Al Pacino stars as legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who spent his final months in the shadow of the sexual abuse scandal surrounding former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. […]
Let’s start with what you do know about Elvis. Like “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes.” “The Pelvis” nickname coupled with said pelvis’ Ed Sullivan Show debut. The stint in the Army, where he met a pretty girl named Priscilla. The feel-good films and the triumphant ’68 TV special. And the endless tabloid fodder that followed, even after his 1977 death at just 42. But do you know why Elvis moved the way he moved? Chose the songs he sang? Suffered so beneath the weight of the very fame he craved? Priscilla — Elvis’ only bride and lifelong confidante — […]
Judd Apatow directed this riveting documentary about his late friend and mentor Garry Shandling, a top standup comic and star of two groundbreaking sitcoms. […]
The first thing you should know about Steven Soderbergh’s atmospheric five-night HBO miniseries Mosaic is that there’s an app for that (Rather partake on your desktop? Click here). And if you haven’t already done so, downloading the fun freebie to experience the Emmy- and Oscar-winning director’s wholly fresh take on storytelling, with scriptwriter Ed Solomon (Men in Black), is a splendidly addictive time suck before you get the definitive version of their tale via the mini, which debuts Jan. 22. The core plot of both app and series is the same: The mysterious murder of cougarish writer Olivia Lake (Sharon […]
If you had trouble knowing who to root for as Divorce Season 1 came to a close, you weren’t alone. Frances (Sarah Jessica Parker) cruelly kiboshed estranged husband Robert’s fledgling business. Robert (Thomas Haden Church) dispatched Frances’ erstwhile lover Julian to her gallery opening and falsely reported her to the cops for “kidnapping” their kids. So where are the feuding exes as Season 2 dawns? Blessedly over it. And getting on with it. “Everybody made a committee decision that we’re just gonna get those documents signed and stamped in the first five minutes and be done with it and move […]
What Was Times Square Really Like in 1970? Deuce Gives the Unflinching Details Emmy winner David Simon, who also teamed up with Deuce co-creator George Pelecanos on the acclaimed series The Wire and Treme, calls their newest unflinching drama — which begins Sunday, Sept. 10 at 9/8c — “a critique of market capitalism and the marginalization of the people who labor.” Which, in this case, are the pimps, hookers, bar workers, hamstrung cops and other seeking souls who populated Times Square (“the deuce” is local speak for 42nd Street) in the gritty early ’70s. James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who […]
Now that he’s Game of Thrones’ omniscient Three-Eyed Raven, the rise of Isaac Hempstead Wright’s Bran Stark as a Westeros power player seems all but assured as the HBO hit heads into its penultimate season. With clans Lannister, Targaryen and Stark — and all their trusted and dubious allies — preoccupied with the Iron Throne, young Bran knows best the bigger threat that looms. Dialing in from the U.K., the 18-year-old Brit shared some knowledge of his own about Season 7, the Starks’ future as a family — and why we need to get over Hodor. I promised myself I […]
Carl Reiner is 95. I’m 51. I forget everything, including most appointments, where I put my purse and how to brush my teeth. Reiner — the Bronx-born comedy legend responsible for a lifetime of laughs, including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Jerk and, well, his comic-genius son Rob — remembers everything. As we chat about If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, HBO’s delicious homage to aging with grace and a large dose of humor, Reiner treats me to a bit from his and longtime bestie Mel Brooks’ iconic 2000 Year Old Man, then the theme song to […]
In a pivotal scene in HBO’s The Wizard of Lies, disgraced financier Bernie Madoff (Robert De Niro) and his devoted wife Ruth (Michelle Pfeiffer) don their pajamas and climb into bed — just as the couple did most every night of their 49-year marriage. A Judy Garland film flickers on the television and a bowl rests on the nightstand. It doesn’t contain a late-night snack. It holds every pill the pair could scrounge up in their opulent Manhattan apartment. “Our last night on earth will be you, me and Judy Garland. How romantic,” Pfeiffer drones in Ruth’s distinctive Queens accent, […]
You may not know of her, but your life has been directly, enormously impacted by Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta, a stout and pretty rural Virginian born in 1920, was the devoted mother of five, including a disabled eldest daughter on whom she doted. She looked after friends and neighbors, too. Henrietta accepted the hard work of tobacco farming, though she knew she might have accomplished much more. She loved to dance and tended her looks, particularly her nails, which were perfectly polished nearly to the day she died at age 31. And Henrietta suffered an agonizing and possibly preventable death from […]
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