January 2009 Archives

TV WORTH BUYING: 'Get Smart' deal

January 29, 2009 1:35 PM

Great price on Amazon's deal of the day -- Don Adams' 1960s spy spoof Get Smart, an enduring comic treat from writers Mel Brooks (pre-feature films) and Buck Henry (pre-Saturday Night Live), with mod icon Barbara Feldon playing savvy Agent 99 to Adams' silly Agent 86.

The entire boxed set of five seasons is on sale Thursday for $68, down from a $200 list price and Amazon's regular $105 tab. Only the first season has yet hit retail individually; Season 2 is due March 10.

Bonus features are abundant, too, with each season getting an entire disc of extras -- commentaries/interviews with Brooks, Henry and other cast/crew; audio intros by Feldon; making-of featurettes and pop culture retrospectives; a 2003 reunion; other TV appearances by Adams and Feldon; even archival material like network standards and practices (i.e., censor) memos -- all packaged in a box with opening "doors" like the show's classic credits sequence. It's another exceptional DVD set produced by our "raider of the lost archives" pal Paul Brownstein.

Get Smart isn't just fun to watch -- then and now -- but also resonates today as shaping an entire generation's sense of humor and wit. Kids who grew up watching this lampoon of the '60s James Bond craze would become the original audience for Saturday Night Live and Brooks' '70s big-screen skewerings of westerns, Hitchcock, horror flicks and more. This is where TV humor got hip.

And don't get us started on the catchphrases that became pop culture ubiquities. "Sorry about that, Chief." "Missed it by that much." "I asked you not to tell me that!" "Would you believe..."

Would you believe this DVD is a don't-miss deal?

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HOT SPOT: Elvis Costello's quadruple 'Spectacle'

January 28, 2009 3:16 PM

If you haven't seen Elvis Costello's smart Sundance Channel interview/ performance series Spectacle, here's a great chance to catch up.

Wednesday night holds four straight episodes 6-10 p.m. ET, spanning the wide range of artists Costello probes in fresh, insightful conversation.

Here's the Sundance Channel lineup:

The Police (Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET) -- Costello's Watching the Detectives rocks anew with Sting, Andy and Stewart backing him. Flip it over for Walking on the Moon. They discuss musical influences from Charles Mingus to Arab sounds. And the host isn't above digging into their various breakups/makeups, either.

Rufus Wainwright (Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET) -- Yes, he's gay. Get over it. But hear the Memphis Skyline singer-songwriter talk about it first. (And perform his hit.)

Kris Kristofferson, Rosanne Cash, Norah Jones and John Mellencamp (Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET) -- They were country before and after country was/wasn't cool. Now hear about the influences that shaped their art and careers.

Renee Fleming (Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET) -- In this new hour, the American soprano assesses the impact of pop culture on opera. Hear her invoke The Lord of the Rings. (Repeats Thursday night at midnight ET.)

Upcoming guests include jazz master Herbie Hancock (Feb. 4); She & Him (featuring Zooey Deschanel), Jenny Lewis and Jakob Dylan (Feb. 11); Costello's wife, singer/pianist Diana Krall, interviewed by series executive producer Elton John (Feb. 18), and Motown legend Smokey Robinson (Feb. 25).

Clips galore at the Spectacle series official site. Check your cable provider's On Demand listings for anytime viewing.

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TALK TALK: Inside the Comedy Studio

January 23, 2009 1:02 PM

Conan O'Brien is the latest James Lipton interviewee/victim on Inside the Actors Studio Monday 8-10 p.m. ET on Bravo.

But not before Lipton grills/sucks up to a whole bunch of other funny folks in a Monday daytime marathon 10 a.m.-8 p.m. ET.

(And what does this have to do with the Actors Studio again?)

Here's Bravo's Monday lineup, all times ET:
10 a.m. - Jay Leno
11 a.m. - Julia Louis-Dreyfus
12 p.m. - Ricky Gervais
1 p.m. - Chris Rock
3 p.m. - Eddie Murphy
5 p.m. - Dave Chappelle
7 p.m. - The Simpsons

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TAPE THIS: 'Profit' in its entirety Friday

January 22, 2009 11:25 PM

Sorry for the late heads-up, but I just noticed Chiller is airing Adrian Pasdar's entire kinky Profit series Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.

This is the utterly original 1996 Fox saga from David Greenwalt and John McNamara, about a sleekly amoral executive who sleeps naked inside a packing box with the TV forever on, when he isn't doing his junkie stepmother or killing to climb the corporate ladder.

You know. The usual.

(Or watch it on DVD with cool bonus features.)

