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June 2008 Archives
FLICK PICKS: Rosalind Russell month starts with 'His Girl Friday'
June 30, 2008 3:33 PM
It's great enough seeing a prime-time screening of the 1940 Cary Grant-Rosalind Russell screwball delight His Girl Friday (Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies). But this zippy newspaper tale/knockabout romance is only the first of 36 Russell films airing Wednesdays throughout July in TCM's Star of the Month salute. And it's followed this first night by Russell's classic 1939 catfight comedy The Women (Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET, TCM). Watch the trailers here and here.
Russell's timeless His Girl Friday turn showcases her rare gift of oozing brains, wit and sex appeal simultaneously. Not to mention independence. Her Hildy Johnson character, a reporter manipulated by ruthless tabloid editor Walter Burns, had been created as a man in the Broadway play The Front Page by scrappy old-time reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. (The original 1931 filming of The Front Page happily airs on TCM this Wednesday afternoon at 12:30 ET for quick comparison.)
The gender switch might have been strained in that era of flighty females -- think of Katharine Hepburn's ditzy heiress in the delightful-anyway Bringing Up Baby -- but the same director, Howard Hawks, treats Russell pretty much like one of the guys here. She's an ace reporter and smart cookie, totally accepted in her profession -- watch her skillfilly work the male-dominated city hall press room where much of the action takes place.
By presenting her as such a ball of fire (a later Hawks film title, with the equally gutsy Barbara Stanwyck), His Girl Friday adds a whole 'nother angle to the already driven storyline. Grant and Russell are matching wits professionally, yes, and personally, as the best-pal guys of The Front Page had -- but also romantically, since they're portrayed here as husband and ex-wife. Grant will stop at nothing to get job-quitting about-to-wed-again Russell back with him in more ways than one.
The rest of the month ranges through the rest of Russell's career, from such early outings as 1935's Clark Gable starrer China Seas (July 15/16 at 2:30 a.m. ET), to her 1960s stern-nun run in The Trouble With Angels and its sequel (July 29/30 and 1 and 3 a.m. ET, all on TCM). Among the must-see titles: the double feature of two Broadway adaptations, 1958's Auntie Mame and 1962's Gypsy (July 29 at 8 and 10:30 p.m. ET, TCM).
There's much more about Russell and her films at TCM's Star of the Month page. Watch a wide selection of Russell trailers and movie clips (great His Girl Friday stuff!) here.
TRIBUTE: George Carlin for kids
June 26, 2008 4:36 PM
While everybody's tributes to the influential comic who died last weekend mentioned his "seven dirty words" (including mine), most of us forgot about a different side of this "adult" performer.
Carlin was likely best known to a younger generation not for his counterculture comedy but for his lengthy '90s stint as Mr. Conductor on public TV's kids fave Shining Time Station. (Watch an episode here.) His collaborator on the show, Britt Allcroft, wrote movingly this week about Carlin's "gentle invitation to kids to explore a safe, accessible fantasy world," in an anecdote-filled appreciation that's beautifully written and definitely worth reading. Find it here.
Also note that NBC has scheduled its own fitting salute, filling this week's Saturday Night Live slot (Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET, NBC) with an encore of the series' very first episode, from Oct. 11, 1975, when guest host Carlin delivered three vintage monologues. If you just can't wait, watch 'em online via Hulu.
TV BOOKS: 'Encyclopedia Shatnerica'
June 25, 2008 9:33 PM
Really and truly, the last thing William Shatner needs is more attention. TV, movies, books, video games, commercials, self-serving web site -- the man is more all over the place than James T. Kirk. But if you're wondering what the T stands for -- and shouldn't we all know by now? -- you'll find it in The Encyclopedia Shatnerica, an old fave by Robert Schnakenberg just revised and updated in a paperback Millennium Edition . . .
Click Books About TV for all the Shat scoop . . .
WEIRD & WILD: 55,000 bottles of beer on the wall ...
