DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

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MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

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TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2015
Feb
28
 
 

Keep the title in mind. It’s The Last Man On Earth, not the last human. So if you’re wondering what star Will Forte is going to do with all that post-apocalyptic time on his hands...well, there’s no need for that. Not even in the short run...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
28
 
 
Well, not technically. Nineties country superstar Shania Twain recently wrapped up a two-year residency as a Las Vegas headliner, whose show included dancers, a 13-piece band, a motorcycle, and even a trained horse. (A main attraction and a mane attraction!) This is its captured-for-posterity, shown-after-the-fact TV edition, and why ABC is premiering this one-hour special on a Saturday night, I’m not sure. But here it is. I hope she’s in good voice after all these years, and doesn&r
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
28
 
 
In promos for this biographical special, 16-time NBA All-Star Kobe Bryant explains that rather than write a biography or go into therapy, he’d just talk to the camera, explaining his life, his philosophies, and his work ethic. You can do anything if you apply yourself enough, he insists – but I’m not sure I agree. No matter how hard I try, the only way I can dunk is to submerge a doughnut.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
28
 
 
If you loved Peter Berg’s NBC series about a dedicated Texas high school football coach, and you should have, but never saw the 2004 movie on which it was based, you should have. And here it is, with Billy Bob Thornton playing the role Kyle Chandler would embody so powerfully on TV. In both the movie and TV versions, the wife is played by the same actress, the superb Connie Britton – but her role in this movie version, based on the book by Buzz Bissinger, is much smaller than in the
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
28
 
 
After a long hiatus, Graham Norton is back with new shows. (Hooray!) As always, there’s a mixture of the famous (Sean Penn, Kelly Clarkson) and the celebrities more familiar to those on the other side of the Atlantic (Celia Imrie, Ross Noble). And, as always, they all share the couch at the same time, leading to marvelous and unpredictable interactions – and, under Norton’s guidance, some hilarious stories – like how Sean Penn greeted his 16-year-old daughter’s firs
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
28
 
 
This first new edition of Saturday Night Live after its big 40th-anniversary special is in living color, as they used to say – but with Dakota Johnson as host, also expect about 50 shades of grey. Musical guest: Alabama Shakes.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
28
 
 

The media hounds are omnipresent in the first two episodes of ABC’s Secrets and Lies. Not the “Social Media” ones, but the traditional pack of salivating, question-shouting curs. They bedevil “person of interest” Ben Crawford...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
27
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: With Netflix, of course, the entirety of a new season is released at once – so if you go to Netflix, you’ll find all of Season 3 ready and waiting for you to either binge watch or parcel out in a less gluttonous viewing experience. Either way, Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood is back, more powerful than ever – and that goes for the character’s job title as well as the actor’s intensity. And if you remember how boldly Season 2 began, and took viewers
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
27
 
 
This 2008 comedy isn’t really that good, or even that funny, though it’s one of the dozens of similar films following in the successful wake of Legally Blonde several years before. What makes it worth watching today is how many of its stars have moved on to prominent, and often noteworthy, TV roles. Anna Faris, now starring on the CBS sitcom Mom, has the very titular role of the former Playboy bunny who takes a job as house mother at an unpopular campus sorority. Her costars include
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Feb
27
 
 
The New York Philharmonic salutes the music of Italian cinema, with help from Reneé Fleming, Josh Groban and Joshua Bell. Alan Gilbert conducts selected works from Italian movie soundtracks, including classic ones by Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota. Music from Federico Fellini’s 8½ and La Dolce Vita are here, and from Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, and others. But they missed a great one: Piero Piccioni’s great music and vocal arrangements for Elio Pet