Mad Men protagonist Don Draper is showing increasing disgust as the 1960s New Left culture begins its rise. Larry Kauffmann tells all about it.
Television
‘House’ Conclusion Satisfies Both Emotions and Intellect
For me the most interesting thing about the Fox TV series House, the final episode of which aired last night, was the way the narratives balanced cynicism and compassion, doubt and faith, solipsism and humanitarianism. What was perhaps most extraordinary about the show was that it managed to accomplish this through the depiction of its complex central character, Dr. Gregory House, a cynical, manipulative, oddly selfish medical diagnostician whose great genius is applied to solving medical mysteries.
House has no spiritual beliefs and looks upon the human race with undiluted cynicism: "Everybody lies," he says, and that, to him, is enough. He is devoted strictly to the truth.
What "the truth," is, however, has always been the real mystery of the show. . . .
I Lost on Jeopardy
I dedicate this post to Tom Friedman, one of the most pedestrian, overrated intellects of this or any other age.
Was “Smash” a smash?
One of NBC’s few, highly-rated new shows last year was Smash, a drama about trying to get a new musical onto Broadway. The season’s final episode was last Monday, and it’s been renewed for a new year. But was season one of Smash good enough for viewers to check back in for another season?
Mad Men and Beatles
You may have heard about a little controversy from the latest episode of Mad Men. Protagonist Don Draper listens to the first couple minutes of "Tomorrow Never Knows" from the Beatles’ recently released Revolver album, then stops the music in a gesture that is equal parts boredom and disgust.
Some fans of the show thought the scene was ridiculous, claiming that any high-powered ad man would have been hip to The Beatles in 1966 and would not have been alienated by a little psychedelia. I think this critique misses the point completely. The end of the episode n is probably a taste of things to come and – at the risk of sounding absurdly grandiose – might even be an inflection point for the series. . . .
Levon Helm and Dick Clark, RIP
When Dexter Gordon passed away in 1990, Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom penned an article boasting he owned every one of the jazz saxophonist’s albums while simultaneously lamenting the majority of his readership probably didn’t even know who Gordon was. Instead, Albom took the opportunity presented by Gordon’s death to tell his readership they were stupid, uncultured louts who probably knew all the lyrics to Madonna’s hit singles. Madge, you may recall in those days, was still somewhat of an enfant terrible. It was an apples v. oranges argument, in other words, and somewhat fatuous on Albom’s part. This brings us to the media storm surrounding the death of Dick Clark and the comparative cricket chirping attending the passing of Levon Helm. The former was a marketing-savvy promoter who broadcast rock, pop, and disco infomercials into America’s living rooms every week for decades. No harm there, as parents were assured by the smooth-talking, youthfully handsome, hip yet terminally white-bread host that rock music wasn’t really all that dangerous. Yes, the longhairs wielded electric guitars like blade-brandishing barbarians laying siege to Rome, but they were held back from complete victory by adhering to the strictures enforced by lip syncing to
‘Whitechapel’ Season Three Starts Out Impossibly Well
The British crime drama series Whitechapel resumes tonight at 10 EDT on BBC America with the first episode of a six-part season three. It's worth watching—especially for those looking for a modern murder mystery that respects the classics of the form.
Or, at least it seems to do so at present.. . . .
Fox’s ‘Alcatraz’ Leaves Most Interesting Mystery Unexplored
The Fox TV drama series Alcatraz takes the narrative structure of a police procedural and adds a good many impossibilities which belong either to science fiction or paranormal fiction. And in doing so, it foregoes an opportunity to use those elements to explore the roots of current-day social problems, an endeavor that is implicit in the premise and would have made the show much more interesting.
Judd’s ‘Missing’ Just Misses
Sometimes a TV show does just about everything right, and yet . . . one still doesn't feel any need to make a habit of watching it.
Such is the case—for me, at least—with the new ABC drama Missing. Ashley Judd stars as a former CIA agent whose college-student son is abducted while studying abroad in Rome, Italy. . . .
Something New Under the Sun: The Greedy Businessman Did It!
You would think after all these years of being bombarded by the modern liberalism’s assumptions in popular culture nothing would amaze me. Well count me amazed after recently watching the February 20 episode of Hawaii Five-O . You might also file this under the more things change . . . . I did an internet search and found this article from 1992:
Appreciating the 1970s Culture: Thoughts on the Passing of Brother Don Cornelius
If ever there was a decade I’d enjoy being stuck in forever it’d be the 1970s. Watergate bothered me, of course, and Vietnam, drugs, and civil unrest were bummers, too. Never mind curfews, parental discipline, and hours of bad television. What redeemed the decade for me was the music, which reached its pinnacle in the era bracketed by the break-up of the Beatles and the third effort by the Clash. True, the era witnessed the advent of disco – but the choices on the radio dial were plentiful, rendering disco merely annoying for discerning listeners aware of the plentitude of options.
Radio formats of the 1970s were wide-ranging, bubblegum pop interspersed with everything from early heavy metal to soul, country, psychedelia, rhythm-and-blues and all sorts of hybrids and cross-pollinations right, left, and center of the dial. The exposure to the multi-various genres was certainly there, but what was missing for a kid like me growing up in rural, northern Michigan, was visual context. . . .
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