KIP MOONEY: Modern Family has a gift for extracting great moments out of unnecessary plotlines. That makes this episode’s title especially true. This episode really only needed one story: Claire and Cam’s dreams of flipping a house from a Rockford Files extra…
KIP MOONEY: This week’s Modern Family packed almost no emotional punch, but it was so packed with laughs that wasn’t room for much else. And that was just fine with me.
Scene for scene, this was the flat-out funniest episode…
Technical difficulties kept this from going out earlier, but here’s your weekly recap of Modern Family.
Sometimes, it’s just too easy. The stories on this week’s Modern Family have all been done to death. Yet, they still delivered bountiful laughs.…
KIP MOONEY: Well, that was an interesting experiment while it lasted. After spending the first part of the season without Haley, she’s now returning to the Dunphy house, having been kicked out of school.
See, Haley got caught underage drinking,…
KIP MOONEY: My apologies for not being able to cover the installment I was most excited about this year: the Halloween episode. Season two’s “Halloween” stands as one of the 10 best episodes the show’s ever done, and…
KIP MOONEY: There’s a great episode of the radio show Radiolab about probability that explains that, despite appearances, hot streaks simply don’t exist. Every shot a basketball player takes or question a contest on a game show gets right, he…
AKIE BERMISS: I’ve recently adopted a new coping mechanism for all the terrible news programs out there. I now categorized my news sources in three basic groups. There is the “What Is Happening” category – which is purely informative. No…
MATTHEW DAVID BROZIK: I had zero idea who David Rakoff was before he died. I had read his New York Times magazine “Lives” entry, but that’s all… and I’d had no idea at the time that he was anyone well…
AKIE BERMISS: Presidential election years are the World Cup of American politics. For many people who don’t follow politics 75% of the time, it is the only year in which they really care about who is doing what. Its when…
by Cindy Hill
Stupid remarks by public officials — or anyone, really — are an extremely useful and important segment of public discourse. Why? They let you know what’s really going on in their heads.
A few years ago, when…
AKIE BERMISS: I feel like I should begin with a disclaimer: do not be daunted by the sheer weight and length of the book — it is very much worth reading. I’ve been carrying around Robert A. Caro’s most recent…
SONIA BRAND-FISHER: The impeccably shot, brilliantly acted, beautifully written Season Five finale of “Mad Men” gave me a sense of extreme melancholy, not only because there will now be a period of mourning and nail-biting until the penultimate season debuts… but this episode felt…well… kind of anti-climactic. The previous two episodes have exploded “Mad Men” fans from Tumblr to Twitter into a frenzy of emotions, commentary, and speculation. This episode did not give me this visceral jolt (no pun intended) of exclamation about the characters, their circumstances, and their trials. It was lovely to look at, interesting to behold, but after a season that has been a gold mine of luminous material and story lines, this finale seemed more like a filler episode than something to whet our appetite.