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
Apr
17
 
 

A little more than a year ago, BBC America premiered the Canadian-produced science fiction drama/thriller Orphan Black, starring Tatiana Maslany. After winning a Peabody, it’s finally returning for Season 2...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
17
 
 
SEASON FINALE:  This could be the series finale for Community – with this show, its fate is so tenuous, and its treatment by NBC so uncommitted, there’s really no telling at this point. If Community is continuing, it’s going out with a plot twist to set up a Season 6. And if it’s ending, it’s going out with a bang, and with a tongue-in-cheek product-placement nod to Subway that stays true to the irreverent spirit of series creator (and recently returned show-ru
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
17
 
 
Arthur Penn directed this 1967 period bank-robbing film, one of the most influential movies of the Sixties. Warren Beatty plays Clyde Barrow, a small-time crook who hits the big time after teaming up with bored and bold Bonnie Parker, played in a star-making turn by Faye Dunaway. Bonnie wrote letters to newspapers about the duo’s bank-robbing exploits, and had pictures taken of them to commemorate their crime spree. Had there been reality TV in the Depression era, she would have starred in
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
17
 
 
SEASON FINALE: In this one-hour season finale, we’re introduced to a woman from Simon’s past. She’s the ex-wife of Robin Williams’ Simon, and the mother of  Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Sydney. So who has series creator David E. Kelley cast in that role, which could be recurring if this show returns for a Season 2? None other than former Taxi star Marilu Henner.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
17
 
 
SEASON FINALE: The Season 3 finale for this series sounds so intentionally and almost absurdly overloaded with plot twists and climaxes, it deserves mention. Most of the show’s characters are gathered at a senator’s funeral – while underneath them, a bomb ticks off the minutes until its preset explosion. And that’s only one of the life-threatening, game-changing plots in tonight’s season finale. Kerry Washington stars.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
17
 
 
SEASON FINALE: It’s the last episode of the season for Parenthood, and NBC has yet to decide whether to renew the series for a Season 6. That hints at a failure of leadership, or at least nerve, in the NBC executive suites, because Parenthood, by far, is the best show the network has on the air right now. Its renewal should be a matter of pride and certainty, not a tough call. Watch tonight, and while you’re wiping away tears and wondering what will happen next to these characters, a
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
16
 
 
It used to be that a cinematic sequel, even of a very good movie, was bound to be a major disappointment. But that was before Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 continuation of his movie The Godfather, which melded past (Robert De Niro) and present (Al Pacino) into an epic gangster film and character study.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
16
 
 
When director Robert Zameckis released this movie in 1994, its special effects, inserting Tom Hanks’ Forrest into vintage news footage, were state of the art. Now the sight of the fictional Forrest sharing the same film frame as the real LBJ no longer stuns. But when the state of the art is much different 20 years later, what we’re left with is the art itself – and Forrest Gump has plenty of that. Co-stars include Robin Wright, Gary Sinise and Sally Field.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
16
 
 
Here’s a 21-year-old movie that’s worth watching again: a period piece, set in Britain after WWII, that examines the increasingly complicated, and intimate, relationship between a proper British butler and a free-spirit housekeeper. If it helps, consider it a sort of Downton Abbey: The Next Generation. And it stars Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, who are still acting up storms.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Apr
16
 
 
I enjoyed this documentary so much, I figured I’d point out its appearance tonight on this subsidiary HBO channel. Broadway’s all-time best composer and lyricist (there, I said it) is profiled, using only his own words (in interviews both new and vintage) and a handful of his songs, showcased in very smart and revealing context (and, again, of both new and vintage variety).