This 2011 drama stars Bradley Cooper, now on Broadway as The Elephant Man, as an everyday person suddenly capable of accessing 100 percent of his brain power. This movie went nowhere at the box office – but earlier this year, a similar plot provided Scarlett Johannson with a major global hit as the star of Lucy. Compare and contrast.

2014

Dec

PETER PAN LIVE! By David Bianculli

I was really, really looking forward to this new NBC live production of Peter Pan – and then I saw it. NBC is repeating it anyway, but I can’t really recommend it with much enthusiasm, other than as a rare TV event. The direction didn’t help, and neither did Christopher Walken’s Captain Hook. Allison Williams, in the title role, was questioned in advance as the potential weak link, but ended up being one of the stronger elements. Still, here it is again.

2014

Dec

MY FAIR LADY By David Bianculli

No disrespect to her many onstage and offstage collaborators, but Audrey Hepburn, as cockney turned society darling Eliza Doolittle, makes this 1964 musical version of Pygmalion such a roaring, singing success. Even though NBC is countering tonight with a repeat of its Peter Pan Live! telecast, if you’re in the taste for musicals, this is the one to watch.

2014

Dec

THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW By David Bianculli

This week’s new show features another amazingly diverse celebrity couch: Birdman Michael Keaton, Sir Ian McKellen (a.k.a. Gandalf), chef Jamie Oliver, and One Direction.

2014

Dec

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli

For me, watching Saturday Night Live is a force of habit – but tonight, it’s more like a force of Hobbit. Martin Freeman, star of that film series, as well as of BBC’s original The Office series and the FX remake of Fargo, is the guest host. And the musical artist this week is Charli XCX.

2014

Dec

MARCO POLO By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: All 10 episodes of the first season of Netflix’s newest drama series, Marco Polo, are available today beginning in the very early morning – but this one may have a tougher time gaining traction, even if it gets a sizable initial sampling. It sets out to be an epic period drama, colorful and fascinatingly unusual in the manner of the classic NBC miniseries Shogun – but that 1980 drama, starring Richard Chamberlain as a seafaring stranger in a very strange land,

2014

Dec

CADDYSHACK By David Bianculli

This is an unintentional changing of the guard movie. Made in 1980, it stars Chevy Chase, the first member of Saturday Night Live to quit the show early to pursue a movie career, and features Bill Murray, his SNL replacement, who basically steals the movie out from under him. Chase indeed became a movie star for a few years, embodying the sardonic, self-satisfied smug humor of a new generation – but Murray, in time, proved the more durable movie star and much better actor. But here they ar

2014

Dec

NAS: TIME IS ILLMATIC By David Bianculli

Twenty years ago, the hip-hop artist Nas released his Illmatic album, which had a major impact on the industry and on many of the rap artists to follow. This documentary tries to explain why, especially, but not exclusively, to the uninitiated.

2014

Dec

TRUST ME By David Bianculli

What a dream team of talented character actors: Clark Gregg, star of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., plays a down-on-his-luck talent agent who sees a young actress as his ticket to the big time, and the rest of the cast of this Hollywood comedy-drama includes Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy, Allison Janney and Sam Rockwell. Saxon Sharbino plays the talented teenager.

2014

Dec

THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON By David Bianculli

Rashida Jones, a regular on both NBC’s The Office and Parks and Recreation, shows up to say goodbye to Craig Ferguson, in another entry in what’s been a very enjoyable, truly freewheeling couple of final weeks. Jones is another of the plays-well-with-others celebrities whom Ferguson took on one of his overseas travel-week shows, so expect a very warm, and funny, farewell.

Posts 101-110 of 175

10 11 12 13 14

New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption