Ten Sexual Controversies That Changed TV

[This feature appeared in our much-loved former home Nerve last week; you can still read the official version here. But because it was by Phil Nugent, whose writing always needs a haircut, considerable acreage had to be sliced back to fit it into the confines of Nerve's electronic pages. For the benefit of anyone who might find it interesting to see what Frankenstein's monster looked like before they ran a comb through his hair and squeezed him into that corset, we now present a Screengrab in Exile exclusive: "Ten Sexual Controversies That Changed TV: The Director's Cut!"]

The new TV season is breaking into full swing, and with everything from remakes of Melrose Place to knockoffs of Twilight on tap, there’s no shortage of programs hoping to lure in viewers with the promise of steamy visions to keep us warm through the fall and winter. The medium has come a long way since the days when Ricky Ricardo somehow got Lucy knocked up from his separate twin bed, only to discover that the network censors wouldn’t let him say the word “pregnant” to describe her condition. But those working on new shows–and such returning hits as Grey’s Anatomy–should remember that presenting the sex lives of regular characters on a network TV series has always been a tricky field to navigate, and has remained so, even though the goal posts are moving all the time.

Random Thoughts of a Man Who Spent the Weekend Cleaning Out His DVR After a Week Buried in Work that Was Neither Enjoyable Nor Financially Rewarding

–Bored to Death has my favorite opening credits sequence in ages. I have a feeling that I ought to find the show itself flimsy and overly self-infatuated, but two episodes in, I sort of enjoy it. The amateur-private-detective angle is tired, and Jason Schwartzman, in the lead role as writer and series creator Jonathan Ames’s hangdog alter ego, executes slapstick like someone who thinks that if he does it as if he were just barely considering making an effort during dress rehearsal, he won’t make himself look ridiculous and we’ll still appreciate the effort. But Zack Galifianakis is such a terrific, natural sidekick that he doesn’t even seem to need someone to play sidekick to. And Ted Danson had slipped so gracefully into his silver-fox elegant buffoon phase that it’s as if the guy who showed up at the Friar’s Club in blackface with a watermelon under his arm to roast Whoopi Goldberg never even happened. Id probably like it more if Schwartzman weren’t on it, but I’ve always thought that I’d like living on this planet more if Jascon Schwartzman weren’t on it. If I managed to accommodate myself to the one, I should probably be able to accommodate myself to the other.

AV Club Recap: Fantastic Fest Monday

After four days of eye-straining, ass-numbing movie watching, Fantastic fatigue sets in. The weak ones make up excuses about being tired or having “work” to do, but the tough hang in there by learning to make smarter choices, bypassing formerly intriguing Japanese comedies and melancholy British dramas in favor of some cinematic caffeine.

Read the wrap-up here

AV Club Recap: Fantastic Fest, the opening weekend

Attempting to reconstruct three days’ worth of Fantastic Fest from a dizzying swirl of exploding zombie skulls, hastily scribbled notes, and incapacitating sake drinks is perhaps not quite as harrowing as what Willem Dafoe endures in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (hint: it’s gonna hurt when he pees for a while), but it’s a daunting proposition nonetheless. Our four writers survived to file this day-by-day wrap-up of the festival’s first weekend.

Read the wrap-up here

Polanksi Redux

Polanski, Day 2:

Roman Polanski’s crime (and the man himself) sound worse and worse the more I hear about the case.

But, as a reminder:  from what I’ve heard and read, Polanski is unlikely to get more jail time despite the calls for his decapitation, evisceration, castration, etc.,  and questioning what ultimate good is served by reopening a case, at great expense, that the victim would rather not have reopened is NOT the same as endorsing Polanski or child rape. 

Just wanted to be clear on that.

Thank you.

The Management

Polanskied

So, okay…I guess I’m on board when authorities grab some 95-year-old codger out of his retirement community in Boca Raton because he was a Nazi death camp guard way back in the 1940s, causing untold misery before escaping to America for a peaceful, happy life on the bones of his victims.  After all, there’s no statute of limitations on murder.

And it’s not that I condone grown men having sex with 13 year old girls, even in 1970s Hollywood. 

But…really?  In the age of Al-Qaeda and zillion dollar international Ponzi schemes,  the world is still devoting investigative resources to busting Roman Frickin’ Polanski?

Fantastic Fest: Genres you never knew existed

Now in its fifth year, Fantastic Fest proudly boasts of being the largest “genre festival” in the United States. Still, even veterans may not realize that it’s not just sci-fi, horror, and chop-socky flicks that make it so unique. It’s the mutant mash-ups lurking around the edges that often provide the biggest draw for hardcore devotees of the offbeat, bizarre, and just plain wrong. After all, what other film festival features “spaghetti kung-fu operas in 3-D,” or “silent blaxploitation slasher mockumentaries”? Here are five more genetically recombined genre strains you won’t find anywhere else.

Read the full post here

Hayden Childs’ Music Library: High Places to Hoodoo Gurus

The High Places – 03/07 – 09/07 (2008). This is a compilation of electronica singles that I picked up after reading a stellar Pitchfork review.  And I’m pretty much indifferent to this music.  I mean, I don’t hate it, but I sure don’t love it, either.  All of the songs are sing-songy vocals delivered in a sort of emotional deadpan over burbly analog keyboard sounds. Which just utterly fails to hold my interest.

The Highwaymen – Live Texas Radio + (1990).  This is not the Highwaymen you’re thinking of, but an Americana-style Austin band that later changed their name to Loose Diamonds.  ‘Sokay.

Hindu Love Gods – “Raspberry Beret.”  REM & Warren Zevon covering one of Prince’s best songs. Unlike many of my friends, I’m not a big Zevon fan, but I sure like this.

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Leonard Pierce on Wasted Words

Guest panelists Leonard Pierce and Matt Vermeulen discuss accepted pieces of wisdom that are just flat-out wrong.  Also, our bartender, Deke Zibinski, counsels a woman whose chest is constantly the target of a female co-worker’s eyes.

Show 46 – Andrew’s Doctor is a Sweetheart!

Surviving Samoa: Week Two

For Samoa Week One, click here!

A tragic outing for my Fantasy Survivor team, which included Marisa AND Betsy, and now soldiers on with nobody but Elizabeth, who may not be long for Samoa her own damn self.

And, really, CBS promotions department…little chubba Russell is the evilest villain in Survivor history? He’s not even the evilest villain on Foa² — a tribe that better start winning some challenges so I don’t have to spend quite so much time watching Evil Russell’s prominent choad on my TV (by which I mean his actual bulging twig and berries and not Ben, since calling Ben a prominent choad would be an insult to genitalia).