Only two postseason games are played today, as a doubleheader televised by TBS. First up, at 5:30 p.m. ET, is Game 2 in the Tampa Bay Rays vs. Boston Red Sox series, a series in which Boston has the edge by clobbering the Rays 12-2 in Game 1. Next, at 9 p.m. ET, is Game 2 in the Detroit Tigers vs. Oakland Athletics, a contest which, to this point, has been much more competitive: Detroit won Game 1 by a score of 3-2.

2013

Oct

MUHAMMAD ALI'S GREATEST FIGHT By David Bianculli

This new HBO telemovie is about Muhammad Ali’s U.S. Supreme Court battle to defend his conscientious objection status in refusing to be drafted during the Vietnam War. Ali is seen only in vintage footage, but the Supreme Court justices are played by others. And what others: Christopher Plummer, Frank Langella and Danny Glover star. For a full review, see Gerald Jordan’s Crossing Jordan.

2013

Oct

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE By David Bianculli

One of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpieces. This 1971 movie, based on the book by Anthony Burgess, is the movie that made me want to be a critic, because it disturbed yet impressed me at the same time, and I kept returning to it to figure out why. (The answer: It’s a brilliant piece of filmmaking, basically.) Malcolm McDowell stars as a futuristic teen thug who, over the course of the movie, experiences being both predator and prey.

2013

Oct

HOUSE OF VERSACE By David Bianculli

I’m not remarking on the quality of this new Lifetime movie – just on the casting, which is reason enough to tune in on a slow Sarturday night. Gina Gershon stars as Donatella Versace, the fashion designer who, until now, has been most visibly and famously portrayed by Maya Rudolph on Saturday Night Live. And also featured in this movie, in a supporting role: Raquel Welch. The stars of Showgirls and One Million Years B.C. in the same movie? Here we go…

2013

Oct

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli

There have been two pop-culture tsunamis so far this fall: the build-up to the end of Breaking Bad, and the series of successfully attention-demanding antics by Miley Cyrus. Posturing at MTV’s Video Music Awards. Riding her “Wrecking Ball” video, naked, to unprecedented first-day views. And now, appearing on Saturday Night Live, as both guest host and musical guest. Nice twerk if you can get it.

2013

Oct

AMERICA IN THE 1950S: GONE FISSION By Noel Holston

We saw mushroom clouds in our nightmares. Fallout freaked us out. We had plenty more to fear than fear itself...

2013

Oct

2013 MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYOFFS By David Bianculli

Today’s games – four of them – are spread between two networks. The day’s first game, with the Pittsburgh Pirates vs. the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 2 of their series, is on MLB Network at 1 p.m. ET. After that, the postseason baseball action shifts to TBS, where the Tampa Bay Rays play the Boston Red Sox at 3 p.m. ET, the Los Angeles Dodgers play their second playoff game against the Atlanta Braves (at 6 p.m. ET), and the Detroit Tigers and Oakland Athletics get the nig

2013

Oct

GREAT PERFORMANCES: "THE HOLLOW CROWN" By David Bianculli

Henry IV, Part II. It may look like an old-fashioned baseball score, but it’s actually the latest entry in this new PBS presentation of William Shakespeare’s history cycle. Jeremy Irons stars as King Henry IV, Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal, and Simon Russell Beale, making the most of a big supporting role (literally a big one) as Falstaff. Check local listings.

2013

Oct

LINCOLN By David Bianculli

This 2012 Steven Spielberg movie, and its central performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, are worth watching any time. But I’m looking forward to this particular repeat telecast because, in the interim, I screened for one of my TV classes at Rowan University an episode of Gidget, the Sixties series in which Sally Field played a peppy surf chick teenager. Watching her play Mary Todd Lincoln to Day-Lewis’ Abraham, after all the intervening years, is an enthralling history lesson – twice

Posts 161-170 of 195

16 17 18 19 20

New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption