March 2010

It’s mid January in Pasadena, and Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are standing in a corner as HBO runs a promo reel to TV critics of its epic 10-part miniseries The Pacific. Hanks is beaming with pride. Then the lights go on and Hanks and Spielberg jump to the stage to begin fielding a firestorm of questions. The press conference culminates Spielberg, Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s six-year project, which they embarked on not long after their award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers. I ask Hanks what was running through his mind while watching the reel and he smiles. “It’s funny,” he […]

It’s unnerving stuff interviewing a consummate interviewer — a woman who turned an English degree and an earnest fascination with the totality of human existence into a writing career that spans 17 bestsellers, enormous wealth and international acclaim. And this is no pulp fiction maven, mind you. I’m awaiting a self-described “broad” who for the past 25-plus years has immersed herself in a world where bad people do bad things to acquaintances and strangers, and where a few unique individuals devote their lives to a strange universe in which highly trained minds and the most advanced forensic science merge to […]

Elmore Leonard has been writing novels for nearly 60 years, and has been having his work adapted for nearly as long. Yet it wasn’t until his latest project that the grand master of American crime fiction felt the screenwriters cared what the thought. Led by Graham Yost (Boomtown), the team of writers for Justified (premiering March 16 on FX) are so committed to capturing Leonard’s signature dry wit, spot-on dialogue and colorful characters that they have taken to wearing bracelets inscribed with the initials “WWED” — What Would Elmore Do? Leonard even gets an executive producer credit, which he has […]

For its 10th season, TCM‘s movie series The Essentials is appropriately enough bringing back something from its past. While host Robert Osborne has been holding court with a rotating list of Hollywood dignitaries the past few seasons — including film critic Molly Haskell, and actresses Carrie Fisher and Rose McGowan — this time he’s going to be conducting deep discussions of classic movies with a familiar face: Alec Baldwin, who occupied the same post last season. “I have enormous respect for TCM and Robert Osborne,” Baldwin says. “TCM has stayed true to its mission, with a vast library of movies […]

Animal Planet used to be the home for family-friendly stories of cats, dogs and birds, and their interaction with the people who love them. Today, the public’s near-insatiable demand for shows featuring animals in the wild makes it just as likely that an Animal Planet special will have a “viewer discretion advised” warning so that small children will not be traumatized by the sight of animals doing what comes naturally. And “viewer discretion” is certainly needed for the Animal Planet (HD) series Fatal Attractions, airing Sundays beginning March 14, which details the tragic fates of exotic-animal caregivers who made the […]

From the same BBC and Discovery collaboration that wowed viewers with Blue Planet and Planet Earth comes the new 11-part series, Life. When it begins airing Sundays starting March 21 on Discovery Channel (HD), it will be the culmination of four years of filming, with 150 different expeditions spanning all the continents. I got a chance to speak with Mike Gunton, the executive producer of the series, who has worked creating wildlife documentaries for 20 years. Afterwards, I talked with Stephen Lyle, who worked on the “Plants” and “Birds” segments and who, as our interview reveals, has an incredible fascination […]

The histrionics might not have matched those exhibited during the recent scandal involving late-night talk show hosts, but when At the Movies radically shifted directions in 2008 — passing over long-established newspaper critics in favor of Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz — many cried foul. The worry was that one of TV’s last bastions of serious film criticism, which started in the 1970s with original hosts Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, was falling prey to more shallow reviews and a blurb-based mentality. Lyons, in particular, drew ire for his unapologetic embrace of celebrity culture, with a blog that featured several […]