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

 
 
2018
Jun
14
 
 
Episode 2 of American Woman, the new Paramount series starring Alicia Silverstone and Mena Suvari as suburban women in the 1970s, is presented at 10 p.m. ET. It’s not really that good, or heartily recommended, but the extra lengths to which Paramount is going to promote the series deserves mention. Right after American Woman concludes tonight, Paramount presents a new edition of its Lip Sync Battle series, pitting Silverstone and Suvari against each other. Suvari pretends to sing “So
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
13
 
 
A Fistful of Dollars, when it was released in 1964, was called a “spaghetti Western” at the time because it emanated from Italy. It was a dismissive description then, but was a major triumph for all involved – banding together some artists who, collectively, would help redefine the Western for a new generation, There’s Clint Eastwood, on the run from the American TV Western Rawhide, as a strong, silent, often shady gunman. There’s Ennio Morricone, invoking for the f
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
13
 
 
This is episode two of this new TV adaptation of 3 Days of the Condor, the 1975 movie starring Robert Redford as a CIA research analyst who is the only survivor of a mysterious hit on his CIA field office in Georgetown. Max Irons has the starring role here, and co-stars – an impressive crew – include William Hurt, Brendan Fraser, Bob Balaban, and Mira Sorvino, playing characters who, except for Hurt’s, can’t really be fully trusted. Or, in some cases, even partly.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
13
 
 
The summit with North Korea ended just in time for Samantha Bee to comment on it in tonight’s new show. Some free advice to Bee (or not to Bee): choose your words carefully. Especially your epithets.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
12
 
 
Tuesdays and Thursdays this month, TCM devotes all day, and even some of the night, to the Hollywood musical. The action starts very early today, at 6 a.m. ET, with 1943’s Best Foot Forward. The best treats come a little later, though, and are well worth stacking up in the queue of your DVR. There’s Gene Kelly dancing and swashbuckling (dance-buckling?) his way through 1948’s The Pirate at 2:30 p.m. ET, showing off his ambitious, sometimes dangerously athletic choreography. At
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
12
 
 
A very long time ago, back in the mid-Sixties, executive producer Quinn Martin followed up The Fugitive with another drama about a man traveling alone on a seemingly unending quest. That series was The Invaders, and starred Roy Thinnes as a man who had a close encounter of the third kind, and spent the series trying to persuade people of the presence of aliens from outer space in our midst, passing as human. The aliens had an easy visual “tell” – webbed fingers – and on H
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
12
 
 
SEASON FINALE: This Noah Hawley take on the Marvel Comics universe, basically a seasons-long study of paranoia, schizophrenia and the paranormal, has become my favorite TV series of 2018. It’s winding down season two, with only this bonus episode finale left to go – and even with that short a runway, I have no idea where it’s going. But with last week’s glimpses into potential alternate futures (David as an evil godlike despot, pictured) and weird alternate realities and
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
12
 
 
In tonight’s Episode 9, Picasso has a problem with the woman nearest him – and that goes for both the older and the younger Picassos, though the women, like the eras in which they interact with the artist, are decidedly different.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
11
 
 
This may come as a posthumous surprise to those who couldn’t get a legal drink in the 1920s, but Prohibition was only incidentally about alcohol...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Jun
11
 
 
Leslie Howard both co-directs and stars in this 1938 movie adaptation of the George Bernard Shaw play – and Shaw himself wrote the screenplay, winning an early Oscar for his efforts. Howard, of course, plays Henry Higgins, and the clay he’s trying to mold is cockney Eliza Doolittle, played by Wendy Hiller.