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 [...]

Jane: Wow, so the third episode of Jane Campion's seven-part series, "Top of the Lake," aired last night and it wasn't until I started reading reviews that I realized how divisive Campion can be. Granted, this is her first television venture to be released in the U.S., and perhaps viewers are more used to Campion's lush aesthetic on big screen, but it's not like exaggerated dramatics are unknown quantities in TV-land either.

So I know we're both Campion enthusiasts (Bright Star, would other films be steadfast as thou art?!), and while I'm absolutely loving "Top of the Lake," there are definitely moments that leave me [...]

Oh look, there's a new attraction in Manhattan for the downtown art crowd:

The husband-and-wife pair stepped out alongside Morgado on Tuesday night for the opening-night gala for "The Bible Experience," an exhibit in downtown Manhattan featuring photography from the mini-series as well as biblical artifacts by way of the Vatican and a giant, two-ton crown of thorns hanging from the ceiling. A spooky Old World ambiance was enhanced by dim lighting, a fog machine and Hans Zimmer's musical score in the background as guests wandered through a cavernous space built to seem centuries-old with earthy walls and barely any heat circulating. "This is a gift to [...]

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 [...]

In my opinion, this is the most beautiful sequence ever aired on television:

This essay is part of a series about our favorite TV shows past.

Previously: You, Me And "Star Trek: The Next Generation"

It's the opening scene for episode two of "Carnivàle." I've probably watched it 100 times. I know every motion, piece of furniture, item of clothing, dialogue snippet, and character backstory. I know the song playing is Ruth Etting's 1929 hit "Love Me or Leave Me."

And yet still, I have absolutely no idea what's going on.

That was kind of the experience of watching the show. Trying to [...]

We are now deep into the season in which our cultural critics, like a gaggle of drunk uncles, kick off their shoes, retire to the den, and proceed to discuss, long past the point at which the rest of us would like to go to sleep, what it's all about.

You see, these shows we've been DVR-ing, these Oscar contenders we've been risking bedbugs for: they don't all just happen to have been released recently. No, they, like the birthmarks in Cloud Atlas, have messages for us; they link up. We're obsessed with the Civil War. We long for superheroes. We are, as ever, deeply confused about race.

To [...]

"Chinese TV extra Shi Zhongpeng, 26… appeared as a member of the Japanese forces more than 200 times last year, the Qianjiang Evening News reported, sometimes dying on set eight times in a single day."

Not long ago, MTV made an unusual appeal: It asked for help finding information about one of its own shows. The show was "Buzzkill," a hidden-camera program that ran in 1996. The plea came from MTV's Guy Code blog:

Michael Magnes: When Sarah Marshall first told me about her hobby of watching old TV show themes on YouTube, I probably made fun of her, and then immediately told her about this early 90s Fox show called "Woops!" The exclamation point is part of the title. It was about last six humans on earth, survivors of a nuclear holocaust. They all found a farm somewhere in America and did things like fight giant spiders, have their aging process reversed, start their own currency, and find hallucinogenic berries. Later I'd find myself at parties trying to explain the show and no one believed me. They suggested I'd made it up, [...]

COMPANY THAT HAS CONSISTENTLY BEEN DISASTROUS WITH NAMING UPSET THAT ITS TV STATION NY1 DOES NOT COMMUNICATE THAT TV STATION'S EXCLUSIVITY TO DOOMED CABLE PROVIDER TIME WARNER, PLANS TO RUIN STATION BY WAY OF REBRANDING.

Also, later, HBO will be renamed Home Bewkes Office.

When but a girl, I used to stay up quite late watching TV (exciting in itself!) trolling for Fred Astaire or Marx Brothers movies in a sea of horrific late-night jangling commercials like those featuring, in his white cowboy hat, the car dealer Cal Worthington "and his dog, Spot" (who turned out to be an elephant, often as not). Thus it was that one night I discovered "Monty Python's Flying Circus," a phenomenon that roared like a hurricane across the plain of my tender psyche, ending in an hoarse, explosive "It's!" How can I tell you what this meant to me? It was just a TV show, but "Monty Python" [...]

20. "Millions of dollars were pouring in, but in the middle of 1995 the girls shocked their fans by filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy."

19. "But although she agreed work on the new album, Lisa continued to look beyond music for her own personal salvation."

18. "Consumed by turmoil, trials and tragedy, was the music. Not a single new note was heard from TLC for nearly 5 years."

17. "On the way to the studio, Lisa saw a rainbow. It was a vision that inspired her to add a deeply personal touch to the song, 'Waterfalls.'"

This list is part of a series about our favorite [...]

Carrie: How smart of Netflix to release its series a week before a historic blizzard hit the Northeast. I wonder how many people who had no intention of ever watching this show ended up reluctantly streaming it this weekend, because it was that or the 9th rewatch of All About Eve or Grizzly Man?

Jane: Now, I don't think one could ever watch Grizzly Man enough times, but beside the point! (If Netflix ever wants to release a 13-part Herzog meditation on chaos and murder, though…) Did all of Netflixing NYC spend the weekend colluding with Frank Underwood? Inversely, when hysterics about snowfall (along with attendant talk of "House of [...]

An obsession in five acts.

I. You're about nine, and you always watch tv with your dad. It's your thing—he's usually nursing a Coors Light, you're doing your best to hang upside down on the couch until your head starts pounding. Sometimes you watch golf and fall in love with Payne Stewart; sometimes you watch "MacGyver" and wish your dad had his hair. But then you start watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation" at 5 p.m. on a Saturday, because obviously that is when the best show on television should be scheduled, and your routine becomes: 1.) watch "TNG" together 2.) Mom and Dad go out to some dinner [...]

FALSE REPORT>>> RT@thematthewkeys: Just in: Suspect 2 on the ground at gunpoint.

— Mike Hayes (@michaelhayes) April 19, 2013

…perhaps if I was in a real newsroom with access to my work email, instead of shut out a month ago, I wouldn't be working out of a bedroom

— Matthew Keys (@TheMatthewKeys) April 19, 2013

"The important thing, I think, is to—as soon as you know something that you sent out is incorrect, you correct the record. And it's OK, I think, to make mistakes in these circumstances. You—everyone will make mistakes, and it's kind of almost impossible to avoid them." —Slate's social [...]