FRIDAY
AUGUST 29
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

FXX, Check local listings

This is Day 9 of FXX’s mega-marathon of The Simpsons – and it’s the day that includes, in the proper order in the series’ overall narrative sequence, the 2007 big-screen The Simpsons Movie. It’s televised at 6 p.m. ET, and it’s especially entertaining to watch in retrospect, since it involves the town of Springfield being cut off from the rest of the world by a mysteriously appearing giant see-through dome. Sound familiar, Under the Dome fans?

 
  
 
 

Cinemax, 8:00 p.m. ET

In case you’ve fallen behind, or never started: Tonight, beginning at 8 p.m. ET, Cinemax is repeating the first three episodes of its new, very good period medical series, starring Clive Owen as a dedicated but temperamental doctor in 1900. It’s a fine way to get up to speed: consider it a mini-binge.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Today is Joseph Cotton day on TCM – but in prime time, it might as well be Jennifer Jones day, because the gorgeous actress co-stars in both of the Cotton films shown this evening. At 9:45 p.m. ET, she stars opposite him in 1947’s Duel in the Sun Western, playing a steamy temptress who comes between two brothers (Cotton and Gregory Peck). And before that, at 8 p.m. ET, Jones stars in 1949’s Portrait of Jennie (pictured) as a beautiful vision indeed – a ghostly muse who inspires a painter, played by Cotton, to produce his best and most saleable work.

 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

Despite one foot deformed by polio, or perhaps in part because of it, Dorothea Lange became a photographer who focused extensively, and invaluably, on the usually unseen and ignored: migrant workers and farmers in the Dust Bowl of the Thirties, Japanese-Americans forced into U.S. internment camps in the Forties, and so on. The images she captured are haunting, and linger with you – as does this very informative, understandably tender biographical study. Dyanna Taylor, who’s worked on PBS’s American Masters profiles of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, is this documentary’s writer, producer, director and narrator. She also happens to be Lange’s granddaughter – and her perspective here enhances, rather than disrupts or dilutes, the finished product. Check local listings.
 
  
 
 

MTV, 10:00 p.m. ET

With this TV movie premiere, MTV presents the music-festival film equivalent of Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book – a legitimately distributed manifesto about how to beat the system. In the case of James Marcus Haney, 26, it’s his autobiographical documentary about how he conned his way into such sold-out music festivals as Coachella and Bonnaroo, by sporting fake wristbands and brandishing a professional-looking camera. Then, while he was there, he figured he may as well shoot some images – and he’s now a photographer, invited by such bands as Mumford & Sons to document their concert tours.

 
  
 
 
 
 
Read and add comments HERE for today's Best Bets!
 
 
 
 
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4634 Comments
 
 
Pemerintah Indonesia tangkap situs web sialan itu
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Penipuan murahan yang berpura-pura sah. Jangan sampai tertipu.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Para penipu ini mengira orang-orang itu bodoh. Modus penipuan yang sama, omong kosong yang sama.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Para bajingan ini tidak punya rasa malu sama sekali, menipu orang-orang yang tidak bersalah setiap hari.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Pemerintah Indonesia, persetan dengan situs web ini, mereka menipu orang.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Tidak ada yang nyata di sini. Hanya omong kosong penuh tipu daya dari orang-orang serakah.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Para bajingan ini tidak punya rasa malu sama sekali, menipu orang-orang yang tidak bersalah setiap hari.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Penipu berkualitas rendah tanpa integritas dan penuh kebohongan.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Para bajingan penipu ini benar-benar sampah, pembohong keji yang mencuri dari orang-orang yang tidak bersalah. Persetan dengan para penipu kotor ini dan permainan penipuan mereka yang menyedihkan.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Manusia sampah sejati, memangsa orang-orang tak berdosa hanya untuk mengisi kantong mereka yang serakah. Sungguh memalukan.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Pemerintah Indonesia tangkap situs web sialan itu
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Bajingan keparat, akan kupukul pantatmu dengan sangat keras!
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Penipu berkualitas rendah tanpa integritas dan penuh kebohongan.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Para bajingan ini tidak punya rasa malu sama sekali, menipu orang-orang yang tidak bersalah setiap hari.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Ini peringatan terakhir, selanjutnya jika saya melihat situs web Anda lagi, saya akan menghancurkan Anda.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Para bajingan penipu ini benar-benar sampah, pembohong keji yang mencuri dari orang-orang yang tidak bersalah. Persetan dengan para penipu kotor ini dan permainan penipuan mereka yang menyedihkan.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Manusia sampah sejati, memangsa orang-orang tak berdosa hanya untuk mengisi kantong mereka yang serakah. Sungguh memalukan.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Hanya kebohongan dan taktik penipuan. Buang-buang waktu dan uang saja.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Hanya kebohongan dan taktik penipuan. Buang-buang waktu dan uang saja.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
Para bajingan ini tidak punya rasa malu sama sekali, menipu orang-orang yang tidak bersalah setiap hari.
Sep 9, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
 
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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.