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

 
 
2016
Nov
15
 
 
Part 1 of 2. This new four-hour documentary series is from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and looks at the evolution of “black America” in the nearly 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. According to very recent headlines, that evolution continues, and is no less problematic, complex, and at times inspirational or volatile. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
15
 
 
On Election Night, when it was becoming increasingly apparent that Donald Trump would win his campaign, MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews evoked Robert Redford’s The Candidate character of politician Bill McKay, in the 1972 film The Candidate, with his stunned final question, “What do we do now?” And now here’s the movie itself, scheduled by TCM way in advance of what happened a week ago.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
15
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: If you were a Downton Abbey fan (and if not, why not?), you probably enjoyed the brittle Britishness of  Lady Mary, played so flintily, but ultimately so flirtingly, by Michelle Dockery. Well, for her new series, Dockery throws all that British period costume stuff aside, and plays a very modern role, in modern dress and times: a Southern ex-con who still works as a con woman. In the first 20 minutes alone, she gets to play a blonde (shown here), a brunette, and a redhead &
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
15
 
 
The Profit in Cuba, a special edition of Marcus Lemonis’s CNBC show about making money through commerce, calls to mind the old joke about two friends who are ambushed by a hungry bear...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
14
 
 
National Geographic’s ambitious six-part series Mars presents a full-throttle, all-in vision of how we Earthlings might actually, seriously, really open a colony on the Red Planet...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
14
 
 
Frank Sinatra records would rarely be confused with Public Enemy records. But the thing to understand about record production, says Hank Shocklee, is that the principle is the same...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
14
 
 
MINISERIES PREMIERE: Close to the Enemy is a period miniseries, set in post-WWII England, that pulls you immediately into its intrigue, with a raft of mysterious characters played by very talented actors. Jim Sturgess stars as a British agent charged with persuading a German inventor with a young daughter to switch allegiance to the U.K., within a strict seven-day timetable. Other characters include several familiar from U.S. TV and Hollywood movies, including Angela Bassett, Alfred Molina and B
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
14
 
 
Last week, in the first live edition of the current Voice cycle, the Top 20 was cut, quickly and sometimes ruthlessly, to a more manageable Top 12. Among the survivors was the performer of the night: former child singer Billy Gilman, whose rendition of “Crying,” made famous by Roy Orbison, was, unthinkably, as chillingly emotional as the original. Tonight, Gilman and 11 others perform – and learn of their fates, after the national vote, tomorrow night.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
14
 
 
This 1969 documentary is one of the movies to which Alvy Singer dragged Annie Hall in 1977’s Woody Allen comic masterpiece, Annie Hall (seen here). Tonight, without being dragged, you can watch this Marcel Ophuls film by tuning to TCM. In it, Ophuls mixes then-new interviews with survivors of the Nazi occupation of France with news and propaganda footage from the years leading up to, and during, WWII.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
14
 
 
MINISERIES PREMIERE: This six-part documentary series about the feasibility of a manned space expedition to Mars, with scripted fictional elements imagining a possible future on another planet, comes from Ron Howard, whose Apollo 13 movie was one of the best space films ever made. He’s reason enough to go on this particular journey – but the planet Mars, which has inspired some of the best science fiction ever written, is even more compelling. For a full review, see David Hinckley&rs