June 25, 2008 7:04 PM
Give me 55,000 cans of beer and I'm there. That's what's promised by the premiere of Hillbilly Deluxe (Friday at 9 p.m. ET, CMT), a look at the dee-lux lifestyles of rich and famous hicks. It's produced and hosted by C. Thomas Howell, the actor, yes, but more than that, the proud winner of VH1's Celebracadabra. It seems his backwoods subjects have a hankerin' for fancy-schmancy log cabin resorts, pink Hummers and shacks like the 55k House of Beer Cans located in Pennsylvania. (C'mon. Is Pa. really 'billy-land?)
If that's not thrill enough, stay tuned for Paid Vacation With Pauly Shore (Friday at 9:30 p.m., CMT), where the comic scoops up an unsuspecting family for an instant dream vacation. Just one problem: Pauly goes along.
TRIBUTE: Seven Words About the Late George Carlin
June 23, 2008 2:47 PM
I could joke that those are the seven right there. (And they're not even dirty!) But why should somebody like me try joking while invoking one of the smartest comic minds (and mouths) of all time?
George Carlin was the king of social satire, and spoken rhythms, and the kind of delicious wordplay writers like me only dream of emulating. To mark his death Sunday at the much-too-early age of 71, I did my best to celebrate his specialness in an appreciation just posted at Television Without Pity's BrilliantButCancelled.com.
Take a look at that tribute here. And then take a look, and listen, to the master himself. NPR's Fresh Air ran a wonderful Carlin appreciation today, with vintage interview excerpts you can hear here.
You can also watch Carlin's most recent HBO special, last March's It's Bad for Ya!, via digital cable's HBO On Demand. (Check your on-screen program guide.) Or see some of his earlier 13 HBO standup hours repeating on the HBO Comedy channel -- 1984's Carlin On Campus late Monday/early Tuesday (June 24) at 1 a.m. ET, and 1978's George Carlin Again late Wednesday/early Thursday (June 26) at 1:10 a.m. ET. HBO promises to schedule a larger Carlin tribute, but it wasn't finalized by midday Monday, so keep an eye on HBO's web site for details. [UPDATE: See just-announced HBO airtimes at the end of this post.]
You can also catch Carlin in Kevin Smith's 1999 film Dogma, savaging one of Carlin's favorite targets, organized religion. Dogma airs next on Starz Edge Wednesday (June 25) at 10:45 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET, plus Saturday (June 28) on Starz Cinema at 3:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET.
Episodes of Carlin's 1994-95 Fox sitcom The George Carlin Show can be seen, online, at AOL's In2TV streaming site.
UPDATE - posted Monday at 4:30 p.m. -
HBO's newly announced tribute slate of Carlin encores this week:
Airing on HBO2 (all times ET):
WEDNESDAY, June 25 -
8 p.m. - George Carlin at USC (1977; first HBO special)
9:30 p.m. - George Carlin Again (1978)
11 p.m. - Carlin at Carnegie (1983)
12 midnight - Carlin on Campus (1984)
1 a.m. - George Carlin: Playin' With Your Head (1986)
THURSDAY, June 26 -
8 p.m. - George Carlin: What Am I Doin' in New Jersey (1988)
9 p.m. - George Carlin: Doin' It Again (1990)
10 p.m. - George Carlin: Jammin' in New York (1992)
11 p.m. - George Carlin: Back in Town (1996)
12:05 a.m. - George Carlin: You Are All Diseased (1999)
1:10 a.m. - George Carlin: It's Bad for Ya (2008)
Airing on HBO:
FRIDAY, June 27 -
9 p.m. - George Carlin: It's Bad for Ya (March 2008)
HOT SPOT: Coldplay plays Stewart
June 23, 2008 1:15 PM
That's not Rod, either. It's Jon.
Coldplay this week becomes the third musical act to perform on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Wednesday at 11 p.m. ET, Comedy Central). The Viva La Vida rockers follow in the sizable footsteps (or should that be piano/guitar riffs?) of Tom Waits (2006) and The White Stripes (2005).
If you miss it on the tube, look for Coldplay online Thursday at The Daily Show website.
