Stephen Dorff stars in this 2012 movie, which I haven’t seen, but point out here specifically because its plot sounds so similar to Hostages, one of CBS’s new drama series premiering this month. Brake is about a Secret Service agent (Dorff), not a surgeon (Toni Collette in Hostages), but otherwise it’s the same basic idea: a well-connected protagonist is abducted and threatened with the death of loved ones unless they help with a presidential assassination plot.

2013

Sep

UNDER THE DOME By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: Could any TV actor in 2013 have a bigger two-night one-two punch than Dean Morris is enjoying right now? Last night, on AMC’s utterly brilliant Breaking Bad, Norris, as Hank, had an almost unwatchably intense showdown scene in the desert. And tonight, his surprise summer broadcast hit, Under the Dome, concludes Season 1 with more key scenes featuring Norris as power-hungry sheriff Big Jim. Tonight the dome goes dark, at least for a while, literally as well as figuratively &n

2013

Sep

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY By David Bianculli

Part 3. Tonight’s edition in this valuable, patient documentary series is called 1918-1932 – The Great Rebel Filmmakers Around the World. And in addition to the familiar ones from this period, we get some true surprises, and some rarities which TCM is nice enough to present tonight as well. The rarest of the rare includes, at 12:45 a.m. ET, 1934’s The Goddess (shown here), a film by Chinese director Wu Yonggang and starring, as a reluctant prostitute, Ruan Lingyu. More familiar

2013

Sep

THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN By David Bianculli

Another part of tonight’s TCM classic movie lineup, tied to its currently playing documentary history of film, this 1925 Russian epic by director Sergei Eisenstein is a silent movie thatm through its style of editing and narrative, pushed cinematic storytelling forward in a crucial and creative way. Filmmakers have been copying it, or paying homage, ever since.

2013

Sep

"THE NAME IS FALSENBERG" By Al Mannarino

It's not all serious business with Breaking Bad, even though the last episode descended to tragic depths. Jimmy Fallon finally aired his long awaited parody of of the series last week, called Joking Bad, with Fallon playing a Walter White version of himself. Look out for few surprise faces...

2013

Sep

VERTIGO By David Bianculli

Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock’s moody 1958 masterpiece staring James Stewart and Kim Novak, is part of a TCM Sunday salute that is followed, in prime time, by two other Hitchcock classics. Both of them, coincidentally, star the luminous Grace Kelly. In 1954’s Rear Window (8 p.m. ET), she plays opposite Stewart – and in 1955’s To Catch a Thief, which follows (10 p.m. ET), her leading man is Cary Grant. What a wonderful triple feature.

2013

Sep

THE 2014 MISS AMERICA COMPETITION By David Bianculli

Lots of changes on the Miss America front: It’s called a competition now, not a pageant, and it’s back in Atlantic City, where the event began in 1921. Right around Boardwalk Empire time, which tonight’s ABC special finds itself competing against.

2013

Sep

BREAKING BAD By David Bianculli

Last week’s show left me gasping, and inspired two of our TVWW writers to delve deeply and enthusiastically into what had happened, what was left hanging, and what might happen next. (See Eric Gould’s Cold Light Reader and Mark Bianculli’s The Son Also Criticizes.) And tonight? How many bodies will be left in the desert? Only one thing, at this point, is certain: Bryan Cranston’s Walter White will survive to fight another day. Because that’s exactly what he’s

2013

Sep

DEXTER By David Bianculli

This is the penultimate episode of Dexter – which means it’s well past time for the characters to be making some sense, and some sensible moves. This show’s “Trinity” season earned my loyalty until the end, but the end’s almost here, and it’s certainly not building the way it could or should be. Yet – but the showdown with Saxon is coming right up.

2013

Sep

THE NEWSROOM By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: Part 2 of 2. It’s Election Night 2102, and everyone at ACN is determined to get through the long, important night without making a mistake. Well, that didn’t work out so well in Part 1, which was televised last week – but there’s a chance the staffers will get away with it, while chasing an unexpected story that adds even more stress to this last episode of the season.

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