Every non-mountain-recluse in America knows about the infamous Miley Cyrus incident on the VMAs last week. (For you mountain-recluses, Miley performed a song and dance routine that was so filthy, the title “suggestive” barely applies.) It wasn’t exactly family television.
But for a few reasons, I say go easy on...
I remember being really annoyed as a kid when MTV stopped playing music. (Above reproach alert: I was not a Christian then.) Instead of music videos they had shows about the lives of the musicians. It was so bad they actually spun off a whole new channel (MTV2) that...
Yesterday, I talked about the History Channel’s new series on the Bible. As I said, many found the show compelling and faithful to the overall story, if not to every detail of the biblical story. My argument in yesterday’s post was that adapting a book for film is fraught...
Last night, the History Channel aired the first episode of their series on the Bible. I watched the previews for this show with curiosity. For one thing, Hollywood isn’t known for its efforts to protect the accuracy or intent of Scripture. For another thing, if the History Channel wrote...
NBC’s The Office has recently been raising a fascinating topic of discussion: cheating. The show is a comedy, and most of what the show portrays is lighthearted and funny. But the writers have never shied away from storyline and drama (the humor often flows from these aspects rather...
If you’ve never heard of Arrested Development, that’s probably because the show was cancelled almost seven years ago. But that doesn’t mean the show was a failure, or that people have stopped watching it. The show has developed a cult following, and it now seems to be getting more...
Black Friday makes for juicy news. We’ve all heard the accounts of people being trampled as greedy shoppers, driven foaming-at-the-mouth-mad by consumerism, race to pimp out their already lavish homes with a Black Friday superdeal. And this year, we have all been scandalized by reports that Black Friday is...
Television
When Violence Is a Good Thing (or What Do Flannery O’Connor & the Hunger Games Have in Common?)
Mark Beuving - I’ve developed a weird sort of crush on Flannery O’Connor. If you’ve never read anything she’s written, I would highly recommend it. But be warned: you probably won’t enjoy it.
Her writing is not fun, nor is it entertaining in a lighthearted sense. Pretty much everything she wrote was dark....
From the moment that Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God, mankind has been taking God’s good gifts and distorting them. Sex is no exception. In fact, it probably tops the list of good gifts that have been abused, distorted, and misappropriated.
In our modern world, a liberated sex...
By most standards, NBC’s The Office has been dominant for the early part of the 21st century. Some would say the show is past its prime—I would argue otherwise, though I would acknowledge that its best seasons are probably behind it—but The Office is now in its eighth season...