Review: "Rocky Horror" Loses Its Edge

by Eric Blume

Last night, Fox TV gave us a remake/update of the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show, a staple of midnight movie screenings for decades.  This update, with the tag "Let’s Do The Time Warp Again," aired at the family hour of 8pm, which pretty much sums up everything that’s wrong with it.   

The original 1975 film is the definition of “lightning in a bottle.” There had been nothing quite like it at the time. It was genuinely transgressive, and featured one of the all-time out-there performances by Tim Curry as Frank-n-Furter, everyone’s favorite "sweet transvestite".  While it’s easy to romanticize the original and ignore its weaknesses, the film does deliver as a warm-heated parody of sci-fi and horror movies as intended. What's more it's actually kinky, sexy, unsettling, and fun...

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“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” S1 in Ten Songs

With Crazy Ex Girlfriend returning Friday evening for Season 2, here's new contributor Jorge Molina surveying season 1's songs

Season 2 premieres Fri 10/21 at 9 pm on The CWMaking a Top 10 Best [blank] is pretty much impossible. Top 10s are never final, accurate, or objective. 

So I decided not to do one. 

After all, how could I rank and, even worse, decide on the best musical numbers of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s amazing first season? They all represent a different aspect of the show, and it would be unfair to compare them on equal terms.  So I instead came up with a compilation of what are not necessarily the ten better numbers, but the ones that best showcase the show’s style, tone, and humor. What would be in a “Crazy XGF 101” course.

TEN SHOWCASE NUMBERS FROM SEASON 1

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Judy by the Numbers: "Just Imagine"

Anne Marie has been chronicling Judy Garland's career chronologically through musical numbers...

By episode 6, The Judy Garland Show was in trouble and it hadn’t even aired yet. CBS, still spooked by the Bonanza’s killer ratings, wanted The Judy Garland Show to be more, well, everything: More Hollywood glamour, more slapstick, more music, more ratings. With that in mind, after Tony Bennett fizzled and a planned episode with Nat King Cole fell through, the network fired most of the writers and producers by Episode 6. TV wunderkind Norman Jewison – who’d directed the original special – was brought on to save the show before it even got a chance to fail. Jewison’s first directives: More guests, more duets, and let’s knock Judy off that Hollywood high horse...

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The Many Genres of "Jane the Virgin"

Please welcome new contributor Jorge Molina to the team. Here's his take on "Jane the Virgin," returning to TV tonight, two seasons in...

Jane the Virgin returns tonight on the CW for season 3Jane the Virgin has always been a hard show to describe. Even its one-line, high concept premise takes a couple of reads to fully grasp: “A young Catholic Latina virgin gets accidentally artificially inseminated. Hilarity ensues.” 

Two seasons in and the show hasn’t gotten any less complex. Each episode adds more layers on plot, character, and style: someone will get pregnant or thrown down the stairs; there will be flashbacks, and murders, and small meaningful moments; and it will be as bombastic as it will be intimate. Sometimes in a matter of scenes.

Jane the Virgin is the rare case of a show that’s created entirely on pastiche, and yet has an unmistakable originality and essence that’s fully its own.

It embodies many genres, and weaves them all together in one single, coherent, Latin-loving storyline.  Five genres as example after the jump...

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RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars E8 - Finale

by Chris Feil

Can you believe that this season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars was only eight episodes? It feels like we have been gagging over the seemingly endless stream of drama and twists for much longer, but now the season must come to a close. After last week, the internet was vocal about Alaska's tantrum and even I took some flak for considering her run otherwise unsatisfying - but Alaska did play it smart with the fallout.

For the queens final challenge, they put on a supersized showgirl musical number with original raps written around their personas. Before the performance, the girls also visited Ru and Michelle Visage for a mini segment of their podcast "What's The Tee?", narrowly avoiding the podcast's shucking for SquareSpace ("you know it really is so easy") and Casper mattresses in a tweaked version of the old Tic Tac lunches...

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