Watching the final season of Homeland feels like watching the two veteran stars of your favorite team suit up for one last game – battered, bruised, haunted by the ghosts of teammates and battles past, yet determined to find a way somehow not to lose...

2020

Feb

THE 92ND ACADEMY AWARDS By David Bianculli

There’s no host this year, but there is some intrigue. Netflix has two movies up for Best Picture, The Irishman and Marriage Story – two excellent films that, if either claims the victory and the Academy’s top Oscar, surely will shake the foundations of Hollywood more than a tectonic-shift earthquake. Also, watch for the battle of the Newmans: Randy Newman is up for a Best Original Score Oscar for Marriage Story, while his younger cousin Thomas is nomin

2020

Feb

THE CIRCUS: INSIDE THE CRAZIEST POLITICAL SHOW ON EARTH By David Bianculli

This past week, politically, marked both Donald Trump’s post-acquittal victory and revenge lap, and the Democratic candidates’ debate in New Hampshire, as a prelude to this Tuesday’s primary. Lots of ground to cover, even with three well-connected Circus correspondents.

2020

Feb

THE OUTSIDER By David Bianculli

Tonight’s episode is titled “The One About the Yiddish Vampire,” which is a hint that we’re about to dip into the past, as well as more deeply into the weirdness. Especially the weirdness.

2020

Feb

HOMELAND By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: This is the eighth and final season for Homeland, and based on Season 8’s first four episodes, it’s going to be one of its strongest seasons ever. Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin are intense and engrossing as the unstable spy and her long-time mentor, both of whom find themselves this season at the very center of efforts to end the war in the middle east. Beau Bridges, in a central supporting role, adds even more humanity and empathy – and what this f

2020

Feb

KIDDING By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: Jim Carrey, finishing the first season of Kidding in a dark place, returns in an even darker one… but an interesting one, too.

2020

Feb

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM By David Bianculli

Last week’s episode included a wildly cartoonish homage to The Three Stooges, and had fun with its characters in a way that was loose and goofy even by this show’s standards. (In fact, at the climactic scene when Larry and two cohorts all sported similar temporary speech defects, I don’t know how they got through that scene without laughing.) Tonight, I don’t know what to expect, except that I expect to laugh. A lot.

2020

Feb

'POWER' IS GIVING US AN ENDING SO WHY CAN'T EVERYONE ELSE DO THE SAME? By David Hinckley

My grandkids can be sitting on a ski lift in Colorado, punch a few keys on their phone and add a song to their kitchen music playlist in Baltimore...

2020

Feb

BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON By David Bianculli

This 1976 movie is one of the great Robert Altman’s least-seen, most underappreciated films, but it’s wonderful. Paul Newman plays Buffalo Bill, as an older man putting on a Wild West show recreating and exploiting his legendary past adventures. It’s a study of pre-cinema celebrity stardom, starring one of the biggest movie stars of the prior decade. Co-stars include Joel Grey as the show’s producer, Geraldine Chaplin as Annie Oakley, and others. Altman’s direction

2020

Feb

MA By David Bianculli

This 2019 movie is sly and sinister, which also is a perfect description of the titular performance by Octavia Spencer. She plays Sue Ann, who is asked by underage teens to buy some liquor for her. She not only does that, but offers them a safe basement in which to drink it – so long as they call her “Ma.” It’s only after that that Ma, the movie and the character, turns more evil…

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