BET AWARDS: Let's Stay Together? (Or maybe not)
June 23, 2008 12:42 PM
Any awards show that gives Al Green a lifetime achievement award is good-to-go in my book. But for how long beyond this week's Green bash should the BET Awards continue?
Sure, the star-studded evening (Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, BET; repeating Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m.) provides plenty of celeb sightings, musical performances, comedy zingers and fashion policing for the glam-gawkers in all of us. And what else is on TV these days anyway? Here's a free night of flush ratings for a fringe cable channel.
But the point of something like the race-reliant BET Awards seems long since past. It's not like black performers are overlooked by the Oscars/Emmys/Grammys anymore. BET's proceedings have begun to seem insularly congratulatory and a bit self-serving for both the channel and the honorees.
BET's isn't the only "awards" show that meets that definition, of course. VH1 Honors, Bravo's A-List Awards, MTV's several hundred variations on this theme (videos, movies, et al) -- they're all just an excuse for dress-up-and-dress-down opportunities in a culture that can't just-say-no to celebrity excess. More of them every year are imagined into existence by lower-level cable channels desperate to grab a slice of the glam. (You don't see HBO creating "awards" shows out of whole cloth.)
So maybe it's time to retire these statue-shoving soirees, in an age when mushrooming showbiz celebrations have pretty much devalued the concept of industry honors. (Seen the sinking ratings for the Oscars lately?) But that's just wishful thinking. These awards shows aren't going anywhere. Stars get seen. Designers get worn. Paparazzi get pix. Ratings get juiced. The appetite seems endless, if ultimately self-defeating.
Hey, is there an awards show for awards shows yet?
WEIRD & WILD: 'Roller Boogie'
June 20, 2008 10:39 AM
Xanadu comes out with a special-edition DVD Tuesday, and now Roller Boogie airs commercial free! What more does a disco baby need?
Maybe the disco-era stamina to stay up all night and watch it. An immortally nutty 1979 dud starring then-hot Exorcist girl Linda Blair, Roller Boogie (late Friday/early Saturday at 3:45 a.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies) airs as the second half of this week's TCM Underground double feature (following 2 a.m.'s equally non-terrific yet also perversely watchable 1980 flick The Apple, about a futuristic devil-ruled world marked mostly by glitter, fey boys and bad accents).
Boogie is basically an old-time MGM musical -- bored rich girl meets eccentrically talented poor boy, yada yada yada -- put to a disco beat on wheels. (Oh, Xanadu, where art thou?) At least you get to hear Earth Wind & Fire's "Boogie Wonderland," one of the few aural artifacts of the era that won't send you racing across the room to turn down the volume dial.
Wait, what am I saying? No remotes back then?! The horror . . . the horror . . .
ON VOD: 'Camp Rock' preview
June 19, 2008 7:24 AM
Parental warning -- Camp Rock overkill about to commence!
Remember how many times your tweens just had to watch High School Musical? And High School Musical 2? How many times they blasted the CD through the house, and the car? How much online time they spent at HSM websites? How many branded products they just had to buy?
You ain't seen nothin' yet. Camp Rock, the latest Disney consumer assault disguised as a TV movie musical, hits the air this week, all week. An over-the-top vehicle for the hot young Jonas Brothers -- if you haven't seen/heard these moptop rocker hotties, you don't know any kids -- the flick premieres officially on Disney Channel Friday at 8 p.m. ET. But it starts "previewing" on Disney Channel On Demand this Tuesday. (Consult your digital cable provider for availability.)
Then Camp Rock has its broadcast network debut on ABC Saturday, June 21 at 8 p.m. ET. Then Camp Rock gets a basic cable encore on ABC Family Sunday, June 22 at 8 p.m. ET. Then it runs 4,000 more times throughout the Disney/ABC TV universe.
That's not counting the CD release Tuesday. The DVD release Aug. 19. The jam-packed official website. The nonstop streams at Disney XD online. The "junior novel." The "poster book." The "musical memories" hardcover. The sticker collection. The myriad licensed products -- T-shirts, pajamas, pendant, dance mat, Post-It notes.
