SERIES PREMIERE: Aaron Sorkin has a new TV series, for HBO this time – and it stars Jeff Daniels as a TV newsman who finds his voice, and a new direction, after a very public meltdown of unfiltered honesty. For a full review, and an overview of Sorkin’s TV career, see my Bianculli’s Blog HERE.

2012

Jun

1949: 'HOPALONG CASSIDY' BEGINS AIRING ON NBC By Christy Slewinski

On this day in 1949, feature film star William Boyd brought big-screen cowboy Hopalong Cassidy to NBC's prime time lineup. The early Hopalong Cassidy shows were actually re-edited versions of Boyd's feature films, to which Boyd had wisely purchased the rights. Before long, Boyd was producing all-new shows specifically for television, starring Edgar Buchanan as his sidekick, Red Connors. Hopalong was television's first Western and the precursor to future hits such as The Gene Autry Show and Th

2012

Jun

1980: DAVID LETTERMAN TAKES ON DAYTIME By Christy Slewinski

On this day in 1980, NBC premiered The David Letterman Show — a 90-minute daytime show...

2012

Jun

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT By David Bianculli

Robert Zemeckis changed the rules of cinema in 1988, showing how you could blend live action and animation using CGI and other special effects. It may look somewhat crude today, but it also looks innocent and charming, like a vintage Road Runner cartoon. And when Bob Hoskins falls under the spell of Jessica Rabbit, you can understand why he’s drawn to her. Especially considering the way she’s drawn.

2012

Jun

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE By David Bianculli

TCM is saluting Natalie Wood tonight, and the first two movies show her range in very different sorts of vehicles. This one, from 1955, is a generational classic, full of angst and hope and love and despair and everything else that consumed the postwar generation. Wood plays a young girl in love with James Dean – and other conflicted teens in this Nicholas Ray film include Sal Mineo and Dennis Hopper.

2012

Jun

CHRIS ROCK: BIGGER AND BLACKER By David Bianculli

This 1999 comedy concert special didn’t cause quite as much of a stir as Rock’s previous standup smash, but it’s another wild ride of smart, often controversial observations. This is the special in which he recommends forgetting about gun control, and focusing on “bullet control” instead. Charge thousands of dollars per bullet, and gun violence automatically will drop significantly…

2012

Jun

SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL By David Bianculli

Here’s another Natalie Wood feature –set squarely in the time, place and world now reimagined by Mad Men. Wood plays Helen Gurley Brown, the psychologist who wrote a bestseller describing the new freedom of young single women in the early 1960s. Tony Curtis plays a tabloid magazine reporter who sets out to entrap her and write an exposé – and the attitudes, fashion and observations in this film are, for anyone interested in the period, revelatory. And her’s somethi

2012

Jun

FULL METAL JACKET By David Bianculli

This gripping drama, from 1987, is one of many cinematic masterpieces by Stanley Kubrick. It’s actually two movies – one detailing the boot-camp experiences of Marines being trained for duty, and the other dramatizing their experiences in Vietnam. Matthew Modine stars in both, but the scene-stealers in part one are R. Lee Ermey as the tough-as-nails sergeant, and Vincent D’Onofrio (left) as his most malleable and picked-on recruit.

2012

Jun

1965: LINKLETTER'S 'HOLLYWOOD TALENT SCOUTS' DEBUTS By Christy Slewinski

On this day in 1965, CBS introduced the variety show Hollywood Talent Scouts, a program hosted by Art Linkletter on CBS. On it, Hollywood celebrities brought unknown talent into the studio to make their television debut.A few future stars actually did make debuts during the show's run. On March 7, 1966, Tom and Dick Smothers introduced a comic by the name of Pat Paulsen. Paulsen later became a star in 1967 as a regular on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Other future stars to appear on the s

2012

Jun

MOYERS & COMPANY By David Bianculli

Using JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s confident appearances before Congress as a jumping-off point, Bill Moyers probes, once again, the reckless behavior of big banks and Wall Street, and the lack of reforms and responsibility. And this week’s guests include one of the financial industry’s most plainly and aggressively outspoken critics: Rolling Stone reporter-editor and author Matt Taibbi (shown here in an earlier appearance). Moyers & Company is shown by local public TV

Posts 51-60 of 221

5 6 7 8 9

New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption