Linda Holmes

It's perhaps not surprising that the strongest part of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore on its debut Monday was the part that looked the most like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, with which it shares considerable DNA. Wilmore opened with an observation that the Oscar nominations are ...

The high bar that a biopic about Whitney Houston has to clear is essentially this: Is it better than just watching YouTube videos of Whitney Houston singing? Does it somehow tell you more, open her up more, explain her legacy more? Because honestly, all it takes is watching her sing ...

[At the top of this post, you'll find a discussion I had with Stephen Thompson, my Pop Culture Happy Hour co-panelist, about the Oscar nominations. Tomorrow's full PCHH episode more fully covers the film Selma.]

The Oscar nominations are in (you can see the full list here), and ...

In our first edition of Brian Lehrer's Podcast About Parks and Recreation, we recap last night's episode, wherein the show jumped ahead to 2017 and Werner Herzog showed up.

Stephen Thompson and I meant to sit down together Monday to talk about Sunday's Golden Globes, but a few weather and other issues intervened, so we got cracking this morning, now that our delirious Golden Globe Fever has subsided. We touch on the wins for Transparent and Boyhood and give ...

While at the movies this weekend, I saw what may be the funniest trailer of the year, albeit not on purpose. It is for the thriller The Boy Next Door, starring Jennifer Lopez and opening Jan. 23. It called out to me. It wanted to be shown. It loves your ...

Sunday night's Golden Globes honored television that feels different from what we had before in both content and business model. High honors went to, among others, House Of Cards, a Netflix drama starring an established movie actor; Transparent, an Amazon comedy-drama about a transgender woman with adult children; and Jane ...

At Sunday night's Golden Globes, Tina Fey said this about the new wife of award recipient George Clooney: "Amal [Alamuddin] is a human rights lawyer who worked on the Enron case, was an advisor to Kofi Annan regarding Syria, and was selected for a three-person U.N. commission investigating rules of ...

It's wrong, I think, to say that Fox's Glee was only good at the beginning. It's certainly been inconsistent. It's certainly struggled with new cast members once the original group moved on. But against all odds, it's still managed to crank out an occasional really strong episode — one of ...

Sure, lots of people make predictions at the beginning of every year. And lots of people make resolutions. But how many people are willing to go back, play tape of themselves making those predictions and resolutions, and evaluate their own rightness or, more often, wrongness?

On this week's show, Stephen ...

NBC's Parenthood, loosely based on the 1989 Steve Martin film, returns Thursday night for its final run of four episodes. Produced by Jason Katims, who's beloved by critics for helming television's version of Friday Night Lights, the show ran for six seasons and leaves a curious question behind: What happened ...

Empire comes to Fox with an interesting pedigree: It was created by Danny Strong (who's written multiple award-winning projects for HBO) and Lee Daniels, who made Precious and The Butler — both films with a sheen of prestige, but both films to which people reacted in complex ways. It stars ...

From the time we started Pop Culture Happy Hour, Stephen Thompson and I have occasionally heard a plaintive cry: "Why do you guys mention The Bachelor?" And it's true: we do. It comes up from time to time as a strange example of perplexing television, but we would never let ...

The best of comedian and actor Patton Oswalt lies in his ability to truthfully observe what is small but important. That's true in his comedy, but it's true in his writing, too. Here he is in his new memoir Silver Screen Fiend, talking about his desperation to make an impression ...

I don't know when people started to think they could successfully make fun of you for being a person who grew up listening to a lot of Billy Joel — and perhaps still does — but they can all forget it.

Friday night, PBS is running a special concert in ...

[This piece assumes you've seen the first four seasons of Downton Abbey. As to the fifth, it avoids specific spoilers, but does talk about themes and threads enough that you might be 20 percent less surprised by a couple of developments. It's the best balance I could strike.]

Let us ...

In early December, we had a live show at the Sixth & I synagogue, the first part of which you've already heard. But sometimes, we like to top off our live events with a little bonus madness, so that's what's on tap this week.

Before we get underway, ...

It's hard to remember that The Apprentice was sort of fun once.

NO, DON'T LEAVE.

In January 2004 when it premiered, it was sold as a proving ground for hustlers (in the "those with hustle" sense) and fierce competitors who knew how to make deals, sell stuff and manage others. ...

It's not an unfair generalization, I don't think, to say that identification with characters is fundamental to contemporary romantic novels. Most — not all, but most, by the numbers — are written for an audience of women, and they're emotionally centered on the romantic quest of a woman, often accompanied ...

Is there anything left to say about Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn?

That is the question that animates big parts of Andrew Levy's Huck Finn's America: Mark Twain And The Era That Shaped His Masterpiece, a richly researched, copiously annotated, fascinating argument that in all the debates over the book's treatment ...