On the Tuesday, Mar. 6 edition of NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the second half of the show is devoted to my interview, conducted last week, with an actor, an author, a Broadway star, recording artist, movie actor, commercial spokesperson and TV icon. And they're all the same guy -- William Shatner...

2012

Mar

IN 'SHATNER'S WORLD,' STORIES ABOUT ACTING, LOSS, LIFE By David Bianculli

(From NPR) William Shatner has played an attorney, a starship captain, an alien and a Roman tax collector, among many other roles. Over the past half-century, the Canadian actor has performed on television, in commercials, in movies and on Broadway. He recently returned to Broadway for the first time in over 40 years with a new solo show...

2012

Mar

THE VOICE By David Bianculli

No more chair-swiveling and button-smacking. The audition rounds are over, the teams are selected, and now it's time for phase two of this series, the battle round. That's where two contestants from the same team square off against one another, after getting advice from their team's judge, and from guest mentors. This season, Blake Shelton's guest mentors include Kelly Clarkson, the first, very successful winner of American Idol -- whose appearance here must have the Idol producers saying, "Et t

2012

Mar

REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER By David Bianculli

Friday’s edition of this live HBO talk show was so lively, so entertaining, and so honest and thought-provoking in its back-and-forth discussions, it really should not be missed, so catch this repeat. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson stole the show, which was so good, I think I’ll write a whole column about it. See Bianculli’s Blog.

2012

Mar

PAN'S LABYRINTH By David Bianculli

Guillermo del Toro directed this imaginative, mature 2006 fantasy film with such inventiveness and distinction that he was recently handed screenplay duties for the pair of upcoming Hobbit movies. Watch this movie – a dark yet inspirational story about a young girl who escapes into a fantasy world as an antidote to her father’s sadistic wartime exploits – and see why. Ivana Baquero stars.

2012

Mar

100 SHOWS TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE By David Bianculli

Part 1 of 4. I doubt whether this nonfiction series (this is the first of four parts) will qualify as one of them. As a matter of fact, having seen a five-minute preview, I’m sure it won’t. It will be interesting, though, to see just what TV Guide Network, with the imprimatur that association provides, will count as the top 100 must-see TV events of all time.

2012

Mar

SMASH By David Bianculli

Ivy (Megan Hilty) continues to get more aggressive in her dueling diva behavior, pushing chorus girl Karen (Katharine McPhee), her former rival for the leading role in Marilyn: The Musical, more and more into the background. But this week, some of the people in her camp begin to push back – as does Karen.

2012

Mar

TEN YEARS ON, HBO'S 'REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER' IS REAL GOOD By David Bianculli

As part of its 10th-anniversary celebration, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher has been prefacing each show with a short, outrageously entertaining clip from its archives. Based on how good the current installments have been, there will be no shortage of similar highlights to showcase in the future...

2012

Mar

YOU'RE NOT 'THE SOPRANOS,' SO STOP WITH THE ÜBER-STORY By Noel Holston

At least once a month, my wife and I order a DVD from Netflix that contains a quartet of Law & Order episodes...We feel a need for something with which we can kill an hour here, an hour there, and not have to worry about committing ourselves to 12 hours of keeping track of yet another running storyline...

2012

Mar

BELUSHI DOES COCKER: NEXT TO COCKER By Diane Werts

Whoa. It's been 30 years since John Belushi died of a drug overdose on March 5, 1982, at the age of just 33. One of Saturday Night Live's breakout regulars at its 1975 premiere, he's a big reason the show is still airing today. Here's one of Belushi's TV classics -- mimicking eccentric '60s soulman/Woodstock act Joe Cocker...right next to Cocker, in 1976. - DW

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