HBO Revisits 2000 Election with “Recount”

≡ Category: Television |Leave a Comment

On Sunday night, HBO aired its new film “Recount,” which delved back into the controversial Florida recount that determined the outcome of America’s 2000 presidential election. Days before the film (watch the trailer here) hit the airwaves, Charlie Rose conducted an interview with Kevin Spacey (actor in the film), Jeffrey Toobin (Senior Legal Analyst at [...]

This American Life on TV: Season II Starts Sunday

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A quick fyi: Season 2 of the television version of This American Life starts tonight at 10 pm on Showtime, and we’ve posted below the brief trailer for the new show. Meanwhile, the radio version remains the most downloaded podcast on iTunes ( iTunes - Feed - Web Site). It has been that way for [...]

The British Slant on the Mac v. PC Ads

≡ Category: Apple, Television |1 Comment

Across the pond, Apple is running a series of ads fashioned after the “Mac v. PC” commercials that have run so successfully in the States. Although the vocabulary and accent are naturally different, the gist of the British ads is essentially the same. Yes, Apple’s schtick translates well, and I’m declaring the third one [...]

50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time

≡ Category: Comedy, Television |2 Comments

Nerve and IFC have pulled together a fun list that counts down the 50 funniest sketches in television history. Happily, the list features many video clips, and this inspired us to post one of our own. Here we have John Belushi, appearing on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s, performing a classic bit called [...]

In Search of TV 2.0

≡ Category: Film, Media, Television, Video - Arts & Culture, Web/Tech |5 Comments

One of the things they promised us in the heyday of the 1990s Internet boom was the end of television and a brave new world of high quality video online, on demand. Well, we’re still waiting. Youtube is great for short clips, but not designed for the technical (or legal) challenge of serving up whole [...]

On Hanukkah

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For the first night of Hanukkah, we bring you a classic bit from Saturday Night Live (1989) starring Jon Lovitz called “Hanukkah Harry Saves Christmas.” You can watch the video directly on NBC’s site along with other vintage SNL videos. (Sorry, I couldn’t find an embed for this one.)
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Not The Daily Show

≡ Category: Television, Video - Politics/Society |Leave a Comment

As the weeks go on, more and more of us are starting to notice that Hollywood’s writers are on strike. One by one new television shows are running out of fresh material. But if you’re a fan of The Daily Show, (and, well, we are) you were hit practically on day one, since the topical [...]

The Nine Minute Sopranos

≡ Category: Television |2 Comments

The popular internet video, The Seven Minute Sopranos, has now been updated to include the last season of the hit HBO series. This means that you can get all six seasons (or 86 episodes) summarized in a speedy nine minutes. Watch below.
(P.S. HBO has just published The Sopranos: The Complete Book. Fans will want to [...]

The Complete Beatles in One Hour (and The Sopranos in Seven Minutes)

≡ Category: Music, Television |Leave a Comment

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has no shortage of good mp3s for music fans. This one is a little different: Here, in a clip called Run For Your Life, all of The Beatles’ UK albums are compressed at 800% into a one-hour MP3. It’s rather unlistenable, but nonetheless conceptually interesting. As for speed summaries, the [...]

The War: New Ken Burns’ Documentary Starts Sunday

≡ Category: History, Television, Video - Arts & Culture |Leave a Comment

Mark this on your calendar. Ken Burns, who has produced some of America’s most acclaimed historical documentaries, will air his latest film starting Sunday night on PBS. The War is a seven-part, 15-hour documentary that “tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from [...]

NBC Leaves the iTunes Fold

≡ Category: Apple, Television |2 Comments

Apple took the world of digital entertainment by storm when it started offering new television shows on iTunes in 2005. The big networks signed on (eventually) and it was suddenly possible to catch an episode of The Office or Lost for $1.99 on a video iPod or a PC.
NBC was one of the early adopters, [...]

Remembering Lenny Bruce and When Taboo-Breaking Comedy Collided with the Law

≡ Category: Comedy, History, Television, Video - Arts & Culture |Leave a Comment

Lenny Bruce (born Leonard Alfred Schneider) introduced a strongly satirical, taboo-breaking form of comedy during the 1950s and 1960s, which paved the way for some of America’s great comedians — Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Chris Rock, even John Stewart. And for ushering in this new era of comedy, Bruce paid a heavy personal price. In [...]

Meet Larry David (in Video)

≡ Category: Comedy, Media, Television, Video - Arts & Culture |Leave a Comment

HBO just started airing the sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, so it seemed fitting to serve up this lengthy interview with Larry David. The talk is very funny. No shock there. But it also gets into some good substance. How Larry got into comedy; how he struggled during his early standup years and had [...]

The Rise of the Cultureboxes, Part 2: Tivo

≡ Category: Media, Technology, Television, Web/Tech |Leave a Comment

The online magazine Slate runs most of its arts and culture stories in a section called “Culturebox.” Ironically, it’s taken the consumer electronics industry several years to catch up, but now it seems like every new gadget is marketed as a culturebox, from the shiny iPhone to the pioneering Tivo to the hot-running Xbox 360. [...]

Did Tony Get Whacked? (And The First Full Episode of John From Cincinnati)

≡ Category: Television |2 Comments

If you haven’t quite gotten the last episode of The Sopranos out of your head (clearly, I haven’t) … if you’re still mulling over what happened during those closing moments, then you may want to peruse a TV writer’s intriguing and informed take on whether Tony got whacked in the last episode. There’s a lot [...]

David Chase Speaks

≡ Category: Television |1 Comment

David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, smartly decided to spend some time in France while the rest of America watched and debated the last episode of his masterful series. However, he did agree to one interview, and it will apparently be his last on the subject. After this, it’s radio silence.
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Steve Jobs on DRM: The Business Strategy Behind the Manifesto

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Most of the outside world didn’t care. They didn’t even know what Steve Jobs was talking about. But within tech circles it was a big deal, a landmark moment. Jobs’ s anti-DRM manifesto, Thoughts on Music, moved us all closer to the day when music would be set free. (DRM = Digital Rights Management. [...]