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
Where will the show go from here?
_____________________________________________________________________________
May 18, 2022
The Arts Fuse
The Byrdes’ disappointing finale.
_____________________________________________________________________________
December 7, 2021
The Arts Fuse
Eight hours with The Beatles.
_____________________________________________________________________________
October 8, 2021
Book and Film Globe
Neither bada nor bing.
_____________________________________________________________________________
July 27, 2021
Book and Film Globe
Three days without much peace or love.
_____________________________________________________________________________
July 1, 2021
The Arts Fuse
Satirical song and dance within a hall of mirrors.
_____________________________________________________________________________
June 18, 2021
Book and Film Globe
Beckett’s absurdity done awkwardly via Zoom.
_____________________________________________________________________________
April 23, 2021
American Purpose
Ken Burns and Lynn Novick debunk the Hemingway myth.
_____________________________________________________________________________
March 9, 2021
Book and Film Globe
The importance of what the Netflix doc leaves out.
_____________________________________________________________________________
July 17, 2020
The Arts Fuse
“The polestar of human evil” gets the documentary treatment.
_____________________________________________________________________________
April 13, 2020
The Arts Fuse
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
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
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
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
Maybe “truthiness” isn’t a word so much as a state of mind: ours.