Togetherness
Comedy

“Some people have it all figured out. These are not those people.” HBO’s Togetherness

Fans of Mark and Jay Duplass’ quirky indie favorites Cyrus, The Puffy Chair and Jeff, Who Lives at Home understand just how well the brothers know their way around a family-centric, struggling-suburbanite tale. So it’s no surprise that the trailer for the pair’s first ever TV series, Togetherness (premiering Sunday, Jan. 11, at 9:30pm ET/PT on HBO), features two simple lines of text: “Some people have it all figured out. These are not those people.” If your immediate reaction is “Amen, brother, er, brothers!” — and if it isn’t, who ARE you? — well, that’s the foundation on which this […]

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Action

“Game of Thrones” to be featured in IMAX (updated)

Given its epic scope and colorful, fantasy-world backdrop, it probably makes sense that HBO’s hit Game of Thrones is becoming the first TV series to be showcased in IMAX. Starting Jan. 23, and running for one week only, through Jan. 29, Jan. 29, two episodes from Season 4 of Game of Thrones, followed by the worldwide debut of a sneak-peek Season 5 trailer exclusively created for IMAX, will air in nearly 150 IMAX theaters across the country’s top markets (click here for screening info, and to buy tickets). The IMAX release of Game of Thrones will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound […]

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Documentary

HBO’s “Saving My Tomorrow” special is an insightful, impactful family treat

If you ever need to have yourself a stern lecture about a very important subject, let me suggest that you get it from 8-year-old Hippocrates Polemis, one of the young stars of HBO’s spectacular, song-filled family special Saving My Tomorrow which premieres tonight. Like his ancient namesake, the dark-eyed little fellow has a fine grasp on what is — and isn’t — good for us. Sporting a “ICARE For The World” t-shirt and a smudge of lunch on his face, Hippocrates reminds us — with all the gravitas of your high-school principal — that we can’t just travel through galaxies […]

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Drama

HBO’s “The Newsroom” signs off with a six-episode Season 3

Creator Aaron Sorkin’s TV journalism drama The Newsroom will come to an end with a final six episodes premiering on HBO Sunday, Nov. 9, at 9pm ET/PT. The Newsroom Season 3: Trailer   After three seasons of delivering last year’s news, Atlantis Cable News (ACN) will be going dark. Creator Aaron Sorkin’s TV journalism drama The Newsroom returns for a six-episode sendoff on HBO. Sorkin says the final season will examine, among other things, “When does a whistleblower become a criminal? When does protecting your source become being an accomplice?” Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is accused of conspiring to commit […]

The Comeback (2005)
Comedy

#TBT TV: Lisa Kudrow comes back in the original “The Comeback”

This Throwback Thursday #TBT TV edition takes us to June of 2005. It was a year after the final episode of Friends, and all of the friends had moved on to other projects with varying degrees of success. Lisa Kudrow teamed up with Dan Bucatinsky and Sex and the City’s Michael Patrick King to create the HBO comedy series The Comeback, starring Kudrow as Valerie Cherish, a fading actress who becomes an icon again thanks to a reality TV series that documents her attempt at a serious career revival (it’s all very meta). As Kudrow points out in this new […]

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Comedy

HBO’s The Comeback: Valerie Cherish returns — and this time, she WILL be heard

Call it TV’s comeback of the decade — because 10 years is nearly how long HBO’s rule-breaking series The Comeback has taken to return to the network for its much-discussed second season. In the summer of 2005, former Friends star Lisa Kudrow, her producing partner Dan Bucatinsky and Sex and the City’s Michael Patrick King debuted the 13-episode, dual-camera series, which starred Kudrow as fading actress Valerie Cherish, who allows a reality TV crew to capture her humbling return to the small screen in a hormonal teen sitcom. Critical acclaim — and three Emmy nominations — followed. So did cancellation. […]

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Drama

Olive Kitteridge: HBO and Frances McDormand bring Elizabeth Strout bestseller to poignant life

Like many readers of Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2008 novel Olive Kitteridge, Frances McDormand fell in love with the character-rich examination of small-town secrets and happily shared it with her friends. One longtime pal called her soon after, wondering if McDormand would find a way to play the plainspoken Olive onscreen. McDormand said no, unwilling to dilute the power of Strout’s words. “For me, acting has always been just a social extension of my private reading life,” says the lifelong book collector, “so I was never interested in reading books to consider them as material to develop into other projects.” […]

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Drama

Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn to star in True Detective Season 2

Colin Farrell had said recently that he was on board to star in True Detective Season 2, and he was evidently not joshing — HBO confirmed today that Farrell and Vince Vaughn will headline the new season of the HBO hit. True Detective Season 2 will begin production later this fall, and will consist of eight episodes, the first two of which will be directed by Justin Lin. Series creator Nic Pizzolatto is writing the episodes. The logline for Season 2 says this: “Three police officers and a career criminal must navigate a web of conspiracy in the aftermath of […]

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TV News & Program Updates

Comedian Chris Lilley Returns On “Jonah From Tonga”

The character of Jonah Takalua was originally introduced to viewers in Aussie comedian Chris Lilley’s mockumentary series Summer Heights High, where, when we last left him, the inappropriate delinquent was expelled from high school and sent to live with his uncle in aboriginal Tonga in hopes of straightening him out. In Jonah From Tonga, a six-episode comedic follow-up airing on HBO, we fast-forward four months, when cameras document how the troubled teen is adapting. As expected, things aren’t good. “Everything was happy, and it was a peaceful place until Jonah came along,” a cousin begins. “Jonah’s like a @#$%in’ idiot. […]

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Documentary

Hard Knocks 2014: HBO flies with the Atlanta Falcons

The ninth edition of HBO’s Hard Knocks training camp docuseries focuses on the daily lives and routines of the Atlanta Falcons’ players and coaches as they prepare for the 2014 NFL season in Flowery Branch, Ga. The Hard Knocks 2014 season begins on HBO Aug. 5. ALSO SEE: 2014 NFL Preseason TV schedule Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Atlanta Falcons HBO’s Hard Knocks is back, and the NFL didn’t even have to force a team into doing it this year. The Atlanta Falcons, 4-12 last season, graciously volunteered to have an NFL Films crew stalking their training camp fields […]