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

 
 
2018
Jun
15
 
 
With full respect to Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill, my favorite totally screwed-up lawyer on TV these days is Billy Bob Thornton’s Billy McBride...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
14
 
 
Okay, I’m convinced. Jack Parsons was one of the weirdest people, like, ever...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
14
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This new drama series premieres today on CBS All Access, providing a fact-based look at the very weird life of Jack Parsons (played by Jack Reynor), who in the years before WWII pursued both experiments in rocketry and an enthusiasm for a very out-of-the-mainstream religious cult. Bella Heathcote co-stars as Jack’s wealthy, sometimes too supportive spouse. For a full review, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
14
 
 
Russia is the host of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which begins this morning, with matches in this hugely popular international men’s tournament (hugely popular internationally, anyway) televised by either Fox or Fox Sports. The USA men’s team will not be taking part in the competition – not because our country is protesting Russia’s meddling in our election process, but because the USA team failed to make the cut of the world’s best 32 teams. The Korea Republic did, th
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
14
 
 
TCM’s Mad About Musicals celebration continues today and tonight, with musicals shown all day and throughout prime time. Best of the bunch: At 8 p.m. ET, James Cagney playing a patriotic show-business firecracker, portraying showman and songwriter George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. The ultra-patriotic movie was released in 1942, the year after the USA entered WWII.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
14
 
 
Episode 2 of American Woman, the new Paramount series starring Alicia Silverstone and Mena Suvari as suburban women in the 1970s, is presented at 10 p.m. ET. It’s not really that good, or heartily recommended, but the extra lengths to which Paramount is going to promote the series deserves mention. Right after American Woman concludes tonight, Paramount presents a new edition of its Lip Sync Battle series, pitting Silverstone and Suvari against each other. Suvari pretends to sing “So
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
13
 
 
A Fistful of Dollars, when it was released in 1964, was called a “spaghetti Western” at the time because it emanated from Italy. It was a dismissive description then, but was a major triumph for all involved – banding together some artists who, collectively, would help redefine the Western for a new generation, There’s Clint Eastwood, on the run from the American TV Western Rawhide, as a strong, silent, often shady gunman. There’s Ennio Morricone, invoking for the f
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
13
 
 
This is episode two of this new TV adaptation of 3 Days of the Condor, the 1975 movie starring Robert Redford as a CIA research analyst who is the only survivor of a mysterious hit on his CIA field office in Georgetown. Max Irons has the starring role here, and co-stars – an impressive crew – include William Hurt, Brendan Fraser, Bob Balaban, and Mira Sorvino, playing characters who, except for Hurt’s, can’t really be fully trusted. Or, in some cases, even partly.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
13
 
 
The summit with North Korea ended just in time for Samantha Bee to comment on it in tonight’s new show. Some free advice to Bee (or not to Bee): choose your words carefully. Especially your epithets.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
12
 
 
Tuesdays and Thursdays this month, TCM devotes all day, and even some of the night, to the Hollywood musical. The action starts very early today, at 6 a.m. ET, with 1943’s Best Foot Forward. The best treats come a little later, though, and are well worth stacking up in the queue of your DVR. There’s Gene Kelly dancing and swashbuckling (dance-buckling?) his way through 1948’s The Pirate at 2:30 p.m. ET, showing off his ambitious, sometimes dangerously athletic choreography. At