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
Sep
15
 
 
This part of today’s TCM salute to Lauren Bacall arrives late – well, late at night, anyway – but it’s worth the wait. Bacall, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe co-star in this 1953 comedy, playing three women who finagle their way into temporary use of a luxury Manhattan apartment, and try to pool their resources to find and land a rich husband or two. Or three.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
14
 
 
MINISERIES PREMIERE: Ken Burns, writer Geoffrey C. Ward and the rest of Burns’ eager and talented collaborators present what emerges, ultimately, as the finest Ken Burns epic to date: a joint biography of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The voices of those formidable historical figures are provided, respectively, by Paul Giamatti, Edward Herrmann and Meryl Streep, with narration by Peter Coyote and on-camera observations by, among others, Ward himself. Tonight’s Part 1, whi
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
14
 
 
The San Francisco 49ers won its first game of the season with ease, having its way both offensively and defensively against the Dallas Cowboys. The Chicago Bears, meanwhile, lost its first game the hard way – in overtime, against the Buffalo Bills. Tonight the 49ers and Bears play each other, with San Francisco enjoying home-field advantage.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
14
 
 
Once called a pageant, and now renamed to reflect not just something less superficial but also something intended to last past the calendar year, tonight’s live TV special is titled The 2015 Miss America Competition. It’s still, in essence, the same beauties on parade event that began in Atlantic City in 1921, the year of Prohibition and the initial setting of Boardwalk Empire. The Miss America pageant, now on ABC, may have lost some of its luster of late – but hey, so has Atla
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
14
 
 
Speaking of Boardwalk Empire, this show’s final season has Nucky (Steve Buscemi) planning for the repeal of Prohibition, and planning to go legit in the liquor distribution business. But that doesn’t come easily, and there are factions out to remove Nucky from the equation entirely. Yet just as transition doesn’t come easily, Nucky doesn’t go easily. Nor does Chalky, another Boardwalk Empire character with a keenly honed knack for survival.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
14
 
 
Tomorrow, on Sept. 15, HRH Prince Henry of Wales – that’s Prince Harry to you, and to me, and almost everybody else – turns 30 years old. (Older brother, Prince William, is 32, making these siblings the exact ages of my own son and daughter, respectively. Never realized that before.) Tonight’s BBC America special looks at Prince Harry’s life to date – which gives the network one more chance to court Anglophiles by replaying footage from the 1981 wedding of Pri
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
14
 
 
After all this time, last week’s episode ended with Masters (Michael Sheen) confessing to Johnson (Lizzy Caplan), in the privacy of their hotel room, that he had a sexual problem. Maybe this week’s episode will begin with him telling her what it is… as the plot, like their relationship and their affair, continues to thicken.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
13
 
 
Here’s a live musical performance that’s guaranteed to be off-key. Well, off-Key, anyway. It’s a celebration, live from Baltimore, of the 200th anniversary of Francis Scott Key’s composition of what became our national anthem. At some point in tonight’s show, American Idol winner Jordin Sparks (pictured), backed by the U.S. Marine Band and the Morgan State Choir, will sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” – but before that, lots of other people will sing
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
13
 
 
In 1968, when Catherine Deneuve starred in this moody and surrealistic Luis Bunuel film, she was taking quite a risk. Bunuel had famously, and infamously, jump-started the surrealistic movie movement, way back in 1929, by collaborating with Salvador Dali on Un Chien Andalou, that short film with the unforgettable slit-eyeball shot. And here he was, decades later, wanting to make a movie in which Deneuve plays a frigid housewife who moonlights – daylights, actually – as a prostitute.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Sep
13
 
 
Michael B. Jordan is a movie star here – in this 2013 fact-based drama, he plays the central character in a story about an ill-fated young man on New Year’s Eve. But fans of quality TV have tracked his star appeal for a while now – as Alex in Parenthood, as Vince in Friday Night Lights, and, long before those excellent performances, as Wallace in The Wire. So don’t be surprised if he draws you in here. He’s been doing that for years.