Television

September 5, 2022

The Arts Fuse

The Most Hated Man On The Internet

How the king of revenge porn fell.

_____________________________________________________________________________

May 18, 2022

Book and Film Globe

Barry Season Three

Where will the show go from here?

_____________________________________________________________________________

May 18, 2022

The Arts Fuse

Ozark

The Byrdes’ disappointing finale.

_____________________________________________________________________________

December 7, 2021

The Arts Fuse

Get Back

Eight hours with The Beatles.

_____________________________________________________________________________

October 8, 2021

Book and Film Globe

The Many Saints of Newark

Neither bada nor bing.

_____________________________________________________________________________

July 27, 2021

Book and Film Globe

Woodstock 99

Three days without much peace or love.

_____________________________________________________________________________

July 1, 2021

The Arts Fuse

Bo Burnham’s Inside 

Satirical song and dance within a hall of mirrors.

_____________________________________________________________________________

June 18, 2021

Book and Film Globe

Still Waiting for Godot

Beckett’s absurdity done awkwardly via Zoom.

_____________________________________________________________________________

April 23, 2021

American Purpose

On Hemingway

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick debunk the Hemingway myth.

_____________________________________________________________________________

March 9, 2021

Book and Film Globe

The Poetry of Biggie Smalls

The importance of what the Netflix doc leaves out.

_____________________________________________________________________________

July 17, 2020

The Arts Fuse

The Soullessness of Roy Cohn 

“The polestar of human evil” gets the documentary treatment.

_____________________________________________________________________________

April 13, 2020

The Arts Fuse

Marc Maron’s “End Times Fun”

Marc Maron laughs at the apocalypse.

_____________________________________________________________________________

January 4, 2020

The Arts Fuse

“Satan & Adam”- Remembrance of Blues Past

Following this unique, gifted, and sadly overlooked pair is as gripping as the blues they played.

_____________________________________________________________________________

October 1, 2019

The Arts Fuse

“The Family”- Ruthlessness and Christian Piety

Because separating church and state is for losers.

_____________________________________________________________________________

August 6, 2019

The Arts Fuse

Anthony Jeselnik Walks the Knife-Edge Between Comedy and Outrage

Is laughing at nihilistic humor healthy?

_____________________________________________________________________________

July 19, 2019

The Arts Fuse

“Right Now”- Comedy in Jeopardy

Aziz Ansari does get laughs throughout his set, but the tone of Right Now begins and ends on a note of sobriety.

_____________________________________________________________________________

May 19, 2019

The Arts Fuse

“This Is Not Happening”- Standup Gets Real

The all-true stories touch on your own amusingly flawed, hilariously stupid humanity.
_____________________________________________________________________________

May 7, 2019

The Arts Fuse

“Barry” Season Two- All Bets Are Off

The mirthfully dark dramedy has begun to hit its stride.
_____________________________________________________________________________

April 9, 2019

The Arts Fuse

“Crashing”- The Power of Being Earnest

Pete Holmes’s innate sweetness and affability carries him through the awkwardness and indignities of being a working comedian, and shows some unexpected progressivism to boot.
_____________________________________________________________________________

March 30, 2019

The Arts Fuse

“Shrill”- Fat and Proud

The show picks up narrative strength once we see Annie slowly come to terms with the yawning gap between who she is and who she has been told to be by her family, her friends, and society at large.
_____________________________________________________________________________

February 13, 2019

The Arts Fuse

Television Review: “The Sopranos” at 20- American Viciousness, Legitimized

As much as I love the show, it’s a little disturbing how its’ themes seem to have culminated in the current state of our politics.
_____________________________________________________________________________

November  15, 2018

The Arts Fuse

Television Review: “Jane Fonda in Five Acts”

Fonda’s homilies about needing to be ‘whole’ and ‘self-actualize’ start to sound more like carefully calculated branding exercises.
_____________________________________________________________________________

October 5, 2018

The Arts Fuse

“Barry” — The Trials and Tribulations of a Low-Rent Hitman

One of Barry’s strengths is its dark, surreal, and unexpectedly witty satire- but it will need to do more to live up to expectations.
_____________________________________________________________________________

August 24, 2018

The Arts Fuse

Elvis Presley — The Searcher?