Camp Rock is soooo ginormous that they're already casting Camp Rock 2. But what if the first one's a dud? Silly us. Why would that matter?
FLICK PICKS: 'Posse' at 15
June 18, 2008 6:49 PM
Mario Van Peebles' western Posse was released 15 years ago as a black-cast oater featuring his director dad Melvin (Sweet Sweetback's), Isaac Hayes, Blair Underwood, "Tiny" Lister, rappers Big Daddy Kane and Tone Loc, and token white guys like Stephen Baldwin.
Digital cable's Starz In Black channel salutes the anniversary for Juneteenth. (Read about the black American end-of-slavery celebration here.) The 1993 film unreels at 8:25 p.m. ET, following Thursday's 8 p.m. ET retrospective Posse Rides Again. It's a different take worth saddling up for.
WEB TO TUBE: 'Rate My Space'
June 17, 2008 6:34 PM
Can 150 million page views be wrong? We'll find out Thursday, when the much-trafficked online site Rate My Space becomes the HGTV series Rate My Space (9 p.m. ET).
Designer Angelo Surmelis hosts this survey of in-home designs by site users, which are then judged by other online visitors with star ratings for creativity. Lower-rated designs can be improved with advice from Surmelis, and then re-posted at the web site in hopes of finally earning the coveted five stars.
Start shooting pix of your own place, upload, and cross your fingers.
HOT SPOT: 'Quantum Leap,' 'Dead Zone' repeats
June 15, 2008 6:19 PM
The ION network makes its own leap back weeknights this summer by stacking some escapist hours of recent vintage.
Quantum Leap (Monday-Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET) is the '90s fantasy fave starring Scott Bakula as a scientist who time-travels back to various eras within his own lifetime while "leaping" into other people's bodies. Only we see him as himself, instead of as a pregnant woman or a black man or the other relevant soul he now embodies; and only we see the ultra-dry Dean Stockwell as his hologram handler.
The Dead Zone (Monday-Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET) is the just-cancelled USA Network hour featuring Anthony Michael Hall as another, more mystic traveller, a onetime coma victim who awakens with psychic powers triggered by another person's touch.
ER (Monday-Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET) needs no explanation, but these episodes do. They're from the most recent three seasons of NBC's takes-a-licking-and-keeps-on-ticking hospital hit. With this coming NBC season announced as the series' last, here's a way to catch up before the show concludes.
Not sure where to find ION? Check the network's website here.
TV DVD: Father's Day dads
June 12, 2008 6:45 AM
From "Father Knows Best" to "Married . . . With Children," we've got some fun (and funky) DVD recommendations for Sunday's Father's Day yearly salute. Either of the wildly unrelated comedies above provides amusing viewing, along with a few other sets we've seen and recommend.
(List prices below are widely discounted. Click on the title links for Amazon's best deal.)
Father Knows Best (Shout, $35) -- No, he doesn't, really, in this Season 1 set at least. Robert Young's average family man Jim Anderson is actually at a loss much of the time in this classic single-camera sitcom's lively first TV season (1954-55, after five years on radio). When it comes to dealing with teen daughter Elinor Donahue (Betty, aka Princess), middle schooler Billy Gray (Bud, aka Bud, but officially James Jr.) or primed-to-pout little Lauren Chapin (Kathy, aka Kitten), it's wife/mom Jane Wyatt who's often the steadier hand, regardless of the show's title. This initial TV season includes a memorably sentimental Christmas episode -- stuck in the snowy woods with a wise old cabin squatter -- plus extra features including warm new cast interviews, home movies and a jaw-dropping time trip: a never-broadcast Cold War episode, made for the government, in which the Andersons spend a day living under Communism. And aren't they sorry!
