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DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Dateline Donovan
Contributors

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All Along the Watchtower

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Uncle Barky's Bytes

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TV That Matters

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Ed Martin's TV Mix

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TV Feeds My Family

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Must-Click TV

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Raised On MTM

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TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2013
May
20
PBS’S ‘AMERICAN MASTERS’ CONDUCTS A NEW CONVERSATION WITH MEL BROOKS… AND, ON NPR’S ‘FRESH AIR,’ SO DO I By David Bianculli
 
 

Hilarious Hollywood hyphenate Mel Brooks is the subject of a new American Masters profile tonight at 9 ET on PBS — and earlier today, he’s also my guest on Fresh Air…

 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
20
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE By David Bianculli
 
 
This disturbing, defiant, utterly brilliant 1971 Stanley Kubrick sci-fi film, based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, is the work of art that made me want to become a critic. I was so thrown by this movie when it was released – rated X, initially, in a more conservative cultural climate – that I saw it many, many times in a single week, examining a different aspect of the movie each time. This was back in the pre-home video day when “binge viewing” meant returning, time an
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
20
OUR MAN FLINT By David Bianculli
 
 
TCM is launching an evening of spy-spoof movies, starting with this smartly satiric 1965 comedy – starring James Coburn as super-agent Derek Flint – which heavily inspired Mike Myers’ Austin Powers movies. (Even the sound of the top-secret phone in Myers’ movies comes directly from Flint.)  After Our Man Flint, TCM presents two of Dean Martin’s lighter, less enjoyable but still genial 1966 Matt Helm spy spoofs, The Silencers (10 p.m. ET) and Murderers’ Ro
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
20
AMERICAN MASTERS: "MEL BROOKS: MAKE A NOISE" By David Bianculli
 
 
Mel Brooks gets the American Masters treatment, and a good one, in this 90-minute profile that manages, even without narration, to tell an understandable and entertaining tale of the life and works of this very talented filmmaker, TV writer, composer, Broadway record-setter, and satirist. The best tour guide: Brooks himself. For a full review, and a link to my new interview with Brooks for NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, see Bianculli’s Blog. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
20
BATES MOTEL By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON FINALE: This uneven series has done a few things right while spinning its odd sort-of prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror masterpiece. One, it’s explained, and played well with, some of the formative influences of young Norman, including his voyeurism, his fascination with taxidermy, and his Oedipal issues. And two, it’s given Vera Farmiga – as Norma, Norman’s mother – a juicy role with which she’s managed to hit one home run after another.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
20
RECTIFY By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON FINALE: The six-episode Rectify character study ends tonight, but only for the season. What could have been an abrupt finale is now just a pause: Sundance has renewed this haunting character study for next season. Good thing, too, because this is a character just at the start of a unique, challenging transition, from Death Row inmate to out-of-place free man.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
20
ABC'S 'MOTIVE': A CRIME DRAMA WITH A TWIST By Ed Bark
 
 
As a whodunit with the who already answered, Motive seems to have a clue about what it takes to carry on...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
20
'THE GOODWIN GAMES' HAS NO CHANCE OF WINNING By Ed Bark
 
 
The Goodwin Games — from the creative team behind How I Met Your Mother — isn’t an Olympian comedy but it’s by no means an out-and-out clunker either...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
19
THE SIMPSONS By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON FINALE: When The Simpsons returns in the fall, it will be with the start of Season 25 – an amazing accomplishment indeed. For now, The Simpsons ends Season 24 with a two-part finale – the second part of which features guest voice Seth MacFarlane, who plays Ben, a would-be suitor whom Marge mistakenly contacts on an online swingers site. And MacFarlane, thanks to this show and his own Sunday night Fox animation programs, manages to provide voices on every show presented tonight
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
19
THE BIG LIVE COMEDY SHOW By David Bianculli
 
 
Best Bets has never pointed specifically to a YouTube offering before, but this one is different, and deserves it. It’s a two-hour live variety show, and it’s streamed beginning tonight at 9 ET on YouTube’s Comedy Week channel. Sarah Silverman, Vince Vaughn, Seth Rogen, The Lonely Island, Ed Helms, Tim and Eric, Key & Peele, Michael Cera, and Jack McBrayer are among the scheduled performers. It’s a long way, and a long time, from the Sunday night variety shows of Ed S
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'
By Ed Bark
 
 
 
 
Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver
By Christy Slewinski
 
 
 
 
'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy
By Noel Holston
 
 
 
 

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James
By Mike Hughes
 
 
 
 
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self
By Monique Nazareth
 
 
 
 
Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption
By David Hinckley