Here’s another We Are One: Global Film Festival premiere. This one is longer: a full-length documentary about volleyball gold medalist “Jenny” Lang Ping, the only person in her sport to win Olympic gold as both a player and a coach. The Iron Hammer is of special interest, at least to Twin Peaks fans, because it marks the directorial debut of Joan Chen, who played Josie Packard on that groundbreaking David Lynch series.

2020

Jun

QUIZ By David Bianculli

MINISERIES PREMIERE: Part 2. I question the wisdom of stretching this three-part miniseries, which cumulatively is the length of a three-hour movie, into as many weekly installments. But that’s only because it’s so good, and builds such momentum, that the wait between episodes seems way too long. Part 1 ended last Sunday with Charles Ingram, played by Matthew Macfayden from Succession, finally getting the chance to sit in the hot seat, opposite Michael Sheen as Chris Tarran

2020

Jun

LAUREL CANYON By David Bianculli

DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: Part 2 of 2. I really, really enjoyed the first part of this documentary, which is all about the music and culture emerging from a particular Los Angeles suburb. Stephen Stills and Peter Tork were roommates. The Mamas and the Papas, as well as Crosby, Stills and Nash, teamed up and hung out here. Last week, we learned how Alice Cooper got his big break auditioning in the Laurel Canyon basement studio of Frank Zappa, and toured the hilltop suburban stretch where Turtles and

2020

Jun

I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE By David Bianculli

I keep writing, every week, that this miniseries is one of the most depressing TV dramas I’ve ever seen – and I keep watching, because it’s so well-acted, and because its plot is so deliberate and quietly intense. Last week’s episode was painful in its dramatic revelations, and in what it threw at its main characters. As psychically and physically scarred twin brothers Dominick and Thomas, Mark Ruffalo has been phenomenal – and so, last week, was Philip Ettinger (pi

2020

Jun

BILLIONS By David Bianculli

The central couple of this series, Chuck and Wendy Rhoades, have been estranged this season, and last week they began exploring significant new alliances. Chuck, played by Paul Giamatti, has taken up with a professor played by Julianna Margulies. Wendy, played by Maggie Siff, has warmed up to an artist played by Frank Grillo. And professionally, while Wendy also has flirted with the idea of connecting with her boss (played by Damian Lewis), she’s negotiated an even more high-stakes and pot

2020

Jun

PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS By David Bianculli

Last week, the detectives solved the murder case by getting a confession, from one suspect in custody, of all the unsolved murders that have been bedeviling the LAPD. The police squad celebrated, even though the detectives knew they had talked the suspect into a false confession (in what was a very strong tour de force performance by Nathan Lane). And speaking of bedeviling… there’s a devil, or at least a demon, at the heart of tonight’s mayhem as well. And all of th

2020

Jun

LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER By David Bianculli

There are weeks where I really need John Oliver to check in, to help me not only laugh at the week just ended, but to find a way to laugh at any of it. This has been one of those weeks, Actually, it feels like it’s been two…

2020

Jun

1969: ABC INTRODUCES 'THE JOHNNY CASH SHOW' By TV WW

This day in 1969 marked the debut of The Johnny Cash Show on ABC...

2020

Jun

1971: 'THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW' ENDS ITS 23-YEAR RUN By David Bianculli

The Ed Sullivan Show ended its 23-year run on this day in 1971...

2020

Jun

LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE MARATHON By David Bianculli

From 1969 to 1974, ABC presented a relative rarity on TV: a prime-time comedy anthology series. Love, American Style had no fixed cast, and presented anywhere from a single story to a handful of shorter vignettes within each week’s program. But if you want a show that preserves, in televised amber, a perfect representative slice of the period in which it was made, Love, American Style is it. If you want to see how the free-love Sixties flowed into the less altruistic Se

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