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DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

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Dateline Donovan
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All Along the Watchtower

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TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2018
Aug
30
8 1/2 By David Bianculli
 
 
This is the next-to-last evening (I’m tired of typing “penultimate”) for “Summer Under the Stars,” and the saluted celebrity, today and tonight, is Italian star Marcello Mastroianni. A lot of his best films are not here, but the one leading off prime time, in particular, certainly is: At 8 p.m. ET, it’s 1963’s 8 ½, a wild satire about European filmmaking in which Mastroianni plays a weary, world-famous film director looking for inspiration, and a
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
30
WITH 'ONE DOLLAR' FOLLOWING THE MONEY IS LITERAL By David Hinckley
 
 
If you think a dollar doesn’t go very far these days, the new CBS All Access drama One Dollar might persuade you to reconsider...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
30
ARTIST INTERRUPTED: PBS DOCUMENTARY ON EVA HESSE EXPLORES A BRILLIANT CAREER CUT SHORT By Eric Gould
 
 
You might expect a biopic of an important artist to include the breakthrough, various evolutions...  their legacy. Some of those ingredients are there, but not all, in the upcoming American Masters film Artists Flight: Eva Hesse...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
29
LAUREN BACALL TRIBUTE By David Bianculli
 
 
Lauren Bacall is the recipient of today’s “Summer Under the Stars” TCM salute – and it’s very easy to see why she deserves the honor. In fact, you can pinpoint, and revisit, the moment, by tuning in at 9:30 a.m. ET, when she stars opposite Humphrey Bogart in 1944’s To Have and Have Not (pictured). When director Howard Hawks began filming the two of them on the set in 1943, Bogart was 44 years old. Betty Bacall was 19. And by the time filming was over, the two
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
29
MR. MERCEDES By David Bianculli
 
 
Last week, when this David E. Kelley adaptation of the Stephen King story presented the first new episode of Season 2, I wrote this: “What happens by the end of the second episode of this new season of Mr. Mercedes turns this series into an entirely new level, and category, of drama. In a word: Wow.” That episode is televised tonight. Need I say more? I didn’t think so…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
28
LEW AYRES TRIBUTE By David Bianculli
 
 
We’re down to the last few days of August, which means the final days of TCM’s “Summer Under the Stars” salutes, where a single performer is showcased for an entire day and night. Today’s recipient is Lew Ayres, and the high point is his starring role in one of the first, and still best, antiwar war movies ever made. It’s called All Quiet on the Western Front, it’s about the brutal battles and conditions of what became known as World War I, and it was re
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
28
MARK TWAIN By David Bianculli
 
 
Part 1 of 2. Ken Burns and company crafted this superb artistic and personal biography of author Samuel L. Clemens in 2002, presenting it as a two-part PBS special. The network is repeating it tonight and next Tuesday, and I highly recommend you record it, because it’s exactly the type of TV documentary that rewards repeated viewing. Oh, and I might as well mention, for the first time, that I’m traveling to Twain’s summer home in Elmira, NY, to deliver a clip-filled lecture for
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
28
FRONTLINE: "MCCAIN" By David Bianculli
 
 
SCHEDULE CHANGE: This last minute replacement substitutes tonight’s scheduled new edition of Frontline with a repeat, from April, that examines the life and achievements of John McCain, who died Saturday at age 81. It serves as a proper legacy, though the best legacy of all may well end up being the letter to America McCain wrote in his final days, and directed to be read posthumously. It has been, and it’s inspirational. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
28
THE SHOP By David Bianculli
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: What a great idea for a TV talk show. No audience, no desk, no couch – just a barber shop, where LeBron James, in this new show from HBO Sports, hosts a small group of invited guests, who hang around “the shop” and engage in some freewheeling, topical conversation. The guests for this opening edition hint at how wide-ranging James expects the guest list to be as well: The shop patrons for tonight’s opener include New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckha
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Aug
27
AGNES MOOREHEAD TRIBUTE By David Bianculli
 
 
The first TV generation knew her primarily as Endora, Samantha’s witchly mother on the ABC Sixties sitcom Bewitched. But Agnes Moorehead had quite a career before that, in TV (a silent role in one of my favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone) and in the movies. Tonight at midnight ET, for example, you can see her in a low-budget horror classic, 1964’s Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte. And earlier, you can see her in not one, but two, of Orson Welles’ cinematic masterpieces. A
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'
By Ed Bark
 
 
 
 
Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver
By Christy Slewinski
 
 
 
 
'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy
By Noel Holston
 
 
 
 

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James
By Mike Hughes
 
 
 
 
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self
By Monique Nazareth
 
 
 
 
Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption
By David Hinckley