tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-120755482008-10-13T17:52:07.196-07:00entertainment, pop culture, and anything else that strikes my fancyKeithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comBlogger857125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-57402294138266212102008-10-13T17:36:00.000-07:002008-10-13T17:52:07.210-07:00

Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell) is an advisor to the FBI, called in to investigate scientific crimes and crises. He's received death threats for reasons unspecified, so he travels with Rachel Young (Marley Shelton), an FBI bodyguard. Essentially, this is yet another CBS crime procedural with a science twist: CSI meets The X-Files (though the science, it appears from the first episode, isn't going to

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-45185181117835199282008-10-13T15:28:00.000-07:002008-10-13T15:39:46.124-07:00

Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) is a New York cop; his current case involves a serial killer who abducts and murders young women, a case that takes on added urgency when his partner/girlfriend (Lisa Bonet) is kidnapped. On his way to the apartment of the prime suspect, Tyler is hit by a car. When he wakes up, he finds himself in 1973. Police work in 1973 was a very different thing, and Sam has trouble

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-44670140932601349802008-10-12T14:07:00.000-07:002008-10-12T14:38:16.701-07:00

Easily one of the year's best movies, with Anne Hathaway leading a superb cast. Hathaway plays Kym, who's been in and out of various rehab facilities for many months, and is being released from her current facility to go home for the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). Kym is slowly gaining control of her demons -- she says at one point that she's been sober for nine months -- but

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-32068335912155521482008-10-11T16:04:00.000-07:002008-10-11T16:15:47.531-07:00

Laurie Metcalf stars as Bobette Buffkin, who runs Prestige Payday Loans with the help of her three kids. Cooper (Jay Ferguson) and Brandy (Katie Lowes) love their jobs -- they certainly seem happier at work than they do in their unfulfilling marriages -- but Morgan (Jeff Hephner) has begun to have reservations about the morality of charging 25% weekly interest on loans to those who can least

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-29596792631729749042008-10-10T21:05:00.000-07:002008-10-10T21:26:45.082-07:00

Grace Valentine (Jaime Murray) lives in the Mt. Olympus neighborhood of Los Angeles with her three adult children, Danny (Kristoffer Polaha), Leo (Robert Baker), and Phoebe (Autumn Reeser). Their family business, Valentine Inc., seems to be widely diversified -- we see business cards for plumbing, construction, electricians, and so on. But the real business of the Valentine family is love,

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-90377708891341381322008-10-10T19:59:00.000-07:002008-10-10T20:09:43.438-07:00

Based on an Australian sitcom which must surely have been better than this uninspired mess. Molly Shannon is Kath Day, a divorcee who's finally settling into single suburban life when her daughter Kim (Selma Blair) moves back in, having left her new husband Craig (Mikey Day). Kath isn't at all happy to see Kim, mostly because her arrival will put a crimp in Kath's relationship with Phil (John

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-73819382953734845462008-10-04T19:22:00.000-07:002008-10-04T19:40:08.371-07:00

As part of her sister's bachelorette party, Bella Bloom (Elizabeth Reaser) -- yes, she's a florist, and isn't that just too cute for words -- gets a reading from a psychic, who tells her that if she isn't married within a year, she never will be. Further, Bella's soulmate, the man she's meant to be with, is a man with whom she's already had a romantic relationship. Right off the bat, this doesn't

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-77047700387095147402008-10-02T12:09:00.000-07:002008-10-02T12:31:09.831-07:00

Follow-up to In the Woods, which I liked very much. Cassie Maddox, a supporting player in that book, takes center stage this time. The events of In the Woods have led her to leave the Murder Squad of the Dublin police; she now works on the Domestic Violence unit. Her boyfriend, Sam, still works Murder, though, and he calls her early one morning, asking her to come to a murder scene. When she

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-87199627017277387732008-09-30T18:29:00.000-07:002008-09-30T18:42:46.423-07:00

I was disappointed by Buckley's last couple of novels -- Boomsday was a bit flat, and I couldn't even get through Florence of Arabia -- so I'm happy to report that the new one is a significant improvement. As Supreme Courtship opens, President Donald Vanderdamp is struggling with sub-Bush approval ratings. He's so unpopular that the Senate, led by Majority Leader Dexter Mitchell, is rejecting

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-57448990907274644882008-09-27T20:13:00.000-07:002008-09-27T20:28:23.086-07:00

Jay Mohr is Gary, a recently divorced father of two who's taking his first steps back into the dating scene. His ex-wife, Allison (Paula Marshall, in a spectacular rendition of the Ex From Hell), has just announced that she's marrying their marriage counselor (Ed Begley, Jr. at his smarmiest); 14-year-old son Tom (Ryan Malgarini) is terrified of girls; and preteen daughter Louise (Kathryn Newton)

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-68485599708651470542008-09-24T18:28:00.000-07:002008-09-25T08:19:52.574-07:00

Yet another installment in the ongoing CBS attempt to make a TV star out of Simon Baker (The Guardian, Smith). This one is an odd hybrid of House and Psych. Baker plays Patrick Jane, a former stage psychic who now uses his highly honed powers of observation as a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation. There is a Great Wound in his past, which causes him great pain while

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-78321099216722518092008-09-24T16:52:00.000-07:002008-09-24T17:01:24.343-07:00

Heartwarming family game show that will surely please fans of such things. For each episode, the Opportunity Knocks crew rolls into a new town and builds its portable set outside the home of that week's contestant family; the audience for each show is made up of the family's friends and neighbors. Four family members compete, each being asked a series of four questions about their family

