This 1939 children’s classic is shown again by TNT on Christmas night – but if you and yours are around this weekend, self-isolating during the pandemic, there’s no place like home, and no movie like The Wizard of Oz, which has that exact thought as its moral.

2020

Dec

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli

Kristen Wiig, the fabulously freewheeling former rep-company star of SNL, returns to Studio 8-H for the final new episode of 2020. She’s here as guest host, and to promote her co-starring role in Wonder Woman 1984, the new superhero movie that premieres Christmas Day on HBO Max. In the movie, Wiig plays Cheetah, and has garnered advance raves for her role as the antagonist who squares off against Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. So Wiig is having a very good end of

2020

Dec

1987: NBC AIRS SPECIAL 'JACK PAAR IS ALIVE AND WELL!' By TV WW

On this day in 1987, NBC recognized Johnny Carson's Tonight Show predecessor with the one-hour special, Jack Paar is Alive and Well!...

2020

Dec

1966: DR. SEUSS' 'HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS' DEBUTS By TV WW

On this day in 1966, CBS introduced the animated version of Dr. Seuss' children's story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!...

2020

Dec

SMALL AXE: "EDUCATION" By David Bianculli

MINISERIES FINALE: This is the final entry in director and co-writer Steve McQueen’s anthology series of movie-length installments reflecting various aspects of the Black experience. Education stars Kenyah Sandy as a 12-year-old who is sent to the principal’s office for being “disruptive” in class, then – despite having a strong aptitude for, and interest in, mathematics and rocketry – transferred to a school for students with “special needs.&r

2020

Dec

MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM By David Bianculli

MOVIE PREMIERE: This is a new version of the August Wilson play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and it’s directed by George C. Wolfe, who on Broadway wrote and directed Jelly’s Last Jam and directed Angels in America. He opens up this adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by recreating the period streets and hotel lobbies of Chicago, circa 1927 – then dives into a ramshackle recording studio, where a white record label has schedule

2020

Dec

THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW By David Bianculli

A fresh episode of The Graham Norton Show always is welcome – I guarantee that if anything can make you laugh at the end of the week you’ve just had, Norton’s freewheeling conversational party is it. And check out the guest list for tonight’s respectfully distanced talk show: George Clooney, Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Viola Davis, Vanessa Kirby, and others. Watch Ma Rainey's Black Bottom on Netflix, then watch Davis here, talking about Boseman.

2020

Dec

THE STAND By David Bianculli

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This new CBS All Access miniseries is a revisit of the classic Stephen King novel, with some new scenes, new approaches, and a new ending supplied by King himself. CBS All Access provided only the first four of nine episodes for preview, so I don’t know how this 2020 version of The Stand ends… and wouldn’t spoil it by describing it if I knew. But I’m fine talking about the very beginning, which has a mysterious pandemic spreading over the U

2020

Dec

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY By David Bianculli

Don’t have CBS All Access to watch The Stand? Don’t sweat it – just be patient. In two or three years, you’ll probably be able to watch it as a repurposed, recycled rerun on the CBS broadcast network. If, in two or three years, there still is a CBS broadcast network. That’s what CBS is doing now by rolling out, week by week, Season 1 episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, which premiered on CBS All Access years ago. And since I watched then,

2020

Dec

A CHRISTMAS CAROL By David Bianculli

There are so many versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol out there, it’s impossible to tell them apart with a scorecard. So here’s a scorecard: The version shown tonight at 10 ET on TNT is one of the better ones, made in 1999. It stars Patrick Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge, with Richard E. Grant as Bob Cratchit and Joel Grey as The Ghost of Christmas Past.

Posts 51-60 of 2007

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