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

 
 
2019
Aug
17
 
 
From his brash Kenny Powers in Eastbound & Down to his sinister Neal Gamby in Vice Principals, Danny McBride knows how to create a singular, self-serving, short-tempered, ego-driven character for HBO comedies. His latest character continues that tradition...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
16
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: The first season of this outstanding crime series, which is a moody period piece about the original formation of the FBI’s serial killer profiler unit, made my Top 10 list in 2017. It’s taken two years for Season 2 to continue the story, and for reasons I’ll never comprehend, Netflix has slid these new episodes of Mindhunter into its streaming library without much fanfare, and certainly without providing previews for critics. Normally, those are bad s
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
16
 
 
The summer of our unpredictable political climate continues – and weeks after his brief break, so does Bill Maher. He’s worth listening to, because he was one of the few on-air voices, political or comic, who predicted in 2016 that Donald Trump might actually win.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
15
 
 
In its installment of The Movies devoted to “The Sixties,” CNN gave fair due to this 1967 crime drama starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. Now, just a week later, we can watch the entire film, uncut and interrupted. Take advantage.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
15
 
 
I finally caught up with last week’s series premiere of Two Sentence Horror Stories, and now can provide my own Two Sentence Review. Don’t bother.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
15
 
 
In a moment of exasperation, Christine Baskets says what viewers have been thinking: "Sometimes, I think you just want to fail at life," she tells her son Chip...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
14
 
 
This is not a recommendation: I warned about last week’s premiere of BH90210 based on circumstantial evidence, noting that Fox was dumping the series in August, a year before its 30thanniversary, and not previewing the show for critics. As it turned out, Fox did make the initial episode available, but not until days before its on-air premiere. At any rate, I was right then – and after seeing last week’s premiere, I’m even firmer in my conviction. This is&nb
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
14
 
 
On the other hand, this new IFC parody of vintage soul music shows is charmingly original, and unabashedly goofy. The snazzily dressed host, Sherman (played by Bashir Salahuddin, who created the series with Diallo Riddle), says in one vintage excerpt, staring straight into the camera, “To all our viewers in Oklahoma: Hello, Margaret!” I laughed out loud at that one – and the show had just started. Tune in and see what’s got me unexpectedly hooked.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
14
 
 
Ingmar Bergman wrote and directed this 1966 character study, which elevated Swedish cinema to an internationally recognized source of existential angst. (Bergman had been doing such films for a decade, but this one really caught the zeitgeist. Woody Allen would mine it for comedy for years afterward.) In Persona, Liv Ullman plays a traumatized actress who will not speak, and Bibi Andersson plays the nurse who gets to know her patient so well, their personalities begin to merg
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Aug
14
 
 
For many people, childhood means inhabiting multiple worlds. That can be a good thing, molding an actor or author, a politician or salesman. Or it can be an ordeal...