Dame Helen Mirren is known for playing blunt-spoken women, up to and including the Queen of England. She doesn't play the Queen in this 60-second Super Bowl ad sponsored by Budweiser beer, but she does have some blunt words for people who drive drunk...

2016

Feb

2016 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE By David Bianculli

Thursday’s Democratic national debate from New Hampshire, pared down to just the two remaining candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, was the most substantive debate to date in this already lengthy election cycle. That’s as much a function of the reduced number of voices as anything else, which viewers should keep in mind if they turn tonight to the Republican debate from New Hampshire. This one is televised by ABC News, and moderated by David Muir and Martha Raddatz, with in

2016

Feb

BROADCAST NEWS By David Bianculli

This 1987 James L. Brooks comedy – which he wrote, produced, and directed – is a solid romp from start to finish. It ranges from all-out slapstick (Albert Brooks’ on-camera flop sweat) to a tenderly depicted romantic triangle, with TV news producer Holly Hunter caught between brainy colleague Albert Brooks and vapid but handsome anchor William Hurt. The female analogue of this, with a man torn between two women, has been done hundreds of times – but not the reverse, as Ji

2016

Feb

DOCTOR WHO: "DOCTOR'S NOTES" By David Bianculli

Here are two more Season 9 repeat episodes of Doctor Who, embellished with what BBC America is calling “Doctor’s Notes,” pointing out details and “in jokes” you might have missed the first time around. Tonight’s episodes are “Under the Lake” and “Before the Flood,” and they were very entertaining the first time – so why not revisit them?

2016

Feb

OPRAH: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? By David Bianculli

Oprah Winfrey’s guest tonight is a female African-American TV star who boldly went even where Oprah had not gone before. Oprah’s guest is Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieut. Uhura on the original Star Trek series – and was told then by, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. himself, how important her TV role was to race relations in the 1960s.

2016

Feb

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli

This must be so sweet a victory lap for Larry David. Decades ago, in the 1980s, he was a writer for Saturday Night Live, but only lasted one year – and in that year, got only one sketch on the show. He and another under-utilized SNL alumnus from that period, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, turned around and reteamed for a little show called Seinfeld – then reteamed again for a full-season Seinfeld “reunion” story line on his subsequent hit series, HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. A

2016

Feb

TWO NEW BOOKS ABOUT TELEVISION, ONE AN INSTANT CLASSIC By Ed Bark

People either keep asking me -- “When are you going to write a book?” -- or telling me, “You need to write a book." Maybe someday. In the here and now, though, two standout TV critic colleagues have put their names to volumes that are well worth owning...

2016

Feb

IF THIS HAD BEEN AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY... By Linda Donovan

We’ve mourned the demise of the variety show, but, in truth, it hasn’t gone anywhere. It has relocated to a non-traditional place -- late night television...

2016

Feb

SUPER BOWL'S GREATEST HALFTIME SHOWS By David Bianculli

This is a two-hour special, but it needn’t be. The truly great halftime shows over the past 50 years easily could be highlighted in a one-hour special – and the most famous halftime show of all, featuring Janet Jackson’s 2004 wardrobe malfunction, still won’t be shown again by a broadcast network in unedited, non-pixilated form. The reaction, and overreaction, to that particular Super Bowl halftime event was astounding. So many members of the media and government used the

2016

Feb

MICHAEL JACKSON’S JOURNEY FROM MOTOWN TO OFF THE WALL By David Bianculli

Speaking of Jacksons, here’s an unexpected little Spike Lee joint: A new documentary in which current musicians and other folks are interviewed about the trajectory and impact of Michael Jackson’s early, pre-Thriller career. Interviewees include Questlove, Pharrell, John Legend, Lee Daniels and others.

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