In 1992, a recently reunited folk band from southeastern Finland, singing in a dialect with maybe 35,000 native speakers, released their fourth album, Seleniko. Six years later, a children’s show produced in Boston featured one of their songs as an addictive pop hit from an equally mysterious music group. (This sounds like the start of… Read More Arthur S3E6, “Binky Rules/Meet Binky”
Dir. Ken Burns In the past few years it has become popular to lob grenades at Shelby Foote, whose three-volume history of the Civil War remains the most enjoyable and readable compendium on the war that I’ve ever come across. The flaws are there, certainly, and I’m preparing some projectiles myself. Foote’s primary interests are… Read More The Civil War (1990)
Looking back at it, “The Trolley Problem” was the episode that marked the great turn in The Good Place from comedy to televised manifesto. “The Trolley Problem” is a great episode, funny enough to fulfill us while simultaneously leaning all the way into the literal Philosophy 101 stuff that dominated so much of the series’ second half.… Read More The Good Place S4E13, “Whenever You’re Ready”
Tim: Howdy, Matt. It’s been a second since we landed one of these, but it’s time for the long-winded talk about things that are disappointing again. Matt: That describes so much of what we do. I don’t know that the disappointment comes after years and years of build usually though. Tim: Can you imagine being… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations #13: Game of Moans
Tim: Matt has an entertaining question to lead us off with today for our discussion of reboots. Matt: Are these Conversations a reboot of the podcast? Tim: Here we are, living in our own little rebooted nightmare where we can no longer just say things, but where we must type all of our thoughts instead.… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations #9: Reboots
Created by Ryan Murphy. Starring Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith 22) E21, “Funk” – written by Ian Brennan As much as any show I’ve ever watched, I think I remember where I was for my first viewings of Glee episodes. I know where I was when I watched “Funk” for the first time. It was… Read More Glee, Season 1
I’ve completed a series of episode-by-episode reviews of the television miniseries Scenes from a Marriage. I’ve decided to make it easier to access these posts as part of a group by making this page as an index. I’ve also added a short synopsis of each episode so that you can find what you’re looking for quickly.… Read More Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Gunnel Lindblom (My thoughts on the previous episode are here.) It’s not surprising that in this final episode, more like an epilogue than an actual continuation of the plot, Johan and Marianne seem to be back together. They are no longer married. He’s married to an Anna,… Read More Scenes from a Marriage, S1E6, “In the Middle of the Night in a Dark House Somewhere in the World”
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson (My thoughts on the previous episode are here.) The windowless walls of Johan’s office are utterly bare, a bland taupe that makes the room seem close even when he’s sitting there by himself and which, as the episode carries on, makes it seem like entire setting is… Read More Scenes from a Marriage S1E5, “The Illiterates”
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson (My thoughts on the previous episode are here.) “The Vale of Tears,” like “The Art of Sweeping Things Under the Rug,” acts like a ligament in the miniseries, although there’s much more change that occurs in this installment than in the second episode. “The Vale of Tears”… Read More Scenes from a Marriage S1E4, “The Vale of Tears”
Seeing Things Secondhand 