Ick alert? TV dramatizations of Clinton-Lewinsky scandal airing or in works
More than 20 years after it ended, the scandalous affair of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky still fascinates, still strangely exerts a hold on popular culture. How otherwise to explain … Continue reading
CNN series gives kitchen-sink treatment to the ’90s
Call it the kitchen-sink approach to documentary-making. That’s an effective summation of the seven-part, eight-hour CNN series, “The Nineties,” which wrapped up last night with a jumbled look at the … Continue reading
O.J. Simpson wins parole, but it’s no 1995 moment
O.J. Simpson’s parole hearing today in Nevada may have been widely watched and much-anticipated. But it was no “flashbulb moment,” not an occasion so rare and powerful that it will … Continue reading
No cause for cheer if O.J. Simpson wins parole
If he is paroled, it will be no cause for cheer. Expectations are that O.J. Simpson — former football star, erstwhile celebrity, and now aging felon — will win parole … Continue reading
Messaging, sequencing a puzzle as CNN launches ’90s series
It’s certainly commendable that the 1990s — a decade Americans too often treat casually or dismissively — is receiving extended attention from CNN, in a seven-part documentary series that premieres … Continue reading
Sitting in jail, O.J. Simpson becomes a cultural reference point
While he sits in prison in Nevada, O.J. Simpson, convicted armed robber and central figure in the 1995 “Trial of the Century,” has become an odd if recurring point of … Continue reading
The smears Lewinsky ignores
Monica Lewinsky unloaded today on Fox News and its former chairman, the late Roger Ailes, for turning her life into a “nightmare” as Fox covered the sex-and-lies scandal stemming from … Continue reading
Timeless lessons of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing
The attack came without warning, at a little after 9 a.m. local time, on April 19, 1995. A 7,000 pound bomb, made of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil and packed … Continue reading
22 years after, ‘Newsweek’ takes red pen to flawed Internet column
It’s been 22 years since Newsweek magazine published one of the most astonishingly off-target commentaries about the Internet and the early Web. The commentary was so strikingly wrong-headed that it … Continue reading
PBS doc on OKC bombing pushes hard on vague, distant connections
To its credit, the “American Experience” documentary airing tomorrow night on PBS about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing has little patience with extravagant and bizarre conspiracy theories that have flourished … Continue reading