Also in the Chiller rotation these days: Brimstone (a Saturday marathon), Strange World (Sunday marathon), Freakylinks, Kindred: The Embraced, and David Lynch's immortal Twin Peaks.

Check the Chiller schedule here.

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FLICK PICKS: Ricardo Montalban tribute on TCM

January 22, 2009 5:48 PM

What, no Wrath of Khan?! Nope, not in Turner Classic Movies' all-day Friday salute to beloved actor Ricardo Montalban, who died Jan. 14 at the age of 88. But that Star Trek II smash does show up Friday at 2:30 p.m. ET on OuterMax (and four more times soon after on other Cinemax digital channels).

First, though, comes TCM's quickly scheduled tribute to the suave Latin star possibly more famous for his TV work as Mr. Roarke on Aaron Spelling's 1980 all-star time-waster Fantasy Island -- and as the 1970s pitchman for the Chrysler Cordoba's "soft Co-reen-thee-an leather."

TCM's Friday titles include:

7:30 a.m. ET -- Fiesta, the 1947 musical vehicle for swimmer/actress Esther Williams, with Montalban as her bullfighter brother.

9:30 a.m. ET -- Neptune's Daughter, Williams' 1949 musical smash, with Montalban duetting on Baby It's Cold Outside. Their costars include comic Red Skelton and bandleader Xavier Cugat.

11:15 a.m. ET -- Latin Lovers, a 1953 romance with Lana Turner.

1 p.m. ET -- Border Incident, director Anthony Mann's gritty 1949 film noir about illegal immigration.

2:45 p.m. ET -- Battleground, 1949's acclaimed "band of brothers" war drama starring Van Johnson.

4:45 p.m. ET -- Across the Wide Missouri, a 1951 tale of the 19th century fur trade, headlined by Clark Gable.

6:15 p.m. ET -- The Singing Nun, the 1966 biopic starring Debbie Reynolds in a habit with a guitar, with Montalban as a priest.

The actor's scene-stealing stint as the genetically engineered title villain in 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan unreels Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. ET on MoreMax, and next shows up Tuesday at 2 p.m. ET on ThrillerMax. Check the Cinemax schedule online for further airings.

The actor can also be found causing trouble in Leslie Nielsen's cop spoof The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (Saturday at 4:55 a.m. ET on HBO2).

Check local listings for his final credited role, as The Cow, on the scattershot animated hit Family Guy (showing in New York Jan. 30 at 7:30 p.m. ET on WPIX/11).

Also look for syndicated airings of the 1967 Star Trek episode Space Seed, with Montalban's original appearance as Khan. Or watch it on DVD. Or streaming free online.

So now, where are those Fantasy Island reruns? At least we've got this online "minisode" -- with Charo playing a noble surrogate mother!

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THINK AGAIN: Tune back in to 'ER'

January 22, 2009 12:33 PM

ER doesn't often intersect with Monty Python, but a strange connection came to me watching last Thursday's fresh NBC episode. Like the guy being dragged off by the plague corpse collectors in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, this hospital drama is "not dead yet."

While it's easy to take potshots at a 15-year-old series whose ratings are down dramatically from its Nielsen-topping heyday, it's also easy to continue watching ER this final season and still find a lot to like. The Jan. 15 episode, "Dream Runner," provided a fascinating "Groundhog Day"-experience for Parminder Nagra's Dr. Neela, who several times repeated one harrowing day in which patients died in heartbreaking ways. The satisfaction came in seeing how the different choices made -- operate, or wait; go along with other doctors' decisions, or disagree forcefully -- either changed the outcome dramatically or changed it hardly at all.

The drama was entertaining enough, with Neela at a professional and personal crossroads, but even more rewarding was how thought-provoking it was. What's the point of guilt and second-guessing? Do they inspire us to better consider our choices? Or do they simply sap our energies and distract us from the now? Plenty to ponder, or not, up to you, and gratifying either way.

That achievement is nothing to sneeze at in an era when at least some networks -- especially ER's -- seem prepared to at least back-burner or perhaps even completely abandon this type of drama, with its deeply considered humanity and sophisticated production values. Do we really want a broadcast schedule consumed by cheesy "reality," brain-dead game shows, disposable jokes and product-placement adventures?

Tune back in to ER while you can, before it's gone. (You can watch "Dream Runner" streaming free online here.) Tonight offers another fresh episode, while Jan. 29 repeats the flashback return of Anthony Edwards' Dr. Greene [at right], Feb. 5 brings back William H. Macy's Dr. Morgenstern, and Feb. 12's hour is directed by former cast member Eriq LaSalle. NBC has ordered three additional episodes for this final season, pushing the series finale back to April 2.

