The A.V. Club - Features

Features: For Our Consideration: Why is TV scheduling so terrible for viewers and networks alike?

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

On Tuesday night at 10 p.m. Eastern, you might settle into your easy chair to watch FX’s Justified, one of TV’s best dramas. Or maybe you’re in the mood for a more traditional cop show, in which case, you can flip over to Southland on TNT, which is another of TV’s best dramas. Or maybe you don’t want cops at all. Well, then there’s NBC’s Parenthood, yet another of TV’s best dramas. Is it possible you’re in the mood for sketch comedy? At 10:30, there’s one of the ...

Features: Feature: Dear Michael Ian Black

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

In his excellent new book, You’re Not Doing It Right: Tales Of Marriage, Sex, Death, And Other Humiliations, actor/comedian/writer/podcaster Michael Ian Black offers a funny, startlingly honest appraisal of parenthood (Chapter 10: “I Hate My Baby”) and marriage, where he and his wife daydream about divorce. “One of the unexpected joys of being married is the hours of fantasizing it allows me to do about how much better my life would be if I got divorced,” Black writes in Chapter 12, “A Little Hard Work.” But You’re Not Doing It Right isn’t as bleak ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: February 13, 2012

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Puzzlejuice Creator: Colaboratory Platforms: iPhone/iPad (Universal Binary) Played on: iPad Price: $1.99 There are people who are good at Tetris and there are people who are good at Boggle. Those who are in the middle of that Venn diagram can count themselves lucky when playing Puzzlejuice, which tests—nay, taxes—players’ spatial dexterity à la Tetris and their jumble-y discovery abilities à la Boggle at the same time. The game starts off like Tetris. Various shapes fall, and you fit them into one another. The shapes are also color-coded, though, and lining up three blocks of the same color transforms ...

TV: Other Shows: The 54th Annual Grammy Awards

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:30:00 -0600

To the surprise of no one, Adele was the big winner at the 54th annual Grammy Awards, taking home trophies for the top three major awards—Album, Record, and Song Of The Year—and six overall. Also, LL Cool J invited us all to pray, Nicki Minaj was possessed by the devil, and Dave Grohl would not leave the stage already. As usual, it was a weird, weird night. Here are eight things I took away from it. 1. The “authenticity” narrative: When Adele was handed her Record Of The Year trophy for “Rolling In The Deep,” she said something ...

Film: Inventory: Landmark films: 13 newly constructed buildings prominently featured in film

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

1. Burj Khalifa (built in 2010), Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011) Big, ambitious buildings have a way of capturing the world’s attention, especially in Hollywood, where a cool new one can provide the perfect backdrop for a movie—giving the film a timely hook and the building a profile boost, especially if the building is only a few years old. The Mission: Impossible films rely on exotic destinations, perhaps none more so than Ghost Protocol, which shifts from Budapest to Moscow to Dubai to Mumbai to, um, Seattle. The third leg of that journey is basically just an excuse ...

TV: 100 Episodes: Everybody Loves Raymond

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:01:00 -0600

For most of the history of television, the barrier to syndication—and to profitability—has been 100 episodes. The shows that have made it to that mark are an unusual group. Many were big hits. Some found small cult audiences. Still others just hung on as best they could and never posted numbers quite low enough to be canceled. In 100 Episodes, we examine the shows that made it to that number, considering both how they advanced and reflected the medium and what contributed to their popularity. The multi-camera sitcom is over. If it had anything new to say, that ...

Music: Stream: Damien Jurado, Maraqopa

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Damien Jurado has been a respected member of the indie-folk circuit for years, but the upcoming Maraqopa suggests that he's about to take a big step forward into a larger musical world. Working with producer Richard Swift, who aided Jurado on 2010's fine St. Bartlett, he has created a swirling, sinister, psych-tinged tapestry of guitar solos and ghostly backing vocals for this typically strong set of songs. We'll run a review of Maraqopa when it comes out next week, but for now you can check out the album via this exclusive stream below.

Music: Playlisted: A Place To Bury Strangers

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:59:00 -0600

We get a lot of records sent to us here at The A.V. Club. Fortunately, we end up liking some of them. In Playlisted, we share our latest recommendations. Album: Onwards To The Wall by A Place To Bury Strangers (out now on Dead Oceans) Press play if you like: An icestorm of black static and splintered echoes ripping savagely into a flock of dreamy, melodic, dead-eyed drones. Also: moaning. Lots of moaning. Some background: With The Jesus And Mary Chain about to undergo its latest resurrection, A Place To Bury Strangers is either more or less relevant than ...

Features: Interview: Woody Harrelson

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Woody Harrelson last worked with Rampart director Oren Moverman on 2009’s The Messenger, which scored two Oscar nominations: Moverman and his co-writer for Best Original Screenplay, and Harrelson for Best Supporting Actor. There was buzz that Harrelson’s portrayal of corrupt, violent LAPD officer Dave Brown in Rampart would merit similar recognition, but perhaps the Academy didn’t appreciate his complete inhabiting of an abusive, racist, womanizing deadbeat dad and generally unrepentant bad person. Both Moverman’s film and Harrelson’s performance (he’s in every scene) are unsettling and relentlessly downbeat. Not since Natural Born Killers or The ...

