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

 
 
2020
Aug
30
 
 
Each episode of Lovecraft Country, at least every one of the installments I’ve seen in advance, further the ongoing story line while still evoking the spirit of a different genre film classic every week. This week, Leti (the magnetic Jurnee Smollett) buys her sister Ruby (Wunmi Mosaku) an old, run-down Victorian home on Chicago’s North Side, with plans to have Ruby run it as a boarding house. But the neighbors are hostile to the idea – and so are some of the ethereal
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
30
 
 
The slow pace of this murder mystery miniseries works in its favor, because the filmmakers have used the time to reveal, very slowly and deliberately, key insights about their primary four characters. The two sets of complicated people have a lot in common: both the British investigators and the killers they’re pursuing are a white woman paired with a black man, and, as we’ve come to learn, the women in both relationships are more flawed, less kind, and aggressively abrasive. It took
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
30
 
 
Last week, deconstructing the Democratic National Convention, John Oliver was both very funny and extremely incisive. This week, he gets his chance to do the same with the Republicans… an absolute DVR Alert!
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
29
 
 
Today on TCM’s “Summer Under the Stars,” it’s a 24-hour helping of movies starring or featuring Eva Marie Saint. One of her finest films arrives at 6 p.m. ET, when TCM televises 1954’s On the Waterfront, in which she stars opposite Marlon Brando. But watch, also, for another, which director Brad Bird, guest co-host of TCM’s Saturday night showcase “The Essentials,” makes room for an Alfred Hitchcock movie, 1959’s North by North
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
29
 
 
This 2020 movie stars Ben Affleck in a dramatic role that has unfortunately uncomfortable parallels to the actor’s real life. In The Way Back, he plays a former young phenom (in this case, a high school basketball player) who tries to get his life back on track, many years later, by returning to his old high school to coach. Affleck, after winning a screenwriting Oscar with Matt Damon for their young breakout film, Good Will Hunting, in which they both also starred, rod
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
29
 
 
This 2020 documentary about “Fake News” will be shown by CNN tonight – unless, in this weekend of storm coverage, post-convention feedback, and continued outrage about ever-increasing cases of police brutality and shootings against people of color, “Real News” causes it to be pre-empted.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
29
 
 
Already available on YouTube, this new documentary is presented tonight on BET – preaching to the choir, as it were, but presenting a perspective, and focusing on a tragic story and issue, that should be seen by everyone.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
29
 
 
On this day in 1967, Richard Kimble stopped running...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
28
 
 
On this day in 2005, HBO introduced the BBC/HBO-produced historical drama, Rome...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Aug
28
 
 
MOVIE PREMIERE: In 1989, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter starred in a sweet and goofy little sci-fi comedy, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures, relying on a time machine, and the guidance of a celestial guru played by George Carlin, to interact with such historic figures as Socrates, Abe Lincoln, Beethoven and Freud. A cartoon series and one live-action sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, followed with a couple of years – but then the franchise went dorm