When the musical guest on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE is also the host (and isn’t Justin Timberlake), it’s usually a smart strategic idea to minimize the host’s comedy duties for the week.  But Lady Gaga, in her dual roles tonight, suggested such a knack for sketch comedy that one could easily have mistaken her for […]

  NEBRASKA:  Buy A Ticket – A Lovely, Tart Slice of Americana An unusually strong season for American movies continues with the arrival of the simple and profound NEBRASKA, directed by Alexander Payne from a marvelous script by first-time feature writer Bob Nelson.  Among its other virtues, it manages to feature within its 114 minutes […]

  RAISING HOPE:  Friday 9PM on FOX With series creator Greg Garcia spending his time these days (God help him) at his new The Millers, there’s been a change of regime at RAISING HOPE, which had its belated Season 4 debut tonight with back-to-back episodes.  The new showrunner is Mike Mariano, who’s been with the […]

  HER:  Buy A Ticket – Tetrabytes of Love From Spike Jonze HER, which was presented at the AFI Film Festival before opening in theatres next month, is the first film Spike Jonze has directed from his own original script, and although its inventiveness recalls Being John Malkovich and Adaptation., the projects on which he collaborated […]

  GROUND FLOOR:  Thursday 10PM on TBS – If Nothing Else Is On… As cable networks have stolen more and more of the glory from broadcasters, with TV movies, miniseries, and quality 1-hour dramas now largely in their domain, one of the last bastions of broadcast domination is the mainstream sitcom.  (Niche comedies are a […]

  INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS:  Buy A Ticket – 1960s Folk Music A La The Coens INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, which screened as the Closing Night presentation of the AFI Film Festival in advance of its regular run next month, is Joel and Ethan Coen in their enigmatically allegorical mode, but unlike its more overtly stylized predecessors Barton […]

  LONE SURVIVOR:  Buy A Ticket – A Powerfully Visceral Tale of War Peter Berg’s LONE SURVIVOR, which was shown at the AFI Film Festival tonight in advance of its release late next month, is a docudrama in the truest sense:  based on the memoir by Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, it exists with one aim […]

  MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM:  Watch It At Home – More Like a Trudge The movies haven’t figured out what to do with Idris Elba.  The powerful, fiery actor has been spectacular on TV, first on The Wire and more recently on Luther, and he’s kicked around as a supporting player in some big-budget […]