Ask FlickChick Whats that sci-fi movie multigenerational family drama time-tripping love story and moreQuestion I saw several scenes from some film a several decades in the life of a family tale as a kid in the 80s and theyve been coming back to me for a decade but my attempts to find the movie have been futile I dont think I saw the ending which may explain why its stayed with me so many years Im afraid these snippets are all I can rememberThe family has moved to a large city and invested in a store selling television sets then a new technology but their area has no broadcasts No one is buying the sets which just show a test pattern but then the TVs spring to life showing I believe Howdy Doody Almost a generation later this success has been parlayed into a large department store Some family youngsters are playing there after-hours and leave a candle lit or set off a firecracker That night the store burns to the ground and the
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Robert Redford by Joe Kohen/WireImage.com
Robert Redford and director Barry Levinson are in talks to venture on A Walk in the Woods, in a big-screen adaptation of the best-selling travelogue by Bill Bryson.... Channing Tatum (She's the Man) will play a key member of the G.I. Joe crew in Stephen Sommers' live-action take on the Hasbro hero. Other cast members include Rachel Nichols, Adewale Akinnuoye-Mr. Eko-Agbaje and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
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Mark Burnett has set up at NBC My Dad is Better than Your Dad, a game show in which fathers face off in stunt-driven challenges, Variety reports.... FX has given Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy a series commitment for Queen B, a workplace drama centered on a female CEO who grooms a young girl in her ruthless image.... Homicide's Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson are reteaming for the NBC pilot The Philanthropist, a series that sound a bit like The Equalizer.... After a fierce bidding war, ABC has ordered six episodes of Section 8, a drama penned by X-Men 3's Zak Penn and described as a blend of House, X-Men and The X-Files. OK.... ABC is teaming with hip-hop producer Pharrell Williams and filmmaker McG on Limelight, a drama set at a performing arts-school.
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Barry Levinson directs Man of the Year Robin Williams.
Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson has turned his focus to the world of politics. No, he hasn't started making trips to Iowa and New Hampshire. First he directed the Robin Williams-as-president comedy Man of the Year (arriving in stores today on DVD), then just last month NBC greenlit his and producing partner Tom Fontana's new series M.O.N.Y., which follows the trials and tribulations of an interim New York City mayor (played by Will & Grace Emmy winner Bobby Cannavale). TVGuide.com welcomed the chance to speak with the Baltimore native about his bend toward the b
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Paul Rudd
Not anxious to brave the roads this long holiday weekend? IFC has the perfect compromise: Wanderlust (premiering May 29 at 9 pm/ET), an original documentary detailing Hollywood's many and great road movies, with insightful commentary from such heavyweights as Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider), Alexander Payne (
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Bedford DiariesAhh, bittersweet premiere. Given that Milo Ventimiglia already made a beeline for NBC's upcoming Heroes, I couldn't help but feel that WB was just going through the motions here — but hey, I understand. They spent good money on this show and they're gonna air it, by golly. More power to them. OK, before we bite into the meat of this sandwich, I admit it: I had high expectations for this show. Can you blame me? It was created by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana, and if those names sound familiar, it's because they also created a little show called Homicide: Life on the Street, all seven seasons of which grace my DVD shelf. And I wish I could say that Bedford was everything I thought it'd be, but my mom taught me lying was bad. There was nothing wrong with the premise — college kids learn about
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WB has opted to air a censored version of The Bedford Diaries, a drama centered on a college's sexuality class and premiering March 29. Reacting to the decision, executive producer Barry Levinson said on Thursday, "We don't believe that the show should have been edited, but [WB] is very fearful of what the FCC has been doing... intimidating networks and levying fines." Diaries, whose cast includes Matthew Modine and Milo Ventimiglia (who addresses the show's brazenness in next Wednesday's TVGuide.com Insider), will debut sans a scene of two girls kissing and another opening her jeans.
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We're all connected: Matt Dillon
Question: I recently saw and loved the movie Crash, and was especially intrigued by the way all the stories intersected and converged. Could you possibly give me a list of some other films whose stories are structured in the same way? Answer: I certainly can: First, for the benefit of readers who haven't seen Crash (2005), its structure is one in which multiple narratives are developed simultaneously and overlay or intersect at key points before converging at the end. Unlike ensemble movies in which there's a main plot and a series of subplots, films like this give more or less equal weight to all the story strands and derive a significant part of their thematic power from the apparently random way in which different characters' destinies come together. To my mind, the greatest of all multiple-story narratives is
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Last Tuesday night, TV viewers rendered their verdict on Fox's The Jury: Guilty — of a lukewarm series debut. Only 4 million tuned in to the courtroom drama's two-hour premiere, which lagged behind the NBA finals on ABC, Last Comic Standing on NBC and WB's Summerland. For producers Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana — the men behind HBO's Oz and NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street — that had to hurt.
"We didn't expect to start out extremely well," Levinson tells TV Guide Online. "I don't think anybody thought that. The only unknown was the fact that the NBA finals ran smack into us. That's not something you can anticipate in advance. We're gonna have them [this] week, too! It impacted on us."
It also doesn't help that Jury lacks recognizable stars who might draw viewers to tune in. Levinson, who plays a judge, is the cast's biggest name! "Then we're in trouble," he laughs, adding, "We went
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