This 1992 movie is your standard romantic melodrama, but with music – and it’s the music that makes it. Kevin Costner stars in the title role, as a gruff guy guarding a flashy musical diva, but it’s the diva who demands attention. She’s played by Whitney Houston, and, in this role, Houston is very impressive, captured at the top of her form, and her game.

2013

Jun

SCARAMOUCHE By David Bianculli

Stewart Granger and Eleanor Parker star in this 1952 swashbuckler. More than 60 years later, it’s most valuable for its vivid color schemes, its outrageous costumes, and to watch Parker, who wears more different looks than any movie about 18th-century France should logically support. Also featured: Janet Leigh, eight years before Psycho.

2013

Jun

LOVE, MARILYN By David Bianculli

Liz Garbus, whose documentaries include the delightful Bobby Fischer Against the World, wrote and directed this intimate examination of Marilyn Monroe – focusing on her mind, not her body. Using her letters and diaries as primary sources, this film retraces Monroe’s career and romances, and solicits comments from celebrities along the way, some of whom read from those writings. The list of participants includes Glenn Close, Ellen Burstyn, Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, and, yes

2013

Jun

U.S. OPEN GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP By David Bianculli

After Saturday’s long Round 3 (after a delayed completion of Round 2 and the weekend cut), Tiger Woods putted enough bogeys to play his way out of contention, whole Phil Mickelson played well enough to give himself a one-stroke lead heading into today’s final round. Can Mickelson, who played the first round so brilliantly on so little sleep, complete today’s round well enough to achieve a dream: winning his first U.S. Open.

2013

Jun

NBA FINALS: MIAMI HEAT VS. SAN ANTONIO SPURS By David Bianculli

The Miami Heat evened this year’s NBC Finals with a vengeance, beating the San Antonio Spurs 109-93. Now it’s the Spurs’ final game before a home crowd before the championship shifts to, and ends in, Miami. So far, this series has been one close game and three eventual blowouts. But now, it’s a new best-of-3, winner-take-all series for the 2013 championship.

2013

Jun

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD By David Bianculli

This is a busy TV night, with a lot going on – but there’s no ignoring TCM’s prime-time telecast of this 1962 masterpiece, starring Gregory Peck as a small-town lawyer in a flawless adaptation of Harper Lee’s stirring novel.

2013

Jun

TRUE BLOOD By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: This new season of True Blood is not overseen by series creator Alan Ball, who has left the production – but it continues, and even amplifies, the vamps-as-oppressed-minorities subtext established back when the show premiered. (Check out the opening credits, for that “God hates fangs” roadside sign.) HBO sent out three Season 6 episodes for preview, and they establish a season of persecution” politicians against vampires, watchdogs against werewolves, and

2013

Jun

MAD MEN By David Bianculli

Face it: Last week’s shocker (which might be summarized safely as “What Sally saw”) was so unsettling that, to me, it instantly vaulted over every other TV stunner this season, including the "Red Wedding" of Game of Thrones. That’s why, when some people were complaining about the current season of Mad Men as being too slow, my inclination was to wait to see, because something big, most likely, was coming. Wow. And now what happens? I have no idea. But I’m there.

2013

Jun

LIVE, FROM ‘CLEVELAND,’ IT’S WEDNESDAY NIGHT! By David Bianculli

Betty White and the rest of her TV Land Hot in Cleveland cohorts resume their fourth season Wednesday with a special live episode. For White, it won’t be the first time…

2013

Jun

U.S. OPEN GOLF By David Bianculli

Rain has played such havoc with this year’s tournament that as of Saturday morning, no one knows who’s made the cut for weekend play. There’s still too much “Day 2” golf to play before the field can be narrowed, so, once again, play is expected to begin early, just after sunrise, to make up the difference. The cut ought to be known somewhere around noon, which is when NBC is scheduled to begin televising the event anyway.

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