Linda Holmes

Why Angelina Jolie's Op-Ed Matters

Linda Holmes — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:28:00 +0000

Pop culture does not mean celebrity culture; I have perhaps said this more often than anyone you're going to meet. Who dates, who gets a divorce, who has a tantrum, who has surreptitious photos snapped of him by mangy, grim opportunists — these things are not culture of any kind, popular or otherwise, unless there is something else at stake. They are curiosities, and given that we are curious creatures, their pull is not surprising, nor is it new, nor was it invented by the internet, or television, or Americans.

Boston's Art Museums Offer Free Admission To Provide A 'Place Of Respite'

Linda Holmes — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 20:09:00 +0000

UPDATE, 4:08 p.m.: In addition to the institutions mentioned below, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has announced that admission will be free on Wednesday, April 17.

At least two art museums in Boston, the Museum Of Fine Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art, have announced that admission on Tuesday will be free as a service to a city still dealing with the trauma of the explosions Monday at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Big Hair, Big Shoulders And Big Money: Linda Evans On '80s Excess

Linda Holmes — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:16:00 +0000

You may find a hint to the era in which you were born (as well as your taste in entertainment) in Linda Wertheimer's clarification that on the '80s nighttime soap Dynasty, actress Linda Evans played Krystle Carrington — Krystle with a K, that is.

Thank G-O-O-D-N-E-S-S: The National Spelling Bee Adds Meaning

Linda Holmes — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:51:00 +0000

As Eyder Peralta reported last night, the National Spelling Bee has made a big change to its rules.

For the first time, the written (or computerized) test students use to qualify for the semifinals and championship finals will include vocabulary questions requiring them to know the meanings of words, not just the spelling.

Viewer Discretion: Deciding When To Look Away

Linda Holmes — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:17:00 +0000

I was out of the house, as it happens, for most of the first half of yesterday's Louisville-Duke game, and when I got home and looked at Twitter, before I turned on the TV, there was a huge stack of stuff to read, and the first thing that caught my attention about the game was this.

That's Dan Fienberg of Hitfix, tweeting about the grisly broken leg suffered by Louis

Here We Go Again: Leno, Fallon, And Why The Late-Night Wars Are So Boring

Linda Holmes — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:48:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYzVdv6V5Vs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXnh4tYpA-U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq-URl9F17Y

The Oscars Broadcast, Zooming Way Past Cheeky To Land Squarely On Crass

Linda Holmes — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 07:20:00 +0000

If you like Argo (which won Best Picture), the movie Chicago (which made a couple of appearances) and jokes about women (which just kept coming), you probably had a substantially better night than the average viewer, who was subjected to Seth MacFarlane's delivery of one of the worst hosting performances in Oscar history.

In fact, David Letterman is writing Seth MacFarlane notes of gratitude right now for taking all the pressure off of "Uma, Oprah, Oprah, Uma," the most famous bomb of 1995, and more recent troubled hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway are feeling a little l

Rubio's Water Bottle And The Authenticity Craving

Linda Holmes — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:59:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w2A0qsgurU

Ten Clues That The Zombie Outbreak Being Announced On Your Television Is Not A Hoax

Linda Holmes — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:08:00 +0000

As reported on Tuesday's Morning Edition, KRTV in Great Falls, Mont., was apparently the victim of hackers who broke in and broadcast a warning of attacking zombies. The station now says that it was a hoax, fortunately.

But in the future, how can a viewer at home identify a similar alert that really requires immediate action to avoid a very real zombie horde?

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Get Severance: Interview With An Iron

Linda Holmes — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:53:00 +0000

Wednesday, Hasbro announced that it was welcoming a new member of the Monopoly-token family. And because it asked the Internet, it wound up with a cat. (For whatever reason, the Internet was not offered Gotye or a bacon cupcake.)

Unfortunately, "rightsizing" the Monopoly token collection meant that as one new token was introduced, one old token had to be ushered out the door, and by popular vote, it was the iron.

That Was A Great Blackout Last Night

Linda Holmes — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 13:46:00 +0000

Great blackout last night, right?

