There’s a sense throughout that a long-term investment will at best yield the equivalent of a penny slot machine payoff. And yet I watched the whole 13-episode first season...

2013

Apr

THE BIG BANG THEORY By David Bianculli

In this week's new episode, “The Closure Alternative,” Sheldon (Jim Parsons) gets frustrated when a TV show he loves gets canceled unexpectedly and leaves without completing its story line. See you and raise you, Sheldon. I'm still fuming over the sudden end of HBO's Deadwood - and that was seven years ago.

2013

Apr

SPACEBALLS By David Bianculli

Next month, American Masters presents a biography of Mel Brooks, and one of the surprises tucked inside that program is Brooks’ assertion that, despite its poor critical reception at the time of release, his 1987 Star Wars parody, Spaceballs, has now sold more copies on DVD than any other Brooks film. See it for yourself, and decide whether the satire, starring John Candy, Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga, Rick Moranis and Brooks himself, deserves a higher grade.

2013

Apr

GLEE By David Bianculli

It may be unfair to invest tonight’s plot with larger meanings about this series itself, but on this new episode, the high school has to move forward after having lost its power. In any event, what it means is that the New Directions singers have to go unplugged – and respond with an acoustic set that includes Queens’s “We Will Rock You” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin.’”

2013

Apr

PARKS AND RECREATION By David Bianculli

For some reason, this seems like the perfect habitat for these characters: On tonight’s new episode, Leslie (Amy Poehler) and company fight for (and, on occasion, fight at) a miniature golf course.

2013

Apr

THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW By David Bianculli

BBC America has moved this talk show from Saturdays, where its sci-fi lineup has built more momentum, to Thursdays, but the episodes remain new, and the guests – including, tonight, Gwyneth Paltrow – can always be relied upon to be caught off guard, and to react unexpectedly. That, in itself, is such a TV talk-show rarity that Norton and company are worth watching, even if some members of the company are less familiar to U.S. viewers.

2013

Apr

KINKY BOOTS By David Bianculli

This 2005 movie, reportedly based on a true story, provided the unlikely inspiration for a Broadway musical that’s just now on the Great White Way, with music by Cyndi Lauper and book by Harvey Fierstein. It’s about a man who inherits an unprofitable shoe company, and tries to reverse its fortunes, and his, by specializes in fetish footwear. What a heel!

2013

Apr

THE ENTERTAINER By David Bianculli

Tony Richardson directed this 1960 movie adaptation of the John Osborne play, which stars Laurence Olivier as fading vaudeville star Archie Rice. Written specifically for Olivier, it’s a demanding role, and a spectacularly shaded performance. Because Olivier is TCM’s Star of the Month, a full night of other Olivier movies follows, including 1957’s The Prince and the Showgirl at 1:30 a.m. ET.

2013

Apr

SUPERNATURAL By David Bianculli

It’s a geekapalooza episode, again, as genre darling Felicia Day returns for another guest spot as Charlie, a big fan of the Winchester brothers. Day, of course, came to prominence in one of the geekiest genre success stories of all, as the leading lady in Joss Whedon’s Internet sensation, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, starring Neil Patrick Harris.

2013

Apr

NOVA: "MONSTERS" By David Bianculli

Once, while traveling to Australia and whiling away the absurdly long flight by reading Bill Bryson’s Down Under travel book In a Sunburned Country, I startled nearby passengers by laughing out loud – suddenly and almost convulsively – when Bryson claimed to have learned about a certain kind of local poisonous jellyfish by “browsing through a fat book titled, if I recall, Things That Will Kill You Horridly in Australia, volume 19.” Well, tonight’s Nova c

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