Browsing: Film and Television

After 13 months of pointless scrutiny, federal regulators have done what they were certain to do all along, and blessed the most momentous media deal of this still-new century: The takeover by Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable operator, of NBC Universal, one of the country’s premier sources of news and entertainment.

No sooner are sitcoms pronounced dead, again, than they begin popping up all over, like Whac-a-Moles. This year we have been and will be getting a passel of relationship comedies built around interrelated contrasting sets of couples (and sometimes singles), usually packaged in groups of three, a la “Modern Family,” whose success surely helped turn these lights green. There are perhaps more of them than the market can bear, but if any have to go, I would rather it not be “Perfect Couples.”

Teen pregnancy is a popular topic for TV shows, movies and documentaries. Because the issue is generally considered controversial and there is not an agreed-upon way on how to handle it, the media continues to explore it in different ways.

In an attempt to wring a modern twist out of a fairy tale classic, “Tangled” fumbles around on screen with much-intended charm which, in the end, turns out to be the stubborn knot in this new Disney charade.fA savvy re-vamp of the fable of Rapunzel, “Tangled” is a frank, abrupt, tongue-in-cheek animated musical about the girl with the long blonde hair.