'Penny Dreadful' goes back to horror’s roots

Horror is the new black

Penny Dreadful features a rogue’s gallery of Victorian favorites, but this is no retread of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Paula Berman

Jun 29, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

'Orange Is the New Black,' Season Two

Truth and consequences

Jenji Kohan takes the cheesiest of B-movie settings, a women's prison, as her starting point for an engrossing and complex examination of morality and choice in Orange Is the New Black.

Judy Weightman

Jun 22, 2014 · Articles · 6 minute read

Philip Seymour Hoffman in 'God's Pocket'

Nominally a Philadelphia film

As Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last film, God’s Pocket may end up being remembered as better than it actually is.

Rick Soisson

Jun 17, 2014 · Articles · 3 minute read

James Gray’s ‘The Immigrant’

Ellis Island blues

What went on under Lady Liberty’s lamp? James Gray’s The Immigrant tells the Ellis Island story as the dark side of the American Dream.

Robert Zaller

Jun 16, 2014 · Articles · 4 minute read

'Dear Mr. Watterson'

The 'Bigfoot' of comic artists

Calvin and Hobbes may be the world’s last great household names in cartoon strip characters: the last universally known and universally loved ink, paper, and watercolor world we’ll ever fall into.

Alaina Johns

Jun 14, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

Relâche and 'The Lodger' at the Penn Museum

Old movie, new music

Live music by Relâche enhances enjoyment of Hitchcock's first hit, the silent film The Lodger.

Pamela J. Forsythe

Jun 03, 2014 · Articles · 3 minute read

'The Bletchley Circle'

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No – it’s crime-fighting women!

Ultimately, the series is not about the crimes being solved but rather the true identities of these extraordinary women. Each of them is forced to live a lie, pretending to be the helpless, hapless stereotypes that the male-dominated society of the time forced them to play.

Armen Pandola

Jun 03, 2014 · Articles · 4 minute read

The female antihero on television

Sisters are doing it for themselves

Right now, there’s a crop of TV shows that both pass the Bechdel test and feature female characters who would feel right at home with Jax Teller and Walter White.

Paula Berman

May 31, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

The Fall 2014 TV season

Geek Wonderland

As a lifelong geek, I consider this to be the Golden Age of television. Of all the choices on TV (and let’s face it, there are a lot of choices), geek programs as a rule have a higher level of writing and production values than your average cop show or prime-time soap opera.

Gary L. Day

May 24, 2014 · Articles · 6 minute read

'Under the Skin' and 'Only Lovers Left Alive'

New takes on horror

Genre films are not just for hacks — well-regarded indie directors Jonathan Glazer and Jim Jarmusch try their hands at horror.

Andrew Mangravite

May 17, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read