There’s nothing like an outdoor Requiem Mass to make a summer night slip away – and for this particular evening of TV entertainment, Verdi’s Requiem is performed onstage at the cavernous Hollywood Bowl, featuring soprano Julianna Di Giacomo and those home-town faves, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Given the participants and the material, expect this particular Great Performances offering to be Verdi good indeed. Check local listings.

2014

Aug

DAVID BOWIE: FIVE YEARS By David Bianculli

“Five Years” is the name of the opening track on David Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. This documentary, also called Five Years, looks at the pop icon’s development and reinvention by focusing on five years in Bowie’s life – his transmogrification into Ziggy Stardust being one of them.

2014

Aug

REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER By David Bianculli

MIDSEASON FINALE: For his final episode before his routine summer hiatus, Maher loads the deck on his comic talk show. Among the scheduled guests: Ralph Nader, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Chris Hardwick.

2014

Jul

MEL BROOKS TRIBUTE By David Bianculli

We adore Mel Brooks here at TVWW, and it’s good to know TCM feels likewise. Tonight, that network turns its lineup over to Brooks, by showcasing him in four of his films and an interview, as well as showing the original version of a movie he remade. Starting things off at 8 p.m. ET is 1970’s The Twelve Chairs, one of the rarest Brooks films to find on TV, and one he adapted from a period Russian novel. Next up: 1976’s Silent Movie (9:45 p.m. ET), his homage to the pre-sound era

2014

Jul

THE SIXTIES: "1968" By David Bianculli

I was out of the country two weeks ago when breaking news of the shot-down aircraft pre-empted The Sixties on CNN, so last Thursday, CNN showed a previously scheduled installment instead of 1968, which is now shown tonight, unless more breaking news interrupts. I described 1968 last week thusly: It makes sense that this really smart CNN documentary series would be perceptive enough to single out the year 1968 as one volatile and meaningful enough to warrant its own hour – titled, simply, 1

2014

Jul

PROJECT RUNWAY By David Bianculli

On tonight’s episode of Runway, the designers are ushered into a movie theater, where they’re asked to concoct runway looks from “unconventional materials.” Here’s hoping: a flapper dress made of Twizzlers? (Okay, so we actually saw one of those, pictured, back in Season 8. I’ve never forgotten it.) A mod pop-art black-and-white blazer with buttons made of Junior Mints? And what about a long popcorn boa, held together with corn syrup? Hey – a man can dre

2014

Jul

NY MED By David Bianculli

This week’s installment of NY Med has stories, as usual, that are as intense as they are unscripted – real life, and real life and death, running through the doors and corridors and treatment rooms of Roosevelt Hospital and elsewhere. And this week, there’s a two-year-old girl facing sudden death, another patient who flees an impending operation out of fear, and – well, just watch. And be amazed, as I am each episode, by the professionalism, the humaneness, and the amazin

2014

Jul

THE HONORABLE WOMAN By David Bianculli

MINISERIES PREMIERE: Maggie Gyllenhaal stars in this new eight-part production, a co-production by Sundance and BBC-2, and she gives a performance unlike any of hers I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen some great ones, but nothing that prepared me for her multilayered, mysterious character in this drama: a British heiress who uses her money and political position, as well as her Israeli heritage, to try and broker a path for peace in the Middle East. But as topical and inspirational as that so

2014

Jul

SHARKNADO By David Bianculli

I know, I really shouldn’t be highlighting this 2013 Syfy movie. Yet after generating one unsuccessful hybrid monster schlockfest after another – many of which are on view early today, as with Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (9 a.m. ET), Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (1 p.m. ET), and Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark (3 p.m. ET) – the cable network finally hit it big with Sharknado, its small-screen equivalent of the media frenzy once generated by Snakes on a Plane. Nobody went to see

2014

Jul

PENN & TELLER: FOOL US By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: Imported from England, this series allows Penn & Teller to do what Harry Houdini, in his last years, enjoyed doing: Witnessing various purported acts of magic and spiritualism, and calling them out as fakes. Penn & Teller may take a kinder approach to the amateur magicians they host on his show – but don’t bet on it.

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