Please pardon a brief detour: This item is mostly for people in the Lansing, Mich., area.
Then again, it’s also for anyone who likes Linda Ronstadt (shown here) … which is a lot of people.
Last month, I had a story about the terrific Ronstadt documentary, when it aired on CNN. Now it’s showing at the Studio C in Okemos, as part of the indie film series. Read more…
1) Super Bowl, 6:30 p.m. ET, Fox. After three straight years of rooting for or against the New England Patriots, we now have new teams. The Pats have been in five of the past eight Super Bowls, winning three of them, but here are two others: The Kansas City Chiefs haven’t been to the game in 50 years; the San Francisco 49ers were there in 2013, their only Super Bowl loss after five wins. To get here, Jimmy Garoppolo (shown here) and the 49ers bounced back from a 4-14 season … and the Chiefs overcome a 24-0 deficit in a play-off game. Read more…
1) Academy Awards, 8 p.m. Sunday, ABC. The bad news is that there will again be no host; at times (including this year’s Emmys), the result can be drab and dreary. And the good? It’s a wide-open field, with no sure winners … and the music should be great. We’ll hear some powerhouse voices – Cynthia Erivo(shown here) will do a song she co-wrote for “Harriet,” Idina Menzel will do a song from “Frozen II.” We’ll also hear Elton John (“Rocketman”), Randy Newman (“Toy Story 4”) and Chrissy Metz (“Breakthrough”). Read more…
There are plenty of people, it seems, with no great stake in the Super Bowl
.For various reasons – sanity or sobriety or sheer orneriness – they don’t carer whether it’s a Chief or a 49er who dumps Gatorade on his coach
.They want to watch TV on Sunday … which isn’t easy. With the game on Fox, the other commercial broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, even CW) are all ducking into rerunsw. So are Showtime and Starz. Still, that leaves some solid alternatives that includes: Read more…
1) “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) and “Funny Girl” (1968), 8 and 11:30 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. The 25th year of “31 Days of Oscar,” starts splendidly. It will be stuffed with Oscar-winners, each with a connection to the film that follows, In this case, the link is Omar Sharif (. He stars in the large and lush “Zhivago,” then co-stars in the musical “Funny Girl.” Both were nominated for best picture, but didn’t win. “Zhivago” won five other Oscars; “Funny Girl” won for Barbra Streisand’s great performance, mixing humor, heartbreak and superb music. Read more…
1) “Magnum P.I.” mid-season finale, 9 p.m., CBS. Faced with a drama overload, CBS keeps shuffling. Next week, “Tommy” (an excellent Edie Falco cop show) takes over the “Evil” slot on Thursday and “MacGyver” (on the shelf for four-plus months) returns to Fridays. .“Magnum” steps aside for a while, after tonight’s episode (shown here): Jin, the pickpocket, learns that an innocent woman is the target of a hit; he asks Magnum and Higgins to protect her. Read more…
1) “The Good Place” series-finale, 8:30-10 p.m., NBC. One of the TV’s best and brightest shows is leaving – voluntarily and way too soon. “Good Place” (shown here in a previous episode) has won the best-comedy award from the Television Critics Association and been nominated by the Emmys and the Golden Globes. It’s won Peabody and American Film Institute awards, while taking a smart and offbeat look at the afterlife. Last week, our characters finally got to the real “good place” and Michael (Ted Danson) was put in charge. Read more…
Sunday (Feb. 2) will be a musical day for the Fox network.
It will be J-Lo and Shakira. It will be Dan + Shay + Pitbull + more, including people wearing masks (shown here).
Also, there will be some football. And some commercials. Read more…
1) “Harry & Meghan: The Royals in Crisis,” 8 p.m., Fox. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (shown here) exited their royal duties, pop culture hit overdrive. Fox says this hour, produced by TMZ, has Mark Cuban, Lisa Vanderpump, Phil McGraw and “more than a dozen people with real ties” to the royals. Read more…
It’s happened twice now in eight years.
The Grammy people were ready for the usual fun and flash and spectacle. Then, at the last moment, there was a stunning death.
In 2012 it was Whitney Houston, who had some of her greatest moments at the Grammys
This year it was Kobe Bryant (shown here), who had his greatest moments at the Staples Center, where the ceremony is held.Both times, the Grammy people responded beautifully. Both times, they had the right person hosting. Read more…
