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

 
 
2016
Apr
30
 
 
This ABC special seems particularly ill-timed. Just as the White House correspondents are sitting down to dinner on live TV over on C-SPAN, ABC is presenting a taped special in which President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama host a program of jazz from the White House, featuring Herbie Hancock and others.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
30
 
 
And while jazz is played at the White House, rock and roll, in another taped special, is celebrated on HBO. This is the 31st annual induction ceremony, and this year the honorees include Chicago (pictured), Cheap Trick, N.W.A., Deep Purple, Steve Miller and songwriter-producer Bert Berns. Included are salutes to performers who died during the year, including David Bowie and Prince. For a full review, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
30
 
 
CONCLUSION: This repeat documentary miniseries concludes with a look at the decades after WWII (specifically, 1946-80), and charts the postwar increase in popularity of the national parks. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
30
 
 
This 1944 movie is one of the best early cinematic horror films – a ghost story in which a brother and sister, played by Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey, buy a house by the sea, and soon get swept away by encounters with and stories of ghosts.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
29
 
 
The most poignant highlight of this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame HBO special wasn’t part of this year’s induction night at all. It’s a clip of the late Prince at his own 2004 Hall of Fame induction, talking briefly about his music, and then playing lead guitar on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
29
 
 
PREMIERE: This Netflix movie premiere, written, directed by and starring Ricky Gervais, is based on a 2009 French comedy, Envoyes Tres Speciaux, but is adapted and updated to fit Gervais’ comedy styles and rhythms. He plays a nebbishy radio producer teamed up with a glamorous, vain radio reporter, who together are dispatched to cover a possible coup in Ecuador. When their passports and other travel papers and cash are accidentally trashed on the way to the airport, the two decide to hole u
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
29
 
 
PREMIERE: This is a new documentary about the murder of Dave Schultz, the wrestler allegedly killed by millionaire John E. du Pont in 1996. The real-life murder case already was dramatized in the 2014 movie Foxcatcher, with Steve Carell playing du Pont – but where that story ended, Team Foxcatcher keeps going. It also shows lots of home movies by the wrestlers befriended and housed by du Pont, bringing a sense of intimacy to the environment and case being reexamined. Very spooky – an
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
29
 
 
Part 5. This is a fascinating episode of this repeat documentary series, showing how the nation and its leaders responded during the Great Depression – with the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps. It was a great idea then, and seems like a good one today as well. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
29
 
 
Among tonight’s guests: actor, director and political activist Rob Reiner.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Apr
29
 
 
On his previous TV show, Totally Biased, W. Kamau Bell seemed straightjacketed by the show’s rigorously divided format – but on this first standup special of his, he roams the stage and his subject matter freely. Watch and see. And laugh.