News and Quick Comments

News and Quick Comments

Angela and Elizabeth: two grand, 96-year journeys

Two grand Englishwomen had almost parallel lives.
Angela Lansbury and Queen Elizabeth both died at 96. Lansbury was born a half-year earlier and died a month later – Tuesday (Oct. 11), five days shy of her 97th birthday.
They did meet, at Windsor Castle. That was in 2014 (shown here), when Lansbury – then doing a play in London – officially became a Dame.
Both women had a refreshing mixture of intelligence and diligence. And neither mastered the notion of retiring: Elizabeth held her job for 70 years; Lansbury was a working actress for 77. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 12, 2022
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From teen Clark to Grandpa Sam

Tom Welling, once a teen-aged Clark Kent, is about to play a great-grandfather. Well, sort of.
Welling (shown here) will join “The Winchesters” (8 p.m. Tuesdays on CW) later this year. He’ll play Samuel Campbell, the gruff and distant father of Mary Campbell.
Since the show is a prequel, fans know the rest: Mary married John Winchester and begat Sam and Dean Winchester, the demon-hunting heroes in 15 seasons of “Supernatural.” That means Welling’s character is the future grandfather of Sam and Dean and great-grandfather of Dean II and Emma. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 10, 2022
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Hill was the voice of Bosch, Reacher, Wallander, more

Dick Hill was many things – a great stage actor, a powerful singer and, I’m told, a splendid painter. He also did the New York Times crossword puzzle each day, in ink.
But Hill — who died Oct. 4 at 75 — may be best-known for something else — as a great narrator.
That’s his voice – a rich baritone – transforming into Jack Reacher and Harry Bosch aad Kurt Wallander and more. He narrated audio books by Dave Barry, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Dean Koontz, Ed McBain, Pat Conroy, Nora Roberts, Anne McCaffrey (shown here), Arthur C. Clarke, Clive Barker and more, including memoirs and such by Bobby Knight, Bill Walsh and Tim Conway.
He also did Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Pynchon (all 53 hours of “Against the Day”) and Nathaniel Hawthorne, plus Plato, Kafka, and Dostoevsky. In all, he did more than 1,000 books, winning three Audie awards, a Golden Voice and more. And this was just an accidental sideline. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 8, 2022
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Fox fuss: A reality guy takes over

It’s not quite a sign of the apocalypse, but it might be close:
A reality-TV guy has been put in charge of the Fox network.
Rob Wade – who supervised Fox’s reality shows and specials – takes over as the CEO, it was announced today (Oct. 6). He replaces Charlie Collier, who moved on to run Roku, after a run in which a few scripted shows — “The Simpsons” (shown here) and “9-1-1” — prospered and most wobbled. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 7, 2022
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Loretta and “Kevin” and a changing world

Two unrelated events recently washed past me, somehow tying together.
One was the death of Loretta Lynn (shown here), who died today (Oct. 4) at 90, peacefully in her bed. She wrote and sang great country stories … and lived a greater one. Try to catch the wonderful movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and/or PBS’ “American Masters” portrait of Lynn. Both tell how she became a wife at 13, a mother at 14, a grandmother at 31 — while emerging as a Nashville star.
(Only recently. that legend was modified. The real numbers, apparently, were 16, 17 and 34; three years were subtracted, adding to the mystique.)
And the other, oddly, was “Kevin Can F Himself.” I was watching a screener of the season-finale, which airs at 9 p.m. Monday (Oct. 10) on AMC. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 4, 2022
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“Blonde” stirs anger and agony

I don’t believe I’ve ever hated a movie – or anything else – quite as much as I hate “Blonde.”
This isn’t your ordinary kind of hatred, something I might direct toward, say, assembly instructions or “Care Bear Movie II.” It’s a deep hatred, the kind that should be reserved for Vladimir Putin or the neighbor lady who – when my softball landed in her yard – picked it up and walked away.
It reflects a sort of abject agony. “Blonde” (shown here) has cruelly taken things from me – my time (two hours and 46 minutes, although it seemed like 46 hours and two minutes) and, temporarily, my joy. It would have been worse if it had also taken my money, at a movie theater. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / September 29, 2022
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Two terrific shows wrap their seasons

In the midst of TV’s fall-season fuss, two of the best summer shows have season-finales.
Each show wraps up its second season Wednesday (Sept. 28) and has been renewed for a third. Each is worth catching … and worth finding previous episodes, via streamers. They are:
— “Resident Alien,” at 10 p.m. on Syfy, and then on Peacock. Now that he’s rescued the alien baby, Harry must decide whether to destroy all Earthlings. He kind of likes some of them.
— “Reservation Dogs” (shown here) on Hulu. The friends are finally ready for their pilgrimage to California. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / September 25, 2022
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“Bridgerton” flashes back to a young queen

So there will be a new Queen Charlotte, after all.
This one isn’t in England (where the real Princess Charlotte is further back in the heir-apparent list). It’s in the fictional world of “Bridgerton.”
The first two seasons (still available on Netflix) had Golda Rosheuvel (shown here) as the old — and rather grumpy — queen. Now, however, news comes of the prequel. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / September 23, 2022
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The new season: Here’s an updated overview

(The new season is half-way here now. It officially began Sept. 19, but several shows will wait until early October; one new one arrives Nov. 4. With that in mind, I’m keeping the new-season overview here at the top and updating it. Here are three stories that I posted earlier; the first two have been rewritten throughout.)
A new TV season is here now. It has a few shows and a lot of promos. What it lacks is the old blend of Hollywood hope, hype and a sense of something big.
There have been big things lately, but not on the broadcast networks, the ones that send out shows for free (with commercials) over the air.
A “Game of Thrones” prequel on HBO collided with a “Lord of the Rings” prequel (shown here) on Amazon Prime, both spending mega-money – reportedly $200 million for 10 HBO episodes, $465 million for eight Amazon ones. What’s a mere broadcast network to do? Not much; consider: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / September 23, 2022