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

 
 
2015
Aug
18
 
 
Everything else recommended today has some relation to Vivian Leigh. This latest Wes Anderson movie is the exception: a 2014 gem that is as dazzling in terms of structure and story line as it is visually. And believe me, that’s saying something. Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham star.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
18
 
 
This 1939 epic still holds the record as the most popular movie ever shown on television – a record that will hold as long as people watch entertainment through TV screens. (What’s that? A three-year window?) Vivian Leigh, who’s being saluted all day by TCM, stars here in her most famous and indelible role. But other films, and roles, of hers continue after midnight – because, after all, tomorrow is another day…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
18
 
 
Vivien Leigh is sensational in this 1951 screen version of the hit Tennessee Williams play – but merely sensational isn’t enough to pull the focus from her costar, Marlon Brando, whose performance here is one of the best in the history of cinema, capturing for posterity the electricity that changed stage acting, and screen acting, for the next several generations.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
18
 
 
First impressions are everything. And while TVWW seldom presents network promos, the brand new one introducing Trevor Noah as Jon Stewart’s successor on The Daily Show hits the absolutely perfect tone...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
18
 
 
And now for something completely different: a mental acuity test. Who said the following? "It’s a little bit like, you watch somebody sell their used car and not wash it. You can spend $10 washing the car and get another $200 for the car..."
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
17
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Another British series premiere is imported courtesy of the Acorn streaming site. This one is a six-episode comedy miniseries called Detectorists, acclaimed as the most popular comedy airing on BBC4 in 2014. (To be fair, BBC4 is to England what the CW is to the U.S., at least in terms of overall viewership.) Both the show’s premise and its stars, though, are intriguingly oddball. Detectorists, joining the lineup today at the Acorn TV streaming website, is about member
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
17
 
 
Lee J. Cobb has the spotlight all day and all tonight, starting at 6 a.m. ET with 1941’s Men of Boys Town, sharing screen time with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. Classics and rarities shown throughout the 24-hour salute include 1958’s The Brothers Karamazov (at 8 a.m. ET, pictured), a great movie to remember when you’re playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: In addition to Cobb, its cast also includes Yul Brynner, Richard Basehart and William Shatner. The 1954 classic On the Wa
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
17
 
 
Surely enough time has passed since you saw this 1980 film comedy for it to be a treat to watch again. (Of course it would – but don’t call me Shirley.) Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves and Robert Stack star, having a great time with the joke-filled script by Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers, David and Jerry.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
17
 
 
This documentary has a title that makes it sound like a Seventies TV cop show, but it’s actually a dual character study: of Buddhist monk Lobsang Phuntsok, who established a protected environment for orphaned Himalayan children, and five-year-old Tashi, one of his newest, and most rebellious and challenging, young charges. Phuntsok’s patience and perspective are positively saintly – or, at the very least, monkly.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Aug
17
 
 
Part of today’s all-day Lee J. Cobb festival on TCM, this 1957 movie stars Henry Fonda as the lone initial holdout on a jury otherwise ready to convict a young defendant of murder. Cobb (pictured) plays the angry Juror No. 3 – a role played in its original live TV version, on Studio One in 1954, by Franchot Tone, opposite Robert Cummings in the role later played by Fonda. I prefer the TV version to the movie, but the movie’s still a very enjoyable drama to watch. Just try not t