Something Old, Nothing New

Something I just noticed in watching episodes of "Arrested Development" on DVD: every episode begins with a shot of Jason Bateman...

I always used to think that the writer Harold Pinter most resembled was not Beckett but Noel Coward. Pinter's famous dialogue, with it...

Here's a project I think some bored social scientist should undertake: go through the back issues of Cosmopolitan Magazine , catalogue t...

This article gives a good primer on the twin banes of network television today: more ads, forcing the shows to run shorter and shorter, and...

For those of you who haven't seen Val Lewton's The Seventh Victim , buy or rent it (it's only available as part of the Lewton bo...

"Smurfs used as shock treatment in UNICEF's fundraising drive: Cartoon characters' village bombed in anti-war TV commercial....

I don't know if anyone else has pointed this out, but here's a bit of trivia about "Desperate Housewives" (yes, just what ...

Here is an article on the film Harper (1966), with Paul Newman as world-weary private eye Lew Harper, and how it differs from the book it...

I should do a post -- indeed, someone should write a whole book -- about composer-lyricist Harold Rome , one of the best and least-appreciat...

I see where Tex Avery's "Red Hot Riding Hood" is available for online viewing . Until Warner Home Video gets up the nerve to...

USA Today reports on a Sam Peckinpah Legendary Westerns Collection coming in January 2006, with The Wild Bunch (two discs), Pat Garrett a...

In case you were wondering, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Third Season" is on its way this coming January, so the comp...

Mark Evanier has a good post here on Hamilton Camp, the comedic actor and singer who died recently. Camp was a member of the improv comedy...

Finally, after untold public-domain releases, Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street is getting a proper DVD release (scroll down), with an audio...

The DVD release date of King Kong gets nearer, and while we're waiting, I'll note that perhaps the movie's greatest contributio...

Ivan G. Shreve has some thoughts on "F Troop" and a forthcoming DVD sampler of the show. My favorite joke about "F Troop,...

Exhibit A . I am not as young as I'd like to be, but I'm still semi-young, and yet I'm old enough to remember a time when two te...

My favorite recurring cartoon gag of all time is the one Sarah calls "There's Always a Little One." It's the gag where y...

My infamous "Why I Hate Family Guy" post still gets some comments , even a year after I posted it. One comment, posted today, ma...

The world's top ten favorite songs , as chosen by a poll of 700,000 people. Aside from the innate hideousness of the list, do you notice...