Married . . . . With Children (Sony, $40 each) -- Ed O'Neill's sad sack Al Bundy is one of the tube's essential characters, a father-never-knows-best shoe salesman beset with a lazy consumerist wife (Katey Sagal), slutty daughter (Christina Applegate) and sleazy son (David Faustino). All he wants is to be left alone watching TV with his hand down his pants. This anti-Cosby Show created '80s controversy for its no-holds-barred irreverence, but has endured because it's a superbly delivered farce, secondarily disemboweling that vaunted all-American "ideal family." So far, eight seasons are out on DVD. The (somewhat) less crass early ones are better. Season 2 includes the LOL holiday takedown where Santa plummets from a helicopter into the Bundy backyard with a bottle of Muscatel in each hand. (And the coroner steals his jewelry.)
Make Room for Daddy (S'more, $40) -- This boutique distributor (which also released a must-have Mister Peepers collection) is responsible for the recent Season 6 set, where son Rusty Hamer has grown old enough to really give dad Danny Thomas what-for as the tube's prototypal talk-back kid. This '50s hit about a nightclub entertainer's Manhattan clan isn't widely seen anymore, so the Thomas-Hamer repartee becomes a nice surprise. So does the collection of cool cameos: Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Tony Bennett, Annette Funicello, Dinah Shore, and more.
Roseanne (Anchor Bay, $30-40 each) -- What would Roseanne Barr have been without John Goodman's balancing act? On second look, his Dan Conner actually provides more bite to Roseanne's bark than you might remember. This serious sitcom also offers a keener perspective on a husband-wife relationship in the eye of the parenting storm. All nine seasons are available. (Season 3 starts the series' mid-run strongest years.)
The Dick Van Dyke Show (Image, $40 each, complete series $250) -- Here's an earlier generation of realistic relationships, both husband-wife and parent-child, with Dick Van Dyke as a youthful dad juggling demanding work as a TV writer with raising Ritchie right. His scenes over five seasons with young Larry Matthews still feel fresh, and spot-on, and hilarious, nearly 50 years later.
The Addams Family (MGM, $30 each for 3 volumes; complete series $70) -- John Astin's Gomez Addams let his kids do pretty much whatever the hell they wanted -- crossbows, explosive chemistry -- so his '60s zillionaire eccentric now seems an early precursor of our recent laissez faire parenting style. But hey, who wouldn't have wanted to call this fun free spirit Dad?
The Rifleman (MPI, $50 each for 5 box sets of 20 episodes each, but out of print) -- Way out (old) west, Chuck Connors' Lucas McCain still shines as a role model to young Johnny Crawford, who learns about life and ethics from his trigger-averse (but -talented) single dad. These '50s half-hours somehow still play gracefully despite being a bit heavy-handed emotionally. They're certainly helped by brevity. Maybe network TV should try half-hour dramas again.
Everybody Loves Raymond (HBO, $45 each, complete series $280) -- No, not Ray Romano. We love Peter Boyle -- Ray's dad, the perpetually self-absorbed out-of-touch grouch who bitches endlessly about his wife but would die if he didn't have her to kick around all day. (And vice versa.) Only getting ornerier over the course of nine seasons, he's the tube's most classic parent of an adult parent. Unless you count . . .
Titus (Anchor Bay, $30 each for 2 volumes) -- Stacy Keach's over-the-top Ken Titus -- based on the real-life hard-drinking, womanizing, let-them-eat-poison dad of stand-up comic Christopher Titus -- certainly is another memorable adult-parent nightmare. Except, as son Titus' sitcom astutely points out, despite dad's wild ways and tough-love lesson-teaching, he was always there for his kids and perversely raised 'em right. (Even if they weren't his, since the doofus "brother" played by Zack Ward was actually the kid left behind by one of daddy Titus' ex-wives.) Smart, touching, often hysterical, all-too-underrated family comedy for adults.
And yes, I know -- I left out Homer Simpson, Ozzie Nelson, Archie Bunker, Mike Brady, Ward Cleaver, Andy Taylor, Tim Taylor, Jed Clampett, Ricky Ricardo, Cliff Huxtable, Danny Tanner, Tony Soprano and about a thousand other TV dads. (And My Three Sons and The Courtship of Eddie's Father haven't come out on DVD yet.)
Commemorate your favorite by clicking the Comments link and lionizing. Can't think of one? Visit Jim O'Kane's venerable site TVDads.com to have your pick of hundreds.
