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
Apr
26
 
 
Now that this movie is 40 years old, it’s an appropriate moment to give it its full due. With special effects that long predated CGI, director William Friedkin managed to make this one of the scariest movies ever filmed – then or now. Watch it anew, and see if it still works for you. My guess is that it will.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
26
 
 
Yesterday on TV, you saw Bill Clinton as one of the living U.S. Presidents gathered in Texas to launch George W. Bush’s presidential library center. Tonight on TV, you can see another Clinton – daughter Chelsea – as she presents a Rock Center feature on Beck Bennett, the guy in those AT&T commercials. I suppose she could have done a feature on an NBC series star – but more people, these days, are watching the commercials, including TVWW's Eric Gould, who was out in fr
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
26
 
 
Last week’s show was perfectly timed to react to the capture of the surviving Boston bomber. Tonight’s show will be less timely, but probably just as volatile – and Bill Maher’s scheduled guests this evening include Anna Deavere Smith and Maher’s fellow talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
26
 
 
Director Rama Allen, creator of the Vikings opener, talks about engaging viewers in a one-minute sequence...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
25
 
 
There’s a sense throughout that a long-term investment will at best yield the equivalent of a penny slot machine payoff. And yet I watched the whole 13-episode first season...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
25
 
 
In this week's new episode, “The Closure Alternative,” Sheldon (Jim Parsons) gets frustrated when a TV show he loves gets canceled unexpectedly and leaves without completing its story line. See you and raise you, Sheldon. I'm still fuming over the sudden end of HBO's Deadwood - and that was seven years ago.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
25
 
 
Next month, American Masters presents a biography of Mel Brooks, and one of the surprises tucked inside that program is Brooks’ assertion that, despite its poor critical reception at the time of release, his 1987 Star Wars parody, Spaceballs, has now sold more copies on DVD than any other Brooks film. See it for yourself, and decide whether the satire, starring John Candy, Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga, Rick Moranis and Brooks himself, deserves a higher grade.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
25
 
 
It may be unfair to invest tonight’s plot with larger meanings about this series itself, but on this new episode, the high school has to move forward after having lost its power. In any event, what it means is that the New Directions singers have to go unplugged – and respond with an acoustic set that includes Queens’s “We Will Rock You” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin.’”
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
25
 
 
For some reason, this seems like the perfect habitat for these characters: On tonight’s new episode, Leslie (Amy Poehler) and company fight for (and, on occasion, fight at) a miniature golf course.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Apr
25
 
 
BBC America has moved this talk show from Saturdays, where its sci-fi lineup has built more momentum, to Thursdays, but the episodes remain new, and the guests – including, tonight, Gwyneth Paltrow – can always be relied upon to be caught off guard, and to react unexpectedly. That, in itself, is such a TV talk-show rarity that Norton and company are worth watching, even if some members of the company are less familiar to U.S. viewers.