FRIDAY

MAY 22

2015

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET

The mini-marathon of questions and answers continues – and will keep continuing Saturday night. And Sunday. And Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. And will end next Thursday, with an expanded two-hour finale. So pace yourself…

THE PRINCESS BRIDE

BBC America, 8:00 p.m. ET

You still haven’t seen this 1987 movie, based on William Goldman’s novel and adapted by himself, perfectly, for the screen? Incon-theivable! It’s one of my favorite films of all time. And after you watch it, it’ll be yours. Stars include Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, Wallace Shawn (pictured), Billy Crystal, Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Christopher Guest, and… oh, just see it, please.

THE STRANGER

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Another Friday in May means another sampling of Orson Welles films. One of them, at 10 p.m. ET, is Welles’ 1963 version of The Trial, a moody story that is more than Kafkaesque. It is Kafka, based on one of his novels. But the first movie in this Friday night doubleheader is 1946’s The Stranger, in which Welles not only directs, but stars, as a suspected Nazi war criminal hiding in plain sight on an American college campus. Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young co-star, and this film, released only a year after the end of WWII, includes what may well be the earliest footage of Nazi concentration-camp footage incorporated into a Hollywood movie drama.

LAST VEGAS

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET

This 2013 comedy is about a guy who, after a lifetime of a lack of romantic commitment, finally decides to get married – so his friends throw him a bachelor party in Las Vegas. What makes this different from a thousand other youth comedies out there? Because there’s nothing youthful about Last Vegas: The groom-to-be is played by Michael Douglas, and his friends by Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline.

KITE

Starz!, 9:00 p.m. ET

This 2014 live-action movie is based on a graphic novel, and 1998 animated miniseries, about a young girl who turns chameleonic assassin to avenge the death of her parents – and to stay alive herself, in a dangerous dystopian world of killers and gangsters. The star of the film is India Eisley, a former co-star of ABC Family’s The Secret Life of an American Teenager. And her co-star, perhaps an even more unlikely presence in this kinetic, flashy drama, is Samuel L. Jackson.

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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

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.

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BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET

BBC America, 8:00 p.m. ET

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET

Starz!, 9:00 p.m. ET

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