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

 
 
2012
Jun
19
 
 
Life's A Tripp in reality is nothing more than another Lifetime stumble. Its subjects live off their media fame while at the same time blaming the media for often making them miserable...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
19
 
 
On this day in 1967, Paul McCartney sat down for an interview with the British television network ITV's news arm, Independent Television News (ITN), in the garden of his home on Cavendish Avenue in London. McCartney was responding to a media firestorm created by comments he made that were published in the June 17 edition of the then-weekly publication, Life. In the story, "The New Far-Out Beatles" by Thomas Thompson, McCartney talks about using the drug LSD — an unprecedented admissio
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
19
 
 
I’ve become addicted to this 2010 documentary, watching and enjoying it each time it’s televised. Phil Rosenthal pulls off the very difficult trick of directing a documentary in which he is both subject and narrator – yet without making himself look too good or his film too self-absorbed. It’s the story of the effort to take the sitcom he created with Ray Romano, Everybody Loves Raymond, and help produce a version tailored specifically by and for Russian television. What
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
19
 
 
They are lots of wonderful stories – many of them conflicting – about how star Kirk Douglas persuaded Stanley Kubrick to take over the direction of this 1960 gladiator epic. What’s inarguable, though, is the sheer scope of this thing, populated with thousands of extras in an era long before CGI. Lots more extras than in the photo at left, I should stress. Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton and Jean Simmons co-star. I am Spartacus! (Well, not really, but I’m quoting accura
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
19
 
 
The Miami Heat is up two games to one, though neither of the victories has been that dominant. And tonight is Game 4, with the Heat enjoying home-court advantage once again, and with the Oklahoma City Thunder fighting to win its first road game in this year’s Finals.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
19
 
 
Broadcast in the U.K. last December, this documentary offers a modern perspective on John Lennon’s musical and social impact – but not much else. Still, it’s a slow summer night, and it’s a new TV show about the Beatles. So I’m there.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
19
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: It seems as though this series returns more than once a year and perhaps it does – but Daniel Tosh’s impish way with a punch line is welcome at any time. He manages to make fun of the videos and video subjects he presents without being gleefully cruel. He also, from time to time, gives his virally humiliated guests a shot at redemption. The fact that they miss that shot as often as they hit it, well, that’s not Tosh’s fault. But watchable? Absolutely.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
18
 
 
Fledgling filmmaker Steven Spielberg made this 1971 made-for-TV movie thriller under absurdly intense conditions. Based on a Richard Matheson short story published in Playboy earlier the same year, Spielberg filmed it on location in little more than three weeks – yet emerged with a tense, influential masterpiece...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
18
 
 
Even though the setting is inescapably familiar, with a few stock-character church ladies thrown in for good measure, TV Land's Hot in Cleveland spin-off, The Soul Man, shows promise...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2012
Jun
18
 
 
On a midsummer Monday night, almost all the watchable TV offerings are movies. (What, you expected support for tonight’s premiere of ABC’s The Glass House? I may not throw stones at it, but I’m sure not recommending it.) Here’s a chance to see, unedited, the brilliantly filmed and acted 2007 movie about the early oil business, starring Daniel Day-Lewis in a role that, like the black gold he seeks, is a bubbling crude.