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
Feb
20
 
 
Sidney Poitier is explosive, and impossible to miss, in this 1950 drama that afforded him his first major role in a motion picture. Given the racial controversies and insensitivities surrounding the Oscars all these years later, maybe it’s a good time to go back and watch this drama again. Poitier plays a medical intern treating a bigoted gangster (Richard Widmark).
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
20
 
 
This monthly bluegrass concert series is performed and recorded hundreds of feet underground, in the Volcano Room of the Cumberland Caverns in Tennessee. This special gives samples of the performances from last season, with a new season of performances about to begin. Most of the performances are okay, but many of them are overshadowed by the background scenery, which is spectacular. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
20
 
 
This gripping 1961 movie about war crimes trials held after WWII is riveting on its own merits, but the cast makes it even more so. What other movie makes room for Marlene Dietrich and Maximilian Schell, Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift, and William Shatner and Werner Klemperer?
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
19
 
 
It’s been standard TV sitcom procedure for the loud, plus-sized guy -- OK, the blustering fatso -- to get the slimmer, pretty girl. This time it’s a thin, plain-faced, bespectacled, soft-spoken nebbish who eventually becomes alluring to a messed-up beauty...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
19
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: The three creators of this new Netflix comedy series, all 10 episodes of which are available for streaming beginning today, are Judd Apatow, Lesley Arfin and Paul Rust. Apatow and Arfin collaborated on HBO’s Girls (he as an executive producer, she as a first-season writer), and Arfin and Rust collaborate on a daily basis: They’re married to one another. Rust is on camera as well, co-starring opposite Gillian Jacobs from Community. They play thirtysomethings who find
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
19
 
 
DOCUMENTARY MINISERIES PREMIERE: Michael Pollan is the host of this four-part documentary series, which, like his book, is divided into four parts: “Fire, Water, Air, and earth. “We are the species who cooks, he begins. “No other species cooks.” All four parts are streamed beginning today, starting with the premiere, “Fire,” which includes a midpoint surprise appearance by James Taylor. Why? Ah, there’s the rub. Although, when discussing pigs in this doc
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
19
 
 
Carole King is enjoying a very good stretch at the moment: Having a Broadway musical based on her life and work, winning a Kennedy Center Honor, and so on. Now she’s also the subject of an American Masters tribute – though I can’t imagine any tribute as moving as when Aretha Franklin belted out one of King’s songs at the Kennedy Center, dropping purse and fur to do it right. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
19
 
 
Groucho Marx is the fast-talking Dr. Hackenbush in this 1937 Marx Brothers comedy, in which – oh, look. I’m pressed for time today. It’s a Marx Brothers movie. What else do you need?
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
19
 
 
This 2015 movie is a really bad comedy based on a really fun idea: Hostile aliens, intercepting our videogame culture from the 1980s, generate giant pixellated conquerors based on old videogame villains. Our planet’s only hope? Old gamers from that era, who know just how to evade and best the likes of Donkey Kong. Adam Sandler, Josh Gad and Kevin James star, but the premise, like each of the main characters, is mostly wasted.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Feb
18
 
 
The 21st century makeover of the rom-com continues with Love, a new Netflix series whose first 10 episodes drop Friday morning (2/19). Love stars Paul Rust and Gillian Jacobs as Gus and Mickey, a potential couple...