For the second Monday in a row, TCM presents Carson on TCM, a series of 12-minute shorts, hosted by Conan O’Brien, presenting vintage Tonight Show interviews conducted by Johnny Carson. The fifth and final of tonight’s interviews, a 1973 visit with Tony Curtis at 8:48 p.m. ET, leads directly into TCM’s 9 p.m. ET telecast of Curtis’ 1959 hit comedy Some Like it Hot, also starring Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe (pictured). But those two aren’t represented in tonight&r

2013

Jul

GASLAND PART II By David Bianculli

Three years after Josh Fox explained and explored the issue of fracking in his 2010 documentary Gasland, and showed a resident lighting his contaminated tap water on fire, he’s back with a sequel. And this time, he travels across the country – stopping in Texas, Colorado, Arkansas and elsewhere, as well as his native Pennsylvania – to show how natural gas companies are using political influence, public relations, and lots and lots of money to continue and expand their practice

2013

Jul

UNDER THE DOME By David Bianculli

Stephen King’s new hit TV series really is turning out to be the television equivalent of a summer beach read: It’s not too deep, not too dark, and easy to watch. And there’s a little bit of casting irony, as one of the stars, Dean Norris, already is shown breaking bad – quite fitting, since he costars on AMC’s Breaking Bad.

2013

Jul

DANGERMAN: THE INCREDIBLE MR. GOODWIN By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: Jonathan Goodwin stars in this new import, which showcases his fascination with recreating and re-popularizing some of the magic and carnival tricks of old, from Houdini-style escapes to breaking and eating glass. He hangs from the top of a skyscraper, using only the number of fingers represented by a roll of a volunteer’s dice. Actually, it’s just one dice, which is a die – which is what he could do, if he’s not careful.

2013

Jul

WAREHOUSE 13 By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: My head spins, trying to figure out, with Syfy and USA shows, what’s a season finale, a midseason finale, or just another episode. Last week I got it wrong, prematurely identifying that night’s episode as the season ender. It’s actually tonight. I think. And if it’s the episode I think I previewed, it’s got a very clever ending, which puts our heroes on either side of an impenetrable barrier. Sort of like Under the Dome.

2013

Jul

BROADCHURCH By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: This new British import is another example of TV’s current fixation with single-crime limited series and extended stories, a mini-genre that, in essence, also includes Top of the Lake, The Killing and The Bridge. What distinguishes Broadchurch, initially, isn’t its plot or the way it’s unfurled. It’s the photography (one early shot is a very extended, complicated tracking shot, following a character as he walks through much of his small town and interacts

2013

Jul

THE BRIDGE By David Bianculli

The killer in this series keeps getting away with murder – and in increasingly ghoulish ways, designed to call attention to himself and his stated cause. And so far, it’s working. The media attention is building, as is the pressure for the temporarily teamed investigators – one from the U.S., the other from Mexico – to identify and find the murderer and solve the case.

2013

Jul

DOUBLE INDEMNITY By David Bianculli

Billy Wilder directed this 1944 film noir classic, and they don’t get much noir-er than this. Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson star as men who get caught in the web, or put in the deadly path, of a femme fatale played by Barbara Stanwyck. What a performance – and what a movie.

2013

Jul

2013 WIMBLEDON MEN'S FINAL By David Bianculli

In yesterday’s women’s final, poor Sabine Lisinki, after playing so brilliantly, and with such heart, to reach the finals, had little left in the tank, and lost in straight sets to Marion Bartoli, coming alive only in the last few games. What that may mean for today’s men’s final is uncertain. Novak Djokovic (pictured), ranked No. 1, may be drained a bit after playing the longest men’s semifinal in Wimbledon history, and prevailing over Juan Martin del Potro in a th

2013

Jul

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN By David Bianculli

TCM already had scheduled an Essentials, Jr. night devoted to “Down to Size” before the recent death of writer Richard Matheson, whose imagination spawned an astounding list of beloved movies and TV shows. (For my list of his TV greats, see Bianculli’s Blog.) Even so, the night begins with his seminal contribution to the “shrunken drama” genre: 1957’s The Incredible Shrinking Man, starring Grant Williams as a man who finds himself getting smaller and smaller,

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