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DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Dateline Donovan
Contributors

DAVID HINCKLEY

All Along the Watchtower

ED BARK

Uncle Barky's Bytes

ALEX STRACHAN

TV That Matters

MIKE HUGHES

Open Mike

ED MARTIN

Ed Martin's TV Mix

KIM AKASS

Aerial View

MONIQUE NAZARETH

MNtv

BILL BRIOUX

TV Feeds My Family

ROGER CATLIN

TV Eye

GARY EDGERTON

Must-Click TV

TOM BRINKMOELLER

Raised On MTM

GERALD JORDAN

Crossing Jordan

NOEL HOLSTON

The Grassy Noel

TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2016
May
22
PENNY DREADFUL By David Bianculli
 
 
Now here’s a show that’s fun, and scary and disturbing, in all the right ways. And this season it’s added both Dracula and Dr. Jekyll into its gothic mix. Eva Green stars – and should get an Emmy nomination for how compelling she is here.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
21
HBO GOES 'ALL THE WAY' IN REVEALING THE COMPLEXITY OF LBJ By David Hinckley
 
 
The HBO Lyndon Johnson drama All the Way starts from the bold premise that the former President was larger than life, then proves it...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
21
TOY STORY By David Bianculli
 
 
Hard to believe this movie is 21 years old. Computer animation has come a long way – but this is the full-length film where it all started, thanks to the fabulous folks at Pixar. And though Toy Story was made in 1995, it still charms you, and warms your heart. Just like an old toy.  
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
21
ALL THE WAY By David Bianculli
 
 
Bryan Cranston won a Tony Award for portraying Lyndon Baines Johnson in Robert Schenkkan’s 2014 play about the President’s behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (played here by Anthony Mackie) regarding the civil rights movement. This HBO adaptation is directed for television by Jay Roach, who also directed Cranston in Trumbo – and who adds another triumph to his string of politically themed HBO projects, which already includes Recount, Game Chang
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
21
DOUBLE INDEMNITY By David Bianculli
 
 
When I was growing up in the 1960s, I thought of Fred MacMurray as the amiable patriarch of My Three Sons, and thought of Barbra Stanwyck as the tough matriarch of The Big Valley. It was a few more years before I’d delve into the earlier parts of their careers – such as this 1944 film noir classic, in which MacMurray plays an insurance salesman seduced into evil acts, including murder, by Stanwyck’s femme fatale.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
21
ROOTS: A NEW VISION By David Bianculli
 
 
A remake of Roots, the landmark 1977 miniseries about Alex Haley’s personal family history, is arriving on Memorial Day, shown across all the History Channel network of sister platforms. Tonight, to whet your appetite, History presents a behind-the-scenes special. Among the new miniseries’ executive producers: LeVar Burton, who starred in the original as Kunta Kinte.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
21
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli
 
 
Tonight is the Season 41 finale for Saturday Night Live, and for the occasion, the show is bringing back a former alumnus as guest host: Fred Armisen. Will he do a new sketch as Prince? Or would that be “too soon”? Musical guest: Courtney Barnett.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
20
‘ALL THE WAY’ IS A LANDSLIDE WIN FOR BOTH HBO AND BRYAN CRANSTON By Ed Bark
 
 
JFK has been center stage far more than LBJ on screens small and large. But in terms of a chops-licking acting challenge, the strong-arming, deep-drawling, oft-uncouth son of Stonewall, Texas is the role to beat...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
20
JAWS By David Bianculli
 
 
This is when I consider it summer, officially, regardless of what the calendar says: It’s summer whenever TV networks begin repeating Jaws in prime time. Made in 1975, it’s still one of Steven Spielberg’s, and the cinema’s, greatest blends of action movies and character studies. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw star.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
20
DARK SHADOWS By David Bianculli
 
 
This 2012 movie was a pale remake of the original gothic soap opera series – and considering how pale Jonathan Frid’s Barnabas Collins was in the original TV show, that’s saying something. But though Johnny Depp plays a more comic and silent-movie version of Barnabas, this remake is worth watching because of the villainess, played by Eva Green of Penny Dreadful. She not only looks completely different here, she acts completely different.
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'
By Ed Bark
 
 
 
 
Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver
By Christy Slewinski
 
 
 
 
'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy
By Noel Holston
 
 
 
 

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James
By Mike Hughes
 
 
 
 
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self
By Monique Nazareth
 
 
 
 
Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption
By David Hinckley