Want to know what state-of-the-art computers, both the home and military versions, looked like 30 years ago? This 1983 drama shows you precisely that, as Matthew Broderick – also 30 years younger – plays a high-school computer nerd who accidentally hacks into a super-restricted American military computer. A simple question, from the computer, leads to a very complex situation. The special effects, almost a third of a century later, are almost laughable. The message, however, is anyth

2013

Aug

DOCTOR WHO: THE DOCTORS REVISITED – THE EIGHTH DOCTOR By David Bianculli

Tonight’s Doctor of note will have the most comprehensive retrospective of any Doctor in this series of specials, but that’s only because the reign of “The Eighth Doctor” lasted only two hours. After the original BBC Doctor Who series, which ran in the U.K. from 1963 to 1989, had gone dormant, the character and storyline were revived for a pilot telemovie in 1996, with the expectations of a new American-produced series to follow. Yet when the Doctor Who made-for-TV movie

2013

Aug

LES MISERABLES By David Bianculli

This 2012 film version of the ultra-popular stage musical stars Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert, and Anne Hathaway as Fantine. (She won an Oscar; the others did not.) The other supporting players worth noting, in addition to Hathaway’s unbroken-take vocal showstopper, include Amanda Seyfried as Cosette and, as comic relief, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers.

2013

Aug

DO NO HARM By David Bianculli

SERIES FINALE: You don’t have to be a top-notch physician to guess that the prognosis for this NBC series is as grim as can be: Its final two episodes are shown, as a Saturday night double feature, on Labor day weekend. Mark this one D.O.A. – as in, after tonight, Definitely Off the Air.

2013

Aug

LONESOME DOVE By David Bianculli

There’s a whole posse of great characters in this superb 1989 CBS miniseries adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s equally superb Western novel. But for now, stay with the head of the herd: Robert Duvall gives a career-best performance as Augustus McRae, and Tommy Lee Jones does likewise as fellow retired Texas Ranger Woodrow Call. Given those two actors, claiming a career best is really, really up there. And Danny Glover, Diane Lane, Anjelica Huston – hell, everyone and everything in

2013

Aug

TV BOOK REVIEW: ANNE SERLING’S ‘AS I KNEW HIM: MY DAD, ROD SERLING’ By David Bianculli

Imagine, if you will, watching the collected Twilight Zone episodes, many for the first time, looking for clues – in the stories as well as introductions – about your own father…

2013

Aug

NIGHT OF EXPLORATION: DARWIN IN GALAPAGOS By David Bianculli

It may seem like a form of positive reinforcement, but that’s what it is: When a network like National Geographic presents something that used to be at the very core of what it once presented, I’ll most likely support it. Tonight, for example, is a three-hour special about Charles Darwin and his voyage to and extrapolations from the remote island of Galapagos. Even given the recreations with a Darwin “actor,” this special is precisely what National Geographic Channe

2013

Aug

SAY ANYTHING... By David Bianculli

Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this 1989 teen angst classic, starring John Cusack as a smart slacker in love with a beautiful overachiever (Ione Skye). The persistent courtship is the draw here, but the unexpected depth comes from the girl’s father, played by John Mahoney, with a lot more complexity than expected from this genre.

2013

Aug

PATHS OF GLORY By David Bianculli

Stanley Kubrick directed and co-wrote this early anti-war film – and its star Kirk Douglas, was impressed enough by Kubrick to invite him aboard partway through Spartacus. Set during World War I, the story involves soldiers who refuse a suicide-mission order to attack – a refusal that leads to a court-martial.

2013

Aug

SIDE BY SIDE: DIGITAL CINEMA By David Bianculli

Keanu Reeves produced, and acts as interviewer for, this one-hour examination of a basic but significant question about the art of filmmaking: film or digital? In tackling the subject, Reeves does two things very, very right. One, he often divides his own screen in half, to make the argument binary even in a visual sense. Two, he talks with an impressive collection of the best and most innovative filmmakers in the business, including Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Robert Rodriguez, and James Came

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