Month: July 2019

Stories

Moon landing: Was it 50 years ago or 500?

As moon-landing films fill our TV screens, something becomes clear:
The world has changed profoundly in the past 50 years. These documentaries show a 1969 when:
— Americans obsessed on the Soviet threat. It “really was kind of war by another means,” said Robert Stone, whose three-night film starts Monday (July 8) on PBS.
— The space program was all-white. It went 23 years before having a black man in space.
— And it was virtually all-male (as shown in this celebration photo). You can ask Poppy Northcutt, who was then the lone woman at Mission Control. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 5, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for July 7: It’s “Movies” night on TV

1) “The Movies” debut, 9 p.m. ET, CNN (barring breaking news), rerunning at midnight. This is like the former Disney World ride that zipped us through Hollywood history — fast and fun, but never really staying anywhere for long. The opener takes us through the 1980s. It has fresh interviews with the great filmmakers – Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Rob Reiner, Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, the late John Singleton – and a few actors, critics and historians. It has a few insights — Tom Hanks calls “Roger Rabbit” (shown here) the most difficult filmmaking ever — and lots of quick, fun clips. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 5, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for July 6: Masterful music movies

1) “A Star is Born” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” (both 2018), 5:40 and 8 p.m., HBO. Two stories about singers – the first fiction, the second true – beautifully blend music and emotion. Both drew Academy Award nominations for best picture. “Star” — superbly directed by Bradley Cooper, with great performances from Cooper and Lady Gaga (shown here) – won a best-song Oscar; “Rhapsody” won best actor (for Rami Malek as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury) plus three Oscars for sound and for editing. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 4, 2019
Weekly Previews

Week’s best-bets for July 8: Maybe funny, maybe sexy

1) “Bring the Funny” debut, 10 p.m. Tuesday, NBC. Like reluctant lovers, NBC and “Last Comic Standing” had a tenuous relationship. The show – a stand-up comedy competition — ran for nine seasons, but was cancelled three times – once for a year, then for three, then forever. Now, four years later, a new show arrives. Instead of being confined to stand-up, it will include sketch troupes, magicians and more. Amanda Seales (second from left) hosts, with Jeff Foxworthy, Kenan Thompson and Chrissy Teigen as the judges. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 3, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for July 5: Visit Hollywood’s finest year

1) “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), 8 p.m. Friday, Turner Classic Movies, and more. First is “Oz,” which on Aug. 25 will turn 80. Then is a 10 p.m. documentary, “1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year.” That’s no exaggeration: The American Film Institute lists “Oz” as the 10th-best movie ever … but it won only two Oscars, both for music. That year had “Gone With the Wind” (No. 6 with the AFI), plus “Mr. Chips,” “Mr. Smith” (No. 26), “Ninotchka” (6 p.m. today), “Stagecoach,” “Of Mice and Men” and more. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 3, 2019
Stories

“The Movies”: A joyride through the post-auteur era

As the 1980s began, movie moguls were still in their ’60s/’70s haze.
Perplexed by the new generation, they’d written big checks to “auteurs” — directors who looked and sounded hip and artful. Then “Heaven’s Gate” happened.
“It was a shot through the heart of the auteur era,” journalist Chris Connelly says in the opener of “The Movies,” CNN’s blitz-paced series.
“Heaven’s Gate” cost $44 million and made $3.5 million in North America. Its director (Michael Cimino, fresh from the Oscar-winning “Deer Hunter”), would go five years before his next movie … its studio (United Artists) would collapse … and Hollywood would regress. That was in 1980, a convenient starting point for this opener. It eyes the ’80s, the post-auteur era. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 2, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for July 4: A night of music and spectacle

1) A Capitol Fourth,” 8 p.m., PBS, rerunning at 10. Here’s the annual, feel-good blend of music and fireworks. It’s strong on Broadway – Carole King with the cast of “Beautiful,” Vanessa Williams, Laura Olnes. But it also has gospel (Yolanda Adams), country (Lee Brice), R&B (The O’Jays) and lots of pop: Colbie Caillat is part of the Gone West band; there are also winners of “American Idol” (Laine Hardy) and “The Voice” (Maelyn Jarmon), plus an “America’s Got Talent” runner-up (Angelica Hale). Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 2, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for July 3: Flow with the Mississippi

1) “Rivers of Life,” 8 p.m., PBS. You rarely see anyone try to climb up a waterfall. But a guy actually does that in the Rockies, when the water freezes. That’s one of many views we get of the sprawling tributaries of the Mississippi. They reach 31 states (including the Yellowstone spot shown here); they form a basin that produces 92 per cent of U.S. food exports, this film (great visuals, so-so narration) says. The Mississippi hauls the equivalent of 49 million truckloads of freight each year. This hour goes from the frozen North to a million-acre Southern swamp. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 1, 2019