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

 
 
2012
Sep
2
 
 
This 1951 Alfred Hitchcock movie contains one of his most famous, and most copied, plot premises: two strangers each agree to murder someone detested by the other, so that they can get away with the perfect crime. Two of them, actually. Farley Granger, Robert Walker star.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
2
 
 
The definition of “Duos,” as used here, is arguable. Do Archie and Meathead, on All in the Family, actually constitute a duo? But unless someone wants to allow the Paley Museum a total duo-ver,  we may as well enjoy this retrospective clip special as is.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
2
 
 
MIDSEASON FINALE: Last week’s stunning conclusion would have been enough of a dramatic climax for most shows to present as a season finale – but on Breaking Bad, that was just another episode. And now we get a real finale – but only a midseason one, as the series will return, after a brief hiatus, for its final eight episodes. To say I can’t wait would be an absurd understatement. This is my favorite TV show on the air right now.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
2
 
 
It’s the third episode of this new Tom Fontana-Barry Levinson series – and if it’s like their other series, it’ll just keep getting better as the characters and story lines evolve.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
2
 
 
Poor Justin Kirk is stuck, this season in NBC’s execrable Animal Practice, so it’s worth seeing him do much better work as the co-star, opposite Mary Louise Parker’s Nancy, in this long-running, about-to-end Showtime comedy.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
1
 
 
Henry Fonda makes a wonderful President of the United States, and Larry Hagman an efficient yet very nervous interpreter, in this thrilling 1964 movie about a Cold War face-off gone to the most serious of extremes. Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove mined this same subject for laughs, but Fail-Safe, directed by Sidney Lumet, was dead serious. And was, and still is, seriously dramatic.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
1
 
 
This isn’t a recommendation, really, because this made-for-TV movie isn’t very good. Alyssa Milano stars as Amy Fisher, the titular underage “Long Island Lolita,” and Jack Scalia plays Joey Buttafuoco, the older lover whose wife Amy shot, but not fatally. This 1993 CBS telemovie told things from Joey’s point of view – but what’s noteworthy, from my point of view, is that all three major broadcast networks took a crack at this same story at about the same
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
1
 
 
Vincente Minnelli directed this lavish 1953 movie musical, which stars Fred Astaire in the story of a Broadway hoofer whose latest stage vehicle gets hijacked by an absurdly pretentious director. It’s all just an excuse to go crazy, visually and otherwise, and when Astaire is dancing with Cyd Charisse, they do just that.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
1
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: The Daleks, the oldest adversaries in the Doctor Who firmament, are back again, as is the good Doctor. Just in time, to get September started in style. Matt Smith stars.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Sep
1
 
 
If you have come to fully accept Jeff Daniels as the very intelligent Will McAvoy in HBO’s The Newsroom, which just concluded its first season, revisit this 1994 Farrelly Brothers comedy, to watch him keep up with Jim Carrey in the acting stupid department. And, in this case at least, that’s acting stupid, not stupid acting.