How to write about a television programme that you love and that has even moved you to tears? Many years of teaching Film and TV have not really prepared me for this. In the eighties, when I first started teaching, we were largely in the grip of the Screen journal pleasure is suspicious era. (Indeed at PCL it was pretty much required as a critical approach on the MA Film &
The CW network offers a compelling coming of age story reflective of its changing demographic. In 2006, the network was launched as a joint venture of CBS and Warner Bros. Entertainment and next generation to The WB and UPN (1995-2006), which followed Fox’s success and shift in television broadcasting away from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and toward young viewers.
A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, Friday nights were (all too briefly) enlivened by a pair of young scamps with a penchant for critiquing popular culture, whether mounting toy-based parodies of contemporary film and television, utilising Star Wars figurines to skewer trash TV formats, or dispensing Vinyl Justice to the mad, bad and (occasionally) dangerous of rock ‘n’ pop.
As this goes to press (can we say that about online materials?), series four of Line of Duty is about to commence transmission in its new Sunday evening slot. I must admit I was slow coming to this particular party; when I saw the first series being advertised in a Radio Times feature back in 2012 my response was along the lines of ‘Crivens!
It was a bold scheduling move on the part of ITV, the UK’s main commercial television channel. Shifting the nightly news programme to make way for Britain’s latest attempt at a US-style late night talk show was always going to be risky.
Contemporary media culture seems to suggest that it is unacceptable for a woman to look her age if she is over twenty-five. Apart from the flood of anti-aging products and procedures advertised to ever younger audiences, another key indicator for this trend can be found in the female faces presented to us in popular television programmes.
Although Netflix’s approach to genre is different to those predominant in screen studies, the streaming site provides useful contextual materials for teaching on the subject. At several points last semester Netflix proved relevant to discussions of genre as part of an introductory Film Studies module, as well as an Honours ‘Film Genres’ module.
Here’s the pitch. Game of Thrones meets Mad Max in a post-apocalyptic wilderness somewhere North of Adelaide where a giant panda is on a lonely quest to atone for his wrongs to humanity.
Having previously considered the ways in which Alec Baldwin has his character Jack Donaghy run through the gamut of bad actor behaviour and bad acting in the 30 Rock (NBC 2006-2013) episode ‘Jack-Tor’ (1.5), it is now time to address the question previously raised by Martin Esslin: ‘How, in fact, does a good actor act a bad actor?’ (1987: 72) In this follow-up, we will examine the ways in which Baldwin delivers his masterclass on bad
When comedian Jimmy Fallon ruffled Donald Trump’s hair during an interview on The Tonight Show in the final weeks of the American election campaign, the internet exploded.