Revisit previous ER seasons and watch memorable moments at NBC's look-back web site. Or order discounted DVDs from the first 10 seasons here.

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WATCH ONLINE: Classic 'Prisoner' episodes

January 21, 2009 11:06 AM

Patrick McGoohan may have died, but The Prisoner isn't going anywhere, except into every home on the planet. AMC has started streaming all 17 episodes of McGoohan's surreal '60s classic as a lead-up to the cabler's modern re-think debuting later this year.

But if AMC's Prisoner site is designed to whet our appetite for that new Jim Caviezel/Ian McKellan take, it also pays sterling tribute to McGoohan's original revelation, as both creator and star of a starkly artistic series it's hard to believe ever aired on one of America's Big Three networks in their stodgy '60s incarnations. (The country may have been in Vietnam-era tumult at the time, but CBS, NBC and ABC couldn't have been more plodding in their Beverly Hillbillies/Bonanza era.)

David Bianculli's Prisoner tribute sets the scene, so let me survey AMC's worthy site. Its "classic series" section outlines the '60s show's core premise, recaps each episode, and pays tribute to McGoohan (fans do, too), then goes on to offer photos, games, forums and, yes, all those gloriously inventive episodes.

Not inventive in the sense of technical mastery -- although using that low-tech weather balloon as a terrifying body-enveloping torture is pretty ingenious -- but in the way The Prisoner builds psychological suspense and gamesmanship. And insight. McGoohan's scripts really did herald the rebellions then burgeoning just under society's surface. At a time people were beginning to feel that individuality had vanished, that each of us was just a powerless number (6, perhaps?), McGoohan's mysteriously detained Prisoner insisted he would not be "pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!" He resigned from it all. But could he truly escape?

Ah, the question awaiting us all. AMC's upcoming reimagining, teased throughout the rest of the site, should provide clearer answers than the original (which is also available complete on DVD for lingering inspection). While it's unlikely to please devotees of McGoohan's provocative ambiguity, the new approach seems designed to satisfy the instant-info exigency of the internet age. Meeting with TV critics at their midseason press tour recently, star McKellen said, "By Episode 6, you'll know everything about The Village, where it came from, who created it and why, what it's like to actually live there."

Hmm. That undercuts a primary reason why the '60s Prisoner remains so immensely intriguing four decades on: The conclusions to be drawn must take shape within the viewer's own mind.

We'll give AMC's version a look. But McGoohan's classic informs our lives.

Be seeing you!

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TV WORTH BUYING: Ricky Gervais' 'Extras' at deep discount

January 21, 2009 9:52 AM

Another sterling DVD deal from Amazon for Wednesday only -- Ricky Gervais' entire Extras series for $15!

That's both six-episode seasons and the feature-length conclusion of the original The Office creator-star's achingly funny portrait of a two-bit movie extra who suddenly becomes a sitcom star/hack. Has he really realized his dreams?

This HBO effort is just as sharp and poignant as Gervais' BBC The Office was. And that's more than worth a look, too. (Even if it's not as great a sale.)

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TV WORTH BUYING: 'Band of Brothers' deal on Blu-ray

January 20, 2009 12:21 PM

Amazon's daily deal for Tuesday is a literal beauty -- Band of Brothers on Blu-ray for just $35 (down $19 from regular price and $65 from list price!). That's less than the standard-def set costs today.

HBO's moving Tom Hanks-produced miniseries about World War II foot soldiers not only looks gorgeous on disc but is an amazing aural treat, too, in surround sound that puts you in the midst of the action. Read Amazon's appreciative customer reviews of the Blu-ray version (with its informational pop-ups), and order away.

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WATCH ONLINE: Inauguration without TV?

January 19, 2009 7:31 PM

Not near a TV set for Tuesday's historic presidential events? Try watching on your computer. Or in Times Square.

ABC plans to stream its broadcast coverage on the ABC News home page, beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET.

NBC will also stream inauguration coverage at MSNBC's home page, as well as an Inauguration Dashboard collecting video feeds.

CBS News coverage will be shown not only online but also live in Manhattan's Times Square on the 40-feet-wide MTV HD video screen, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET.

Fox plans Strategy Room roundtable streaming from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET, with inauguration ceremonies live online, too.

C-SPAN is touting its online Inauguration Hub as a "one stop shop" for coverage, providing a "control room" grid of live video feeds from various locations 6 a.m.-midnight ET.

Current will Twitter the inauguration from 11:30 a.m. ET, incorporating the tweets into its TV coverage, which also streams online.

Besides the broadcast networks and cable news, other TV channels are getting into the act.

