DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2010
Dec
30
 
 
An old TVWW friend, his eyes gone distant for a second, once blurted out, "Life is ... really ... real!" After a few stunned seconds, we hit him with the usual tonnage of mockery. His point being, though (yes, there was one), that real life in general is too odd, surprising and unscripted to ever be considered banal when compared to the literary kind in novels, films and TV. And that your life, however mundane it seemed, was generally pretty entertaining, excluding catastrophes...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Dec
14
 
 
If you're not in the habit of paying attention to the 21st century city -- the modern architecture around you -- PBS might be cooking up something to help you look at it more closely. The public TV pilot Cool Spaces is looking at modern architecture. It's up to be green lit, pending panel review and viewer interest from folks like you...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Dec
6
 
 
At a glance, country music artists can get awarded for pretty much anything by anybody, in categories of such graying distinction as Top Vocalist vs. Top Entertainer. (Isn't the Top Vocalist pretty much the most entertaining??) And the shows seem to be spawning. Case in point: Fox's new American Country Awards special, tonight (Monday) at 8 p.m. ET...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Nov
21
 
 
If you think it's all art and design here at The Cold Light Reader, get ready for some football. Last week's Monday Night Football telecast brought us gridiron fans an athletic display so amazing, it will probably never be seen again -- and at the same time, reprised a topic so reprehensible, it will never be easily dismissed. Nor should it be...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Nov
11
 
 
Besides giving us perhaps one of the great literary titles for a TV show, David Cross's The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret has also given us the next great cringe-comedy character, no-holds-barred indie-style, on IFC...he's given us a schlubby office temp and habitual liar who's never been out of Portland, Oregon, yet by accident finds his way into a senior sales position and very quickly, he realizes he is in way, way over his head, and has to go on with it, or admit failure -- worst, to himself...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
24
 
 
The internet was rife last week with postmortems on the season finales of AMC's Mad Men and Rubicon. And with good reason: These two shows gave us the most to discuss simply because they were better -- and smarter -- than everything else TV had to offer...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
13
 
 
For those who find the ordinary and everyday more startling than TV drama, a new Sundance/IFC documentary on the demise and suspended afterlife of Braddock, Pennsylvania, provides TV definitely worth watching...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
1
 
 
It's always clear when a show is at its top; the directing, acting, styling, lighting and film are all going effortlessly in the right direction. It's a true thing of beauty. And sometimes, editors and directors stay on a shot for a few extra seconds for us (and probably them), to take it all in. In the case of Rubicon (Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on AMC), those extra seconds may also be something more...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Sep
24
 
 
Eastbound & Down returns this Sunday (10:30 p.m. ET on HBO) with Danny McBride taking another turn as the obnoxious, washed-up major league pitcher who looks like he's getting another chance at pro ball in the Mexican league...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Sep
13
 
 
"The Fountainhead", the 1949 film adaptation of Ayn Rand's 1943 novel about modern architecture on trial, is televised tonight at 9 ET by TCM. At one time, it was every architecture student's introduction to the profession -- and moral compass, and crack-cocaine equivalent...