The dead zone of TV is almost over – I promise, things will get interesting, or at least fresh, next year. And by next year, I mean the very beginning of next year: Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. Meanwhile, there’s hardly anything for you, or me, to watch on television today. Unless, that is, you’re interested in watching television about television, and me on television. That’s because CNN, tonight and tomorrow night, is ringing out the Old Year by looking back at even old

2018

Dec

NEW 'BLACK MIRROR' STORY IS AN INTERACTIVE TRIUMPH - THANKS PARTLY TO YOU By David Bianculli

Friday, Dec. 28, 2018 – I’ve just experienced one of the more original and unpredictable dramas I’ve ever seen as a TV critic. It’s the brand new, one-off installment of Black Mirror on Netflix. And I didn’t – and couldn’t – watch it on my TV set…

2018

Dec

BLACK MIRROR: "BANDERSNATCH" By David Bianculli

SPECIAL PREMIERE: As a special treat during the holidays, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker presents a special – very special – one-shot, one-off installment of his always worthwhile TV anthology series about technology, fantasy, suspense, and surprise. This new 2018 entry, Bandersnatch, requires you the viewer to decide the actions of the protagonist – which means the first thing you have to decide is whether you want to go to all the trouble of watching on a computer, smar

2018

Dec

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT By David Bianculli

If it’s a surprise to you that I’m recommending this 1964 Beatles film, directed by Richard Lester, as one of the best movie musicals ever made – well, you just don’t know me very well. Listen – Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? I like the Beatles…

2018

Dec

NBC CREATED A NEW YEAR’S TRADITION WITH THE 'NHL WINTER CLASSIC' By Gary Edgerton

I know, I know. New Year’s Day is supposed to be the sole province of college football for sports enthusiasts...

2018

Dec

MURDER, MY SWEET By David Bianculli

In this 1944 movie adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, Dick Powell became the first actor to portray gritty gumshoe Philip Marlowe on screen. (It would take two more years for Humphrey Bogart to personify the same character in 1946’s The Big Sleep.) Powell was determined to shake his movie-musical crooning idol image, and this film accomplished that very effectively. And Claire Trevor, as the story’s femme fatale, played her part very well as well.

2018

Dec

THE STORY OF A TRIP WHERE NO MAN HAD GONE BEFORE: 'APOLLO'S DARING MISSION' By David Hinckley

Space travel may have lost some of its visual cachet in an era when 7-year-olds can create their own intergalactic fantasy CGI, but there are still moments when the real thing gets pretty awesome...

2018

Dec

41ST ANNUAL KENNEDY CENTER HONORS By David Bianculli

A lot of traditions were tested, or overruled, at this year’s annual Kennedy Center Honors celebration. For the first time, one of the awards is bestowed not upon an individual for a career-long achievement of artistry, but to an individual work of art: the musical Hamilton. It’ll be performed, in part, here – and co-creator Lin-Manual Miranda, taking the stage, breaks another tradition, becoming the first honoree to perform at his or her own awards celebration. Other honorees

2018

Dec

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY By David Bianculli

I just saw this film for the first time in many, many years – and laughed throughout, while being constantly amazed that both Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal now look so… young. (In a week, this 1989 movie will be 30 years old.) Oh, and the scene in Katz’s Deli? It’s just as funny. And that’s director Rob Reiner’s mother who gets to deliver that classic line after Sally fakes the sounds and expressions of sexual ecstasy. And, one final point, if you go to Ka

2018

Dec

DELIVERANCE By David Bianculli

Here’s another film I saw again recently – just last night, in fact. But this one I watch often, whenever it pops up on TV like a hand floating to the surface of a lake. That’s because this 1972 movie is an excellent film. Vilmos Zsigmond’s photography is so gorgeous, I began paying close attention to cinematographers in movie credits from then on. Jon Voight is great here – as is Burt Reynolds. And Ned Beatty may have the toughest role of all…

Posts 21-30 of 2056

2 3 4 5 6

New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption