In this 1944 movie adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, Dick Powell became the first actor to portray gritty gumshoe Philip Marlowe on screen. (It would take two more years for Humphrey Bogart to personify the same character in 1946’s The Big Sleep.) Powell was determined to shake his movie-musical crooning idol image, and this film accomplished that very effectively. And Claire Trevor, as the story’s femme fatale, played her part very well as well.

2018

Dec

THE STORY OF A TRIP WHERE NO MAN HAD GONE BEFORE: 'APOLLO'S DARING MISSION' By David Hinckley

Space travel may have lost some of its visual cachet in an era when 7-year-olds can create their own intergalactic fantasy CGI, but there are still moments when the real thing gets pretty awesome...

2018

Dec

41ST ANNUAL KENNEDY CENTER HONORS By David Bianculli

A lot of traditions were tested, or overruled, at this year’s annual Kennedy Center Honors celebration. For the first time, one of the awards is bestowed not upon an individual for a career-long achievement of artistry, but to an individual work of art: the musical Hamilton. It’ll be performed, in part, here – and co-creator Lin-Manual Miranda, taking the stage, breaks another tradition, becoming the first honoree to perform at his or her own awards celebration. Other honorees

2018

Dec

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY By David Bianculli

I just saw this film for the first time in many, many years – and laughed throughout, while being constantly amazed that both Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal now look so… young. (In a week, this 1989 movie will be 30 years old.) Oh, and the scene in Katz’s Deli? It’s just as funny. And that’s director Rob Reiner’s mother who gets to deliver that classic line after Sally fakes the sounds and expressions of sexual ecstasy. And, one final point, if you go to Ka

2018

Dec

DELIVERANCE By David Bianculli

Here’s another film I saw again recently – just last night, in fact. But this one I watch often, whenever it pops up on TV like a hand floating to the surface of a lake. That’s because this 1972 movie is an excellent film. Vilmos Zsigmond’s photography is so gorgeous, I began paying close attention to cinematographers in movie credits from then on. Jon Voight is great here – as is Burt Reynolds. And Ned Beatty may have the toughest role of all…

2018

Dec

SOME LIKE IT HOT / MONKEY BUSINESS By David Bianculli

Okay, so it’s not a Christmas movie special – but any time you get a chance to watch a pair of movies featuring Marilyn Monroe, it’s a gift. And tonight, TCM presents, in prime time, two films in which Monroe shone with mesmerizing exuberance. In Some Like It Hot, from 1959, she’s the radiant star, throwing off equal measures of sex appeal and playful humor as a member of an all-girl music band – a band infiltrated by two musicians in drag (played by Tony Curtis and

2018

Dec

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS By David Bianculli

Here’s another nicely conceived double bill. NBC’s prime time Christmas lineup begins with yet another showing of the 1966 holiday cartoon special, featuring Dr. Seuss’ holiday-hating Grinch…

2018

Dec

DR. SEUSS' HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS By David Bianculli

…And that’s followed by the 2000 Ron Howard live-action adaptation of the same source material, starring Jim Carrey as an amazingly elastic-faced green Grinch. Also featured, as residents of Whoville: Christine Baranski, Jeffrey Tambor, Bill Irwin, and, as Cindy Lou Who, Taylor Momsen. My favorite character name? Played by Clint Howard, it’s the mayor’s aide, Whobris.

2018

Dec

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST By David Bianculli

The most recent time we saw an animated Belle was in last year’s Ralph Breaks the Internet, where she made a cameo along with all the other Disney princesses. But the first time was in 1991, as the central star of Disney’s animated musical Beauty and the Beast. In both films, Belle is played, and her voice provided, by Paige O’Hara, who has built a successful second career painting authorized portraits of her Disney alter ego (pictured). And in prime time, on Disney-owned ABC,

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