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
Dec
19
 
 

Rufus Sewell may play a loyal lieutenant of Adolf Hitler in Amazon’s Man in the High Castle, but this isn’t your grandfather’s Nazi. And Sewell knows it...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
19
 
 
2016 has been volatile, to say the least, and seemed about 863 days long...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
19
 
 
The current First Lady of the United States, and the most recent First Lady of All Media, meet for one high-profile prime-time interview, in which both of them play host. Michelle Obama is host because she’s receiving her guest at the White House, before the White House is inherited by its next First Lady, Melania Trump. And Oprah Winfrey is host because she’s asking the questions, just as Oprah always has done.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
19
 
 
Here’s yet another excellent adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic. This is one of the most recent, filmed in 1999. It stars Patrick Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge – and his stentorian voice and starchy demeanor, so perfect on the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation, is perfectly suited to this drama as well.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
19
 
 
SEASON FINALE: Two episodes are shown tonight, in a finale that’s out of this world – or, in this case, close enough.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
19
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Part Plinko from The Price Is Right, part isolation booth from the classic Quiz Show scandal challenge Twenty-One, and part trivia contest from… well, you can identify the final fraction for yourself, if you’re that interested. At any rate, this new NBC game show gets a sneak preview tonight, before settling into a regular run next month, in 2017. The host is Chris Hardwick, who needs more TV exposure about as much as our President-Elect.  
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
19
 
 
Now more than ever, perhaps, we need this woman’s particularly acerbic and questioning comic approach to the headlines. And as we head into the new year, with all the activity in the headlines of late, Samantha is a very busy Bee indeed. Tonight, her unlikely special guest is Glenn Beck, who, like Bee, is decked out in a colorful Christmas special. “Is this how you imagined the End Times?” she asks him. Amazing. Even more amazing: He says yes.  
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
18
 
 
As we get nearer to the holidays, the number of Christmas-themed specials and movies increases. For the most part, that’s as regrettable as it is unavoidable. On occasion, though, something slips through that rarely is televised, and definitely is worth the effort to seek it out. Here’s one case of precisely that: a showing of one of the first filmed adaptations of the Charles Dickens classic, released in 1938. Reginald Owen stars as Ebenezer Scrooge, with Marley’s Ghost played
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
18
 
 
Julie Andrews is perfectly cast in this 1965 movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which deserves its run on ABC as a holiday family classic. But give a nod, this time around, to screenwriter Ernest Lehman, who wrestled this story, and its music, to the ground, making room for both intimate moments of song and expansive moments of sprawling nature – sometimes in the same scene. And ponder, for a moment, some of the other movies whose screenplays were written or co-written b
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
18
 
 
Another Christmas movie, and Dickens adaptation of A Christmas Carol, worth noting, grabbing, and enjoying: Albert Finney stars as Scrooge, in a 1970 version of the classic holiday story that reimagines it as a musical, yet retains some of the best creepy and snarly flavors of the original. And Marley’s Ghost, this time around, is played by Alec Guinness.