dvr this The CW, Mondays, 8 p.m. While the CW is best known for soapy teen dramas, often with a supernatural twist, the also-ran network is not known for high quality. But it should be. The new sci-fi shows on TV this year have huge budgets on ABC and Fox, but they’re better written and…
dvr this Turner Classic Movies, 2:45 p.m., Friday, Feb. 28 Endlessly debated when it was released in 1994, Philadelphia is both an AIDS story sanitized for the masses and yet revolutionary in its depiction of the gay experience. Jonathan Demme’s direction is smooth and restrained, and Tom Hanks’ performance is legendary: so moving, so empathic…
dvr this On Hulu Easily the creepiest thing on network TV, Hannibal is a TV series prequel to Silence of the Lambs with Mads Mikkelsen as the titular character. He’s almost as good as Anthony Hopkins, but Hugh Dancy, as his FBI psychiatrist foil, is also excellent. But the real star of the show is…
dvr this HBO Signature, 9 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 2 It is the middle of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest period, during the making of Psycho, that is the focus of Sacha Gervasi’s delightful movie about Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), a screenwriter with whom Hitchcock collaborated on every film he made, whether…
dvr this Lifetime, Saturday, Jan. 24, 8 p.m. By casting Christina Ricci as the ax-wielding 19th century murderess, I can only assume Lifetime is attempting to churn out more camp to accompany their Gina Gershon Donatella Versace biopic. Ricci, who is a very good actress, but who is still best known for playing Wednesday Addams,…
dvr this HBO, Sunday, Jan. 19, 10:30 p.m. The widely promoted new HBO show Looking is about three gay men in San Francisco looking for love. The men (Jonathan Groff, Frankie J. Alvarez, Murray Bartlett) are very good looking and the show is explicit, so I’m betting the ratings will be high. However, I’m particularly…
Shameless dvr this Showtime, Sunday, Jan. 12, 9 p.m. The name of the show says it all. This struggling Chicago family will do just about anything to get by. The drunken sociopathic dad (William H. Macy) will literally do anything, while his kids (the resplendent Emmy Rossum as de facto mom Fiona, Jeremy Allen White…
Turner Classic Movies, 6:30 p.m., Monday, Jan. 6 Carol Reed’s masterpiece of suspense stars Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles in a cat-and-mouse espionage game in post-World War II Vienna. The period dialogue is a bit creaky, but the direction, with stunning cinematography and unnerving pacing, is stunning. You’ll think you’ve seen it before because it’s…
Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in Chinatown dvr this Turner Classic Movies, Friday, Dec. 13, 10 p.m. Roman Polanski’s 1974 neo-noir film starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway is one of the greatest films ever made. Robert Towne’s Oscar-winning screenplay has Nicholson as a detective investigating murder among the early 20th century’s California water disputes….
Treme dvr this HBO, Sunday Dec. 1, 9 p.m. The combination soap opera and ethnographic film about New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina is frustrating and amazing and weird and not like anything else on TV. A sprawling cast of characters, from a muckraking lawyer to a struggling chef, from a bar owner with…
