No one sets out to make bad art. If a producer approaches a young director and says, "Look here, Sonny Jim, The Hunger Games are a popular film franchise, make me one of those," the young director is going to do his best to make the film his and craft it well. Success is just a matter of being able to work with constraints. Constraints are everywhere. Picture the college writing exercises, where the directions are like, write a three-page play using the following elements: the color red, the number forty-three, have no actors on the stage, and have the play take place over three thousand years.

The problem [...]

So this fiscal cliff thing, whatever it is, seems pretty bad. Or maybe it's not that big a deal? Will it last forever? Is it "in the Constitution" or just a Politico scam? Is it Obama's fault, or are liberals to blame? The problem is that sequester is jargon garbage that means nothing to anyone outside of newsrooms and the U.S. Capitol, which should just have iron bars put in all the windows and doorways and be renamed Ronald Reagan Federal Penitentiary.

What's happening is nothing less than a partial-birth shutdown of the United States. It is the fault of Tea Party Kochbats in Congress who are, if I'm reading [...]

If you enjoyed the usual American male weekend of constant television viewing while sunk deep in the pizza-crush folds of your sofa, evolution has already decided it doesn't want your kind in the generations to come. That's why low-activity men who watch lots of television have dramatically lower sperm counts than those who get some exercise.

The subjects of the study were college-aged men in New York state, aged 18-22. The first group did 15 hours of "moderate to vigorous physical activity per week," about 2 hours daily. The second group just slobbed out in front of the flat screen for 20 or more hours weekly. Besides being incredibly [...]

Are you incapable of deleting all the crap you've stored on your DVR? Here are some tips. Also, how do you manage your massive self-loathing? I mean, the crippling shame alone must make it impossible to get out of bed. Although I suppose that's a good enough excuse for your pathetic weakness when it comes to using a remote control to get rid of television shows you've saved for later. God, I rarely say this about anybody, but I'm glad I'm not you.

Do you love to watch weird men in suits argue on the teevee, and while this is going on do you also like to look at computers and smartphones and "tweets," to further the goals of American democracy? Then join your co-hosts "Choire and Layne" tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern and 6 p.m. Pacific for a very special revolutionary form of liveblogging that will be unlike anything you've ever seen or done, ever. Also we are on this Twitter!

"Every extra hour of television that a toddler watches weekly takes a toll on their waist size and athletic ability by the time they turn ten, claim scientists. Waistlines of ten-year-olds who had watched 18 hours a week at the age of four were 7.6mm bigger than those of children who had watched the average amount of 14.8 hours, the study found. The distance children could jump was also reduced by a third of a centimetre for each extra hour of TV they had watched per week at the age of two."

I hate to be the 8-millionth person to jump on the bandwagon, but we need to talk about that show about young women on TV! In it, a group of young women have awful, degrading sexual relations due to their economic circumstances, and try to convince themselves that it’s anything but degrading. The characters are desperately struggling to make ends meet, but nearly every problem can be solved with a man ejaculating to an incongruous indie music soundtrack. And our heroine, with her back against the wall and not a dollar to her name, does what any woman in her situation would: get a job at a sensual massage parlor [...]

"Americans Taking Advantage of Ability to Watch TV on Their Own Schedules"

It was a supply closet off the main classroom, six feet across, with the only wall decoration being a length of pine board with a row of nails sticking out. Because of the terrible noise inside, the door was always shut. The two machines, industrial-era things that clamored and shook, spewed out a steady stream of hurt and lies and death. On this San Diego afternoon I was in the little room with my coffee, going through the accumulated Associated Press and UPI news that had cranked out of the wire machines during lunch and whatever regular classes I might have attended that day. Local stories, national and international [...]

Carrie Frye: Jane, so I was lazing around Saturday morning when I saw a series of ecstatic tweets from you about the amazingness of "House Of Cards." Up till then I'd only been paying dim attention to the show's release (basically, I knew it was a series released on Netflix about Washington politics that, disappointingly, did not seem to feature any secret vampires), but on your word, I tried an episode at lunch. And then, next thing I knew, "Portlandia" Battleship Galactica marathon style, it was dusk… and then it was 10 p.m. and I had no circulation left in my legs.

I'm now on episode 7 and view [...]

We can all agree that outside of America's two cities where it's plausible to live without a car, the people of the United States could do with a little physical activity now and then. Americans used to climb stairs and roll pickle barrels and wrassle the neighbors and tar the roof and dig the potatoes and all other kinds of labor that kept the heart healthy and the buttocks muscular, but now something-something cars computers video games taco bars, and just look at us. That's why some officials decided to have a seminar in Washington about the crisis of inactivity. Can't make it? Oh that's all right, you can [...]

"Researchers at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions, found that watching a rerun of a favorite TV show may help restore the drive to get things done in people who have used up their reserves of willpower or self-control."

When the news of Andy Griffith’s death was confirmed, I called my dad.

He is three hours behind me, and was just waking up in a suburban tract home located in the largest city in American history to ever file for bankruptcy. It is a long way from me, and a long way from where he grew up, in a haphazardly built house in all-black Slate Hill, in Roanoke, Virginia.

Tuesday was a long time from when my dad watched "The Andy Griffith Show" in the 60s. And it felt like a long time from when I would spend afternoons watching the show with him in the 90s.

And [...]

"I Just Want My Pants Back" premiered last month on MTV. It's about four attractive post-grads living in Williamsburg, dropping pop-culture references to the tunes of its hipster-friendly soundtrack. RJ and Jon, our two in-house young-altbro would-be music writers living in Williamsburg, greeted the show with guarded optimism—even some excitement. But as the show has progressed—tonight is episode 10 of the 12-episode first season—they may have become just the latest generation to discover the heart of sadness in the world of MTV.

JON: So "Pants" was kind of a bummer, right? Five episodes in (approximately, er, three weeks ago) and Jay and Tina’s Brooklyn-based adventures in hip young [...]

"She knows how difficult it is to quit, even though—beginning at age 25—she had a sore throat that never went away. She says she quit when pregnant with her daughter, now 32, but then relapsed. She even smoked during her radiation treatments for oral cancer in 2001. It was only after the surgery to remove her voice box that she finally quit, cold turkey." —The new reason to avoid television is the new CDC campaign featuring ex-smokers who have lost various parts of their bodies to their habit, from legs to larynx. If you've already managed to quit, go ahead and give yourself a high five and hope that's [...]