With all these TV series about serial killers on the schedule these days – tonight alone brings us The Following on Fox and Bates Motel on A&E – here’s another look at the Oscar-winning granddaddy of them all. Even though granddad had a taste for fava beans, a nice chianti and… human flesh. Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster star.

2014

Apr

THE NAKED CITY By David Bianculli

This 1948 movie presented a gritty, modern look at New York city, making postwar film noir out of the city streets and actual locations. Barry Fitzgerald and Howard Duff star as NYPD homicide detectives, in a format that would be adapted for television 10 years later.

2014

Apr

2014 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP By David Bianculli

Saturday night, after No. 8 seed Kentucky beat No. 2 seed Wisconsin, on the sneakered heels of No. 7 Connecticut’s equally unexpected victory over No. 1 seed Florida, I asked myself, “When was the last time two such low-ranked seeds met in the NCAA Final?” The answer, it turns out, is never. So consider this a cage match of snarling, scrappy underdogs – and anyone who still has a chance to win an office pool with these two teams is either an accurate clairvoyant or

2014

Apr

THE FOLLOWING By David Bianculli

It was stretching things enough to find a way to bring back this show’s Season 1 villain from the apparent dead. But in last week’s episode, it was revealed that another would-be corpse from last season’s finale, Natalie Zea’s Claire, is alive as well. The only thing still without a pulse on The Following? The show’s plot line. Even Kevin Bacon can engender only so much loyalty – and this week, I fear, may be the sound of a stretched-thin plot snapping into ut

2014

Apr

INSIDE COMEDY By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: In 30 brief minutes, David Steinberg presents quick conversations with three comics: Bob Saget, Kevin Pollak and Larry Miller. And, in that short time, gleans some funny and honest insights from each. Even Saget, who stops tossing off-color one-liners just long enough to explain why.

2014

Apr

INTERNET FOLLIES: HBO HAS NEW 'SILICON VALLEY' OF FOOLS By Eric Gould

Mike Judge swung and missed with his reboot of his Beavis and Butthead in 2011, which may have been fortuitous, since it brought him to his new, winning HBO comedy...

2014

Apr

COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY By David Bianculli

Tonight’s installment goes back in time, to when Islam was the source of scientific knowledge and Arabic was the language of science. It also goes out in space, to seek the light – not spiritually or metaphorically, but literally. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts.

2014

Apr

GAME OF THRONES By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: Season 4 begins with a sense that everything’s getting much bigger, from the rivalries and the wartime stakes to the size of Deanerys Targaryen’s dragons. And with another royal wedding on the horizon, can more confrontations, and more shocking surprises, be far behind? The simple answer: no. For a fuller review, see Bianculli’s Blog.

2014

Apr

SHAMELESS By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: This season of Shameless has been the darkest yet – and also the best. And even though its superb star, William H. Macy, was unconscious or delirious most of the season as dying patriarch Frank Gallagher, this gave the rest of the cast – particularly Emmy Rossum as Fiona and Jeremy Allen White as Lip – a chance to really shine. And now, for the last show of the season, things are looking up for Frank for a change, but they’re getting even worse for Fiona, a

2014

Apr

SILICON VALLEY By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: Mike Judge is one of the primary creative forces behind HBO’s newest series, a smart, comic look at the brainiacs – part visionaries, part outcasts – who push the envelope of computer and programming development in Silicon Valley. The story reveals itself slowly enough that you have to be patient as the core group of code writers infiltrate the larger world of wealthy dotcom companies – but Silicon Valley is worth the wait. For a fuller review, see Biancu

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