HBO’s new Elvis documentary offers lots of interesting footage, but what we don’t learn very much about is Elvis’ inner life, his motivations, and his deeper ambitions.
_____________________________________________________________________________

August 21, 2018

The Arts Fuse

Gary Shandling — Your Favorite Comedian’s Favorite Comedian

Gary Shandling’s life and art are both given the redeeming appreciation they deserve.

_____________________________________________________________________________

April 25, 2018

The Arts Fuse

Television Review: “Wild Wild Country” — Scruffily Corporatized Love-in

Wild Wild Country details the insane clusterfuck that results when faith, fundamentalism, and media hype intersect.

_____________________________________________________________________________

November 17, 2017

The Arts Fuse

Television Review: “Too Funny to Fail” — Timeless Comedy

It always takes a while for the culture to catch up with the best and brightest; what’s on the cutting edge today becomes tomorrow’s gold standard.

_____________________________________________________________________________

July 14, 2017

The Arts Fuse

TV Commentary: A Little Real Talk about “Real Time”

Bill Maher’s once robust contrarian streak has shriveled over time.

_____________________________________________________________________________

March 5, 2017

The Arts Fuse

“3 Mics”—Neal Brennan’s Innovative Stand Up

Neal Brennan’s mix-and-match of styles manages to combine deadpan sensibility with shocking poignancy.

_____________________________________________________________________________

July 21, 2016

The Arts Fuse

“Horace and Pete” — A Bracing Shot of Nihilism

Bleak as it is, part of the thrill of Horace and Pete lies in its rule-breaking originality and the high-wire insistence on following its own vision.

_____________________________________________________________________________

July 18, 2016

The Arts Fuse

“O.J.: Made in America” — Postmodern “Othello”

The trajectory of O. J. Simpson’s life eventually touched on almost every aspect American society, revealing a toxic nexus of wealth, celebrity, race, privilege, and violence.

_____________________________________________________________________________

May 23, 2016

The Arts Fuse

Samantha Bee’s “Full Frontal” — Deserves All the Buzz

It says something about where we are at as a country when the absurdist’s voice is the only one that is persuasively human.

_____________________________________________________________________________

August 26, 2015

The Arts Fuse

Jon Stewart — He Told Us to Put the Bong Down

There’s no question Jon Stewart had the attention of millions but, all kidding aside, was he a part of the political game or just a color commentator?

_____________________________________________________________________________

May 29, 2015

The Arts Fuse

A Fan’s Meditations on the Finale of “Mad Men”

People bonded with the product Mad Men was selling, but what were they falling for?

_____________________________________________________________________________

April 6, 2015

The Arts Fuse

Netflix’s Flimsy “House of Cards”

For all the attention it receives and the level of cultural relevance it assumes House of Cards ought to be a much better series than its aggressive promotion makes it out to be.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Oct 1, 2014

The Arts Fuse

Political Satirist John Oliver — Viewers Are Responding, not Just Watching

Each John Oliver monologue takes a different weighty and urgent political issue and deconstructs it with wit, clarity and moral purpose.

_____________________________________________________________________________

August 27, 2014

The Arts Fuse

“Orange is the New Black” — The Future of High Quality TV Drama?

The men are portrayed as comically irrelevant — most are either sleazy idiots or amusingly oafish and dithering — and this is refreshing given the phallocentric alpha-male angst that has been TV fodder so often before.

_____________________________________________________________________________

May 27, 2014

The Arts Fuse

“Mad Men” Mid-Season Finale — Enjoyable, But Part of an Annoying Waiting Game

It’s sort of like someone snatching the epic novel you’re a few chapters from the end of out of your hands and subsequently run off cackling into the sunset, only to allow you to finish it in a year.

_____________________________________________________________________________

May 5, 2014

Love Money Clothes

The House That Frank Built: A Review of House of Cards Season 2

The show’s campy side is stronger than its attempts at gravitas.

_____________________________________________________________________________

April 23, 2014

The Arts Fuse

Whither Steven Colbert?

Now that the dust has settled after the announcement that Stephen Colbert will be replacing David Letterman on “The Late Show” next year, let’s consider what this might mean.

_____________________________________________________________________________

January 23, 2007

Flak Magazine

The Truth About Truthiness

Maybe “truthiness” isn’t a word so much as a state of mind: ours.