Perhaps coincidentally, this 1952 Hollywood drama was released two years after Rashomon, which also looked at events through the points of view of a trio of very different participants. In this case, it’s the story of a ruthless movie producer, played by Kirk Douglas, whose memories are either supported or contradicted by a trio of his Hollywood employees: a director (Barry Sullivan), a writer (Dick Powell), and a movie star (Lana Turner). It’s a very hard-nosed look at Hollywood, di

2013

Aug

CLEAR HISTORY By David Bianculli

Larry David, in a one-shot HBO Films comedy, plays a long-haired, opinionated marketing director who inadvertently walks away from a huge fortune on principle, and still regrets it, and seeks revenge, a decade later. It’s another self-assured triumph by David, who uses the same creative template as on Curb Your Enthusiasm – intricate plots, lots of improvised dialogue – to serve up another very funny treat. And what a cast: Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Kate Hudson, Eva Mendes, Dan

2013

Aug

DO NO HARM By David Bianculli

This series continues, somehow, with its central conceit, which is that at 8:25 p.m. each night, dedicated surgeon Jason turns into debauched hedonist Ian. And tonight, that’s supposed to happen in the middle of a surgery, which has Jason Just Saying Yes to a risky new drug, hoping to keep Ian from surfacing on schedule. What I find most dramatic is that this show is still on NBC’s schedule, even as a summer write-off.

2013

Aug

AMC'S 'BREAKING BAD' RETURNS, BRILLIANTLY By David Bianculli

I won’t “spoil” Sunday’s return episode of AMC’s Breaking Bad by divulging the plot. The resumption of the story line, though, begins with a brilliant echo worth saluting…

2013

Aug

'HELL ON WHEELS' ARRIVES FOR SEASON THREE By Eric Gould

The gritty AMC western returns with a new showrunner, some new characters, and a new time slot... changes which aren't necessarily clear improvements...

2013

Aug

THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK By David Bianculli

This playful 1987 film version of the John Updike novel about a New England coven of modern witches teamed a terrific threesome – Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Cher – and showed them all falling under the demonic spell of Jack Nicholson, as none other than the Devil. Great casting all around: the women all get to go through memorably chameleonic transformations, and Nicholson, better than almost any actor, can play sinister and seductive at the same time, in equally effective

2013

Aug

FUN WITH DICK AND JANE By David Bianculli

This 1977 comedy, starring George Segal and Jane Fonda, was remade (though not very well) in 2005, starring Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni. But even the remake may have been a few years ahead of its time: The plot has a middle-class, well-off couple suddenly squeezed out of the American dream by rising costs and falling incomes. Dick and Jane react to unemployment and the threat of foreclosure by staging a form of protest – and becoming bank robbers. This film itself is a little heavy-handed, bu

2013

Aug

THE WARRIORS By David Bianculli

Walter Hill’s 1979 action movie was part parable, part videogame, and part dystopian nightmare. It’s definitely an exercise in excess – a Walter Hill trademark – but it’s also a truly enlightening peek into its period, just before the dawn of the 80s. Michael Beck plays Swan, the leader of a street gang in New York, one of many called to a Central Park super-summit. When the street-gang boss of bosses is assassinated, Swan’s gang, the Warriors, is framed as th

2013

Aug

TAKEN 2 By David Bianculli

Liam Neeson, action hero, was an idea, and a performance, that caught many by surprise when he starred as the quiet but deadly daughter-seeker (and revenge-seeker) in Taken. By the time this sequel was made in 2012, Neeson had firmely established himself in the genre – and, with this film, revisits both his character and his original dilemma. In the first Taken, his daughter was whisked away by sex traffickers. In this follow-up, Neeson’s Bryan Mills and family are targeted by the fa

2013

Aug

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE By David Bianculli

This 1971 Stanley Kubrick film, based on the futuristic, linguistically inventive novel by Anthony Bugess, is the film that inspired me to be a professional critic. When this movie came out, I was so disturbed by it, yet so impressed, that I went back many times, just to watch it over and over again, focusing on different elements each time to figure out what Kubrick was doing. What he was doing, I finally figured out, was making a cinematic masterpiece. It starts at the Korova milk bar, and nev

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