TV: AVQ&A: Crushes on fictional characters

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d like us and the readers to answer? E-mail us at avcqa@theonion.com. Here’s one just in time for Valentine’s Day. What fictional character have you developed a crush on? I was discussing romantic movies with a friend, and realized that ...

Music: For Our Consideration: The Grammys are worth watching (seriously)

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

On Sunday night I will be seated with a laptop in front of my television and tuned into the 54th annual Grammy Awards. My job requires that I do this, plumbing my brain for supposedly smart and insightful observations about whether Adele’s probable domination of the night’s proceedings means more or less than her gaudy sales numbers from 2011. (My speculative verdict on this speculative scenario: Not really.) But even if I weren’t being paid, I would watch. If you haven’t seen the Grammys recently (or at all), I’m only slightly less surprised to hear ...

Music: Podmass: Week of Feb. 2-8

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Like podcasts? Check out the A.V. Club podcast Reasonable Discussions, which posts at avclub.com every other Wednesday. Contact Podmass at podmass@avclub.com.‬ QUOTES OF THE WEEK “They say, ‘Oh, you never met a dearer man.’ I always say, ‘What choice do they have?’ Who is going to put up with a surly, sardonic cable guy? They’ve got to be nice—everybody’s looking for a reason to knock them the fuck out.” —Gary Gulman, Never Not Funny “Paul, your wife has said that the complementary dog to your manhood is a skinny, sedate, easily pushed-over, constantly ...

TV: Interview: Karl Pilkington

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Thanks to the Golden Globes, Ricky Gervais has become a household name in the U.S., while those who follow his work in television have quickly become familiar with his writing partner, Stephen Merchant. In the UK, however, there’s a perpetual third man whose name turns up alongside those of Gervais and Merchant with considerable regularity: Karl Pilkington. Pilkington began as the producer on the duo’s radio show and quickly found himself on the air as a result of his unique—some would say idiotic—views and interpretations of the world around him. Since then, he has become ...

Music: Playlisted: Jade Alston

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:59:00 -0600

We get a lot of records sent to us here at The A.V. Club. Fortunately, we end up liking some of them. In Playlisted, we share our latest recommendations. Album: Single On A Saturday Night by Jade Alston (available for free download at jadealston.com) Press play if you like: Beguiling, smoky-voiced R&B singers in the mold of Toni Braxton (but with none of the adult-contemporary stuffiness); forlorn, day-dreaming soul music; prolonged sighs. Some background: A one-time VJ for a Philadelphia music-video show, 24-year-old singer Jade Alston quietly self-released her debut mixtape in the very last days of ...

Film: Primer: Robert Bresson

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Primer is The A.V. Club’s ongoing series of beginners’ guides to pop culture’s most notable subjects: filmmakers, music styles, literary genres, and whatever else interests us—and hopefully you. This installment: the work of French filmmaker Robert Bresson. Robert Bresson 101 The films of Robert Bresson are daunting, no doubt. His standing as one of cinema’s “patron saints” marks his work as genuinely intimidating. “Bluntly put,” J. Hoberman wrote in Village Voice, “To not get Bresson is to not get the idea of motion pictures—it’s to have missed that train the Lumiére brothers ...

TV: Random Roles: Jessica Walter

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about. The actor: Decades before she was the sharp-tongued matriarchal monster on Arrested Development, Jessica Walter was already embracing her inner bitch. With breakout roles in Lilith, Play Misty For Me, a slew of soap operas, and television guest spots on everything from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour to The Big Bang Theory, the Emmy-winning actress can still level an ego with a single look. Walter currently splits her time ...

Film: The New Cult Canon: Observe And Report

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

“I believe every man has a path laid out before him. And my path is a righteous one.” —Seth Rogen, Observe And Report “Now I see this clearly. My whole life has pointed in one direction. There never has been any choice for me.” —Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver There a scene early on in Jody Hill’s Observe And Report where Brandi, a make-up counter floozy—we never see her signature, but there’s an implied heart over the “i”—has just encountered the flasher who’s been terrorizing the mall parking lot. As a small scrum of co-workers ...

Film: For Our Consideration: Deciphering the shorts: A guide to this year’s Oscar nominees

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Making your way through the Oscar-nominated shorts, you can start to wonder just who this work is intended for, anyway. The self-evident answer is, if you’re watching them, then they’re for you. While it’s easier than it used to be to see the Academy’s anointed candidates, they still have to be sought out rather than stumbled upon, either in their limited theatrical run kicking off February 10, or on iTunes starting on the 21st. But the question’s actually also a legitimate and complicated one. We consume more short-form content than ever online and are theoretically ...

Music: Set List: Richard Thompson

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:01:00 -0600

In Set List, we talk to veteran musicians about some of their most famous songs, learning about their lives and careers (and maybe hearing a good backstage anecdote or two) in the process. The artist: Richard Thompson initially came to musical prominence while still in his teens, playing with the seminal British folk band Fairport Convention. In early 1971, Thompson decided to give it a go on his own, but after releasing his 1972 solo debut, Henry The Human Fly, he decided on a new musical collaborator: his new wife, Linda. The duo recorded several albums together during their marriage ...

TV: Tolerability Index: February 8, 2012

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600