Rising Up: WGN America Goes ‘Underground’ to Explore a Troubled Time in History
With the pulse-pounding pace of its very first episode, WGN America’s “Underground” transported viewers to the antebellum world of 1857 Georgia, a dangerous and desperate place where slaves on plantations plotted their escapes via the Underground Railroad from their existences of degrading captivity. The 10-episode drama, which completes its first season tonight, May 11, has drawn the highest ratings ever for an original scripted...
A Piece of Janis Joplin’s Heart in ‘Little Girl Blue’
The recent death of Prince sparked a revelation for director Amy Berg, who just spent eight years immersed in the life of another musical legend, Janis Joplin, culminating in the feature documentary “Janis: Little Girl Blue,” which she also wrote and produced. Flash back to the fall of 1970. Less than three weeks after Jimi Hendrix died, the world mourned another drug overdose death of a larger-than-life musician, the...
The Verdict Comes In for ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story’
Just as it was more than 20 years ago during the so-called Trial of the Century, the nation appears to still be riveted by the case of O.J. Simpson and the accusations that he murdered his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. FX’s 10-part limited series “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” which concludes Tuesday night with an episode titled “The Verdict,” has garnered some of the highest...
‘Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures’ a Revelatory View of an Iconic Artist
Even as HBO’s “Vinyl” presents a fictionalized look at the music and drug scene in New York in the 1970s, its new feature-length documentary “Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures” presents the real world art, gay and drug scene of the era as it delves inside the life and times of the controversial photographer whose work continues to resonate decades after his death. The title of the film is a quote from the ultraconservative Sen....
Spotlight on Cate Blanchett at the Costume Designers Guild Awards
The 18th Costume Designers Guild Awards started off with a bang: a montage of the year in costume design demonstrating the range of genres and historical eras brought vividly to the screen in shows including “Ray Donovan,” ”Empire,” “Outlander,” “Transparent,” “The Wiz Live!” and “Mad Men” and in films including “Cinderella,” “Brooklyn,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Beasts of No...