Blog Posts by Sarah D. Bunting

Everyone loves a mascot fight, a meme, and reggae. Right?

At least, Volkswagen hopes so. Their leaked Super Bowl 2013 spot, "Get Happy," features reggae great Jimmy Cliff ("The Harder They Fall") crooning the Partridge Family's theme song while YouTube's most notorious train wrecks do their thing: baseball players disputing calls by throwing bases, a girl sobbing about glitter, that famously inconsolable Packers fan, a portly dude whanging his guitar down on his videogame console, and many other meme stars.

Then a, well, happy reunion occurs, as all these folks (plus one very tolerant orange cat) gather in a sunny field, now all smiles, to sing along with Cliff. Cliff, totally committed to his role, gives hilarious shout-outs like "Supermarket Tantrum Girl!"

At least one tweeter got a warm and fuzzy feeling:

Made me laugh. Reminds me

Read More »from Volkswagen's Super Bowl 2013 ads want you to 'Get Happy' [Video]

The "Bad Friend" of the episode title actually isn't Hannah (although it won't surprise you to learn that she manages to be one anyway). It's Marnie, and it's because she had sex with Elijah.

It's also because cocaine has completely shredded what passed for Hannah's filters. She's on assignment for an online magazine clearly modeled -- and not complimentarily -- on xoJane's brand of confessional over-sharing; she's thrilled to find out that she's in line for a freelance gig, but underwhelmed by the topic choices, which include having a threesome or doing coke for the first time.

After a snotty tutorial from the editor about the equally snotty sign on the mag's wall (a picture frame around the words "Here's your comfort zone"; a circle, well away from the frame, subtitled "THIS is where the magic happens"), Hannah goes to her downstairs neighbor, Laird, to buy the drugs. She's assured by Marnie that Laird is a junkie; the fact that he's recently gotten clean doesn't stop Hannah from

Read More »from 'Girls' recap: Where the magic happens

Monday, January 28

Watch: Get your possible Oscars-hosting sneak peek on "The View" when Seth McFarlane visits the show for the first time. And it's Bacon Day on "Rachael Ray" -- not just Kevin (of "The Following") but the actual meat, as Rachael cooks up bacon-wrapped meatloaf and BLT penne. (That last one sounds really delicious; are we crazy?) Jimmy Kimmel tries to match last week's Matt-Damon-derful success by talking to Jude Law. Katie Couric keeps it thematic after her Manti Te'o interview with an hour on "online love traps," while Leno gets the inside scoop on all the Super Bowl commercials from ad man Donny Deutsch.

Skip: We don't see anything that off-putting in the lineups, although those of you with "Girls" fatigue may want to take a pass on "Chelsea Lately" and Allison Williams.

Tuesday, January 29

Watch: Letterman's probably got the random guest combo of the week locked up with

Read More »from In the Hot Seat: What to watch (or not) on TV talk shows the week of January 28

Go Daddy has gone more "Playboy" than "Wired" in past Super Bowl spots, but 2013 is different. Last summer, the company shifted its promotional focus from T&A to tech, and hired ad agency Deutsch NY to take charge of its ad spots. Company founder Bob Parsons noted last June that the "frat boy" era of Go Daddy advertising was over.

The first Go Daddy ad to be released (so far), "YourBigIdea.CO" is a witty bit about husbands insisting that their ideas are unique, totally new, "one in a gazillion," so there's no need to rush to the internet and register it -- and then the one husband who actually does it, laughing it up in his private plane. (Ranking Go Daddy spokesracer Danica Patrick appears as the pilot.)

Not everyone's a fan so far; one Twitter critic grumbled, "Maybe after 10 beers it will be funny."

The other hotly anticipated (no pun intended) ad from the web-hosting company stars Israeli model and

Read More »from Go Daddy's second Super Bowl 2013 ad keeps its clothes on [Video]

The Doritos-commercial finalists have landed!

It's year seven of the Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" contest -- filmmakers, both amateurs and the pros, submit 30-second Doritos commercials for consideration. Then five finalists are chosen; two of those finalists will face off during the Super Bowl, with viewers voting on their favorite. (Vote yourself by clicking here.)

This year, storylines in the finalists' ads include a tiny dog whose fetching abilities are a mixed blessing (above); a checkout-line lothario getting whacked in the goolies; and a goat whose love for Doritos is intense. Like, really intense. Watch "Goat 4 Sale" here:

The inspiration behind "Goat 4 Sale" is elegant in its simplicity (if not in anything else; it is a goat, after all); director Ben Callner explains in his behind-the-scenes video that a friend of his happened to mention, "Hey, my goat eating and crunching on food is really funny." When your friend has a goat, you kind of have to make a

Read More »from Get ready to vote for the Doritos 'Crash the Super Bowl' finalists [Video]

Oh, ABC promos: you misleading scamps! Deacon doesn't fall off the wagon (although he thinks about it), and Rayna and Liam don't make out (although they think about it, and Teddy isn't convinced they haven't done it).

But Deacon's having a hard time, thanks to a misleading magazine article claiming he got fired from Revel Kings because he didn't stay sober, not because the lead singer "mauled" his niece. He shows up for Juliette's mother's hearing, and he's supposed to speak to the judge on her behalf, but he doesn't think it's a good idea given the (inaccurate, but still) publicity, so Juliette has to do it, and she half-asses it with, "There's nobody who hopes this sticks more than I do. That's all I have to say."

When the fight is having you

Then Juliette's annoyed when Deacon invites Jolene as his plus-one to the big party the Edgehill label is throwing to celebrate the "Wrong Song" duet hitting #1. She's even more annoyed when Deacon doesn't show up, leaving Jolene to drop Read More »from 'Nashville' recap: Dealer's choice

Was it all a lie?

The second-season finale of "American Horror Story" brought most of its stories full circle, but the final scene had many in the audience wondering just how much of the recap we could believe. The final confrontation between Lana Winters and her murderous son with Oliver "Bloody Face" Thredsen, that ends with her shooting him in the head, is real – but the final scene set in 1964 throws everything that came before into question. Sister Jude, concluding Lana's tour of Briarcliff, warns her that looking into the face of evil means that it looks right back at you. Then she walks away, and Lana slowly turns to look at the front entrance, bathed in white light and perfectly accessible to her.

Did Lana actually leave Briarcliff unharmed back then? Did she make everything up to further her career? What's true, and what's a twisted product of Lana's ambition?

Twitterers couldn't decide. Many found the episode as "moving" as Sarah Paulson predicted in our conversation with

Read More »from 'American Horror Story' finale baffles audience

Sarah Paulson's "AHS: Asylum" character, Lana Winters, has endured more than almost any other character in the show's second season: forced confinement in a lunatic asylum, a brutal homosexuality "cure," and abduction and impregnation by a serial killer who also slaughtered her girlfriend. Paulson spoke to us before the season finale about how she prepared for her emotionally raw scenes, what she knew about her storylines ahead of time, and how hard it's been to let go of Lana's story.

Lana began the season as something of an innocent, or at least more of an optimist, determined to expose what's going on at Briarcliff -- and now that we're ending the season, she's become a bit more cynical and self-centered. How much did you know about Lana's arc, and about that evolution specifically, at the beginning of the season? Did you have an overview?

At the beginning of the season I did not have an overview, but I did have -- we started shooting on July 17th, and I think in early June, I had

Read More »from Yahoo TV Q&A: Sarah Paulson says goodbye to Lana Winters on 'American Horror Story'