Halloween is one week away — scary close to the date of the US presidential election. Still undecided? About a Halloween costume that is? Come on out to The Westdale theatre in Hamilton Saturday afternoon for inspiration. The folks at this elegant, circa 1935 neighbourhood cinema have asked me to program an afternoon of 16mm
What hasn’t Ken Levine done? He’s an Emmy-winning screenwriter who has — with writing partner David Issacs — written for some of television’s best comedies. You may have heard of M*A*S*H, Cheers and Frasier. In his spare time (!) he has also been a disc jockey, a major league baseball play-by-play announcer, a cartoonist, a playwright, a director,
So far this fall TV season, I’ve checked out Matlock (a passable non-remake of the original), High Potential (gimmicky tripe), Rescue: Hi-Surf (standard beautiful-people-doing-heroic-things drama) and Murder in A Small Town (where there is a murder in a small town every week, until I assume the entire population is murdered). All of these programs are,
Shrinking does not refer to the time between seasons for several offerings that began back before the actors and writers strikes of 2023. One of those shows is Shrinking, which just returned to AppleTV+ after an initial run that began way back more than a year-and-a-half ago. The half-hour-ish streaming comedy, which is set in
Good news ladies: getting divorced in your forties is awesome! That’s the word from Ali Wong in her latest Netflix stand-up comedy special, Ali Wong: Single Lady. For this show, Wong looks like a wedding guest in an elegant, white, disarmingly pretty dress. Set against a backdrop of shimmering pink curtains, she looks like a
This past spring, the CBS action-drama Tracker became an instant hit, emerging as the No. 1 US network series of the season. On this episode, I speak with the tracker himself, Justin Hartley, who was in Toronto last June promoting the series at the CTV upfront. After a career in soaps (Passions; The Young and the
There was a time when Mike Bullard was the King of comedy in Canada. His death from a heart attack Saturday at age 67 brings to an end a complicated legacy, one I had a window seat on for many years. Bullard, who grew up in Mississauga, Ont., had a day job at Bell Canada
There was a time when Mike Bullard was the King of comedy in Canada. His death from a heart attack Saturday at age 67 brings to an end a complicated legacy, one I had a window seat on for many years. Bullard, who grew up in Mississauga, Ont., had a day job at Bell Canada
Bill Vigars would not want this to be a sad story. He lived an amazing life, had friends across Canada, and Robert Duvall once played him in a movie. Oh yes — he also helped raise a billion dollars to find a cure for cancer. Still, Bill Vigars has died, and that is terribly, terribly
In the summer of 2012, Ethel Kennedy — who died October 10 at 96 — made an appearance in Los Angeles at a Television Critics Association press tour. She was accompanied by her daughter, Rory Kennedy, who directed “Ethel,” the HBO documentary about her famous mother, the widow of slain senator and presidential candidate Robert
During the decade of the 1970s one of the busiest and most-watched actors on television was John Amos. Not a bad trick considering the New Jersey native did not start out in television as an actor. He was writing for a local news show when singer-actress Leslie Uggams started working on her variety show. She
Nineteen sixty-four was a good year to be a TV tot. I was seven-years-old that October and remember all these cool, black-and-white witches, vampires and severed hands invading our living room via network premieres of such sitcoms as The Munsters, The Addams Family and Bewitched. Besides the shows themselves, there was the monster merch. At
“If scandal is to your taste, Miss MacKay,” I shall give you a feast!” Over the years I have heard Maggie Smith’s memorable line from “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” proclaimed regularly in our house. This quote is a particular favourite of Sandra’s, especially as Sunday brunch is served. Smith, of course, had a