Bill Moyers has taken inspiration from the film Lincoln, and what the movie about the late President can teach us about democracy and compromise. Moyers talked with Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner this week, and they talked about a process that can produce progress instead of stalemates and gridlock...

2012

Dec

A CHRISTMAS STORY MARATHON By David Bianculli

The best-known holiday marathon tradition continues all day, with Peter Billingsley still hoping to receive that BB gun for Christmas, while getting into all sorts of mischief in the meantime. This 1883 Jean Shepherd comedy inspired The Wonder Years, among many other nostalgic offshoots, and is available every two hours today until 8 p.m. ET.

2012

Dec

THE YULE LOG By David Bianculli

Accept no substitutes! This is the “original” Yule Log, first televised by New York’s WPIX in 1966. And it’s still available, in a multi-hour Christmas Day presentation, in many local TV markets around the country. Check the Yule Log website for where and when to gather around the mantle in your city. Season 2. For starters: In New York, it’s on WPIX from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. ET.

2012

Dec

THE PRINCESS BRIDE MARATHON By David Bianculli

Here’s a brand-new holiday event that I hope will become an annual, expanded tradition. Sundance Channel, beginning at 6 p.m. ET, is showing 1987’s The Princess Bride four times in a row. That’s a great start – but this movie is so great itself, and such a perfect family film, it ought to be shown all day, as TBS is doing with A Christmas Story. But to begin with, a four-peat is a wonderful Christmas gift. I really, really mean it. Anybody want a peanut?

2012

Dec

LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY By David Bianculli

TCM, too, has a holiday film marathon of sorts: an all-night visit with the Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey Rooney as an amorous youngster. It begins with this 1938 movie, which boasts two very noteworthy costars as the other points in Andy’s romantic triangle. One is Judy Garland, the year before she filmed The Wizard of Oz. The other is Lana Turner, eight years before she steamed up the screen in The Postman Always Rings Twice. And Love Finds Andy Hardy isn’t on DVD, so consider

2012

Dec

DOCTOR WHO: THE SNOWMEN By David Bianculli

This year’s annual Christmas Doctor Who special officially introduces the Doctor’s new companion: Clara Oswin, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman. (She was already seen, memorably, as Oswin, a victim of the Daleks in September’s Asylum of the Daleks episode, but who knew she would reappear – or, given the fluid time lines in this series, preappear?) Also making an appearance in this holiday special is something that should both delight and spook the youngsters: snowmen with s

2012

Dec

'ODD COUPLE' STAR JACK KLUGMAN DEAD AT 90 By Christy Slewinski

Actor Jack Klugman, best known for roles on the buddy comedy The Odd Couple and the medical drama Quincy, M.E., passed away Monday...

2012

Dec

FIREFLY MARATHON By David Bianculli

Science Channel has gotten a lot of mileage out of this 2002 Joss Whedon sci-fi series, but – like all Whedon series – it holds up extremely well to repeated viewings. Since this show came and went (too quickly) on Fox, for example, Nathan Fillion, who plays the Rockford-like Captain Mal, has risen to stardom in the title role of ABC’s Castle, and Morena Baccarin, as the for-hire “companion” Inara, has spent the past two years playing Mrs. Brody on Showtime’s

2012

Dec

ROOTS By David Bianculli

This 1977 ABC miniseries, a record-breaker whose finale ranks as one of the most popular scripted TV events ever televised, is repeated today by BET in its entirety. The story begins at 8 a.m. ET, with LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte being captured in Africa and transported to the United States aboard a slave ship – and ends several decades later, in the concluding episode at 6:30 p.m. ET, with the triumphant birth of a new generation.

2012

Dec

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE By David Bianculli

This is the second of NBC’s two annual showings of this 1946 holiday fantasy film, a dark drama that inspired a hundred episodic TV variations, predicted the real-estate bubble and ruthless banking systems, and gave Jim Henson the impetus to name two of his beloved Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie.

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