TV

Laconic cowboy Dave Blasingame wanders the Wild West with his faithful dog Brown and the occasional companionship of pal Burgundy Smith.Read More »

Summary: In 1988, renegade filmmaker Robert Altman and Pulitzer Prize–winning Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau created a presidential candidate, ran him alongside the other hopefuls during the primary season, and presented their media campaign as a cross between a soap opera and TV news. The result was the groundbreaking Tanner ’88, a piercing satire of media-age American politics, in which actors Michael Murphy (as contender Jack Tanner) and Cynthia Nixon (as his daughter) rub elbows on the campaign trail with real-life political players Jesse Jackson, Gary Hart, Bob Dole, Ralph Nader, Kitty Dukakis, and Gloria Steinem, among many others. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the complete eleven-episode television series—more relevant today than ever.Read More »

Three years after the original “Danger Man” series concluded, it was revamped and continued in a longer format. (1 hour/episode instead of 30 minutes). John Drake was now a Special Security Agent for M9, getting his exotic assignments exclusively from Her Majesty’s Secret Service. This version of the series introduced far more Bond-like gadgets, from exploding tie-pins to tape-recording shavers, and emphasized fast action. Written by Marg BaskinRead More »

IMDB:
Superb!, 30 June 2005
10/10
Author: P_Cornelius

A terrific show, Danger Man. Just how terrific was it? Several of the scripts were recycled for use in color episodes of The Saint. But the originals in Danger Man are the best. As for Patrick McGoohan, he has never surpassed his role in this series. And, yes, that statement applies to his over-hyped and underwhelming portrayal as Number Six in The Prisoner. All the Danger Man episodes, including the earlier run of 30 minute episodes, are available on DVD. And that’s probably the only way anyone will ever see them in this day and age, as even cable channels are now becoming averse to running black and white hour long dramas from forty or more years ago. Read More »

Quote:
The director Gaspard Bazin is preparing a new feature film. For now, he is still in the casting and financing stages. He’s asking the help of Jean Almereyda, a producer once fashionable but now at low ebb, who has more and more difficulties to raise cash for his company. His wife, Eurydice, dreams of being a movie star. Between the two men, a perverse game is starting, Almereyda wishing to please his wife, but the unrepentant seducer reputation of Bazin holds him to require a part for Eurydice…Read More »

Complete 7-part, 290-minute BBC miniseries plus BBC interview – John Le Carre – The Secret Centre

Complex but compelling, this miniseries is based upon one of John Le Carré’s greatest works and serves as a grand summing-up for the late Sir Alec Guinness, one of Britain’s greatest actors. Guinness literally is Smiley: Le Carré said that Guinness served as a template for the character’s cunning and mournful rectitude. In anyone else’s hands, Smiley might have seemed a blank and lifeless character, but Guinness’ matchless ability to play within a scene while seeming to think well beyond it is magnetic. Guinness was the great everyman and underplayer of the generation that gave us such great British Shakespearean actors as Olivier, Richardson, and Gielgud. He’s helped, too, by sharp dialogue lifted almost word-for-word from the book and terrific supporting performances (particularly an entirely silent but amazingly communicative Patrick Stewart, who has a cameo as Karla), which almost entirely obscure the fact that the miniseries largely consists of people sitting in rooms talking. It’s a literate treat that brings to life the gray morality and conflicting loyalties of the Cold War. Be advised: viewers can get lost in the intricate plot if they don’t pay close attention.
— Nick Sambides, Jr.Read More »

The siblings Bebe and Mikhail leave their country Moldova to apply for asylum in Germany. Their flight turns into a modern odyssey.
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In 1993, Chantal Akerman directed Sami Frey (actor who made the Jeanne Dielman’s making off in 74) in this episode of tv mini series Monologues (others episodes were made by Claire Denis, Romain Goupil, Jacques Renard and Claire Simon). He plays a man who just moved to a new building, and thinks about his situation. Why he leaved the older flat. He remembers about a summer a few years ago, the windows wide open. The air streams, the girls laughing next door… Read More »

In 1965, Ingmar Bergman directed “Persona”, a cult film that sums up all the obsessions of the Swedish master, born a hundred years ago. This Arte TV documentary explores the film, based on interviews with film critics, collaborators and the maser himself. Read More »