DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

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MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

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TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2012
Jun
15
 
 
It’s summer, but Bill Moyers continues to produce and present new shows. On this weekend’s fresh edition, he takes Deep Throat’s immortal advice, and follows the money. In one segment, he interviews Mother Jones editors Clara Jeffrey and Monika Bauerlein (pictured), who provide a map for the trail of what they call “dark money” influencing today’s elections and freedoms. Also on the show: historian Thomas Frank, whose What’s the Matter with Kansas? Was e
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
15
 
 
You and I may know this 1954 monster movie better by its Anglicized sound-alike title: Godzilla. But that was a different, re-edited movie, made in 1956 with scenes inserted featuring Raymond Burr as an American reporter. This is the 1954 restored original, which took Japan’s totally understandable fear of nuclear attacks and testing and transplanted them into a giant, fire-breathing creature, revived by nuclear tests to ravage Tokyo and beyond. It’s followed by two other classics in
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
15
 
 
It’s been decades, literally, since Johnny Carson made jokes about the Flying Wallendas – but here’s one of them, daredevil Nik Wallenda, doing a live stunt in which he walks a tightrope across Niagara Falls. It’s a stunt that was banned more than 120 years ago, but here he goes… albeit on a wire so thick he likens it to a sidewalk, and with a harness that will prevent him from falling. Unless he removes it, which some advocates of live TV are rooting to happen. My
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
15
 
 
This new episode makes room for a lot, conversation-wise. It goes from the microcosmic – Karl Pilkington’s travails in buying and assembling a new bed – to the cosmic, with Karl’s views on the origin of the universe. Watch, and I predict you’ll get a Big Bang out of it.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
15
 
 
David Frum and Alan Thicke are among the guests tonight. That leaves open the possibility for jokes about being Thicke-headed versus thick-headed, but I’m not biting. I will, however, be watching.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
15
 
 
On this day in 1969, CBS introduced the cornball variety show, Hee Haw, as a summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Hee Haw was patterned after the competing NBC series, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, but with a decidedly rural/country theme. Country music stars Buck Owens and Roy Clark hosted the show, which featured a stable of regulars, including the beloved Louis M. "Grandpa" Jones. The show consisted of comedy skits and musical performances by some of the day's biggest co
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
14
 
 
ABC isn’t taking a Wallenda-sized risk with Friday's high-wire walk over Niagara Falls, and it may even garner decent ratings, since the national prime time network competition isn’t much of a threat...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
14
 
 
Tuesday’s Game 1 delivered a higher rating for ABC than any Game 1 NBA Final in the network’s history – credited with more than 16.1 million viewers, and becoming the night’s most-viewed TV offering. Those who watched until the end saw the Oklahoma City Thunder come back from a double-digit deficit to beat the Miami Heat. Tonight, LeBron James and his high-profile teammates will try to even the series, while the Thunder, of course, will try to steal their… thunder.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
14
 
 
Last year, HBO presented His Way, a totally flattering – but totally entertaining – profile of entertainment mogul Jerry Weintraub, whose storied clients and clients’ stories included everyone from Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra to George Clooney. Tonight, HBO presents a Weintraub-produced documentary that is equally flattering – this time on 41st U.S. President George H.W. Bush, an old friend of Weintraub’s (who, by the way, made an appearance in His Way). Don&rsq
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
14
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE:  Continuing this season’s trend of starting new seasons precisely where previous season cliffhangers ended, this new year of Burn Notice begins with Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) hunting for Anson (Jere Burns), who doublecrossed him and put Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar) at risk. In fact, as the show opens, she’s taken into federal custody – where she encounters a familiar face.