A new installment in this occasional series of TCM specials exploring creative aspects of filmmaking, tonight’s edition features Rob Reiner – maker of Misery, The Princess Bride and This is Spinal Tap! – who explains his long-standing partnership with film editor Robert Leighton.
Haley (Sarah Hyland) turns 21 in tonight’s episode, and Claire and Gloria (Julie Bowen, Sofia Vergara) celebrate by taking her out for her first legal drink. As they say in one of my favorite jokes, “And this is where I may have gone wrong…”
Many TV series, this time of year, focus on celebrating a white Christmas. But this series, tonight, focuses quite intently on trying to experience a Black Christmas as well – though no one in the family can agree on what that might mean.
This week, all you need to know is the episode’s title: “Tupperware Party Massacre.” Yikes.
Among tonight’s scheduled guests is Mila Kunis, one of the guests who accompanied Craig Ferguson on one of his weeks televised from abroad – so expect this to be an especially loose trip down memory lane, and a fond farewell indeed, as the host counts down to the end of his 10-year reign as a CBS late-night host.
David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.