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

 
 
2013
Jul
18
 
 
For the most part, Thursday's announcement of the 2013 Emmy nominations had a gratingly familiar ring, with a wealth of repeaters among the nominees...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
18
 
 
The Breaking Bad writers have been so great, we suspect their finale will be a lot better – and a lot more surprising – than ours. But that won't stop us from trying...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
18
 
 
Every once in a while, a movie comes out that catches the zeitgeist and becomes a pop-culture phenomenon that both reflects and affects its times. Basic Instinct, igniting national conversations about infidelity and spurned-lover revenge, was such a movie – 21 years ago. And revisiting it is an opportunity to recapture that moment – and, of course, to once again sit through Sharon Stone’s leg-crossing police interrogation.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
18
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Even though this series is beginning its 12th cycle of competitions tonight, there are a couple of reasons to tune in. One is that, this season, the structure has been revamped to give Tim Gunn even more prominent a role. The other is that a controversial billboard promoting the new season, featuring Gunn and host Heidi Klum lording it over a gaggle of naked models, has gotten people talking about the show even before its season premiere. Nice move.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
18
 
 
Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan), after about a year apart from Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), finally gets to work with her again. Happy reunion? If you think that, you don’t know this show, or these two volatile characters, very well.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
18
 
 
This 1962 thriller, directed by John Frankenheimer, is as gripping, perplexing, surprising and ultimately unsettling as any modern conspiracy-theory drama. Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey play two former POWs who suffer from a severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, for a very good reason. And Angela Lansbury, as one of the women in their lives, deserves very special mention for her very memorable performance. It’s one of four films tonight selected by the evening’s guest pr
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
18
 
 
Stephen Colbert, since returning from vacation, has been on quite a streak. Last night, his conversation with Jerry Seinfeld was charming (and yes, as I predicted, Colbert served his guest some coffee). Tonight, I expect no less – well, no less charm. (Forget about the coffee.) Colbert’s guest tonight is Jeff Bridges (seen here from a previous visit), who, like Seinfeld, has worked very hard to make what he does seem effortlessly natural.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
17
 
 

TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo begins Season 2 with an interactive “Watch ’n’ Sniff” scratch card – inspiring this Honey Boo Boo review haiku. Or, in this case, haikoo...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
17
 
 
Consider this a salute to writer-director John Hughes, whose first two films as a writer-director are presented as a prime-time double feature. Sixteen Candles, from 1984, starts things off, starring Molly Ringwald as a teenager with an impending birthday and some serious issues to confront, at school and at home. Costars include Paul Dooley and such members of the Hughes “company” as Anthony Michael Hall and John Cusack. Ringwald and Hall also would costar in Hughes’ follow-up
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jul
17
 
 
This 1964 fantasy drama, directed by George Pal, has a more serious moral than many – partly because the screenplay adaptation of the Charles G. Finney novel is by Twilight Zone frequent collaborator Charles Beaumont. Tony Randall stars, in a show-off role of the type Peter Sellers sometimes played, embodying a multitude of very different characters in the same film. Randall, as the mysterious traveling showman Dr. Lao, plays everyone from Merlin to Medusa, while his co-star, Barbara Eden,