Day: May 26, 2021

News and Quick Comments

Cruella: epic sympathy for the de Vil

It isn’t easy, we’re told, to stir sympathy for the Devil.
Or, in this case, for de Vil. But a new mega-movie, arriving Friday (May 28), manages to do it.
“Cruella” (shown here) – the story of Cruella de Vil, the “101 Dalmatians” villain – opens in movie theaters and is simultaneously available to Disney+ customers who pay an extra Premier Access fee. My advice is the same as someone said (about another film) during the Oscars: “See it on the biggest screen you can.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / May 26, 2021

Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for May 28: The births of Cruella and Richie

1) “The Dick Van Dyke Show – Now in Living Color,” 8 p.m., CBS. For the second straight Friday, CBS has two episodes of this great series, with color added by computer. This pair – which also aired in 2018 – has one of the show’s flashback delights (shown here): Richie asks his parents where he came from; he soon gets a long account of the misadventures leading up to his birth. Then there’s a vacation that goes bizarrely wrong: Among other things, Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) has her toe stuck in the bathtub. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / May 26, 2021

Stories

At last: We spy our pets’ secret lives

Many of us may wonder what our pets do when we’re gone.
Do they scheme and plot? … Or grumble and grouse? … Or just hit the hyper-relaxation mode?
Now a new series, “Housebroken” (shown here) has the answer: Pets conduct their own group-therapy sessions.
Yes, the show (9 p.m. Mondays on Fox, starting May 31) is a cartoon. “There’s just so much freedom in animation,” said actress-turned-producer Clea DuVall. Cats can talk, turtles can dash; she can envision big stunts that “would be half of your budget (without) animation.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / May 26, 2021