WEDNESDAY
AUGUST 7
2013

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Flix, 8:00 p.m. ET

What a collection of talents, behind the scenes and on screen. Muppets creator Jim Henson directed this 1986 fantasy movie and co-wrote the story. Monty Python member Terry Jones wrote the screenplay. George Lucas is one of the executive producers. And on screen, Dabid Bowie stars as the Goblin King, with a very young Jennifer Connelly as the teen who gets transported into the Goblin’s eerie world after wishing her little brother would disappear. An underrated, very entertaining film, dark in some spots and very funny in others.

 
  
 
 

Sundance, 8:00 p.m. ET

This 1975 film, directed by Sidney Lumet, is based on a true story – a bank robbery whose “masterminds” were so unusual, with such unusual motives, that it gives the entire movie an excitingly unpredictable feel. So does the on-location footage in Brooklyn, where, when bank robber Al Pacino incites the curious crowd of onlookers by ad libbing the repeated scream of “Attica!,” the city itself becomes a major character. Co-stars include John Cazale, and Charles Durning, who, like Pacino, are magnificently credible here.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This new British import is another example of TV’s current fixation with single-crime limited series and extended stories, a mini-genre that, in essence, also includes Top of the Lake, The Killing and The Bridge. What distinguishes Broadchurch, initially, isn’t its plot or the way it’s unfurled. It’s the photography (one early shot is a very extended, complicated tracking shot, following a character as he walks through much of his small town and interacts with its citizens), and the two leading actors. Former Doctor Who star David Tennant plays a recent arrival in Broadchurch, a reassigned detective – and Olivia Colman plays the local officer whose promotion he has effectively stolen. Watch for them, and decide if you’re intrigued enough to stay.

 
  
 
 

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

The killer in this series keeps getting away with murder – and in increasingly ghoulish ways, designed to call attention to himself and his stated cause. And so far, it’s working. The media attention is building, as is the pressure for the temporarily teamed investigators – one from the U.S., the other from Mexico – to identify and find the murderer and solve the case.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

Billy Wilder directed this 1944 film noir classic, and they don’t get much noir-er than this. Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson star as men who get caught in the web, or put in the deadly path, of a femme fatale played by Barbara Stanwyck. What a performance – and what a movie.

 

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.