Heh. I just posted nearly the same thing about Wright upthread. Damn, he was hot in Top of the Lake, and hey, he's showing some good dramatic range.

She earned a lifetime pass from me for Run Lola Run ("Schiesse!") and can therefore do no wrong, but I'm still thrilled to see her being pretty damned awesome in this.

And yet FX still set the running time to 1:01, thus screwing up my recording of The Daily Show. Hmph.

I saw Top of the Lake before The Bridge premiered, but I still can't quite believe Linder is played by the same guy who was sweet, non-mumbly, and extremely hot Johnno. (And kudos to Wright for going the Linder route when he could've come to Hollywood and coasted on roles like Cute Guy at the Bar in sitcoms or TNT…

Indeed. As much as I hated to watch it, I'm glad the writers included it because that type of passive-aggressive racism was so common in that time period. And although race relations and the civil rights movement aren't really a natural fit for the show's subject matter, they're a part of that world and shouldn't be…

Did she sign on as a series regular for S2? I can't see how they could keep her around for much longer, given her prognosis, but I will absolutely HATE to see her go and will probably cry buckets when (not if) it happens.

In Libby's case, she cares about being a mother—almost pathologically
(although the difference between a pathological parent and a first-time
parent is negligible—existence is just an endless parade of panicky OCD
triggers.) And she will CRUSH you if you get in the way of that—thank
God she can BE petty, because how…

I can live with a baby plot with these particular characters, just because they're obviously heading for a breakdown and possibly a divorce. A pregnancy to "save" their marriage could play out in some very interesting ways. It's funny how I would greatly prefer a divorce to poor Tawney losing their house. I also…

Amen re: your first paragraph. I also teach high school and proctor the ACT, which has similar procedures to the SAT's. The rules are ridiculously strict. Daphne would've been thrown out of testing because of her phone going off, especially since it wasn't an accident. The proctor could get in serious trouble fo…

Yup. I'm genuinely surprised by all the rampant hatred of The Leftovers, as I've quite enjoyed it so far and think it has a lot of potential. But maybe I'm predisposed to like it since I've read the book (and I hold no residual bitterness about Lost.)

Ah, I'm glad to hear that they used a real KC building, and it looks like a lovely place. That said, I wish that this show would either try a bit harder to make the outdoor shots actually look like they could be in KC, or else just pull a huge retcon and say oops, it was SoCal all along.

When it comes to very, very loose Odyssey adaptations, I'll go with the Coens and O Brother, Where Art Thou? anytime.

I tried and failed to come up with a witty reply beyond simply, "Good god(s), that movie was awful." I showed it to my 9th graders after we finished final exams back in May, and we started narrating several scenes like we were watching a SyFy Saturday night movie. (Alas, these kids don't have MST3K as a reference…

Do you possibly have links to any good articles with Tim Howard discussing his Tourette's? I tried googling yesterday, but every search string just came up with dozens of quickie posts about the game itself, rather than a more in-depth profile.

I never got into Deadwood, but I did watch O Brother Where Art Thou? with my 9th grade students last month. (McKinnon plays Penelope's fiance.) His Southern accent in it is so comically thick that my students insisted he must be faking it. We're all in suburban Atlanta, so we get picky about these things. I checked…

One huge sticking point for me is the dialogue in that scene. Louis CK is credited as sole writer, but Pamela Adlon has apparently been quite involved in this season. They're both smart, shrewd writers who know the power of a word like "rape". Their choice to use it in that scene makes me think that they intended the…

Yup. I clicked on the headline, thinking, "Oh, I wonder whether he'll go with The Thick of It or the slightly-more-accessible-to-Americans In the Loop!" Kept scrolling. Got a bit concerned. And then saw… Veep? I mean, sure, it's a marvelous show, but still.

I always assumed "Megan" was just an excuse for Weiner to use another variation of "Margaret", since we already had Peggy and Margaret Sterling. Hell, even that frumpy copywriter taking Peggy's place in S6 was named Marge. What on earth is up with Weiner's obsession with that name? (And I say this as a woman whose…

I'm eager to see how that works out for MLS and soccer in general. One of my pet theories about soccer's tepid US popularity is the lack of extensive — well, any — TV coverage to draw in viewers. The fundamental pacing of a soccer match makes it unattractive to TV networks because they can't break for commercials…

(Yeah, a week late, but I'm still catching up with the AVC comments.)