It's been clear for some time that substantially more people watch the Super Bowl than have the slightest interest in watching the actual football game. That's why there's such hubbub over the halftime show and the commercials — it gives non-football types something to pay attention to instead of football.

But this year, Beyonce put on a perfectly polished but in no way surprising show at the half.

Choosing Sides: How To Pick Between The Ravens And The 49ers

Linda Holmes — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 13:23:00 +0000

Headlines were circulating last week about how, as Slate put it, "almost everybody" is rooting for the San Francisco 49ers over the Baltimore Ravens in Sunday's Super Bowl.

Lance Armstrong And The Cheapening Of Indignation

Linda Holmes — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 17:13:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zad68VOxr8g

Oscar Nominees Announced: 'Lincoln' Leads With 12

Linda Holmes — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:11:00 +0000

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And this morning here in Los Angeles the nominations for the 85th Academy Awards were announced. The movie with the most nominations: Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," with 12 nods.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "LINCOLN")

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS: (as Lincoln) Euclid's first common notion is this: Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. That's a rule of mathematical reasoning. It's true because it works.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "LIFE OF PI")

SURAJ SHARMA: (as Pi) My name is Pi Patel. I have been in a shipwreck.

In NFL Football, As In Hollywood, Does Anybody Know Anything?

Linda Holmes — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:56:00 +0000

Baseball: The San Francisco Giants, in winning the 2012 World Series, participated in 16 playoff games — and they'd have had more, had they not swept Detroit 4-0 in the World Series itself.

Football: The San Francisco 49ers played 16 games in their entire regular season. Three more wins would make them Super Bowl champions.

This is not to make football sound inadequately grueling, but to make a purely statistical point: The sample size for football games is much, much smaller than the sample size for baseball games.

2012 In Review: 50 Wonderful Things From The Year In Pop Culture

Linda Holmes — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 15:08:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JREkqCvLzSo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldqjM7x6NhE

The 'Calm Act' Will Quiet Down Commercials, So What Should Congress Do Next?

Linda Holmes — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:04:00 +0000

COME RIGHT DOWN RIGHT NOW BUY SOME FURNITURE EVERYTHING MUST GO WE ARE LIQUIDATING MERCHANDISE FOR THE THIRD TIME SINCE LAST FEBRUARY AND THIS TIME WE REALLY MEAN IT WE ARE GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ANY REASONABLE OFFER WILL BE ACCEPTED OR MY NAME ISN'T CRAZYPANTS MCGILLICUDDY.*

If this is what television commercials sound like to you, Congress has you covered.

PBS Remixes 'Reading Rainbow,' Delights Map And Book Nerds Everywhere

Linda Holmes — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 21:07:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FD1K8OvVCs

Neil deGrasse Tyson Helps His New 'Bud' Superman Get A Glimpse Of Home

Linda Holmes — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:23:00 +0000

On Monday's Morning Edition, Hayden Planetarium director and pop-culture go-to science guy Neil deGrasse Tyson tells NPR's David Greene the story of how he came to lend a hand to Superman.

DC Comics, Tyson explains, approached him for permission to use the Planetarium — as well as his likeness — in a story where Superman witnesses the destruction of Krypton, since the light from the distant planet is just now arriving on Earth.

Top Ten Things I Am Not Going To Do During This 'Les Miserables' Screening

Linda Holmes — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 17:56:00 +0000

It's just about that time when members of the press begin to attend screenings of Les Miserables. I hereby vow to engage in none of the following conduct.

1. Throw crusts of bread at the screen and yell, "HEY, JEAN VALJEAN, ARE YOU HUNGRY?"

2. Do my imitation of Amanda Seyfried singing "There are so many questions and ah-nswers that somehow seem wrong," even though it's really funny and quite terrifying.

