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

 
 
2014
Jan
11
 
 
This 1934 Frank Capra comedy was the first movie to sweep all the major Oscars – film, director, actor (Clark Gable) and actress (Claudette Colbert), and earned them all. It’s a delightfully funny, unexpectedly modern road picture, about a cynical reporter who blackmails his way into accompanying a runaway heiress on her flight to… somewhere.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
11
 
 
Please watch this hour, if you’ve never seen talk show host Graham Norton. This hour is a compilation of some of his best moments from the current season – and if the producers are smart enough to include such Season 14 highlights as Paul McCartney verbally sparring with Katy Perry, and Elton John responding to one of Norton’s questions by playfully telling him to “f--- off,” this show should turn any first-time viewer into an instant convert.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
11
 
 
This 1944 movie, another Frank Capra-directed comedy classic, captures the lunacy of the original Joseph Kesserling stage play, thanks to a screenplay by Julius and Philip Epstein and a fearlessly funny lead performance by Cary Grant as drama critic Mortimer Brewster. Raymond Massey is just fine as Jonathan Brewster, the villainous brother whose botched plastic surgeries have him looking like Frankenstein’s monster – but those references must have elicited even bigger laughs in the 1
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
11
 
 
Did TVWW contributor Bill Brioux attend Friday's Television Critics Association breakfast with Sarah Palin? You betcha...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
11
 
 
Is CNN interested in joining the late-night talk show wars by importing Jay Leno? According to former NBC executive and current CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker, not at this time...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
10
 
 
Prohibition is almost over again. Really. HBO’s Prohibition-era set drama, Boardwalk Empire, will be back this fall for a fifth and final season...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
10
 
 
Bill Moyers had announced his intention to stop his public TV series by now, until being persuaded otherwise by fans who begged him to remain a presence and provide his voice to the media mix. (Count me as one of those beggars.) Well, the new version of Moyers & Company begins tonight – trimmed from 60 to 30 minutes, but still determined to examine important issues in a way, and at a depth, that few other TV programs even attempt. Tonight’s inaugural edition of this series reboot
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
10
 
 
The twisted, more than half-baked comedy minds of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong entertained millions of moviegoing and record-buying stoners (and a few others) in the 1970s – and here are their routines all over again, reimagined through animation. See “Dave’s not here!” and other bits, strewn together in this new 2012 production. Then stay tuned at 9:45 p.m. for Up in Smoke, the duo’s 1978 live-action comedy. Compare and contrast.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
10
 
 
For January 2014, one of the month’s themes at TCM is “Science in the Movies,” a compilation, every Friday, of movies concerned with themes of scientific inquiry, and, usually, science gone awry. Tonight, the action begins at 8 p.m. ET with 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein (pictured), followed at 9:30 p.m. ET by 1941’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, at 11:30 p.m. ET by 1951’s The Thing from Another World, and at 1:15 a.m. ET by 1956’s genre reworking of Shakespear
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
10
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Season 1 of this Cinemax action series ended with a brutal beating, torturing and climax that demanded notice, and put more than one of its main characters through the wringer. Season 2 begins with them healing, slowly, as outside threats and dangers continue. One new one, this year, is an incoming investigative avenger played by Zeljko Ivanek – but, as before, this series belongs chiefly to the women, starting with Ivana Milicevek as Carrie, who, like most characters on t