New show ideas are endless—and depressing—when real life is the true basis of TV. Thank you, Heidi Montag and your castmates—I mean...
TV and film
Hollywood tells us that cleaning up Washington depends on the integrity of those we send there. But that’s only part of the story. Soon the 2008...
Rachel Getting Married Sony Pictures Classics, 2008 Director Jonathan Demme and writer Jenny Lumet’s ensemble film about a big sprawling suburban wedding...
Then She Found Me (THINKFilm, 2008) Are we born into families, or do we fashion them by forging bonds with strangers? At the start of Helen Hunt’s heart...
The Wire, created by David Simon (HBO, 2002-2008) The language, violence, and sexuality in the five seasons of David Simon’s sprawling urban novel about...
Directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner Brothers, 2008) The truth understood by every 14-year-old comic book fan is that we love superheroes not because they are...
Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky (Sony Pictures Classics, 2007) Holocaust films often present concentration camp inmates as if they were only victims, not complex...
Directed by Kimberly Peirce (Paramount, 2008) Five years and more than 4,000 U.S. deaths after the president declared "mission accomplished," the...
When Curt Ellis set out to learn about agriculture firsthand for his documentary King Corn (ITVS), he didn't find what he expected. "From an urban or...
Jack Bauer and 24 have made torture mainstream in American homes and psyches. Not long ago torture scenes were rare on TV, and both TV and the...