3. Refer to the short-haired Anne Hathaway as "Ruth Buzz-y."

Running A Comedy Machine: How Chuck Lorre Makes Hits

Linda Holmes — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:04:00 +0000

On Tuesday's Morning Edition, NPR's Neda Ulaby has a story about Chuck Lorre, the producer whose name is attached to three of the five highest-rated comedies on American television last season: The Big Bang Theory, Two And A Half Men, and Mike & Molly.

Rob Delaney Talks About Gratitude, Perspective, Spaceships And A Career With Teeth

Linda Holmes — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 22:01:00 +0000

Full disclosure: The first thing I said when I saw that Rob Delaney would be talking to NPR's Audie Cornish on today's All Things Considered was that I was curious to see whether he had ever said anything on Twitter — where he has almost 670,000 followers (including me) as of this writing — that they thought they could read on the radio. It's an exaggeration.

A Judge Dismisses 'The Bachelor' Discrimination Lawsuit, But Not Its Concerns

Linda Holmes — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:34:00 +0000

Yesterday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Christopher Johnson and Nathaniel Claybrooks, two black men who had auditioned for The Bachelor, who claimed that the show discriminates against people of color both in choosing the primary bachelor/ette and in choosing the people he or she will have to choose from.

A Day Later, The Space Jump Guy Is Okay, But How About The Rest Of Us?

Linda Holmes — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:00:00 +0000

More than 7 million people were watching as Felix Baumgartner sat at the edge of his space capsule yesterday 24 miles off the ground and got ready to jump, in what was known as the "Red Bull Stratos" project, better known as the "space jump." I saw it myself; he opened the door, and there was something there that certainly seemed to be space.

Damian Lewis On The Conflicts And Complexities Of 'Homeland'

Linda Holmes — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:07:00 +0000

There weren't a whole lot of upset winners at last Sunday's Emmy Awards, but one of the few was Homeland star Damian Lewis, who beat out, among others, Mad Men's Jon Hamm and three-time winner Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad to take home the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Lewis' co-star, Claire Danes, won for her lead performance as well, and the show ended a four-year Mad Men streak when it was named Outstanding Drama Series.

Good Business, Bad Quality: How NBC Is Both Right And Wrong On The Olympics

Linda Holmes — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:34:00 +0000

The following exchange has played out over and over in the last ten days:

Point: "NBC's coverage of the Olympics stinks, because everything is tape-delayed and cut to shreds, and also the announcers are awful and they only care about American athletes, and by the time I get to watch anything, I already know what happened."

Counterpoint: "People are watching in huge numbers."

Point: "But quality."

Counterpoint: "But business."

There have been some efforts to elaborate on just how thoroughly P and CP in this example are talking past each other; notably, Will Leitch, who wrote a

Explaining Muppet Theory: Are You An Ernie Or A Bert?

Linda Holmes — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 10:08:00 +0000

Most of the time, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick covers the Supreme Court. She's been doing that for the last 13 years. But recently, you may have seen her name floating around in connection with the piece she recently wrote that she discusses with Scott Simon on Saturday's Weekend Edition.

In short, Lithwick posited that the world can be separated into what she calls Chaos Muppets and Order Muppets. Ernie versus Bert. Cookie Monster versus Kermit. Gonzo versus Sam the Eagle.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Investigates The Space Science Of Summer Movies

Linda Holmes — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 08:03:00 +0000

If you make movies that have anything to do with science, please note: Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, pays attention.

Tyson pays so much attention, in fact, that he got James Cameron to fix the stars in the sky in Titanic for the recent 3-D rerelease.

For Impressionist Jim Meskimen, The Voice Is 'A Sample Of Who We Are'

Linda Holmes — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 10:43:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8PGBnNmPgk

John Edwards: Once More With (Or Without) Feeling, He Takes Full Responsibility

Linda Holmes — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:44:00 +0000

Yesterday, after being acquitted of one of six campaign finance fraud charges against him and seeing the jury deadlock on the other five, John Edwards held a brief press conference in which he said this:

I want to make sure that everyone hears from me and from my voice that while I do not believe I did anything illegal or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. And there is no one else responsible for my sins. None of the people who came to court and testified are responsible, nobody working for the government is responsible.