Author – The Durango Herald

There’s no better use of Netflix’s fortunes than this perfect revival of ‘Dark Crystal’

See how we sift and scroll through these endless TV menus and grids, scoffing at what the algorithms recommend, defaulting yet again to old sitcom reruns and an episode of “Beachfront Bargai...

DATE: Aug 30, 2019 | CATEGORY: Film, TV and Streaming

We’re buying what Kristen Dunst is selling in ‘On Becoming a God in Central Florida’

Friends, have I got a TV show for you. True, it has a sort of lame and unnecessarily pretentious title – “On Becoming a God in Central Florida” – but I’m here to tell you it will clean your ...

DATE: Aug 24, 2019 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

Review: Convoluted ‘Stranger Things’ follows its primal ’80s urges to one monster of a mall

This new round of “Stranger Things” – which is way too long and far too convoluted – brings out the Sigmund Freud in me. I can’t help but view it as an interpretive rumination on ...

DATE: Jul 5, 2019 | CATEGORY: Film, TV and Streaming

Nat Geo’s ‘Hot Zone’ runs cold on action

This goes out to those co-workers who leave damp paper towels on the floor of the office bathroom because they’re too afraid to touch the door handle after they wash their hands. You know wh...

DATE: May 28, 2019 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

Netflix’s ‘Maniac’ is an engaging, retro-futuristic romp through the subconscious

“Maniac,” Netflix’s retro-futuristic rumination on subconscious love, comes from creator Patrick Somerville (a novelist whose TV writing includes episodes of “The Leftovers”) and director Ca...

DATE: Sep 22, 2018 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

ABC wanted a contrarian on mainstream TV, but Roseanne was never right for the job

This was the problem all along: Having “Roseanne” back meant having Roseanne back. In her relative absence from popular culture – say, in the time between when ABC’s “Roseanne” fi...

DATE: May 29, 2018 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

Golden Globes: A watchable revolution, with Oprah leading the way

Less an awards show and more a prolonged statement of cultural correction, Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards telecast nevertheless managed to keep things fairly entertaining in the midst of revol...

DATE: Jan 7, 2018 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

The pleasant, but entirely unnecessary, return of ‘Will & Grace’

NBC’s “Will & Grace” returned eerily unchanged and sharply intact Thursday night, as if the past 11 years never occurred. Those sappy denouements seen in the show’s finale back in...

DATE: Oct 1, 2017 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

While you were watching summer’s biggest TV show, you missed summer’s best TV show

A curious thing happened on the way to television greatness this summer: The highly anticipated return of a critically revered show that some viewers might avoid because of its reputation as...

DATE: Sep 3, 2017 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

ABC revives ‘The Gong Show,’ but does it still work?

Does “The Gong Show” belong in 2017? ABC, which has a lazy habit of exhuming old game shows, brings “The Gong Show” back essentially unaltered – it’s a dank and shticky amateur ta...

DATE: Jun 24, 2017 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

Skip the first episode of ‘I’m Dying Up Here’

Showtime’s “I’m Dying Up Here” is a fictional drama about the Sunset Strip stand-up comedy scene in 1973, and it’s full of revelations that it (wrongly) assumes to be fresh news to a cable a...

DATE: Jun 5, 2017 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

‘Twin Peaks’ in a time of peak weirdness

Last we saw FBI Agent Dale Cooper, he was in the Great Northern Lodge in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington, staring into a cracked bathroom mirror with a maniacal grin. Staring ba...

DATE: May 20, 2017 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment