DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2017
May
11
 
 
Another entry in TCM’s Monster Movie month, this 1956 Japanese movie made it to America, in a dubbed version, a year later, and is one of the classic atomic-age monster movies of its era. The era, of course, was all about post-Hiroshima, post-Nagasaki fears of the bomb, with runaway monster mutants standing in for fallout and nuclear explosions. In Rodan, the first mutant creatures are giant insects, but they’re overshadowed, literally, by a flying prehistoric monster named Rodan. Bu
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
11
 
 
SEASON FINALE: If it’s snowy, it must be Fargo – except it isn’t. The white stuff also is falling for this final Season 1 episode of Riverdale.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
11
 
 
Last Thursday, breaking news obliterated the time slot reserved for the scheduled episode of Soundtracks, and CNN didn’t find another place for it on the schedule all week. So tonight, perhaps optimistically (given the crushing speed of current events), CNN has announced plans to try, try again. And I’m hoping it gets shown, because I’ve been waiting for this documentary installment. It’s about the shooting of students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard i
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
11
 
 

Today, May 11, Fresh Air with Terry Gross celebrates its thirtieth anniversary as a national public radio series on NPR. I’m proud, and a little amazed, to say I was there at the start, am still there today, and will be there tomorrow. Literally, because tomorrow I’m guest hosting...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
11
 
 
Actor Michael Parks passed away yesterday, (5/10/17) in Los Angeles. Parks was known more recently for edgy roles in Kill Bill and Grindhouse. But us youngsters remember him fondly for his breakout TV role in Then Came Bronson (1969-70), where he played a lonesome vagabond, an ex-newspaperman who gave it all up and took to the highway on a motorcycle...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
11
 
 

As a TV sports commentator, Charles Barkley has been paid for years to be provocative. So it shouldn’t be surprising that in his first game as a conciliator – on the rather larger matter of race relations – he doesn’t always score...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
10
 
 
Turns out the research for playing one of the most amoral psychos on television these days is simple: Turn on the news. “That was really how I did it,” says David Thewlis...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
10
 
 
Unlike most streaming service series, which are dropped onto their respective locations an entire season at a time, Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale is one of those relative rarities that has been unfurling on a weekly basis. A new episode premieres each Wednesday, and today brings episode five – one with a surprising and disturbing sexual dalliance, and an even more surprising and disturbing act of rebellion.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
10
 
 
Part 2 of 2. The Nature spy dolphins – the man-made electronic “creatures” who swim, sound and sometimes even act like their real mammalian counterparts – continue their two-part appearance in this concluding installment of this new Nature mini-miniseries. Last week I made a porpoise pun, but this week, I can’t think of anything finny. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
May
10
 
 
SEASON FINALE: “Nine months in the making,” goes the on-air promo for tonight’s episode, which has Bow (Tracey Ellis Ross) going into labor, and arriving at the hospital. A lot has changed, TV-wise, since Lucy Ricardo and Laura Petrie went to the maternity wards – so expect a scene or two of seriousness, along with the laughs, here.