TV One's 24 hours of inauguration-related coverage includes live daytime events 10 a.m.-6 p.m. ET and evening parties 10 p.m.-midnight ET, leading into a live hour wrapup at midnight ET.

Nickelodeon airs vignettes of inauguration footage starting at 8 p.m. ET on Nickelodeon, The N and Nicktoons.

Even PBS' NewsHour With Jim Lehrer has expanded its coverage to include social networking tools like Flikr, Twitter and Facebook.

Check your favorite channel's web site. They're probably getting in the game, too.

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WEIRD & WILD: Midgets & freaks

January 14, 2009 1:48 PM

If you've never seen an all-midget western musical, here's your chance. And if you've already been, um, lucky enough to catch The Terror of Tiny Town, you can savor it again late Friday night at 2 a.m. ET on Turner Classic Movies.

Can't say it's brilliant, but its mere existence says something about the wonders of Hollywood movies, especially since it was made in 1938 -- 1938! Who knew they had such a sense of irony, absurdity and sheer gonzo-ness back then? Or was Columbia Pictures actually playing it straight with this little (pun both intended and not) marvel?

Many of the pint-size performers -- no insult, since the "novelty" of their size provided pretty much the film's entire appeal -- would soon be seen in 1939's classic-to-be The Wizard of Oz, as residents of Munchkinland. Those were hardly hefty roles -- in fact even more a novelty than the character/speaking parts of Tiny Town -- so the fun-poking western at least let them strut their stuff as actors to an extent rarely provided.

Check out the video clips, photos and other detritus thoughtfully provided by the web site for TCM's Underground late-night Friday showcase, a worthy successor to USA cable's old Night Flight eccentricity. Stay tuned to TCM late Friday/early Saturday for two idiosyncratic early-talkie treats featuring oft-incomprehensible dwarf actor Harry Earles: Lon Chaney's sole sound film, the con flick The Unholy Three (3:30 a.m. ET), and director Tod Browning's imposingly bizarre kill-thriller Freaks (4:45 a.m. ET), where Earles heads a one-time-only cast of real-life sideshow performers [in photo with Browning, below] taking revenge on malicious full-sizers.

DVD recorders were made for this.

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FLICK PICKS: Jack Lemmon on TCM

January 7, 2009 11:25 AM

Let other people be Movie Stars. Jack Lemmon was America's Everyman.

A manic modern husband. A mousy Navy ensign. An eager-beaver young executive used by his wily old boss. A murder-witnessing musician fleeing for his life -- in drag.

So maybe that last one isn't so everyday. But Lemmon could pull that off, too, as made blissfully evident on Turner Classic Movies each Wednesday in January, when TCM unreels 25 sweet (and sour) delights featuring its Star of the Month.

The initial lineup spotlights early Lemmon, from the mid-1950s, when he was establishing himself as a leading light in Hollywood's humor shift away from the louder screwball-driven style of previous decades toward "contemporary" light comedy. As the perfect male partner for bubbly Judy Holliday in one of their two frothy pairings, 1954's Phffft! (Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, TCM), he's an ex-husband who can't seem to get the ex- part finalized. (TCM has scheduled their earlier team effort, It Should Happen to You, for the afternoon of Feb. 1.)

The night also includes Lemmon's star break -- and Oscar-winning effort -- in 1955's Mister Roberts (Wednesday at 9:45 p.m. ET, TCM). The Naval comedy came from Broadway with noble Henry Fonda in the title role, then added dynamic James Cagney as the volcanic Captain, which only made Lemmon more relatable as the nervous Ensign Pulver.

Next week's Jan. 14 slate of circa-'60 titles finds Lemmon a bankable lead in such all-time classics as The Apartment and Some Like It Hot [photo at right], plus my personal favorite, The Fortune Cookie, his first pairing with Walter Matthau. Its shady antics reteamed Lemmon with biting writer-director Billy Wilder, who helmed all four of the star's Jan. 14 films (also including Irma La Douce).

Wilder spotted not just killer comic timing in Lemmon but, more crucially, a resonant well of anguish underlying the laughs. And strength, too, even when he's victimized. That's what makes The Apartment so moving (with Shirley MacLaine's help, of course). And what sets up perhaps the movies' best-ever final line, in Some Like It Hot. Lemmon's quite a man, after all . . .

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WEIRD & WILD: Spock/Kirk & Elvis & CES -- oh, my!

January 6, 2009 12:48 PM

Let Bianculli cover the network biggies. I prefer sifting through the more obscure sands of cable/satellite to find peculiar jewels among the junk.

