Like most big stories, the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s was also a tragically large number of small stories, and director Cecilia Aldarondo has found a compelling one in Memories of A Penitent Heart...

2017

Jul

THE AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: DIANE KEATON By David Bianculli

When this special from the American Film Institute premiered, on TBS in June, I called it the most entertaining of all the AFI career salutes ever televised – and as a long-time, fervent, not-dead-yet movie fan, I’ve seen all 45 of them. What makes this one even more special of a special than the others? Watch and see. I tweeted then that TBS had to repeat it, it was so good. But I was wrong. TBS isn’t repeating it. Sister network TCM is, tonight – and if you missed it la

2017

Jul

REDS By David Bianculli

Warren Beatty’s 1981 drama about the Russian Revolution stars him as American activist John Reed, and Diane Keaton as Louise Bryant, with very strong acting support from Jack Nicholson and Edward Herrmann. Beatty also directs, and Reds has an additional bonus: inserted interviews with actual witnesses to and interpreters of the history, which adds a different level of drama. Literally.

2017

Jul

CBSN: ON ASSIGNMENT By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: This four-week summer series is the newest CBS newsmagazine, inspired by both its website news operation and by such “immersive” reportorial approaches as HBO’s younger-skewing Vice. Tonight’s opener promises stories on how some new jobs at American business plants actually are going to foreign workers specially imported for the occasion; on how ISIS recruits especially young people as followers and agents; and how Japan is making strides in creating even

2017

Jul

MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY By David Bianculli

This 1993 comedy is one of the more purely playful Woody Allen comedies of his later period, and reunites him with Diane Keaton, star of such early Allen classics as Annie Hall and Sleeper. Here, they team as a New York couple who think they may have witnessed a neighbor committing murderer – and comic echoes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window are only the beginning, with this movie being more of a nod than a spoof. Co-stars include Anjelica Huston and Alan Alda. Set your recorders.

2017

Jul

FROM WORKING ACTORS TO FAST FRIENDS: HOW NICOLE KIDMAN AND ELISABETH MOSS BONDED ON 'TOP OF THE LAKE' By Alex Strachan

Judging from early reviews in the UK, Top of the Lake: China Girl, New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion’s follow-up to her eerie, heartbreaking Top of the Lake, wrings an almost cinematic beauty out of Sydney, Australia’s seedy cityscape...

2017

Jul

PBS’S ‘AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE’ INTRODUCED AUDIENCES TO SAM SHEPARD IN 1984 By Eric Gould

Most fans likely knew Sam Shepard (1943-2017) for acting performances in The Right Stuff and Black Hawk Down... Probably less known though, is Shepard’s early career and legacy as a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright...

2017

Jul

TODAY’S EVENTS FROM THE TCA PRESS TOUR INCLUDE WASHINGTON AND FOUNDING FATHERS – NOT THE ONES YOU THINK By Ed Bark

Beverly Hills, CA -- Incessant political reporter/commentator/moderator Robert Costa hit a hotel ballroom stage on another natural high late Monday morning...

2017

Jul

THE FINAL EPISODE OF ‘RARE’ OFFERS MORE INSIGHT INTO ENDANGERED SPECIES By David Hinckley

National Geographic’s Joel Sartore has photographed thousands of birds, animals, insect, fish, and other wildlife over the last quarter century. For a disturbing number of those species, Sartore’s photographs may soon be all we have left...

2017

Jul

THE NINETIES By David Bianculli

Tonight’s installment of The Nineties is titled “New World Order,” and examines all the major political changes that affected the world in that decades. (Boy – I can’t wait, after the new few years are over, to see The Tens.)

Posts 1-10 of 218 1 2 3 4 5

New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption