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Open Mic

The Genius of ‘Car Talk’ and Its Co-Host, Tom Magliozzi

I love cars. More specifically, I love to drive cars. As a native Southern Californian — and a second-generation one at that — most likely it’s in my DNA. But what I actually know about fixing cars would, as the…

Nov 4, 2014

Stream It Now: One of the Funniest, Most Pointed Movies Ever Made. Vilified by Many Critics at the Time, It’s a Black Comedy Made 20 Years Before the Term Was Invented

The original “To Be or Not to Be,” starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard (who was killed in a plane crash just two weeks after the filming of the movie ended), co-written (uncredited) and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, is one…

Nov 1, 2014

Multi-Platinum-Selling Band Creates a ‘Musical Map of America’ — and Lets Us In on the Process

What would a multiple Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum record-selling band do to mark its 20th year in the music business? Well, put out a new album of course. But if that band is the Foo Fighters, the concept was to create…

Oct 16, 2014

Even With Hollywood’s Deeply Ingrained Sexism, a Few Woman Have Thrived — Here’s Their Story

Fifteen women. One hundred years. That’s the terrain covered in 52 minutes in “Makers: Women in Hollywood,” a new documentary produced by Rory Kennedy and co-produced and directed by Linda Goldstein Knowlton, airing on PBS and available in an extended…

Oct 7, 2014

A Domestic Take on the Acclaimed ‘Broadchurch’ — With Some Close Connections to the Original

Devotees of the acclaimed British crime procedural “Broadchurch” will want to get used to a different version of the way English is spoken when ”Gracepoint” takes to the airwaves on Fox for a 10-part murder mystery series. It’s not unusual…

Oct 2, 2014

Will the Entertainment Business Find a Way Forward? Top Industry Players Weigh In

With fall television shows premiering, it was a good time for the Hollywood Radio and Television Society (HRTS) to check in on the state of the industry with its first newsmaker luncheon series of the season. The panel discussion took…

Sep 30, 2014

The Puzzling Reaction by the Editors of The New York Times to Its TV Critic’s Wrong-Headed Essay About Shonda Rhimes

There’s been a lot of good journalism written in the past week or so about a poorly reasoned, stilted and vexing essay penned by New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley about Shonda Rhimes. One of the must-read critiques countering…

Sep 29, 2014

Maybe It’s Time for a New Version of the Academy Award-Winning Best Picture ‘Gentleman’s Agreement,’ This Time Focusing on the Discrimination Faced by the LGBT Community

In the history of movies, only 86 films have won the Academy Award for Best Picture. One of them was “Gentleman’s Agreement,” released in 1947. It was based on a best-selling novel by Laura Z. Hobson and it was one…

Sep 23, 2014

‘Koch’: A Look at the Man Who Was Called ‘America’s Mayor’

Those who lived in New York City during the Ed Koch years will have a visceral reaction to a new documentary about the man once called America’s Mayor in a Time magazine cover story. For everyone else, the feature-length “Koch”…

Sep 22, 2014

Institutional Corruption on Trial — or Not — in CNN’s ‘Whitey’

His name was once second on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, right after that of Osama bin Laden. But even with notorious gangster Whitey Bulger captured, convicted and behind bars for the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary,…

Sep 19, 2014