MONDAY
JULY 31
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

When this special from the American Film Institute premiered, on TBS in June, I called it the most entertaining of all the AFI career salutes ever televised – and as a long-time, fervent, not-dead-yet movie fan, I’ve seen all 45 of them. What makes this one even more special of a special than the others? Watch and see. I tweeted then that TBS had to repeat it, it was so good. But I was wrong. TBS isn’t repeating it. Sister network TCM is, tonight – and if you missed it last month, don’t make the same mistake twice.  Steve Martin and Martin Short set the stage with a classic musical comedy routine, and the guests gathered to honor, and talk about, Keaton include everyone from Al Pacino and Warren Beatty to Meryl Streep and Jane Fonda, with a surprise appearance by Woody Allen (pictured), who delivers a perfectly timed, affectionately playful one-man roast of Diane Keaton, who deserves all the accolades and attention.  Two Keaton movies follow – one later in prime time, one much, much later tonight.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 9:30 p.m. ET

Warren Beatty’s 1981 drama about the Russian Revolution stars him as American activist John Reed, and Diane Keaton as Louise Bryant, with very strong acting support from Jack Nicholson and Edward Herrmann. Beatty also directs, and Reds has an additional bonus: inserted interviews with actual witnesses to and interpreters of the history, which adds a different level of drama. Literally.

 
  
 
 

CBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This four-week summer series is the newest CBS newsmagazine, inspired by both its website news operation and by such “immersive” reportorial approaches as HBO’s younger-skewing Vice. Tonight’s opener promises stories on how some new jobs at American business plants actually are going to foreign workers specially imported for the occasion; on how ISIS recruits especially young people as followers and agents; and how Japan is making strides in creating even more humanoid robots (pictured).
 
  
 
 

TCM, 2:30 a.m. ET

This 1993 comedy is one of the more purely playful Woody Allen comedies of his later period, and reunites him with Diane Keaton, star of such early Allen classics as Annie Hall and Sleeper. Here, they team as a New York couple who think they may have witnessed a neighbor committing murderer – and comic echoes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window are only the beginning, with this movie being more of a nod than a spoof. Co-stars include Anjelica Huston and Alan Alda. Set your recorders.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.