Today TCM salutes the movies of Warren Oates – and while Oates may be considered a relatively minor star in the Hollywood constellation, he’s still turned in some very impressive performances in a wide range of Hollywood films. Among them is this 1973 character study by the enigmatic director Terrence Malick, a gorgeously shot film based on an actual crime spree across the Midwest by a young psychopath and his seemingly willing young female accomplice. Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek s

2015

Aug

BLOW By David Bianculli

This 2001 film stars Johnny Depp as real-life drug dealer George Jung, whose rise to the top of the cocaine trade in the U.S. in the 1970s. But it’s Penelope Cruz, as his volatile girlfriend, who manages the rare feat of stealing scenes from Depp. She plays a much less likable role here than in most of her films, and she seems to relish the opportunity, sizzling and snarling as Depp’s Jung gets more and more connected, and more and more reckless.

2015

Aug

POV: "POINT AND SHOOT" By David Bianculli

There must be easier ways to seek excitement and advance your wannabe film career. In 2006, a young man named Matthew VanDyke got off his suburban couch, grabbed his film camera and shipped himself off to the Middle East, with plans to join some dangerous civil or military conflict and film himself doing something heroic. He ended up in the middle of the civil war in Libya, and Point and Shoot is built, in part, around the footage he shot there. Meanwhile, those around him were shooting other th

2015

Aug

MURDER IN THE FIRST By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: It’s the end of the Dustin Maker trial, and the end of the season, but not without another suspect surfacing at the last moment in this season-long murder case.

2015

Aug

THE WILD BUNCH By David Bianculli

As one of the final entries in today’s salute to Warren Oates, TCM at 2 a.m. ET presents one of the more infamous movies of the 1960s: Sam Peckinpah’s gritty Western The Wild Bunch, which in 1969 was widely derided, and just as widely hailed, for its slow-motion “ballet” of violence. Today, the gunplay in The Wild Bunch wouldn’t even register as extreme, much less spark a national debate. But times and tastes change, and this is one of the films that helped change t

2015

Aug

'FEAR THE WALKING DEAD' MAKES IT A TWOSOME ON AMC By Ed Bark

AMC’s new Fear the Walking Dead prequel might just as well be called Milking The Walking Dead For All It’s Worth..

2015

Aug

THE AFFAIRS OF DOBIE GILLIS By David Bianculli

Debbie Reynolds is the star being saluted today by TCM – and while the must-see film, by far, is 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, which is shown tonight at 8 ET, and is one of the best movie musicals ever made, there’s another movie from the same era, shown much earlier in that day, that I can’t wait to see. Made the year after Singin’ in the Rain, in 1953, and shown at 9 a.m. ET, it stars Reynolds and Bob Van in a teenage romantic comedy called The Affairs of Dobi

2015

Aug

WYNDHAM GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP By David Bianculli

The Wyndham Championship is by no means a major golf tournament – and normally, I wouldn’t recommend it as TV Worth Watching. But Tiger Woods, who usually doesn’t even bother with this lower-tier PGA event, entered after failing to make the cut last week at the last major tournament of the year, because he’s fallen so low in the international golf rankings, with standings and with points, that it’s the only way he might qualify to play in the FedEx Cup postseason, w

2015

Aug

SHOW ME A HERO By David Bianculli

Parts 3 and 4 of 6. Oscar Isaac continues to burn brightly as a Yonkers politician in this fact-based story from David Simon and his collaborators, who include director Paul Haggis. And what seemed at first to be the story of a young politician on a meteoric rise, becomes, by tonight’s two episodes, something much more complicated – just like its characters. For my full review, see Bianculli’s Blog, or read and hear my review at NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross website.

2015

Aug

FEAR THE WALKING DEAD By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: It almost had to happen. When AMC’s The Walking Dead became a phenomenon – the most popular scripted series on cable TV (and the second most popular scripted TV series right now, period, behind only CBS’s NCIS) – AMC concocted a spinoff talk show, The Talking Dead, just to discuss what had happened each week in zombie land. But starting tonight, the network presents an official prequel, featuring an all-new cast of characters, and set on the other side of

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