Historical Programming Archives - Page 5 of 14

Preview: National Geographic Channel presents The 2000s: A New Reality

July 9, 2015 Lori Acken

The 2000s: A New Reality premieres July 12-13 at 9/8CT on National Geographic Channel. On the heels of its popular miniseries’ The 80s: The Decade That Made Us and The 90s: The Last Great Decade — which wove pop culture, politics and national and world events into a fascinating tapestry of how the decade impacted us individually and as a whole — National Geographic Channel takes another ten-year step into the past with The 2000s: A New Reality. The two-night event, which airs Sunday and Monday nights examines the decade that brought us a new era of terror on home and foreign soil, […]

Whack jobs: AMC’s “The Making of the Mob: New York”

June 11, 2015 Ryan Berenz

ALSO SEE: Funny How? AMC Celebrates The Silver Anniversary Of Goodfellas AMC goes to the mattresses for Mob Mondays starting June 15 at 10pm ET/PT (following a special 25th anniversary airing of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas) with the eight-part docuseries The Making of the Mob: New York, a look at how young hoodlums in the early 1900s built organized crime empires. Ray Liotta narrates the series, which includes dramatic reenactments, archival footage and exclusive interviews. Among the more notorious mobsters featured are: Charles “Lucky” Luciano The juvenile delinquent turned bootlegger headed up The Commission in 1931 that put the “organized” in […]

Queen Latifah impresses as the Empress of the Blues in HBO’s gorgeous “Bessie”

April 30, 2015 Lori Acken

You don’t have to be a fan of blues legend Bessie Smith — or the musical genre in general — to fall in love with HBO’s Bessie. But oh, the experience that awaits you if you are. Twenty-two years in the making, the project was first brought to a young Queen Latifah — then a successful singer and burgeoning actress — by the prolific producing team Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck, who had tapped To Kill a Mockingbird screenwriter Horton Foote to pen the script. Progress on the film ebbed and flowed until it landed in the hands of writer/director […]

HBO debuts Bessie trailer [VIDEO]

April 3, 2015 Lori Acken

HBO released the official trailer for its stunning Bessie Smith biopic, Bessie, which will debut Saturday, May 16 at 8/7CT on the network. Twenty-two years in the making, the project was first brought to a young Queen Latifah — then a successful singer and burgeoning actress — by producers Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck, who had optioned a script from To Kill a Mockingbird screenwriter Horton Foote and director Bruce Beresford. Progress on the film ebbed and flowed until it landed in the hands of writer/director Dee Rees, who was gaining good notices for her coming-of-age story Pariah and leapt at the chance […]

Wolf Hall: Damian Lewis gives Henry VIII a rebranding

April 1, 2015 Ryan Berenz

It may not be as steamy as The Tudors, but heads will still roll. In the PBS Masterpiece six-hour miniseries Wolf Hall, Damian Lewis (Homeland) assumes the royal garb of infamous 16th-century English monarch Henry VIII for the television adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s acclaimed historical novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Set during Henry’s reign in the years from 1529-35, the story is told from the perspective of his chief adviser, Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance), who finds a political adversary in eventual queen Anne Boleyn (Claire Foy). “Henry really bestrides it as a presence,” Lewis says of Wolf […]

National Geographic Channel’s “Killing Jesus” will encore on FOX News Channel

March 30, 2015 Lori Acken

Last night’s National Geographic Channel epic Killing Jesus will encore on FOX News Channel this Friday, April 3 at 8/7 CT and again on Easter Sunday, April 5, at 8/7CT. • FIND OUT MORE: We’re on the Moroccan sets of NGC’s Killing Jesus! • FIND OUT MORE: Haaz Sleiman: “Killing Jesus” is “a celebration for us as humans” • FIND OUT MORE: Stephen Moyer on playing Pontius Pilate in Nat Geo’s Killing Jesus With an all-star cast that includes Haaz Sleiman, Stephen Moyer, Kelsey Grammar, Eoin Macken, Rufus Sewell and Emmanuel Chriqui, the 3-hour movie event attracted 3.7 million total viewers in its National Geographic […]

Interview: Stephen Moyer on playing Pontius Pilate in Nat Geo’s Killing Jesus

March 28, 2015 Lori Acken

Stephen Moyer has arrived on the Ouarzazate, Morocco, set of National Geographic Channel’s Killing Jesus with just three hours of sleep after a numbing 20-hour journey to the remote city by land and air. Fortunately, his exhaustion serves the intensely pivotal scene he is about to shoot. Standing in a crowded courtyard on Ridley Scott’s sprawling Kingdom of Heaven set, Moyer — who plays Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Jerusalem — is locked in a final showdown with the high priest Caiaphas (a simmering Rufus Sewell) over Jesus’ fate. Pilate urges Caiaphas that scourging is punishment enough for the battered […]

The Lizzie Borden Chronicles: Christina Ricci returns with a vengeance in campy new Lifetime series

March 21, 2015 Lori Acken

Lifetime’s new limited series The Lizzie Borden Chronicles premieres Sunday, April 5 at 10/9CT. In January 2014, Lifetime took a proverbial whack at bringing the sordid tale of Lizzie Borden to a new generation of horror fans with its original film Lizzie Borden Took an Ax. Starring Christina Ricci as the parent-dispatching Lizzie and Argo’s Clea DuVall as her obedient sister Emma, Lizzie was a bloody good time and a ratings killer, luring 4.4 million viewers on its way to becoming cable’s second-most-watched original film of the year. A few months later, the network approached Ricci with another idea — reuniting with […]

The Dovekeepers — Cote De Pablo returns to TV in Roma Downey, Mark Burnett mini

March 15, 2015 Lori Acken

The Dovekeepers — the newest TV event from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett under their LightWorkers Media banner — is based on a bloody chapter of human history. But, says Downey, the tale’s true foundation is love and the resilience of the human spirit. “We’re most interested in telling stories that find light in the darkness,” she explained at a recent press event. “Dovekeepers is really a love story … a love story in the face of this incredible tragedy.” Inspired by Alice Hoffman’s heralded 2011 bestseller, The Dovekeepers tells the intertwined tales of mistreated beauty Yael (Rachel Brosnahan), mystical Shirah (Cote […]

ABC’s 20/20 to air Sound of Music special March 18

March 12, 2015 Lori Acken

Diane Sawyer and Julie Andrews travel to Salzburg to explore the family and the story behind the beloved, Oscar-winning musical The Sound of Music. ABC’s 20/20 will present a special hour celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music on Wednesday March 18, at 10pm ET/PT. Diane Sawyer travels to Austria with the film’s star Dame Julie Andrews to explore the real story behind the beloved, Oscar-winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and retrace the steps of the real-life von Trapp family, including the house where Maria von Trapp lived and the train station where the family made its final escape from the Nazis. Mother Abbess […]