newcritics

BBC America has a new show for their Sci-Fi Saturday line-up called Primeval. I watched the three first episodes this past weekend, on demand on cable and on air, and was really impressed. The premise sounds a little silly, especially as it involves dinosaurs, but it seems to work.
Eight years ago, evolutionary zoologist Nick Cutter’s [...]

Let me first start with an apology. Jennifer and I were perfectly aware that the Bravo’s final season of Project Runway started last night. Perfectly aware. But life got in our way, and somehow beat out Heidi Klum in our list of priorities. But for the sake of our audience (and [...]

Alright ladies and gents, are you ready? Have the contestants been suitably humanized so that you care who wins or loses? Has that crazily-haired Christian burrowed his way into your hard little hearts? More importantly, are you ready for Posh Spice guest judging?
Frankly, that last bit, I am not. Posh [...]

The second to last episode is always one of my favorites. We get to follow Tim as he makes house calls on all our designers. Seeing them in their natural habitats always humanizes the contestants. At home they are no longer the feral, caged creatures who are poked and prodded into odd [...]

First off, let me apologize for missing last week’s fun in the comments. I cannot believe I fell asleep before FEMALE WRESTLING OUTFITS. I’ve since seen the ep, and besides being mildly traumatized by the outfits, I’m sad that I missed what was surely a good time in our comments. Let’s hope [...]

Ah, denim. It’s the fabric of the masses, of the worker, of the proleteriat, and currently of my pants. Tonight our designers will be taking on this sturdy fabric. It will be interesting to see what the instructions will be - surely not just sewing a pair of fabbu jeans (though pants [...]

It’s already episode 7 of Project Runway, which for some reason surprises me. Since the holidays gave us that big gap between episodes, I’m not feeling as engrossed in the contestants as I feel I have been in the past. I don’t really have a favorite to win or a favorite to like. [...]

Last month I had the good fortune of attending one of my friends’ Sharon and Pat’s book parties. They have them from time to time to celebrate friends who are publishing memoirs, and they always include an interesting and diverse group of women, good food and excellent conversation. The author is always in [...]

Last week’s episode of Project Runway was billed as having an unprecedented challenge - and it did and them some. The designer’s were put to the test with menswear, and it was rather taxing on many of them. I’m surprised that the male designer’s don’t have more experience with this. If I [...]

This new season of Project Runway has snuck up on me and I haven’t yet availed myself of the copious information Bravo has on each of the contestants - including the models. I usually don’t start remembering contestants names until at least five or six have been axed, so excuse me if I refer [...]

Not all fall shows are direct rip-offs from past successes; sometimes they are spins on old standby genres, like Life, NBC’s new twist on the police procedural. In Life, Charlie Crews is a police detective who was convicted of a homicide and sentenced to life in prison. Twelve years later he is exonerated [...]

The fall season has begun, which means there are lots of new shows that are re-hashing premises we’ve already seen before. In Moonlight’s case, we are seeing another version of Angel, a vampire turned PI in Los Angeles. It takes the noir concept serious on a superficial level, which is maybe as good [...]

Hot, thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid. The first to hear the hum of the siren were those who couldn’t sleep – the ill and bedridden, the mothers with sons at the front, women crying for the [...]

Bernie Gunther is a classic noir figure: an ex-cop turned private investigator. He has a propensity for worn trench coats and pithy quips and a weak spot for women in trouble. Of course he was a cop in Weimar Berlin and turned PI after the rise of National Socialism. Instead of imagining [...]

I have never put much stock in the Emmy Awards, mostly because they never reflect actual talent on television. Two and a Half Men? Really? Boston Legal? These are shining examples of tv at its best? And it’s not like the people choosing haven’t seen shows like Battlestar Galactica, because [...]

The surprising new Wilco album, Sky Blue Sky, came out a couple of months ago. The band uses new media to brilliantly create buzz and sell tickets, in this case it had been streaming the album for windows of time on its website. I say “surprising,” because the relaxed album, at the surface [...]

(The first season of the regenerated Dr. Who starts tonight on WTTW, one of Chicago’s PBS stations. Check your local listings to see if it’s coming to you.)
As a child I remember stumbling upon the Doctor occasionally on PBS. (We didn’t have cable and I was (and remain) a bit of a couch [...]

The Copyright Royalty Board voted Monday to uphold its March ruling that will change the royalty structure for online radio stations. Under the old set-up, commercial radio stations all paid a flat fee and then paid 12% of their profits (source). The new set-up will apply until 2010 and will charge a flat [...]

Thursday night my brother and I went to see The Host (Gwoemul). I knew when I first read press about this movie that I would have to see this with family. My mother taught her children at an early age to love monster movies, Godzilla most of all. My brother probably inherited [...]

I have been somewhat out of it this awards season. I missed Golden Globes, Actor’s Guild, Grammys, and I know there were others that were probably telecast on Bravo or something. I only saw one of the Best Pictures (The Departed) and a handful of those with actors up for awards. I [...]

Once I knew a girl in the hard hard times
She made me a shirt out of fives and dimes
Now she’s gone but when I wear it she crosses my mind
And if the best is for the best than the best is unkind
Josh Ritter opened with “Best is for the Best” last night at Park West. [...]

I had an argument with a friend yesterday about why I like Jane Austen. I think he was goading me because I had admitted my excitement about getting home in time to watch the new Masterpiece Theatre’s Jane Eyre. Because he has no use for books of that nature he was curious why [...]

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold…
Today is the birthday of Robert Service, the first of two Scottish poets whose birthdays I’ll celebrate this month. Well, I didn’t really celebrate Service’s birthday, but I called my mother to tell her. My Uncle Paul gave my [...]