DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

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MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

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TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2018
Dec
29
 
 
The dead zone of TV is almost over – I promise, things will get interesting, or at least fresh, next year. And by next year, I mean the very beginning of next year: Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019.  Meanwhile, there’s hardly anything for you, or me, to watch on television today. Unless, that is, you’re interested in watching television about television, and me on television. That’s because CNN, tonight and tomorrow night, is ringing out the Old Year by looking back at even old
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
28
 
 

Friday, Dec. 28, 2018 – I’ve just experienced one of the more original and unpredictable dramas I’ve ever seen as a TV critic. It’s the brand new, one-off installment of Black Mirror on Netflix. And I didn’t – and couldn’t – watch it on my TV set…

 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
28
 
 
SPECIAL PREMIERE: As a special treat during the holidays, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker presents a special – very special – one-shot, one-off installment of his always worthwhile TV anthology series about technology, fantasy, suspense, and surprise. This new 2018 entry, Bandersnatch, requires you the viewer to decide the actions of the protagonist – which means the first thing you have to decide is whether you want to go to all the trouble of watching on a computer, smar
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
28
 
 
If it’s a surprise to you that I’m recommending this 1964 Beatles film, directed by Richard Lester, as one of the best movie musicals ever made – well, you just don’t know me very well. Listen – Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? I like the Beatles…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
28
 
 
I know, I know. New Year’s Day is supposed to be the sole province of college football for sports enthusiasts...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
27
 
 
In this 1944 movie adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, Dick Powell became the first actor to portray gritty gumshoe Philip Marlowe on screen. (It would take two more years for Humphrey Bogart to personify the same character in 1946’s The Big Sleep.) Powell was determined to shake his movie-musical crooning idol image, and this film accomplished that very effectively. And Claire Trevor, as the story’s femme fatale, played her part very well as well.  
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
26
 
 
Space travel may have lost some of its visual cachet in an era when 7-year-olds can create their own intergalactic fantasy CGI, but there are still moments when the real thing gets pretty awesome...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
26
 
 
A lot of traditions were tested, or overruled, at this year’s annual Kennedy Center Honors celebration. For the first time, one of the awards is bestowed not upon an individual for a career-long achievement of artistry, but to an individual work of art: the musical Hamilton. It’ll be performed, in part, here – and co-creator Lin-Manual Miranda, taking the stage, breaks another tradition, becoming the first honoree to perform at his or her own awards celebration. Other honorees
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
26
 
 
I just saw this film for the first time in many, many years – and laughed throughout, while being constantly amazed that both Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal now look so… young. (In a week, this 1989 movie will be 30 years old.)  Oh, and the scene in Katz’s Deli? It’s just as funny. And that’s director Rob Reiner’s mother who gets to deliver that classic line after Sally fakes the sounds and expressions of sexual ecstasy. And, one final point, if you go to Ka
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Dec
26
 
 
Here’s another film I saw again recently – just last night, in fact. But this one I watch often, whenever it pops up on TV like a hand floating to the surface of a lake. That’s because this 1972 movie is an excellent film. Vilmos Zsigmond’s photography is so gorgeous, I began paying close attention to cinematographers in movie credits from then on. Jon Voight is great here – as is Burt Reynolds. And Ned Beatty may have the toughest role of all…