Thompson on Hollywood

It's 1965 for Newsweek's Retro 'Mad Men' Issue, Complete with Sexist Ads

Television

Newsweek went back to 1965 for its retro issue featuring a cover story on "Mad Men," returning to AMC March 25. The magazine's "Mad Men" story was written by Eleanor Clift, who recalls her early days at Newsweek back in the 1960s. She recalls, "Women weren’t supposed to be openly ambitious in the ’60s...

By Sophia Savage
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March 19, 2012 4:38 PM
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'The Walking Dead' and Women: Bring On Andrea and Michonne

Television

For various scheduling reasons (Oscars, Sundance, SXSW), I wound up watching the final five episodes of "The Walking Dead" Season Two on Sunday, including the finale (review here). One of the things I hate about even the best reality television, from "Survivor" and "Project Runway" to "Top Chef" and "American Idol," is how poorly the women fare.

By Anne Thompson
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March 19, 2012 3:33 PM
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'The Walking Dead' Review: Killing Them Softly

Television

Ever since the decision was made to keep him alive in the "Walking Dead" (rather than allow Carl to kill him as he did in the first volume of the comic), the question the writers never seemed to answer was, “What can we do with Shane?”

By Terry Curtis Fox
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March 12, 2012 1:00 AM
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Hamm, Hendricks, Slattery, Moss & Weiner Talk 'Mad Men' Season Five with EW

Television

EW's scoop on "Mad Men" season five arrives in the next issue (on newsstands March 9). Here's a peek at the goods from cast members Elizabeth Moss, Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Christina Hendricks and show creator Matthew Weiner. The two-hour season premiere airs on AMC March 25.

By Sophia Savage
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March 8, 2012 1:55 PM
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'The Walking Dead' Episode 4 Review: 'Judge, Jury, Executioner'

Television

Perhaps it's because it originally set its own bar too high: “The Walking Dead” was so good out of the gate, such a great mixture of genre and sophistication, that its current episodes feel like a come-down.

By Terry Curtis Fox
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March 5, 2012 1:02 AM
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TV Watch: Betty Is Back With a Vengeance in New 'Mad Men' Teaser

Television

Filling out their "Mad Men Is Back" campaign, AMC launched a "Betty Is Back" teaser. In just thirty seconds, the spot highlights moments of Betty's pearl-clutching, martini-swilling, child-slapping, cigarette-puffing style.

By Maggie Lange
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February 22, 2012 12:23 PM
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IN THE WORKS: Darabont's 'L.A. Noir' at TNT; AMC Moving Ahead with 'Goodfellas' Prequel Series

Television

Frank Darabont, writer-director of "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile," as well as AMC's "The Walking Dead" (from which he got fired), is putting together another TV series (and one that will compete with AMC, no less). John Bunton's "L.A. Noir: The Struggle For The Soul Of America's Most Seductive City," is the inspiration for the series, for which he'll write and direct the pilot for TNT. The show will be set in the 1940s and 50s, and will follow the clash between corrupt law enforcement and mobster Mickey Cohen's gang.

By Sophia Savage
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January 10, 2012 3:30 PM
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The Walking Dead 2.1 – Darkness Visible

David Chute leaves Atlantic City behind to re-locate in Atlanta and follow the post-zombie-apocalypse refugees on the road to Fort Bening.It isn’t the most original show on television. In fact, the post-apocalyptic survival epic The Walking Dead could be written off, if you were so inclined, as a mash up of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and its sequels and Stephen King’s The Stand, as a plague of flesh-eating zombies gnaws the human race down to a bloody stump, to a close-knit band of hardy survivors. (Romero is the Bram Stoker of the flesh-eating-zombie sub-genre.) Feature films from The Day of The Triffids to Children of Men and I Am Legend, and the current TV shows Falling Skies and Terra Nova, and many others, are all built on much the same template: world-ending horror as a catalyst for interpersonal conflict and bonding and eventually, in the more optimistic variations, for an upsurge of world-re-building resourcefulness.

By David Chute
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October 18, 2011 6:06 AM
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TV Projects In The Works: Kids Are All Right, Underground Gambling, Diamond Trading, Nuclear Bomb

Movies and moviemakers are heading in increasing numbers to the small screen. Here's a smattering of recently announced in-the-works TV projects, from HBO's The Kids Are All Right spin-off to a diamond-trading drama at AMC. Some look more promising than others, and many will never see the light of day.

By Sophia Savage
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October 14, 2011 5:40 AM
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Behind The Scenes on AMC's The Walking Dead, Season 2: Zombies, Blood and Gore

Check out photographer David Strick's behind-the-scenes photos from the Atlanta set of AMC's The Walking Dead Season 2, which debuts October 16. Don't be put off by the zombies--as adapted for cable by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) season one of The Walking Dead was one of the best-written and mounted cable series of the year. It remains to be seen if producer Gale Ann Hurd (Comic-Con interview here) and the rest of the team will be able to maintain that quality without Darabont, who was fired from the series.