David Bianculli on Steven Soderbergh’s new HBO film about Liberace, Behind the Candelabra, starring Matt Damon and Michael Douglas:

Damon’s Scott is all aw-shucks innocence — and when a friend takes him to Las Vegas to see a Liberace show, it’s like taking a trip to Oz. They walk into the Hilton showroom while the performance is in full swing. And so do we — hit immediately, and viscerally, by the excessive glitz of it all: the gold, glass-topped grand piano. Liberace’s silver-sequined suit and heavily teased hair. And, of course, his carefully rehearsed casual stage patter, with which he entertains the audience while playing piano, sometimes with only one hand. You start the scene watching Michael Douglas but in seconds, you’re carried away, or at least dumbfounded, by Liberace.

Image courtesy of HBO

David Bianculli on Christopher Guest (above in Waiting for Guffman), who is the co-creator of the new HBO comedy series Family Tree:

Christopher Guest, of course, has made a career — quite an impressive one — out of marching to his own comedy drummer. As an actor, his standout bizarro roles include the evil six-fingered count in The Princess Bride, the clueless heavy-metal musician Nigel in This is Spinal Tap and a series of memorable characters in a brief but inspired stint on Saturday Night Live. As a writer and director, he amassed a batch of giddily original comedy films — movies with tightly scripted outlines but lots of room for improvisation. If you’ve seen one, you may have seen them all, because they’re habit-forming and they’re that good: A Mighty Wind. Waiting for Guffman. Best in Show. For Your Consideration.

David Bianculli on the new Sundance Channel drama series, Rectify, about an exonerated man who finds himself back in the outside world:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a TV character, at the center of a TV series, who’s anywhere near as passive as Daniel Holden is written and portrayed here. Daniel doesn’t do anything — at least not in these six episodes, which dramatize his first week of release from prison. Instead, he either accepts or refuses invitations, engages in conversations or declines to, as he’s approached by those around him. It’s a gripping performance, but not a showy one.

Image of Aden Young in Rectify via the Sundance Channel

In case you missed it, here is David Bianculli’s review of ‘The Central Park 5’:

The case, by now, is anything but a whodunit; the actual rapist and attacker eventually stepped forward and confessed, and DNA samples from the crime scene proved a perfect match. But that didn’t happen until five teenage boys had been convicted of the crime and spent seven years in prison. They claim to have been coerced into giving false confessions, and the documentary makes a compelling case on their behalf.

You can watch the documentary online here.

David Bianculli on the Ken Burns documentary The Central Park Five:

The approach in Central Park 5 is different than in the usual Ken Burns film. There’s no narration — the story just unfolds, mostly chronologically. And there are no actors providing voices or portraying historical figures — just the people themselves, either in vintage footage or fresh interviews. It has more in common with an Errol Morris film, like The Thin Blue Line, than it does with The Civil War or Jazz — but it’s just as detailed, and thorough, in its approach as those major miniseries.

David Bianculli reviews Sunday’s season premiere of Mad Men (He promises no spoilers!)—

“Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, has established his own narrative rules for his Emmy-winning drama series, the continuing story of advertising executive Don Draper in the 1960s. On Mad Men, the breaks between seasons sometimes take longer than a year — and when the show returns, it doesn’t pick up where it left off.

Instead it leaves a gap, and viewers have to start each season as though they’re the ones who left — they have to catch up. What year is it? What’s the status of Don’s marriage? And what’s going on with all the other people in and around Don’s life?”

Image courtesy of AMC

David Bianculli on David Mamet’s new HBO film Phil Spector:

This Phil Spector telemovie, essentially, is a two-person play — an awkward dance between Linda and her eccentric client, as he reveals his shifting psychological states by jamming his mental gears between charming remarks, challenging questions and emotional rants. Pacino is an actor set at hurricane force here, and Mirren matches him by countering his fury with her calm. Mamet’s dialogue, as expected, is crisp and thought-provoking, and these two acting pros make the most of it.

Image of Helen Mirren as Linda Kenney Baden and Al Pacino as Phil Spector courtesy of HBO

David Bianculli’s take on Jane Campion’s new TV drama, Top of the Lake, which premieres on the Sundance Channel this evening:

[T]he detective, Robin, is played by Elisabeth Moss, who plays Peggy on Mad Men. No matter how good you think she is on Mad Men, I suspect you’ll be unprepared for her complicated performance here — and not only because she sports an effective New Zealand accent, but because her character is so rough, so raw and so constantly conflicted.

