By Drew Grant 1/15 8:00pm

As Seen On TV

From clockwise left: Damian Lewis in Homeland, Steve Buscemi in Boardwalk Empire, Andrew Lincoln in The Walking Dead, Jon Hamm in Mad Men, and Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad. (Ed Johnson)

Bad Men: TV’s Most Reprehensible Antiheroes and the Women Who Love Them

On Sunday night, as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were making history as the first two women to successfully elbow out a male host for the Golden Globes, audiences took in an unprecedented display of girl power. With Lena Dunham winning for Best Actress in a Comedy, Girls taking Best Comedy, and Julianne Moore winning for Game Change, we trumpeted a new era … one in which women could not only captivate an audience but do so with an unlikable protagonist. (Hannah Horvath is no Tony Soprano, but she can be plenty unappealing at times.)

Many of the night’s other nominees, including the stars of Veep and Nashville, fit into the same category, as did the un-nominated (but still there in spirit) Edie Falco in Nurse Jackie, Laura Linney in The Big C and Laura Dern in the criminally under-watched Enlightened, which premiered its second season this week. This last is perhaps the best example of these hard-to-watch heroines, with Ms. Dern playing the most delusional, self-righteous and self-martyring female antihero ever to traipse through premium cable.

It was a great night for rude, crude, progressive women. Unfortunately, it was an even better night for Bad Men. Read More

By Rex Reed 10/09/12 8:01pm

movies

Affleck in Argo.

Affleck, Duck!: Ben’s Real-Life Spy Thriller, Argo, is Spooky Good

It’s rare as a pink giraffe, but every once in a blue moon a movie comes along in which each piece fits seamlessly and every detail works. Argo is one of them. I have come to regard Ben Affleck as better, stronger and more self-assured behind a camera than he is in front of one, but in this exemplary, meticulously detailed thriller about a fake movie that saved real lives, he wears both hats magnificently. The result is a movie that defines perfection.

Gifted, intelligent and full of cogent ideas, Mr. Affleck can almost always be depended on to come up with something fascinating, coherent and thoroughly cinematic. Argo, his third feature film as a director after Gone Baby Gone (2007) and The Town (2010), is no exception. It grabbed me by the lapels and held my attention for two solid hours without a sideward glance, and I can’t wait to see it again. You have to see it twice if you want to absorb the myriad pieces of a jigsaw too fantastic to accept as fact, although we know going in that the recently declassified records of an amazing history lesson prove otherwise. This movie is not only true, but unbelievably true.  Read More

By Drew Grant 9/07/12 1:07pm

Casting

Video

'American Beauty' live read in Toronto (Getty Images)

Jason Reitman Assembles Dream Team For American Beauty Reading: Bryan Cranston, Adam Driver, Christina Hendricks Perform (Video)

Last night, Jason Reitman took it upon himself to prove Natasha Vargas-Cooper wrong about the timeliness of Alan Ball’s 1999 script, American Beauty. Apparently it doesn’t have to feel like a rehashed bowl of nostalgic bullshit–as the Up in the Air director proved at the Toronto Film Festival when he got a new and improved cast to breathe life into stale material during a live read. Read More

By Drew Grant 12/05/11 2:53pm

theater

Peter Gallagher, a natural replacement for Jimmy Stewart (RKO, Getty)

Peter Gallagher's Eyebrows to Star in Theatrical Reading of 'It's a Wonderful Life'

Here’s a reason to leave the Broadway scene and fly across country: For one night only, L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse will host a staged reading of Frank Capra‘s holiday classic, It’s A Wonderful Life. The 1946 film–listed as one of AFI’s “100 Best American Films Ever Made”– is such a Christmas staple that it’s hard to imagine someone other than Jimmy Stewart playing the hapless and kindhearted banker George Bailey. But the production really nailed it with their casting, announced today:New York native Peter “My Face is Smiling But My Eyebrows Tell a Darker Story” Gallagher.

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By Joe Pompeo 3/31/10 3:23am

TV: Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad’s Dark Side

Bryan Cranston woke up on the morning of Wednesday, March 24, and went for a long run over the Williamsburg Bridge and back. Then he ate lunch, did some writing for a new children’s show he’s working on for Nickelodeon and popped into the bar at Soho’s Crosby Street Hotel, where he was staying, for Read More

By Joe Pompeo 1/18/08 7:13pm

Malcolm in the Middle Dad Gets Bad For New AMC Drama

Bryan Cranston is transitioning from playing one dad you wouldn’t want to have, to the next. The 51-year-old actor, best known for his fumbling father role on the Emmy-winning family sitcom Malcolm In the Middle, has taken on another paternal character, albeit a far more depressing one, in the new AMC drama Breaking Bad, Read More