Wow! What a strong conclusion for what’s sure to be recognized as one of the year’s best miniseries. The tone this time was definitely more of a piece with The Company’s slow-building first part than last week’s globe-trotting actionfest. But the dark, regretful feeling that permeated every action, every conversation, was, in the end, the only way things could have turned out.Watching the complete breakdown of Leo (Alessandro Nivola) throughout his interrogation was shocking — in part because of its swiftness, but more so because his only crime was being too loyal to the Company. Or so it seemed, until we found out he was the mole, Sasha, all along — a fact he later revealed by shooting his best friend and godfather of his children in the gut and fleeing to the crumbling remains of his adopted homeland.Truly, it seems, the Cold War was a grand debacle, perhaps summed up best by Michael Keaton ’s Angleton in his greenhouse conversation with Chris O&...
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Harvey, we hardly knew ya. Just hours after word broke that Harvey Keitel was thisclose to signing a contract with Criminal Minds for the spot left vacant by the disappearing Mandy Patinkin, sources say the deal is no longer on the table. This makes Keitel the latest big name to be stricken from the show’s most-wanted list. Others include Geena Davis, Michael Keaton and Bob Hoskins. Despite the suspense surrounding the search, we hear the show is still chugging along fine without the replacement. The first three episodes are already in the can (with Patinkin’s absence being dealt with in the season-opener). This means that whoever the new character is, he/she (and we suspect it’s a he) won’t be appearing until later in the season. — Reporting by Jonathan SmallRelated: Harvey Keitel Emerges as Front-runner for Criminal Minds Top Spot
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Mandy Patinkin by Michael Desmond/Touchstone Television
It's official. Doris Roberts and I are the only two remaining showbiz "names" that haven't been approached about replacing Mandy Patinkin on Criminal Minds.Early on, you'll recall, Oscar winner Geena Davis was considered to be the front-runner to get the job. But she took a pass, according to my spy, because she wasn't keen on "the nature of the show." (Funny — she didn't seem to have a problem with "the nature" of the Geena Davis Show, and that was god-awful.) Michael Keaton nixed the gig, too, presumably because he wasn't ready to do TV full-time.And they're just the tip of the iceberg. To give you some idea of just how wide a net the show's producers are casting, I've listed some celebs that are under consideration below, with a few key letters asterisked out to protect their anonymity. Of course, if Shemar Moore wants to blab their identities, too, who am I to shush him?Among the stars who've been approached and took a pass:**b ***k*n*J*** **t**owSi****ne* **av*r Among the ...
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Let me start off with a disclaimer: I’m not familiar with the Robert Littell novel of the same name on which The Company is based. However, based on the Internet buzz, I know a lot of fans of the book have been very much anticipating this miniseries. So what I ask of you, readers, is that you be as understanding as you can about my lack of foreknowledge, while still feeling free to tell me what’s what when I get it wrong. Thanks in advance. [end disclaimer]Well, we're only a third of the way in, but so far, I like what I'm seeing. Even abridged as it must be for TV, this is clearly a complex, multilayered story. The Company is juggling a large cast of international characters who are constantly double- and triple-crossing each other, but thankfully, I didn't have to strain too hard to keep it all straight. I don't know if the novel's focus was so squarely on the characters of Jack (Chris O'Donnell) and Yevgeny (Rory Cochrane), but the friends-turned-enemies situation set u...
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Chris O'Donnell, The Company
Despite having more than a dozen films under his belt at the time — from the serene (Circle of Friends) to the bombastic (Batman Forever) — the gig that Chris O'Donnell credits with putting him in The Company, TNT's three-week, six-hour miniseries about the early CIA (premiering Sunday at 8 pm/ET), was his turn as a dreamy (though not McDreamy) veterinarian on Grey's Anatomy.
"I had a fantastic time doing it, and I think I got a good 'pop' off it," O'Donnell says, fondly recalling his run as Meredith's onetime paramour, Finn. "I've known [executive producer] Ridley [Scott], and we've talked in the past about working together. When they were
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What, if anything, do Star Wars, Mission: Impossible, and Jaws have in common?
What is the formula for blockbuster-movie success? And how does it differ from the recipe for disaster? Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters, an HBO documentary premiering tonight at 9 pm/ET — and based on the new book Boffo! How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb, by Variety editor-in-chief and former studio exec Peter Bart — explores those much-asked questions by way of A-list talking heads and fantastic clips from films both great and... so-so.
Bart says that — especially as cohost of AMC's Sunday Morn
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What, if anything, do Star Wars, Mission: Impossible, and Jaws have in common?
What is the formula for blockbuster-movie success? And how does it differ from the recipe for disaster? The new book Boffo! How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb, by Variety editor-in-chief and former studio exec Peter Bart, explores those much-asked questions, as does an accompanying HBO documentary, Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters, premiering June 29 and featuring almost as many A-list talking heads as fantastic clips from films both great and... so-so.
Bart says that — especially as cohost of AMC's Sunday
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Ewan McGregor in The Island
Question: I am doing some research on films with a cloning theme but have, so far, only managed to come up with two: Four Sided Triangle (1952) a story built around a duplicator; and the very well-known The Fly (1958 and 1986) and its sequel(s). Can you suggest any others?
Answer:
Hate to be negative right off the bat, but neither the 1958 version of The Fly nor the 1986 David Cronenberg remake is actually about cloning: They're about transporting physical objects by breaking them down into their cellular particles and then reassembling them in another location — like the transporter in Star Trek. But Four Sided Triangle is a
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Meet Mister Mom
In the 1983 comedy Mr. Mom, Michael Keaton's auto engineer gets laid off, so housewife Teri Garr goes back to work at an ad agency, leaving dad to run the house and watch the kids. (Remember "Kenny, don't paint your sister!"?) Mayhem, many laughs and some tears ensue. NBC's new reality contest, Meet Mister Mom (premiering tonight at 8pm/ET), delivers a similar scenario and payoff by whisking real-life family matriarchs away for a luxury spa vacation, leaving the fathers to lord over their manors solo. The results, as you can imagine, aren't always (if ever) pretty, but Mister Mom is more about laughs than, say, the angst of its reality-TV cousin, Trading Spouses.
"This is different in that [Spouses] was more of a docu-drama, which we do have ele
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