The pace of Top of the Lake is so deliberate, and the atmosphere so oppressive, that its overall tone is close to the moodiness of the AMC series The Killing. The beautiful but foreboding setting is a strong character here — but the strongest, in addition to the determined women played by Hunter and Moss, is Tui’s father, Matt Mitcham, a local backwoods drug lord played by Peter Mullan.

David Bianculli on House of Cards:

This new American version is adapted by Beau Willimon, who replaces the House of Commons with the House of Representatives, an incoming prime minister with an incoming president, and lots of other details that make this new House of Cards the best TV series about American politics since The West Wing.

David Bianculli compares the new Netflix series House of Cards to Macbeth:

In both the British and American versions of House of Cards, the central character is the majority whip — played, in this 2013 incarnation, by Kevin Spacey, who, as Frank Underwood, is perfectly ruthless and ruthlessly perfect. Robin Wright plays his equally ambitious and cold-blooded wife, Claire, and they’re both like characters straight out of Shakespeare. She’s Lady Macbeth, with her own insatiable drive and ambition — and he’s Iago, the evil lieutenant who manipulates everyone above and below him. And Frank, like many a character from Shakespeare, often pauses to address his audience directly, and privately, to reveal his inner-most thoughts. He’s giving a soliloquy — but, as in a scene when he pauses during a re-election party to turn to the camera and speak, he turns us viewers into unindicted co-conspirators.

Image from Verdi’s Macbeth via the Royal Opera House

David Bianculli on the new Netflix series House of Cards:

It is, to Netflix, what The Sopranos was to HBO, what The Shield was to FX, what Mad Men was to AMC. It’s an identity-maker, and a game-changer.

David Bianculli on the violence in the new series The Following starring Kevin Bacon:

I’m a big fan of Dexter, and Homeland, so TV violence in itself doesn’t throw me. But there’s something about The Following that pushes the envelope, especially for broadcast television, in a way that’s more than a little unsettling. Not only does it find ways to put children and young women into jeopardy at almost every opportunity, but it stages many scenes of torture and killing through the eyes of Joe Carroll’s eager followers.

These scenes show these young people enjoying the act of stabbing, or setting on fire, or otherwise murdering someone, almost like a how-to primer. Yes, they’re the villains — but the way these moments are acted, photographed and edited made me feel uneasy about the possible real-world consequences. The violence is overtly glamorized here.

Image via NPR

So last night was a big night for Girls. The show and its writer and star, Lena Dunham, picked up a couple Golden Globes and the second season premiered on HBO. But even if you’re one of those people who “doesn’t watch tv” …

The Millions on “Ten Books to Read Now That HBO’s Girls Is Back”:

But while Dunham’s lady-centered wry comedy may be singular in today’s television line-up, the world of literature is home to a multitude of books with the same appeal as Girls, books that feature a certain kind of female protagonist (usually one coming of age) or a certain kind of female narrator (pointed, self-deprecating, and ultimately wise). These are books that — like Girls – explore what it is like to be young and hungry — hungry for love and hungry for sex, but most of all, hungry for recognition and hungry for adulthood. Ultimately, the girls in these books, like the girls of Girls, are hungry to become the women they will one day be.

And in case you missed it, Friday’s show was a Girls bonanza with Terry’s interview with Lena Dunham and David Bianculli’s review of the second season.

David Bianculli on the second season of Girls, which premieres on January 13:

Girls, without question, has the definite aroma of both honesty and originality. The four main characters — aspiring writer Hannah, art curator Marnie, free spirit Jessa, repressed spirit Shoshanna — have problems holding onto jobs, maintaining their intimate relationships, and even staying close to one another. The breakups are messy, but so are the less dramatic times. Sex, in this series, usually gets down to equal parts passion and awkwardness — which makes it seem all the more real, and, like the emotions displayed throughout, all the more raw.

Image courtesy of HBO

David Bianculli on Shirley MacLaine’s new role in Season Three of Downton Abbey:

Out of desperation, Cora, his American wife, sends for her wealthy mother to visit, in hopes that the Crawley women can persuade her to finance their lavish lifestyle. The mother, Martha, is played by new cast member Shirley MacLaine, who’s excellent. She doesn’t steal the show — she can’t, not with Maggie Smith already dominating every scene she’s in as Cora’s mother-in-law, the acerbic, sarcastic Dowager Countess — but MacLaine fits in perfectly.