Linda Holmes

Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed films including Looper and Brick, not to mention directing a few episodes of Breaking Bad, tweeted early this morning: "To me the great hope is one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to make a summer movie where skyscrapers don't fall ...

Even a year ago, the original programming on internet outlets like Netflix and Hulu was an asterisk. We all knew Netflix would be premiering House Of Cards starring Kevin Spacey this spring, and Arrested Development a bit later, and that there were other projects coming. But it all seemed a ...

Back in the summer of 2010, we sat down to do our very first Pop Culture Happy Hour. We talked about Community, Wipeout, Doctor Who, and Netflix streaming. And now, three years later, we sit down for our 147th episode — which is, appropriately enough, all about the ...

If you have a Twitter account, there's an excellent chance you already know about Sharknado, SyFy's meteorological-marine horror movie that premiered last night. When I tell you that a lot of people were tweeting about Sharknado, I'm not lying.

Not to mention ... well, you know. ...

We have to begin with a discussion of how Camp, NBC's new summer comedy-drama series premiering Wednesday night at 10, begins.

We see a dock, a lake, and sailboats. We hear affable pop music. Kids walk around a woodsy locale, some in swimsuits carrying air mattresses. Others ride a paddleboat ...

Here's how Big Brother works.

Producers throw a bunch of people into a house, where they're stuck for about three months. All day and all night, they're watched by cameras, and they can be watched online — these are the so-called "live feeds," which are sort of like watching the ...

This morning, as I perused the headlines, I saw a few items about the new Lone Ranger movie, and rather than being struck by interesting thoughts about the racial politics of Johnny Depp's Tonto, I abruptly remembered this joke: "Where does the Lone Ranger take his trash?" "To the dump, ...

There are people who believe that Plinko is the best game on The Price Is Right. I have a name for these people. I call them "Wrongety Wrong Wrong." They are the leaders of Wrongitania. They are the Doctors Of Wrongology. They are the Wrongtown Rats.

Plinko, if you have ...

First, this week, you will hear the production skills of our pal Nick Fountain, filling in for Jess Gitner, who for some reason thinks she can go on vacation. (Whatever, Jess Gitner.)

With Nick's help, we begin the week by remembering the great, great James Gandolfini, whose contributions to the ...

The date: June 14, 2013. The writer: me, in despair, without a single non-art-house movie with a female lead playing anywhere near me. The piece: "At The Movies, The Women Are Gone."

And now, two weeks later, it's opening day for The Heat, the buddy-cop comedy starring Melissa McCarthy ...

It's not the least bit surprising that Paula Deen lost her gig on The Food Network — and you don't have to believe she's a terrible person to know it. All you have to do is watch Food Network Star, the competition show that seeks a new network personality and ...

Perhaps it's the combination of Sunday night's Mad Men finale and the flurry of Sopranos discussion that followed the death of James Gandolfini, but it's hard not to be struck by the explosion of writing about television that's occurred in the last 15 years or so, facilitated (of course) by ...

What makes Don Draper dashing is the suit, especially. And the hat, the jaw, the hair, the voice, the way he fixes his attention on a woman. But what makes Don Draper seductive as a person and not just a sexual partner is that he is perpetually a whisper away ...

On this week's show, the absolutely positively inevitable happens: we invite our pal Chris Klimek in to talk about Man Of Steel, the Superman movie for people who don't think summer blockbusters need to have smiling in them. As many of you know, Glen is, as he puts it, the ...

Stephen Colbert's mother Lorna died recently at 92, and on last night's Colbert Report, he offered her a funny, sweet, warm tribute that really requires no additional comment.

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World War A (in which Isaac Newton is bonked on the head and still bravely figures out gravity)

World War B (spun off from a VH1 reality show)

World War C (in which two dudes hit each other with cellos for 2.5 hours)

World War D (part of The Great ...

This week, Vice magazine unveiled a fashion spread featuring images based on famous female writers who killed themselves. To call it merely tasteless would be to understate how calculated it was, as well as how revolting it was — it literally created an image based on a real writer who ...

Look, Miss Utah USA, Marissa Powell, gave a pretty unimpressive answer to a question about income inequality at the Miss USA pageant. Let's all agree on that.

But what, exactly, did the circumstances call for?

She was asked — by NeNe Leakes, who first became famous on The ...

Last Thursday, the NFL announced a policy change in which only clear plastic bags would be allowed into stadiums — one per person. Nothing they can't see through. The league says that the change is meant to ensure safety while speeding up security checks and preventing ...

We taped this week's podcast while still giddy from the effects of the very fine Tony Awards broadcast, so we begin by sharing some thoughts about that killer opening number, some of the other musical happenings, our feelings on Pippin, Phantom and other theater pieces, and whether we ...