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

 
 
2010
May
10
 
 
In two weeks, we'll be saying goodbye to the Fox series 24, and to Kiefer Sutherland's character of Jack Bauer, who's had a memorable string of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. The real-time clock on 24 is running out -- and so is the chance for the series to deliver one last, shocking, legendary twist...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
May
5
 
 
Once a term, I try to discover a student with enough obvious writing and critical ability to give him or her a shot at writing a guest column about TV -- and give us a chance to see things from a younger generation's perspective. Today, Rowan University junior Eve Patzlaff evaluates the shifting effectiveness of a long-time favorite. Please welcome her...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
May
4
 
 
Forty years ago today, the National Guard fired into a distant crowd of student protesters at Ohio's Kent State University, killing four students. As a TV critic and scholar, I've been quoted by the Cleveland Plain Dealer about one media-related aspect of the tragedy -- but back in 1970, at age 16, I relayed by thoughts via the media also -- delivering a controversial editorial for my high school's closed-circuit TV system...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
May
3
 
 
In a one-day-only, two-performances benefit staging for Writers Foundation East, a giggling gaggle of cast members from Tom Fontana's groundbreaking HBO drama series Oz reunited in New York yesterday, for a comedic, playfully homoerotic, revenge-fantasy comedy of Fontana's unproduced The Godfather Part IV. What a riot -- and what a shame it wasn't filmed for HBO, or as the funniest DVD Extra of all time...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Apr
30
 
 
The seventh season of Lifetime's Project Runway just finished up, and here's another show that has a lot of rewards for artists, designers and creative types beneath the catty cloak of its reality show format. (And yes, this comes from a middle-aged, male heterosexual who is fascinated with the show. Not that there's anything wrong with that...)
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Apr
29
 
 
Friday night, the host of "Bill Moyers' Journal" presents an expanded 90-minute edition of his superb program, then says goodbye -- putting a self-imposed end to a stellar TV career that began 40 years ago. It's safe to say, given Moyers' reliable excellence and the qualitative demise of most network news and public affairs shows, we're unlikely to see his equal again...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Apr
27
 
 
Beginning today, Amazon has begun offering exclusive distribution of a new documentary by Joe Pantoliano...But this time, as writer-producer-director of "No Kidding?!! Me, Too!", the performer known as Joey Pants isn't hiding behind a role. He's being as honest as he can, about his personal battles with depression and other forms of what he calls "mental dis-ease,"...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Apr
27
 
 
Two of the coolest, and rarest, things on TV are surprise and ambiguity. Not just "We're soooo complex" surprise/ambiguity, but real, stunning "What the bleep is happening?!" Two words: Andy Kaufman...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Apr
23
 
 
Followers of Kitchen Nightmares (Friday nights at 9 ET, Fox) know well that the host, Gordon Ramsay, is a wound-up, caffeinated mix of successful restaurateur, life coach and perverse provocateur. He can turn very bad restaurants into high-functioning and very well-received ones...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Apr
21
 
 
Just old movies? Think again. Turner Classic Movies is always thinking outside the box that holds the Warner/MGM film library from which the channel was launched 16 years ago this week. They've added lots more titles, many of them newer, and they've found increasingly clever ways to lovingly package their film presentations for both edification and sheer fun...