James Gandolfini in The Sopranos by Craig Blankenhorn/HBO
Go away to the Midwest for a family wedding and look what happens. My fave sci-fi drama Battlestar Galactica goes all Lost on me and announces a closing date (I’m OK with it; at least this isn’t another Farscape debacle), and then The Sopranos! Which, by the way, I was unable to watch live, because no one in my family has HBO! (Ironic, right? I thanked the TV gods Monday afternoon for HBO on Demand.) TV’s landmark family crime drama went on a bloody rampage this week, just as we expected might happen in the next-to-last episode. A Sopranos tradition, upheld to the end. (Everyone from Adriana to Big Pus-y to Richie Aprile could have sounded the alarm when Bobby Bacala went into the train store.)It was a sensational way to get us primed for Sunday’s series finale, even if I couldn’t help thinking that a mob war between Phil’s New York gang and the “pygmy thing over in Jersey” could have been the driving force for the entire final season, instead...
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Well, this one was pretty much what I expected — some really bad Anna Nicole Smith impersonation (not that there’s really a good Anna Nicole impersonation) and a few murder suspects in the form of “fictionalized” versions of the late Playmate’s various hangers-on. And, of course, a little limoncello for taste.Having seen all of “Bombshell,” I feel exactly the same way I did seeing the clips last week: There was just no reason this episode needed to be made. I don’t think Criminal Intent viewers are big tabloid-news followers (i.e., they probably don’t care who the father of Anna Nicole’s baby was) — and if any of you actually are, then this was just a rehash of yesterday's news. Basically, a no-win proposition for all concerned.So how in the name of all that is criminal and intent did they manage to attract not one but two decent guest stars to this mess? OK, three, if you count Kristy Swanson, but she was on Skating with Cele...
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Peter Bogdanovich; John Ford on the set
Director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon) pays tribute to a cinema giant in Turner Classic Movies' Directed by John Ford (premiering tonight at 8 pm/ET), an update of Bogdanovich's 1971 profile with new commentary from such filmmakers as Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese. TV Guide spoke with Bogdanovich about remembering Ford, the state of today's Westerns, and his own fate on
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As the great Prime Suspect crime-drama franchise airs its final chapter (Sunday, Nov. 12 on PBS, check listings), terrible grief and emotional turmoil await fans — not to be confused with our despair over this being Helen Mirren's last turn as the tough, troubled Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison.
There's not a wrong note, no concession to sentiment or vanity, in Mirren's brilliant swan song. The case that will cap Tennison's career, as she faces unwelcome retirement, is a shattering doozy, involving the disappearance of a teenage star pupil. But the real suspense in the two-part Prime Suspect: The Final Act is whether Tennison can hold it together long enough to solve the case and salvage her own pro
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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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