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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

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All Along the Watchtower

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Uncle Barky's Bytes

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TV That Matters

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Open Mike

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Ed Martin's TV Mix

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Aerial View

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TV Feeds My Family

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TV Eye

GARY EDGERTON

Must-Click TV

TOM BRINKMOELLER

Raised On MTM

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Crossing Jordan

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TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2016
May
28
THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI By David Bianculli
 
 
This weekend of war movies continues, all day and all night, and the opening movie in prime time tonight is one of the genre’s best and most unusual: 1957’s The Bridge On the River Kwai, the Oscar-winning David Lean movie starring Alec Guinness and William Holden as POWs forced by their Japanese captors to build a strategic bridge. The novel on which it’s based was written by Pierre Boulle, who also wrote the Planet of the Apes novels.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
28
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. By David Bianculli
 
 
This 2015 movie is a bad remake of an enjoyable Sixties spy series, and both Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, as the Solo and Illya roles played in the original series by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, are woefully miscast. (Considering that Hammer also starred in the title role of another TV-to-movie fiasco, 2013’s The Lone Ranger, he should have known better.) So why watch? Because the female lead, Gaby, is played by Alicia Vikander, who made this otherwise forgettable film just after s
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
28
MORE COMIC BOOK MAYHEM IN AMC’S BLOODY, SOUL-SEARCHING ‘PREACHER’ By Ed Bark
 
 

Editor’s Note: While Preacher has already had its premiere, AMC is rerunning the pilot, a few times, beginning Sunday, May 29 at 9 p.m. ET before the show returns on June 5...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
27
‘AMERICAN MASTERS’ RECALLS THE COUNTRY MUSIC SUPERGROUP, THE HIGHWAYMEN By David Hinckley
 
 
The more you like country music, the more you’re apt to like "The Highwaymen: Friends Till The End," a PBS American Masters documentary...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
27
500 QUESTIONS By David Bianculli
 
 
Last night marked the Season 2 premiere of this fast-moving quiz show, with Jeopardy! Champ Ken Jennings as the season’s first contestant (pictured), trying to answer 500 questions without giving three wrong answers in a row. Imagine how surprised Jennings was, not to mention ABC, when he was eliminated after a total of four questions. Yikes. It’s an entertaining game, and a game in which a contestant’s age, or youth, can be either an asset or a definite liability. Tonight: Mor
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
27
BATTLE OF THE BULGE By David Bianculli
 
 
Beginning with this 1965 film starring Henry Fonda, TCM devotes the entire weekend to war movies, in honor of Memorial Day. Tune in any time, and see a film, many of them classics, dramatizing one war or another. It’s impressive that there are so many watchable war movies – but sad, if you think about it another way, that there have been so many wars.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
27
ALICE IN WONDERLAND By David Bianculli
 
 
The sequel to this 2010 movie, Alice Through the Looking Glass, opens today – so if you’re planning on going later this weekend, TNT is offering a refresher by repeating this six-year-old Tim Burton adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic. Mia Wasikowska stars as Alice – then and now.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
27
20/20 By David Bianculli
 
 
The latest promos for this week’s 20/20 promise a special report devoted to the latest events regarding the court case against Bill Cosby, with room in the hour for testimony from other women, whose accounts may or may not be heard in the eventual court case.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
27
JESSI COLTER REMEMBERS THE MYTHS ABOUT THE 'OUTLAW' HIGHWAYMEN By David Hinckley
 
 
What Jessi Colter remembers about the Highwaymen is how sane and normal they so often were. How’s that for shattering a few myths?...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
27
A DIFFERENT TRIBUTE TO THE TROOPS THIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND By Linda Donovan
 
 
It’s Fleet Week once again and the troops made it to The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon...
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
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