This installment is the most ripe for cross-cultural sarcasm, because fake royals Georgie (Ed Gamble) and Poppy (Amy Hoggart) descend upon Washington, D.C. They’re confused, initially, in their sightseeing quest for the White House, because a lot of the houses look white. And when these faux royals begin chatting up and querying some actual Washington politicians – well, it’s like The Daily Show with a British accent. Which, I guess, makes it exactly like The Daily Show last su

2014

Jul

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA By David Bianculli

Every time TCM shows Lawrence of Arabia, I put it in Best Bets – and why not? David Lean’s 1962 masterpiece is indeed an epic, in every sense of the word. And only TCM, usually, shows this lengthy movie the way it should be shown, uninterrupted and with the proper screen ratio. Peter O’Toole is every bit as charismatic, contrary and cool as the real T.E. Lawrence was reported to be – and there’s a certain symmetry that actor Omar Sharif gets to play a character name

2014

Jul

LEE DANIELS' THE BUTLER By David Bianculli

Any movie that casts both Oprah Winfrey and Mariah Carey is scoring in the red on the Diva Meter – but the central focus of this 2013 drama, based on fact (sometimes very loosely based), is Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, who as a White House butler served eight different Presidents. (Winfrey plays his wife.) And though they’re minor roles, the Presidents who are portrayed by actors rather then represented in news footage are played by such familiar faces as Robin Williams (portrayi

2014

Jul

AUSTENLAND By David Bianculli

This 2013 movie premise doesn’t just scream “chick flick.” It howls it like a banshee – a banshee obsessed with Pride and Prejudice and other things Jane Austen. Keri Russell, showing a much softer side than she has in FX’s The Americans, plays a single woman who decides to travel abroad to attend a British holiday resort catering to literary and movie fans who want to wallow in an approximation of the worlds generated by author Austen. But the approach here i

2014

Jul

REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER By David Bianculli

On tonight’s show, the guests include Nate Silver (the statistician who’s said some eye-opening things when he’s visited Maher in the past) and Star Trek veteran George Takei, who once memorably roasted William Shatner by giving him a tip on how to correctly pronounce his former co-star’s last name, after decades of getting it wrong. “It’s Ta-KAY!,” Takei (shown here) told Shatner with measurable irritation in his voice. “You know… like toup

2014

Jul

THE STRAIN By David Bianculli

If you missed the opener of this new FX series last Sunday, here’s a convenient chance to catch up. And you should, because The Strain is a TV ride worth taking – and a story that introduces some innovative variations on the vampire theme. Guillermo del Toro not only directed this pilot, but he and Chuck Hogan, who collaborated on the novels on which The Strain is based, co-wrote this opening script as well. Corey Stoll stars. For a full review, see Bianculli’s Blog.

2014

Jul

TWO NEW FX SHOWS ABOUT LOVE AND HATE By Eric Gould

For the time being, new FX comedies are probably constructed more or less from the Louie template. Married and You're the Worst, premiering Thursday don't have the vignetted, semi-surreal structures of Louis C.K.'s show, but the environments are the same...

2014

Jul

WELCOME TO SWEDEN By David Bianculli

Now that Greg Poehler, creator and star of this new series presented by NBC, has established the autobiographical premise of his show – a man, here named Bruce, moves to Sweden after falling in love with a woman who lives there – it’s time to run with the comic possibilities of the premise. Lena Olin, as the mother of Bruce’s girlfriend, gets more laughs in subtitled Swedish than most NBC comedy stars do in English. Poehler is funny, too, but quietly so, while Josephine B

2014

Jul

THE SIXTIES: "THE SPACE RACE" By David Bianculli

Tom Hanks, whose Playtone company is one of this fine documentary series’ production partners, appears on camera in tonight’s episode – and, since Hanks so memorably proved he had the right stuff by portraying astronaut Jim Lovell in 1995’s Apollo 13, he’s more than earned the right to put the Space Race, which both predated and outlasted the Sixties by a few years each way, in his own entertaining perspective. But he’s far from the only one on tap tonight &nd

2014

Jul

RECTIFY By David Bianculli

Tonight’s episode is called “Act As If,” and continues the story line begun last week as Daniel (Aden Young) emerged from his coma and went to Atlanta. I’m going to Act As If I know what’s going to happen next, though I don’t have a clue. But that’s something I plan to rectify by watching tonight’s Rectify.

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