TV Worth Watching

David Bianculli, the TV critic for National Public Radio’s Fresh Air since 1987, is the founder and editor of a website called, TV Worth Watching. The title is called for because, as David Byrne said, “People like to put the television down,” but television is no more monolithic than movies, magazines or books. There is

Sutton Who?

Last month, Netflix premiered the new movie, The Dig, about the excavation at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England in 1939. I’m familiar with most of the best-known archaeological discoveries, but I’d never heard of this one. The primary discovery described by the film was an 80-foot-long ship in an earthen mound that contained ”the richest

Mystery & Crime Novels for $800, Alex

I was prompted to read Peter Høeg’s 1992 novel, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, when Jeopardy! featured a question about it (“When a boy falls to his death, ‘Smilla’s Sense of Snow’ in this Scandinavian country helps prove it was murder”). I had no idea that the book has been the subject of one of the

Oh, But They Are

I’m getting old enough to think sometimes about how my kids will remember me when I’m gone. In the 1987 movie Throw Momma From The Train, Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal play Owen, an annoying aspiring writer, and Larry, his writing instructor. For no particular reason, while the two are at Owen’s house, Owen offers

Books, Jerry

Unlike Jerry Seinfeld, I like to read books: ELAINE: Kevin and his friends are nice people! They do good things. They read. JERRY: I read. ELAINE: Books, Jerry. JERRY: [pause] Oh. Big deal. My public library’s Twitter account—not surprisingly—promotes the value of reading for reading’s sake. (“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any

They’ve Taken Care of Everything

A few years ago, I asked my college-age son how his friends organized and stored their digital photos. He said, “They put them on Facebook.” According to George Dyson in his 2012 book Turing’s Cathedral, one of Facebook’s founders described the goal of the company as, “How much human life can we absorb?” In 1976,

Could I Have $17.50?

Just when it seemed that the last worthy “life lesson” had been squeezed from the 1946 movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, here’s one that doesn’t involve any talking stars, stodgy angels or warping of the space-time continuum. As the newly-wed George and Mary Bailey are about to depart on their honeymoon, they’re told that Bailey

What Else Is On TV?

Television had become public opinion’s most powerful influence when Newton Minow spoke about it in his first speech as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in May 1961. Minow’s intent was to highlight the responsibility broadcasters had to “serve the public interest” by demonstrating “a soul and a conscience, a burning desire to excel, as

Finding Connections

In 1986, the cover of Time magazine called David Byrne a “singer, composer, lyricist, guitarist, film director, writer, actor, video artist, designer, photographer.” It’s now been almost forty years since he began his artistic career as the front man for the band Talking Heads and his dissemination of challenging, insightful ideas has not waned. A

More Than a Critic

A milestone in musical criticism, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ‘n’ Roll Music by Greil Marcus is a demanding read. But for all that is packed into its 177 pages (without the still-expanding “Notes and Discographies” section), it is worth the effort. Alternately provocative and off-putting, the book polarizes online reviewers: “The ur-text