The POV documentary 15 to Life: Kenneth’s Story isn’t a story of guilt but one which asks whether kids convicted of violent crimes should be sentenced for life without parole...

2014

Aug

JUDY GARLAND MOVIE MARATHON By David Bianculli

Today’s TCM 24-hour salute is to Judy Garland – and while her iconically unbeatable The Wizard of Oz is not part of today’s roster, lots of other important Garland films are. Start at 10 a.m. ET with 1944’s Meet Me in St. Louis (directed by Vincente Minnelli, whom she would marry the following year at age 23). Rejoin the festivities at 2 p.m. ET for 1948’s Easter Parade, in which she stars opposite Fred Astaire, and set the alarm clock or DVRs for midnight ET to cat

2014

Aug

JAWS By David Bianculli

Discovery Channel is rolling out its annual Shark Week starting this Sunday, and it was only last week that Syfy presented Sharknado 2: The Second One. Neither of those bizarre TV phenomena would exist if not for this 1975 Steven Spielberg film, which spawned not only a feeding frenzy of shark TV, but the entire concept of the modern movie blockbuster. But really – who needs a week of shark documentaries, or a goofy Syfy telemovie, when you can watch Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy S

2014

Aug

PARTNERS By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: Give FX credit for rolling the dice on a somewhat bold experiment here. They’re taking two sitcom stars from a previous TV generation, and pairing them in a new comedy about lawyers, with very different approaches and ethics, who join forces. The “odd couple” premise is one of TV’s oldest and most successful, so what makes Partners relatively daring? The fact that it’s an aggressively integrated comedy, taking Kelsey Grammer (who, as Frasier Crane o

2014

Aug

NIXON BY NIXON: IN HIS OWN WORDS By David Bianculli

These days, people have to be careful about what they write in an email, whether it’s deleted or not, if they fear it could surface later in the wrong hands (and those wrong hands, it appears, could indeed be the government). Well, the prior-generation precursor of that was President Richard Nixon’s predilection for secretly recording his own Oval Office conversations – intended for posterity, but eventually becoming the petard on which he was hoist, so to (Shakespearean) speak

2014

Aug

POV: "15 TO LIFE: KENNETH'S STORY" By David Bianculli

Nadine Pequeneza directed this new POV documentary, which looks at a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling about juveniles receiving especially hefty prison sentences – and looks at it by focusing on one case and one prisoner. Kenneth Young was 14 when he began committing brazen armed robberies in Florida, and 15 when he was caught and given a “15 to life” sentence for his crimes. Already imprisoned for more than a decade, Young now has a chance to have his case looked at again, giv

2014

Aug

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE By David Bianculli

One of Stanley Kubrick's undisputed masterpieces. This 1971 movie is bold, brilliant, funny, and unforgettable. It’s also violent, disturbing, unsettling and, it bears repeating, unforgettable. Malcolm McDowell stars, as an initially unrepentant thug roaming the desolate urban landscape of a dystopian future London. By the way: The way his young Alex is rigged up to watch things against his will in the mind-numbing Ludovico treatment? That’s how I feel every time I sit down to watch

2014

Aug

MASTERPIECE MYSTERY!: "POIROT" By David Bianculli

This is the second and last of the new Christie mysteries that will be shown on PBS, at least for now. (The final three stories in the series will be available starting next week on Acorn TV, and won’t appear on public television until later.) Tonight’s story, starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, is Dead Man’s Folly – and one of the interesting things about is that much of it was filmed at the late Christie’s actual estate, which she used as inspiration for her

2014

Aug

TRUE BLOOD By David Bianculli

In this final-season story line, former Christian-leader vampire hater Sarah Newland (Anna Kamp) has gone underground, dyed her hair darker, and adopted a new religious belief system. But our heroes, undead and otherwise, believe she’s the key not only to the deadly (or undeadly?) vampire virus, but also to its antidote. And in tonight’s episode, they find her, and question her… and, for good measure, chain her.

2014

Aug

THE STRAIN By David Bianculli

This fourth installment is the final episode that was sent to critics for preview – and it’s the one, in which our heroes finally get their hands on some physical evidence of what they’re up against, that raises The Strain to an even higher level of creepy. So enjoy – I sure did.

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