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

 
 
2014
Aug
30
 
 
The only absent element is a crisp autumn breeze. Otherwise, the kickoff to the 2014 college football season is upon us...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
29
 
 
This is Day 9 of FXX’s mega-marathon of The Simpsons – and it’s the day that includes, in the proper order in the series’ overall narrative sequence, the 2007 big-screen The Simpsons Movie. It’s televised at 6 p.m. ET, and it’s especially entertaining to watch in retrospect, since it involves the town of Springfield being cut off from the rest of the world by a mysteriously appearing giant see-through dome. Sound familiar, Under the Dome fans?
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
29
 
 
In case you’ve fallen behind, or never started: Tonight, beginning at 8 p.m. ET, Cinemax is repeating the first three episodes of its new, very good period medical series, starring Clive Owen as a dedicated but temperamental doctor in 1900. It’s a fine way to get up to speed: consider it a mini-binge.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
29
 
 
Today is Joseph Cotton day on TCM – but in prime time, it might as well be Jennifer Jones day, because the gorgeous actress co-stars in both of the Cotton films shown this evening. At 9:45 p.m. ET, she stars opposite him in 1947’s Duel in the Sun Western, playing a steamy temptress who comes between two brothers (Cotton and Gregory Peck). And before that, at 8 p.m. ET, Jones stars in 1949’s Portrait of Jennie (pictured) as a beautiful vision indeed – a ghostly muse who in
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
29
 
 
Despite one foot deformed by polio, or perhaps in part because of it, Dorothea Lange became a photographer who focused extensively, and invaluably, on the usually unseen and ignored: migrant workers and farmers in the Dust Bowl of the Thirties, Japanese-Americans forced into U.S. internment camps in the Forties, and so on. The images she captured are haunting, and linger with you – as does this very informative, understandably tender biographical study. Dyanna Taylor, who’s worked on
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
29
 
 
With this TV movie premiere, MTV presents the music-festival film equivalent of Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book – a legitimately distributed manifesto about how to beat the system. In the case of James Marcus Haney, 26, it’s his autobiographical documentary about how he conned his way into such sold-out music festivals as Coachella and Bonnaroo, by sporting fake wristbands and brandishing a professional-looking camera. Then, while he was there, he figured he may as well shoot s
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
29
 
 
I usually prefer to bestow a Seal of Approval upon a complete series DVD set, but The Avengers – the Sixties TV spy series, not the current series of Marvel Comics superhero movies – encompassed so many different casts and tones, it was more like Doctor Who...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
28
 
 
SEASON FINALE: NBC has ordered a second season of this charming summer series, so tonight’s doubleheader constitutes a season finale, not a series finale. That’s good news. Here’s more good news: Tonight’s installments include an episode in which series star Greg Poehler, as an accountant who had moved to Sweden to follow his heart, has to return to New York to help out a particularly demanding client – Amy Poehler. Also guest starring: Parks and Recreation co-star
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
28
 
 
Tonight’s design challenge is a wedding gown design – but what really makes it challenging is that they’re custom designing a gown for a very bold and outrageous client: burlesque queen Dita Von Teese.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
28
 
 
In tonight’s new show, Garfunkel and Oates, a.k.a. (but less known as) Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, are on the road touring when they realize an upcoming show will be their live performance number 1000 together. They’re in the mood to celebrate – but the venue that particular evening is particularly hostile, even before they take the stage.