Don’t miss
- We kicked off our week of Oscar excitement by looking at 30-plus Oscar hopefuls making ridiculous guest appearances on TV shows in Monday’s Inventory.
- We’re liveblogging the 85th Annual Academy Awards this Sunday, and if you’re just bubbling with excitement for it, you should read about how most of the Best Picture nominees are just rubbing our faces in America’s failures. There you go, embrace the crushing realities of life.
- Eric Roberts explained how he turned himself into a “string-bean walking spaz attack,” and Linda Cardellini reminded us why Lindsay Weir was so fantastic in this week’s Random Roles.
- In Watch This, we learned about what happens to snitches. Sometimes they get stitches and wind up in ditches. Sometimes they just go to prison. Rarely do they manage to solve their problems.
- Todd VanDerWerff also looked at The Following and how its use of violence—along with shows of a similar ilk—cheapens the power of such actions.
- The Black Eyed Peas made a return to HateSong as Eugene Mirman told us how “I Gotta Feeling” is the anti-matter of Outkast’s “Hey Ya!”
- In Podmass, this week’s installment of This American Life featured a heartrending entry about Harper High School and teens living in the midst of prevalent gun violence. It’s an informative, emotional episode of interest even to non-Chicagoans.
This week in Great Job, Internet!:
- Fred Armisen and a slew of indie-rock elite got together and performed TLC’s “Waterfalls.” If that’s not enough of a selling point, then we’re sorry that you hate fun.
- Since being adorable is essentially what Alison Brie does when she’s not on Community, she went on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and freestyled. It may not have been the most proficient in the history of the artform, but it was pretty “D’aw”-inducing all the same.
What are we arguing about this week?
We looked at what fictional foods we’ve been longing to try and argued about which ones would be the tastiest. Those pies from Pushing Daisies have all but cemented the show’s legacy.
This weekend
See: Veteran director Carl Franklin returned with an adaptation of Rudolfo Anaya’s 1972 novel Bless Me, Ultima, and he found a way to make the film just as affecting as its source.
Read: If a fantasy novel that takes place in the Old West sounds like your cup of sarsaparilla, R.S. Belcher’s The Six-Gun Tarot boasts all the charms of a cleverly crafted television finale.
Listen to: Whether it be a deranged indie-rock veteran continuing to impress, nihilistic hardcore kids proving their debut wasn’t a fluke, or an electronic R&B artist sinking into his sound, there’s a good chance you’ll find something that resonates with you this week.
Watch: Granted an hour of time, Parks And Recreation produced one episode that could have easily been its series finale, and another that featured the well-loved, often underutilized Perd Hapley.