And happy father's day!
TUBE TRIBUTE: Sports TV's Jim McKay
June 11, 2008 8:52 PM
JIM McKAY: MY WORLD IN MY WORDS - Thursday at 7 p.m., Sunday at 11:30 a.m., HBO
The sportscaster's sportscaster who died last week is now honored with an encore of HBO's acclaimed 2003 portrait Jim McKay: My World in My Words, an intimate look at not just a star reporter but a soulful human being. (Also look for it via digital cable's HBO On Demand.)
McKay transcended the nuts-and-bolts of sports broadcasting with intelligence, enthusiasm and sensitivity, cataloguing an astonishing variety of events on ABC's groundbreaking Saturday afternoon magazine series Wide World of Sports through the 1960s and '70s, before cable and ESPN made smaller/obscure sports a ho-hum daily time-filler. His was the voice behind the enduring tagline "the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat" -- one more grace note from a TV-sports era reported not by adolescent shouters but mature men for whom sports was cast as a part of life, not life itself.
When he died June 7 at the age of 85, after 60 years in the business, McKay (born Jim McManus, and father of CBS sports and news chief Sean McManus) was best remembered by boomer sports fans -- and lionized among the broadcasters he influenced -- for his human response to the shocking events at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The games' Israeli athletes were held hostage and then killed by an earlier generation of terrorists, as the world sat stunned by this early incursion of zero-sum politics into the "gentleman's" competition that was supposed to bring the world together in harmony and fair play. (Of course, even then, sex-change operations and drug cheating had already put a sizable dent in that dream.)
His professional yet personal live announcement of the horror -- "When I was a kid, my father used to say our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized. Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They have now said that there were 11 hostages. Two were killed in their rooms this, excuse me, yesterday morning. Nine were killed at the airport tonight. They're all gone" -- managed to make us feel one where the games could not.
Where's the next Jim McKay?
HD ALERT: '2001: A Space Odyssey'
June 10, 2008 10:04 PM
STANLEY KUBRICK DUO - Thursday at 7 p.m. and midnight ET, UHD
Expatriate director Stanley Kubrick dazzled and mystified film freaks back in 1968 with his mind-blowing 2001: A Space Odyssey (Thursday at 7 p.m. ET, Universal HD). Novelist Arthur C. Clarke's sprawling past-and-future saga of cosmic import made for not only an eye-popping 70mm epic and brain-teasing fantasy, but also the perfect drug-date flick for the hippie era.
And you think you've got a computer nightmare on your desktop today? Remember all-controlling mainframe HAL? "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that . . . "
Kubrick mostly just mystified filmgoers, though, by the time of 1999's Eyes Wide Shut (Thursday at midnight, Universal HD), his valedictory, released four months after his death at age 70. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were recruited for yet another odyssey, this time sexual and contemporary, also unsettling, and also cryptic. Make up your own minds, Kubrick seemed to keep telling us, decades later.
2001 also airs Thursday at noon ET on Universal HD, where Eyes Wide Shut repeats late Thursday/early Friday at 3 a.m. ET.
VINTAGE TUBE: Rose & Morey movie
June 10, 2008 10:03 AM
DON'T WORRY, WE'LL THINK OF A TITLE - Wednesday at 6:15 a.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies
Set this DVR for this genuine curio, a 1966 feature film with Dick Van Dyke Show writers' room sidekicks Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam, plus show-within-a-show producer/foil Richard Deacon. I haven't seen it myself -- in fact, didn't even know it existed -- but I just know it must be deliriously horrible. It's about a defecting cosmonaut, and Morey Amsterdam wrote it.
Other tube titans featured: DVD Show creator Carl Reiner, bowl-cut stooge Moe Howard, F-Troop schemer Forrest Tucker, Irene "Granny" Ryan, and such TV pioneers as Milton Berle and Danny Thomas.
(Thanks to newsfromme.com for the photo.)
