 2009? In a post-Groban world where any court jester who tries hard enough can usurp his king's crown, is Martin's lunacy the un-self-conscious work of a born performer, or just another postmodern, funk-faking harbinger of SNL's obsolescence? We could go either way, though (SPOILER ALERT) the inspired back-bend at the end puts this just over the top for us every time. Team Coldplay? We think? [NBC]

How Many Martinis Does It Take Before Aspiring Model-Actors Forget They're Supposed To Blow That Manager They're Talking To?

mark · 11/19/07 05:40PM


Last night's episode of VH1's America's Next Most Smartest Model—easily the most damning basic cable exposé on the insufficient intellects of the mannequin class since E!'s 101 Best 'I Can't Believe That Pretty Dummy Just Said That Stupid Thing!' Fashion Show Moments—asked the age-old question: how shitfaced is too shitfaced to network in a bar stocked with people from the industry who can potentially help one achieve his or her dreams of stardom?

Who's Advertising In the 'New York Times Book Review'?

Emily Gould · 09/26/07 01:40PM

This weekend brought us the first iteration of the smaller, cuter Times book review. Last week we learned that the bestseller lists were being revamped and expanded, at the cost of one editorial page, in an effort to appeal more to advertisers. But who's actually placing ads in those pages?

mark · 08/01/07 03:46PM

Something we've been wondering to ourselves ever since we first heard one of their radio ads: Does adultery-positive dating site AshleyMadison.com have any association with James Woods' much younger girlfriend, or is the name just a happy coincidence? We're honestly curious. That is all. [LA Observed]