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-42135976060022211572008-09-24T16:41:00.000-07:002008-09-24T16:52:32.213-07:00

Oh, what a mess this is -- an entire sitcom built around the embarrassment and humiliation of one man. It is marginally less depressing than, say, The Office, because at least here the embarrassment comes at the hand of chance and bad luck, rather than being doled out to all of the show's characters, by all of the show's characters. Our victim is Sam (Kyle Bornheimer), who is engaged to Melanie

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-10564045849109889332008-09-23T10:11:00.000-07:002008-09-23T10:20:54.593-07:00

Fascinating look at the how and why of traffic and driving. Vanderbilt studies such questions as why traffic jams form (and why they seem to suddenly disappear for no reason), how people behave in parking lots, and the usefulness of traffic signs. Many of his conclusions are counterintuitive. Many of the things that we think contribute to safety on the road, for instance -- increased signage,

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-10686659485216474502008-09-21T17:19:00.000-07:002008-09-21T18:40:50.041-07:00

The first episode will air on Wednesday night, but NBC has made it available for advance viewing at hulu.com and at nbc.com. Our hero is Mike Traceur (Justin Bruening), the long-estranged son of the original version's Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff, who makes a cameo here). There's another talking car -- this time, KITT stands for Knight Industries Three Thousand -- in which Mike will

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-60261651714533797972008-09-14T18:06:00.000-07:002008-09-14T18:19:09.291-07:00

J.J. Abrams, creator of Alias and Lost, brings us one of the fall's most eagerly awaited shows, a sort of updated version of The X-Files. When a plane lands at Boston's Logan Airport with everyone on board dead (and their bodies altered in inexplicable, disturbing ways), a multi-agency task force is quickly assembled to investigate. Representing the FBI is Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), who

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-80213429840248604712008-09-14T17:53:00.000-07:002008-09-14T18:04:03.332-07:00

At last, a happy surprise from the new TV season. Megan (JoAnna Garcia) isn't having a good day; her apartment's been burned out and she's been fired from her magazine job. Her editor, though, has given her a promising job lead that could give Megan the entree she's always wanted into the world of the filthy rich. Off to Palm Beach she goes to meet Laurel Limoges (Anne Archer), a business tycoon

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-50834406746548275182008-09-14T17:44:00.000-07:002008-09-14T17:51:13.431-07:00

There have been some awful sitcoms in the last few years -- The War at Home, Twins, Help Me Help You, Cavemen -- but in Do Not Disturb, I believe we have a contender for the worst sitcom of the decade. I'm not going to name any of the actors, because they aren't to blame; the show is so poorly written, sloppily directed, and badly conceived that the Royal Shakespeare Company couldn't make it

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-40879492224354489582008-09-14T17:26:00.000-07:002008-09-14T17:43:09.459-07:00

Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) works as a waitress in a cheap bar in Bon Temps, Louisiana. It's a crappy job to begin with, and it's not made any easier by the fact that Sookie can hear what all the drunks and other customers are thinking, which gets to be a pain after a while. And then in walks Bill (Stephen Moyer), whose thoughts Sookie can not hear, which is part of how she figures out that

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-51573333748342184032008-09-10T17:35:00.000-07:002008-09-10T17:44:47.829-07:00

If you enjoyed Wipeout this summer, then Hole in the Wall is made for you. It's another adaptation of a Japanese game show built around watching people fail at elaborate physical stunts and fall into pools of water. Two teams of three compete in each match (an hour long episode features two matches). They stand in front of a pool and a styrofoam wall approaches. There's a hole cut into the wall

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-31344222528417977442008-09-08T10:00:00.000-07:002008-09-08T10:00:00.967-07:00

An outsider's look at the world of Christian pop culture. The title is perhaps a bit misleading; the Rapture only pops up briefly, during Radosh's chapter on apocalyptic Christian fiction. For the most part, the culture Radosh explores falls closer to mainstream Christianity. There's a Christian equivalent to almost every aspect of mainstream pop culture -- rock music, stand up comedy, music

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-51900051506652047712008-09-07T17:29:00.000-07:002008-09-07T17:48:18.945-07:00

First volume (of four, so far) in Skibbins' series about Berkeley Tarot reader Warren Ritter. Warren reads the Tarot mostly for the money, and is something of an agnostic as to whether there's any validity to his readings. But when teenaged Heather Wellington asks for a reading, the cards are so unsettling, both singly and in combination, that even Warren is disturbed. He breaks off the reading

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-58432321752504835482008-09-03T15:52:00.000-07:002008-09-03T16:20:26.191-07:00

I never watched the original version of Beverly Hills 90210, and I am some 20 years north of the show's target demographic. So my reaction may not mean much, but y'know, as dumb teen soap operas go, this two-hour premiere wasn't half bad. Our heroes this time around are Annie and Dixon Wilson (Shenae Grimes and Tristan Wilds), teens who are unhappy about being hauled from their home in Kansas to

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-60509253294578766312008-09-03T12:35:00.000-07:002008-09-03T13:00:51.098-07:00

Peter is the sort of hopeless romantic who has always believed that he will meet his true love in some unlikely way, and fall for her in an instant. Every time he gets onto an airplane, some small part of thinks that this is where he'll meet her; she'll sit next to him, they'll strike up a conversation, and by the end of the flight, they'll know it's meant to be. So when Holly takes the seat

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12075548.post-19106249810435055582008-08-31T09:25:00.000-07:002008-08-31T09:28:28.108-07:00

Another Supporting Actress Smackdown comes to a close at StinkyLulu's this morning, as the full panel of Smackdowners reports in with their thoughts on the 1966 field.

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.com