WEIRD & WILD: Timmy! on 'South Park'
June 8, 2008 6:30 PM
SOUTH PARK - Monday-Thursday at 9:30 p.m. ET, Comedy Central
Timm-EHH! The orange-haired wheelchair kid of South Park takes center stage in this week's 9:30 p.m. ET Comedy Central repeats. Must-see: the infamous Cripple Fight! where crutch-kid newbie Jimmy elbows in on the action (with some bad "motivational stand-up comedy").
The week's 9:30 lineup (or click episode title link to watch online):
Monday, June 9: Timmy 2000, when his ADD diagnosis inspires the entire class toward deficitdom drug use.
Tuesday, June 10: Cripple Fight!, where Jimmy joins Big Gay Al's scout troup for some nasty handi-rivalry.
Wednesday, June 11: Up the Down Steroid, with Cartman claiming disability, too.
Thursday, June 12: Krazy Kripples, where Timmy and Jimmy form their own gang.
WEIRD & WILD: Baby Week on DHC
June 7, 2008 8:04 PM
I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT - Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, Discovery Health
Oh, baby. And baby. And baby. That's all you'll see on Discovery Health the next six days as Baby Week 2008 takes over the channel with such premiere treats as the surprise-labor report I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant (Sunday at 8 p.m. ET) and Quads With 2 Moms (Monday at 8 p.m. ET), about a lesbian couple who each got implanted with twins.
OK, calling these shows "treats" may be a bit of sarcasm for me, child-free, and somehow immune to the cooing, cuddling and general awww-someness experienced by the women who flock to these shows. But Discovery Health promises "6 nights of unbelievable stories!" (exclamation point theirs), and the two shows mentioned above look primed to deliver. Other oddities include World's Smallest Mom (Wednesday at 8 ET), about a 2-foot-7 woman who delivered a full-size baby.
Get the lowdown on all of it at DHC's Baby Week 2008 site, packed with "amazing video," podcasts, pregnancy planning, and other baby-centric goodies I hope I'll never need.
FLICK PICKS: Laurel & Hardy on TCM
June 6, 2008 5:26 PM
LAUREL & HARDY -- Saturday mornings in June, Turner Classic Movies
Here's a great way to wake up to your weekend. Turner Classic Movies is running Laurel & Hardy comedy features Saturday mornings through June. And they're all talkies!
First up: Sons of the Desert (Saturday at 10 a.m., TCM), their 1933 jaunt to a lodge convention, also featuring silent veteran Charley Chase; and Our Relations (Saturday at 11:15 a.m., TCM), a 1936 hoot where Stan & Ollie play their own twins.
Further fun this month (all on TCM):
June 14: Block-Heads (1938) and Swiss Miss (1938), at 10 and 11 a.m.
June 21: Way Out West (1938) and A Chump at Oxford (1939), at 10 and 11:15 a.m.
June 28: The Flying Deuces (1939) and Saps at Sea (1940), at 10 and 11:15 a.m.
Watch Laurel & Hardy film clips at TCM's site here.
FLICK PICKS: Asia major in movies
June 2, 2008 8:58 AM
RACE AND HOLLYWOOD: ASIAN IMAGES IN FILM
June Tuesdays & Thursdays at 8 p.m., Turner Classic Movies
Did you know Asian actors were once ahead of the game in Hollywood, way back in silent film days? That's where Turner Classic Movies starts with its monthlong study of Race and Hollywood: Asian Images in Film.
The festival kicks off Tuesday, June 3, with a night of rarely seen treats, including pioneer superstar Sessue Hayakawa [right] in Cecil B. De Mille's influential 1915 feature The Cheat (Tuesday at 8 p.m.) and Lon Chaney playing Chinese in 1927's Mr. Wu (Tuesday night at midnight, both on TCM).
Thursday, June 5, salutes early sex symbol Anna May Wong with a nightlong marathon from 8 p.m., including such sensual gems as 1929's drama Piccadilly (Thursday at 10:45 p.m.) and the Marlene Dietrich vehicle Shanghai Express (late Thursday at 2 a.m., both on TCM).
Charlie Chan and Jackie Chan yet to come! Monthlong lineup, great background scoop at TCM's Race and Hollywood site.
