Linda Holmes

Linda Holmes appears in the following:

A Sunny 'Camp' Kicks Back For Summer

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

We have to begin with a discussion of how Camp, NBC's new summer comedy-drama series premiering Wednesday night at 10, begins.

We see a dock, a lake, and sailboats. We hear affable pop music. Kids walk around a woodsy locale, some in swimsuits carrying air mattresses. Others ride a paddleboat ...

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'Big Brother' Isn't Just A Terrible Show, It's A Wasted Opportunity

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Here's how Big Brother works.

Producers throw a bunch of people into a house, where they're stuck for about three months. All day and all night, they're watched by cameras, and they can be watched online — these are the so-called "live feeds," which are sort of like watching the ...

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To The Dump, To The Dump, To The Dump Dump Dump: Write Us A Lone Ranger Joke

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

This morning, as I perused the headlines, I saw a few items about the new Lone Ranger movie, and rather than being struck by interesting thoughts about the racial politics of Johnny Depp's Tonto, I abruptly remembered this joke: "Where does the Lone Ranger take his trash?" "To the dump, ...

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Let Us Now Have A Heated Argument About Plinko. I'll Start.

Friday, June 28, 2013

There are people who believe that Plinko is the best game on The Price Is Right. I have a name for these people. I call them "Wrongety Wrong Wrong." They are the leaders of Wrongitania. They are the Doctors Of Wrongology. They are the Wrongtown Rats.

Plinko, if you have ...

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Pop Culture Happy Hour: Typecasting, Tony Soprano, And The Chicken Dance

Friday, June 28, 2013

First, this week, you will hear the production skills of our pal Nick Fountain, filling in for Jess Gitner, who for some reason thinks she can go on vacation. (Whatever, Jess Gitner.)

With Nick's help, we begin the week by remembering the great, great James Gandolfini, whose contributions to the ...

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'The Heat' Is Absolutely Revolutionary, For Being Mostly Ordinary

Friday, June 28, 2013

The date: June 14, 2013. The writer: me, in despair, without a single non-art-house movie with a female lead playing anywhere near me. The piece: "At The Movies, The Women Are Gone."

And now, two weeks later, it's opening day for The Heat, the buddy-cop comedy starring Melissa McCarthy ...

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Why Paula Deen Can't Be A 'Food Network Star'

Thursday, June 27, 2013

It's not the least bit surprising that Paula Deen lost her gig on The Food Network — and you don't have to believe she's a terrible person to know it. All you have to do is watch Food Network Star, the competition show that seeks a new network personality and ...

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The Seven Ways To Write About Television

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Perhaps it's the combination of Sunday night's Mad Men finale and the flurry of Sopranos discussion that followed the death of James Gandolfini, but it's hard not to be struck by the explosion of writing about television that's occurred in the last 15 years or so, facilitated (of course) by ...

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Illusions Of Grandeur: Why Don Draper Will Never Get To California

Monday, June 24, 2013

What makes Don Draper dashing is the suit, especially. And the hat, the jaw, the hair, the voice, the way he fixes his attention on a woman. But what makes Don Draper seductive as a person and not just a sexual partner is that he is perpetually a whisper away ...

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Pop Culture Happy Hour: Superman And What Gets Better With Age

Friday, June 21, 2013

On this week's show, the absolutely positively inevitable happens: we invite our pal Chris Klimek in to talk about Man Of Steel, the Superman movie for people who don't think summer blockbusters need to have smiling in them. As many of you know, Glen is, as he puts it, the ...

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Watch: Stephen Colbert Thanks And Remembers His Mom

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Stephen Colbert's mother Lorna died recently at 92, and on last night's Colbert Report, he offered her a funny, sweet, warm tribute that really requires no additional comment.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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The 25 Movies To Which 'World War Z' Is A Sequel, Probably

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

World War A (in which Isaac Newton is bonked on the head and still bravely figures out gravity)

World War B (spun off from a VH1 reality show)

World War C (in which two dudes hit each other with cellos for 2.5 hours)

World War D (part of The Great ...

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Bait And Twitch: 'Vice' Magazine, Suicide Glamour, And Not Staying Quiet

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

This week, Vice magazine unveiled a fashion spread featuring images based on famous female writers who killed themselves. To call it merely tasteless would be to understate how calculated it was, as well as how revolting it was — it literally created an image based on a real writer who ...

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In Slight Defense Of Miss Utah USA, A Little Bit, With Reservations

Monday, June 17, 2013

Look, Miss Utah USA, Marissa Powell, gave a pretty unimpressive answer to a question about income inequality at the Miss USA pageant. Let's all agree on that.

But what, exactly, did the circumstances call for?

She was asked — by NeNe Leakes, who first became famous on The ...

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The NFL To Your Purse: Drop Dead

Monday, June 17, 2013

Last Thursday, the NFL announced a policy change in which only clear plastic bags would be allowed into stadiums — one per person. Nothing they can't see through. The league says that the change is meant to ensure safety while speeding up security checks and preventing ...

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Pop Culture Happy Hour: Tony Awards And Shared Songs

Friday, June 14, 2013

We taped this week's podcast while still giddy from the effects of the very fine Tony Awards broadcast, so we begin by sharing some thoughts about that killer opening number, some of the other musical happenings, our feelings on Pippin, Phantom and other theater pieces, and whether we ...

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At The Movies, The Women Are Gone

Friday, June 14, 2013

I live in the D.C. metro area, which is a very good place to find films. If you don't live in New York or Los Angeles, it's about the best you can do. I'm within 10 miles of a multiplicity of multiplexes, not to mention four theaters I would consider ...

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Let's Rush To Judgment: 'The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug'

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Well, here it is: the trailer for the next Hobbit movie in the series of three Hobbit movies that will be made out of a single medium-length book.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug doesn't come out until December, but you can already delve into the dragons and mountains and ...

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MTV Promises To Be About Music For An Entire Half Of A Day

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Well, this is news.

MTV, VH1, and CMT sent out a press release this morning announcing that on July 4th, which they're calling "Music Independence Day" (!) (!!), they will "dedicate their channels exclusively to music."

ALL DAY LONG. If by "all day long," you mean "from 6 a.m. to ...

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Theater Of The Absurd: Have Audiences Lost Their Manners?

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

If you woke up this morning thinking, "I really need to hear NPR's Linda Wertheimer say the words 'noisily unwrapping her Twizzlers,'" have I got good news for you.

Margot Adler had a story on today's Morning Edition about Broadway audiences and whether they're getting ruder, given recent ...

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