I will never forget the first time I saw the trailer for Get Out: the audaciousness of the basic concept - Stepford Wives with race - as well as the is-it-a-comedy-or-isn't-it tone was such a mind-blower that I immediately texted my friend who works for Blumhouse, the production ...read more
It's too hard to write about the nefarious ongoings of the Trump Administration every day, so instead, I'm going to write about someone who was an essential part of my childhood, voice actress June Foray, who died yesterday at 99 years old. Most famous for voicing Rocky the ...read more
Reason number 4,587,900 to never watch television again has come in the form of latest CBS reality show 'The Briefcase'. Billed as a show that, "features hard-working American families experiencing financial setbacks," the producers present the families with "a briefcase ...read more
Back in 2012, I interviewed Jake Caputo, a web designer who had a novel idea for how to convince HBO to launch a standalone subscription service that didn’t require a cable package. Instead of simply voicing his wishes, he created a website called TakeMyMoneyHBO.com. It provided ...read more
I was browsing Rotten Tomatoes the other day and noticed something fascinating. All of the TV shows with new episodes premiering on Sunday night were ranked pretty damn close to 100 percent. The only show lower than 80 percent was Downton Abbey, which, with a 79 percent, is still ...read more
It's official, Ryan Seacrest is now America's only TV host. Reports CNN:CBS confirmed that Ryan Seacrest will host and produce "Fashion Rocks," a two-hour special that airs on the network in September.Seacrest has existing relationships with ABC, to host "New Year's Rockin' Eve," ...read more
More about Letterman's 2015 retirement here. ...read more
Are you on pins and needles waiting for Game of Thrones this Sunday? Well if you're caught up with the previous seasons, you've spent 1 day, 9 hours, and 20 minutes in the land of George R. R. Martin's brain. Did you looooovvveee Breaking Bad? You traded 2 days and 14 hours of ...read more
*** Spoilers Ahead *** Last week we had a minor debate here at the Banter over Breaking Bad and the question of its place in the pantheon of great TV shows. As in, was it the greatest, the best of all time? My take on it was that while the show was and is a staggering achievement ...read more
I'm banging this out as a kind of instant response to Banter Overlord Ben Cohen's earlier post today asking readers to debate whether AMC's Breaking Bad, which ends its five-season run next week, is the best television show ever. First of all, it's interesting that he brings ...read more
ThoughtCatalog has done a brilliant top 40 list of the best Roger Ebert movie review take downs. Here are (in my opinion) the best 10:1. Atlas Shrugged (Part 1) (2011):“And now I am faced with this movie, the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al ...read more
Not only was Roger Ebert a marvelous film critic, he was an astute observer of history current events. He laced his reviews with technical nous and an understanding of political and cultural context, engaging his readers intellect as well as their senses. Here are a selection of ...read more
This weekend sees the return of HBO's epic television series Game of Thrones. Those who are still uninitiated in the wheeling-and-dealings of the Seven Kingdoms must look upon their friends' excited talk of 'the Dothraki' or 'the Night's Watch' with a mix of confusion and ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: 1978's Force Ten from Navarone wasn't really a great movie; it certainly suffered from being a sequel to a much better movie, 1961's The Guns of Navarone, starring Gregory Peck and David Niven. Yet still it holds a bit of a place in my heart simply because I ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: A few weeks back I banged out a column for this site that took issue with what I called the misguided, "pipe-dreamy idealism" of Aaron Sorkin's new HBO show, The Newsroom. After watching only the season premiere I didn't necessarily claim to know whether the ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: Like just about anybody who's spent a good portion of his or her career in the TV news industry, I watched Aaron Sorkin's new show, The Newsroom, on HBO a couple of nights ago. I did this because, like anybody who's spent a good portion of his or her career in ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: Here's a little something just about everyone in the television business knows: Once you become a high-powered executive, it's almost impossible to fuck yourself and your reputation so badly that you'll never work again. Let's say you're some poor mid-level ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: Let's start with the obvious: HBO's new series Girls isn't for me. What I mean by that is that I'm not its target audience. I'm not a millennial; I'm not female; I'm not a Brooklyn hipster who's perpetually drowning in his or her own insufferable ennui; I don't ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: I moved into a new place in Los Angeles over the weekend. My decision to ultimately put down roots here was the somewhat unexpected culmination of three-and-a-half years spent wandering the wasteland in the aftermath of the break-up of my marriage; since ...read more
Paul Krugman has spent a good deal of time blasting apart Paul Ryan's intellectually bankrupt health care plan so one can understand why the esteemed economist is a little irked Politico has decided to award Ryan healthcare policymaker of the year. According to Krugman, political ...read more
Chez Pazienza boils down the competing theories as to why Ron Paul is largely ignored by the mainstream media, despite his obvious popularity (Paul actually finished second in the Iow straw poll last week - a fact no one seems to recall):There are two contradictory arguments that ...read more