Like a new Shatner's Raw Nerve where the BIO host pokes away at old Trek second Leonard Nimoy's. Or PBS' fresh Make: recycling how-to, where old VCRs get turned into kitty feeding machines. Or G4's live CES coverage of the hottest electronics. Or, from TV Land, the inevitable Elvis.

Who needs the networks, eh?

Here's just a taste of what's coming up, in this first full week of the year:

Shatner's Raw Nerve (Tuesday at 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET, BIO) -- How shocked were we when the infamously self-interested William Shatner turned out to be a sensitive, probing and good-listener chat host? Shut up! This week, the Shat sits face-to-face with '60s Star Trek costar Leonard Nimoy, whom we'd pegged as the sensitive, probing listener, as evidenced by his film directing, many writings and acclaimed photography. Go figure. And go figure these two together in this intimate, let-it-all-hang-out setting. Not "logical," as Spock would say. But "fascinating." (Miss it? Nimoy's appearance repeats on BIO next Tuesday, Jan. 13 at 10:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. ET.)

MAKE: television (check this week's local PBS listings) -- This spinoff of the helpful webmag inspires us to spot treasure in our trash. Now you can learn "how to make a fully functional pneumatic T-shirt cannon/Burrito Blaster in the privacy of your own living room"! Better yet, use that old VCR motor to create an automated feline feeder, as explained in this week's premiere, along with bicycles built from dumpster dives. Then try them yourself by following illustrated step-by-step instructions online and/or viewing or downloading videos posted free all over the web, at makezine.tv, YouTube, iTunes, LegalTorrents.com, etc. (Local premieres include New York's WLIW Wednesday at 11:30 p.m. ET, San Francisco's KQED Saturday at 8 a.m. PT, and Washington's WETA Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET. Check local listings in other cities.)

CES 2009 (Thursday-Friday 6-9 p.m. ET/PT, G4) -- Ogle all the cutting-edge goodies from this week's Consumer Electronics Show, with news announcements, product demos, press conferences, interviews and more, from 2,700 exhibitors in 30 product categories. Attack of the Show hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn lead the coverage from "the #1 podcasted cable network in America," as G4 boasts. That means you can also ogle online (G4tv.com, iTunes, Zune, etc.), via mobile (Verizon VCAST, iPhone), through gaming portals (Wii, PS3), et al.

The King's Birthday Bash (Thursday 9 p.m.-midnight ET, TV Land) -- Imagine a 74-year-old Elvis Presley. That's what we'd be seeing this week, had The Pelvis not perished in 1977. This "prime"-centric cabler thinks its target audience of young boomers cares. (Really?) So they're encoring their own Myths and Legends: Elvis (9 and 11:30 p.m.) and the personal tribute Elvis by the Presleys (9:30 p.m.). Not enough Elvis for you? Try other Thursday airings by Turner Classic Movies (seven straight Presley pictures from 7:30 a.m. ET), BIO (Priscilla Presley bio at 9 a.m. ET), and yes, even QVC (5-6 p.m. ET). Comcast On Demand offers the additional thrill of anytime karaoke to Elvis' Suspicious Minds and Heartbreak Hotel. Start singing!

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FLICK PICKS: Jean Harlow, no dumb blonde

January 6, 2009 10:09 AM

She even reads books! That's the punchline of the first of five fun films starring Jean Harlow, Dinner at Eight (Saturday at 8 p.m., Turner Classic Movies). The night's TCM mini-festival spotlights the brassy blonde's sex appeal and comedic spark as well as her dramatic chops (or lack thereof), in early films from 1931-33.

Dinner at Eight is a sleek MGM all-star affair, where a 1933 high society dinner party attracts not only Harlow (in a gown so tight, the actress literally could not sit down while wearing it), but also superstars John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Marie Dressler (author of the movie's classic book-reading double take). When it came to glitz and fizz, director George Cukor knew what he was doing.

The next two films scream Harlow in their titles. The 1933 satire Bombshell (Saturday at 10 p.m., TCM) centers on a glam actress being used by everyone in Hollywood, while 1931's newspaper comedy Platinum Blonde (11:45 p.m.) casts her as a society babe.

High-voltage actors make Harlow sizzle in the final two flicks. Clark Gable stars in 1933's Hold Your Man (1:30 a.m.), a dramedy followup to their steamy tropical affair Red Dust. And James Cagney shot to stardom in 1931's The Public Enemy (3 a.m.), with Harlow still learning how to act as a society dame smitten with Cagney's gangster.

Seeing how bright Harlow shines makes it hard to believe her light would be extinguished by 1937, when she died suddenly at the young age of 26. That makes each and every Harlow film appearance worth seeing.

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