The 33rd cycle of The Amazing Race was good to go, and go it did. The latest running of the 10-time Emmy Award-winning around-the-world challenge burst out of the starting gate as scheduled last February...

2021

Jan

THE MOD SQUAD By David Bianculli

In 1968, ABC made a brazen attempt to appeal to young viewers – as part of the first overt campaign by a broadcast network to woo that particular demographic – by presenting a new type of cop show. It was one that had a trio of young characters enlisted by Los Angeles police to work undercover… but only with the understanding that they were targeting the evil adults at the top of various criminal enterprises, not people their own age. That wiggle room allowed the three heroes

2021

Jan

THE MUSIC MAN By David Bianculli

Meredith Willson’s classic Broadway music came to the big screen in 1962, immortalizing the pitch-perfect con-man role of Harold Hill as embodied by Robert Preston. Add Shirley Jones as Marian the Librarian, and little Ron Howard as lisping Winthrop, and there’s plenty of justification to watch this week’s TCM entry in “The Essentials” – no matter how many times you’ve seen it before. There’s so much to point out here. The “one Grecian urn, t

2021

Jan

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli

The first new Saturday Night Live of 2021 features a first-time host (John Krasinski) and a first-time musical guest (Machine Gun Kelly). Is it too much to hope for to wish for a return appearance by Brad Pitt as Dr. Anthony Fauci, now that Fauci is out of the Trump doghouse and into the Biden White House?

2021

Jan

1989: 'SHINING TIME STATION' JOINS THE PBS LINEUP By TV WW

On this day in 1989, PBS affiliate WNET introduced the hit children's series, Shining Time Station, featuring the still-popular Thomas the Tank Engine character...

2021

Jan

FROM 2010: LARRY SAYS "SO LONG" WITH HELP FROM A-LIST CELEBRITY GAGGLE By Ed Bark

His last edition of CNN's Larry King Live provided ready-made news in itself...

2021

Jan

WANDAVISION By David Bianculli

Disney+ provided critics only the first three episodes of WandaVision in advance – and while they were intriguing and imaginative, they also were very much like place-setters. The sitcom format of those opening episodes was fine, taking us through TV “worlds” of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but I wondered when writing my review where WandaVision intended to go from there. It could, I imagined, be the first TV series I can recall to shift in midstream from sit

2021

Jan

THE LITTLE THINGS By David Bianculli

MOVIE PREMIERE: Three Academy Award winners co-star in this new cop drama, the story of the hunt for a serial killer. Denzel Washington plays a California deputy sheriff on the trail of a devious murderer, Rami Malek plays a detective, and Jared Leto is, let’s say, a person of interest. Given the trio of leading players, this whole HBO Max movie premiere should be of interest – and what’s more, The Little Things is written and directed by John Lee Hancock, who did suc

2021

Jan

CITIZEN KANE By David Bianculli

Included in this Orson Welles movie masterpiece is the story of a man who rises to celebrity and prominence, uses his celebrity to run for public office, spreads untruths in the media aggressively and for his own nefarious purposes, and plans, all the while, to accuse the election of being rigged in the event he loses. This movie was made in 1941. Too bad that, 70 years later, there’s nothing we can find in it that’s relatable to our modern experiences.

2021

Jan

CICELY TYSON 1924 – 2021 By David Hinckley

If you were hunting for portrayals of strong black women on TV or movie screens in the early 1970s, the modest number of choices at least covered a wide range...

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