According to press reports, Madonna’s 2012 live “MDNA” show was the biggest-selling concert tour of the year (perhaps because she saved money by eliminating three of the letters from “MADONNA” in its title). Considering that her infamous Truth or Dare concert documentary film was 22 years ago, it’s impressive, in a way, that she’s still mounting concerts with an eye to shock, with oversized theatrics, and with an approach that stresses style and visuals

2013

Jun

PITCH PERFECT By David Bianculli

Anna Kendrick stars in this 2012 musical comedy, about a new college arrival who joins the school’s a cappella group and encourages it to revamp and modernize its approach before the next big competition. Yes, it sounds like a big-screen Glee, but the real glee here is found from the performances of the young women in this mismatched choir – especially Rebel Wilson (left in photo) in the breakout role of “Fat Amy.”

2013

Jun

THE SEARCHERS By David Bianculli

John Ford’s 1956 Western is brilliant, epic, and very, very dark. John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter play two men on a long, dangerous search to find a young girl taken by a band of Indians who slaughtered her family. What sounds like a standard search-and-rescue mission turns out to be anything but, and its unexpected layers, like Wayne’s uncharacteristically nuanced performance, make The Searchers a haunting, stirring Western. Natalie Wood co-stars.

2013

Jun

RED By David Bianculli

Red 2 hits theaters in mid-July, and a look at this 2010 original, Red, shows why planning a sequel was such an obvious good move. RED is an acronym for Retired, Extremely Dangerous, and the plot finds a reason to unite former agents from various intelligence agencies – played by a deliciously varied cast of “aging” actors. Bruce Willis is an actor you’d expect in this sort of movie, but Morgan Freeman? John Malkovich? Helen Mirren? She, especially, brandishes her weapons

2013

Jun

666 PARK AVENUE By David Bianculli

SERIES RETURN: Just like Zero Hour, which precedes it, this is a canceled ABC series whose remaining produced episodes are being burned off, on Saturday nights, during the summer months. So consider this Zero Hour Plus One – and watch only if you were still watching this disappointing, meandering, demonic drama when ABC pulled it from the schedule last November. Where did we leave off? Jane (Rachael Taylor) was having increasingly disturbing dreams. Seven months later, she still is…

2013

Jun

LIFETIME'S 'DEVIOUS MAIDS': AN ABC REJECT WITH A SAUCY LATINA BEAT By Ed Bark

Rejected by ABC but perhaps perfect for Lifetime and these times, Devious Maids lathers up Sunday night with a sudsy, bounce-around premiere...

2013

Jun

NBC'S 'CROSSING LINES' CROSSES ONE LINE TOO MANY By Ed Bark

Crossing Lines isn’t breezy enough for a summer diversion. Instead it’s ponderous, pretentious and too predictable...

2013

Jun

MOYERS & COMPANY By David Bianculli

On this weekend’s installment, Bill Moyers takes a chilling, informative report from last year – on the influential, Machiavellian, very secretive American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC for short) – and updates it. The original story was frightening enough, and I’m afraid that the news, about how major corporations influence politics and especially state politicians, will not have gotten better. Moyers & Company airs from Friday to Sunday on local public TV stati

2013

Jun

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT By David Bianculli

Whether or not you’ve plunged into the new, Netflix-presented season of Arrested Development, tonight’s prime-time quadruple-feature of classic episodes is worth watching and enjoying. The second episode in this mini-marathon introduces Charlize Theron in her recurring role as lovely Rita. She’s British, but she’s no meter maid. She is, however, not quite what she initially appears, and that leads to a rather hilarious misunderstanding. Her performance, alone, is worth th

2013

Jun

NETWORK By David Bianculli

Paddy Chayefsky became television’s first well-known star writer, the first to emigrate to Hollywood, after writing such early 1950s gems as Marty. Two decades later, still in Hollywood, he reflected on his roots by taking aim at TV in the 1976 movie Network – but instead of looking back with nostalgia, he looked ahead with astonishing prescience. Before Fox existed, he tells the tale of a fourth broadcasting network that becomes successful by pandering with outrageous reality shows,

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