In recent years, the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film has come to stand for not much more than a fair level of craftsmanship and a comfortable pitch of moral predicament (The Secret In Their Eyes, Departures, and The Counterfeiters are the most recent undistinguished winners).  This year’s winner, Susanne Bier’s IN A BETTER WORLD, […]

  Note:  All times PST 5:01PM:  Wasting no time, here’s Ricky Gervais with his first monologue since the very different world of 2016.  5:02PM:  Not exactly testing the limits with jokes about “Wild Hogs” and Joe Pesci whacking people. 5:05PM:  The crowd hasn’t had enough to drink yet to even pretend this monologue is funny. […]

  CONSTANTINE:  Friday 10PM on NBC starting October 24 – If Nothing Else is On… (but also Incomplete) PLAYERS:  DC Comics.  Series creators Daniel Cerrone (a showrunner, although not creator, of Dexter) and David S. Goyer (of DaVinci’s Demons and the Dark Knight movies).  Pilot director Neil Marshall, who’s best known for directing the “Blackwater” episode […]

    I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT – Not Even For Free:  You Don’t Want To Know   The recent movie I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT most resembles is The Nanny Diaries, which is odd because it was a flop for Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company, and yet Weinstein’s studio […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  There were no changes from the preliminary Tuesday ratings.         Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart     CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  History’s CURSE OF OAK ISLAND dropped 0.06 from last week to 0.68 but was still Tuesday cable’s dominant leader (with a lead-in hour at 0.23), and […]

Wednesday preliminary broadcast ratings (adult 18-49 ratings for last night, the same night last year and same night last week). DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL The chart above goes beyond the adult 18-49 rating, adding other key advertiser sales demographics (adult 18-34 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares), and total viewership […]

  TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY:  Worth A Ticket – An Epic of Betrayals   John LeCarre is (I guess one should say “arguably”) the greatest of all spy novelists, and his 1974 TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY is “arguably” his finest work.  Incredibly, the 1979 BBC miniseries adaptation lived up to the level of the novel, […]

  Not much action on STATE OF THE UNION night. DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary live+same day key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of people over the age of 2). […]