Category Archives: Television

Good Blues at the White House for Once

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 21, 2012
I love the fact that just down a couple miles down street from my house tonight, Mick Jagger will be jamming with B.B. King, Booker T. Jones, Jeff Beck, Keb Mo and Trombone Shorty. Gary Clark Jr., Shemekia Copeland, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks will also be there. And with any luck, Barak Obama will [...]
Also posted in Music, Politics | Leave a comment

Colbert Explains His Absence, Sort Of

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 21, 2012
Even before he let loose with his regular theme, Stephen Colbert spent a few minutes Monday debunking the rumors that had cropped up since his show’s sudden absence last week. “As the hub around which the republic turns, I can understand why the machinery of this great nation ground to a halt last week when [...]
Posted in Television | Leave a comment

Why the Scandal Dominates ‘Clinton’

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 21, 2012
If you wrote a book about Bill Clinton and his presidency, would you spend fully a fourth of it discussing his affair with a White House intern? That’s what happens in “Clinton,” the two night presentation on “American Experince” that uses one of its four hours dealing with the fallout. Filmmaker Barak Goodman defended the [...]
Also posted in Politics, Winter Press Tour 2012 | Leave a comment

Diminutive David Brent

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 20, 2012
In the new “Life’s Too Short,” the actor Warwick Davis plays a conceited version of himself, who looks at the camera in a fake documentary style, bullies other people and has no idea how annoying he’s being. Kind of like David Brent in “The Office” except with a short person. But it’s more than that, [...]
Posted in Television | Leave a comment

Many Guests Join Maya Rudolph on ‘SNL’

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 19, 2012
Maya Rudolph’s return to “Saturday Night Live” as host means old home week. Not since Betty White hosted last season and several seasons of female former cast members came to support her has there been so many stars jammed into the show. That meant Amy Poehler in three different sketches (“Bronx Beat,” Weekend Update including [...]
Posted in Television | Leave a comment

TV as Votive Candle: The Funeral of Whitney Houston

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 19, 2012
Mourning is an odd thing these days, especially for celebrities. Especially if the death is sudden, the cable news networks go into overdrive, interviewing anybody who had a remote connection to the deceased and even those who didn’t. They cover the public displays of balloons and flowers and teddy bears. If there’s old videos, they [...]
Also posted in Music, Obit | Leave a comment

The Littlest ‘Survivor’

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 15, 2012
Among the new things on “Survivor: One World” that starts tonight on CBS – other than the splitting of genders, elimination of Redemption Island, changing of hidden immunity rules, or two tribes sharing a beach – is that the show has its first little person. Leif Manson, a phlebotomist from San Diego, is the show’s [...]
Posted in Television | Comments closed

Ameena Matthews for President

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 15, 2012
In Steve James’ powerful documentary “The Interrupters,” that debuted on “Frontline” tonight, a star and leader and role model was introduced to the nation in the form of Ameena Matthews. Her boss, Tio Hardman of the Chicago-based CeaseFire says, “I look at Ameena as the 21st century Harriet Tubman.” But Matthews, speaking to reporters at [...]
Posted in Television | Comments closed

Sharon Malone’s Education of the Old South

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 14, 2012
One of the most remarkable documentaries in Black History Month is the one that premiered tonight on PBS, “Slavery by Another Name,” which recounts the decades of forced labor that followed the Emancipation Proclamation due to a loophole in the 13th Amendment. It was a brutal, little known chapter in history until it was brought [...]
Also posted in Winter Press Tour 2012 | Comments closed

How Kevin Smith Got Back on TV

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 14, 2012
Kevin Smith wasn’t anxious to get back into television.  After all, his last “disastrous foray into TV” was an animated series based on his movie “Clerks” in 2000. “We only made six episodes and ABC only aired two,” he shrugged. So he mostly thought he wasn’t simpatico with television. But then producer Charlie Corwin of [...]
Also posted in Cartoons, Winter Press Tour 2012 | Comments closed