Last week, this new CNN arts documentary series launched by looking at movies of the 1980s. Tonight’s episode focuses on, and is titled, “The Nineties,” and comes from the same executive production team – Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Mark Herzog – that delivered so beautifully with its decades-focused CNN series from The Sixties to The 2000s. (I’m in the leadoff installments, devoted to TV, in each decade series, but that’s not why I

2019

Jul

BIG LITTLE LIES By David Bianculli

“At the end of the day we are still family,” Meryl Streep’s Mary Louise tells her late son’s wife, Nicole Kidman’s Celeste. Coldly and with understandable wariness, Celeste responds, “We are not family, Mary Louise.” And so it goes, as the mother-in-law gets closer to the truth about what happened to her husband. And behind the scenes, stories of discord have surfaced regarding the creative family behind Big Little Lies, with Season 2 director

2019

Jul

CITY ON A HILL By David Bianculli

In this week’s episode, things get trickier for Kevin Bacon’s Jackie and Aldis Hodge’s DeCourcy, as reporter Michaela Freda, played by Samantha Soule, crosses their path to ask some very pointed and uncomfortable questions.

2019

Jul

SWEETBITTER By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: For Season 2 of this series, set in a trendy restaurant in New York, the protagonist (Ella Purnell as Tess) is less a newly arrived babe in the big city woods, and more an increasingly savvy fledgling restaurant opportunist, eager to learn things and make her move. With a very stern boss, the world she’s inhabiting is a bit like a Gordon Ramsey scripted drama, with Tess as the harassed contestant most likely to succeed.

2019

Jul

THE LOUDEST VOICE By David Bianculli

The year covered in this week’s installment in this dramatized Roger Ailes character study is 2008 – which means it’s the year his Fox News Channel covers, and reacts to, the evemntual election of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

2019

Jul

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDENWALD By David Bianculli

This 2018 sequel to 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, like its predecessor, is written by J.K. Rowling, directed by Peter Yates, and stars Eddie Redmayne. But in this latest tale of wizardry and flights of fancy, there are new players as well, including Johnny Depp and Jude Law (pictured).

2019

Jul

GANDHI By David Bianculli

This 1982 biographical epic film about Mahatma Gandhi garnered a massive number of Academy Awards. Not only did it win the Oscar for Best Picture in 1983, but Ben Kingsley won for Best Actor for playing the title role, Richard Attenborough won for Best Director, John Briley for Best Original Screenplay, Ronnie Taylor and Billy Williams shared the Oscar for Best Cinematography, John Bloom won for Film Editing, and others won for Costume Design and Production Design. Oh, and watch for Candice Berg

2019

Jul

THE MAGIC OF PRODUCER RICK RUBIN AND 'SHANGRI-LA' ON SHOWTIME By David Hinckley

Some creative geniuses should not be asked to explain how they do it. Shangri-La, a four-part documentary that debuts at 9 p.m. ET Friday on Showtime, adds Rick Rubin to that list...

2019

Jul

SPONGEBOB'S BIG BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT By David Bianculli

SPECIAL: When I poll my college students on which TV shows they’ve seen at least one full episode, the standard unanimous answers used to be The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Honeymooners. But that was a generation ago. These days, those shows rarely have reached more than half of the students in my classrooms, and a show like the original Star Trek has been seen by fewer than 10 percent. But in 2019, what one program is guarantee

2019

Jul

DARK VICTORY & GONE WITH THE WIND By David Bianculli

All day today, as part of its July tribute to Hollywood’s greatest year, TCM shows movies from the single, spectacular year of 1939. During the day, the range of films spreads from Shirley Temple in The Little Princess at 6:45 a.m. ET to William Powell and Myrna Loy in Another Thin Man at 6:15 p.m. ET. In prime time, only two movies from 1939 are televised, but what movies they are: Bette Davis in Dark Victory at 8 p.m. ET, followed at 10 p.m. ET by Vivien Lei

Posts 81-90 of 137

8 9 10 11 12

New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption