TV on the Internet

Kick-ass indie rock, Aaron Sorkin's new show, and more media picks

September 12, 2006

MUSIC: Now that Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/Love Sounds is finally out, allow us to recommend five superior alternatives (though JT's record ain't half bad): TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain, the Rapture's Pieces of the People We Love, the Black Keys's Magic Potion, Amputechture from the Mars Volta, and—instant front-runner for Record Title of the Year—Yo La Tengo's I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.

TELEVISION: For those of you who haven't already caught the first episode of Studio 60 on Sunset Strip via Netflix or AOL, Aaron Sorkin's latest makes its TV debut Monday night, and is actually quite good. Also worth your attention: BBC's riveting spy series MI-5, which returns to A&E for a fourth season on Sunday, while Fox's hilarious Talk Show with Spike Feresten, debuting Saturday at midnight, offers yet another reason to skip SNL.

MOVIES: Josh Hartnett gets it on with Scarlett Johansson in Brian De Palma's pulpy noir The Black Dahlia, while on a less attractive plane of existence, Zach Braff woos Jacinda Barrett in The Last Kiss. A bit more bizarre, though plenty charming, is the romance between Gael García Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg in Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep.

BOOKS: Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions pulls out all the po-mo stops by using two narrators to tell the same story at the same time—in verse. With The United States of Arugula, meanwhile, Vanity Fair's David Kamp charts America's evolution from meat and potatoes to salsa and sushi.

DVD: The Great New Wonderful, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Stephen Colbert, tackles the emotional aftershocks of 9/11 without ever actually mentioning 9/11. Another 9/11-free title: season two of The Office, which is loaded with all the outtakes and gag reels you have a right to expect.

WEB: Apple tries to make said DVDs a thing of the past with the unveiling today of the new iTunes movie store, which will compete with Amazon's just-launched Unbox. Since Amazon's downloads won't play on your video iPod and its only exclusive content seems to be episodes of Star Trek, our money's on Apple.