Stories

Festival stuffs our TV’s with classic films

For movie buffs – deprived of the cinema experience for a year – there’s a tad of good news:
Now we can all catch the Classic Film Festival. It will start with the 1961 “West Side Story” (shown here) at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) Thursday and will sprawl across four days (May 6-9), two networks (Turner Classic Movies and HBO Max) and 95 years.
For a decade, the festival was just for people who could get to Los Angeles. In classic theaters, it showed great movies, interviewing some of the stars and filmmakers. Then came the COVID impact: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / May 3, 2021

Stories

Fey slides to the streaming side with musical fun

New people keep jumping to the streaming side of television … including some who were doing just fine without it.
Now “Girls5Eva” (shown here) arrives Thursday (May 6) on Peacock, mixing brash comedy and bubbly songs. It’s produced by Tina Fey, whose previous shows have prospered on NBC, in movie theaters, even on Broadway.
Why switch to a streaming network? Some people do that so they can use adult material, but this show is “really pretty clean and watchable,” Fey said.
Better reasons? Streamers offer more flexibility in the length of episodes – “which, with music, is a huge help,” said Robert Carlock, Fey’s producing partner – and in the number of them. “You can make a boutique amount of episodes,” Fey said. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / May 1, 2021

Stories

Amy Tan finds joy amid deep despair

Amy Tan was 15 when her world disintegrated.
“My brother was dying and then my father was dying,” she told the Television Critics Association . “My mother became a little unbalanced … . She and I had many arguments.”
In a six-month stretch, she lost two people to brain cancer; she was soon whisked from California to Switzerland by her mother, who had known previous depths of despair.
Tan, 69, has told versions of these stories often – in “The Joy Luck Club,” which became a best-seller when she was 36 (shown here) in other novels and in non-fiction. Now they’re in an intriguing PBS documemtary Monday (May 3). But alongside all the agony, there’s also a surprising layer of fun. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / April 30, 2021

Stories

Re-living a past nightmare, Porter finds hope

Surveying a life in shambles, the “Pose” protagonist sums it up:
“The world is cold and cruel and full of disease,” Pray Tell says.
That seems like a line about today, but “Pose” – starting its final season at 10 p.m. Sunday (May 2) on FX – is set in 1994, when the gay community was shredded by AIDS and police crackdowns. For Billy Porter (shown here in an earlier and cheerier season), who stars as Pray, the eras merge. “I think the parallels are quite profound,” he said.
Porter, now 51, reached Broadway just as the crisis was soaring. He was a “Five Guys Named Moe” understudy in 1992, then was Teen Angel in the “Grease” revival in ‘94 – a peak year for AIDS deaths. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / April 29, 2021

Stories

“Mosquito Coast” spans Theroux generations

You kind of expect Justin Theroux to be well-read.
His mom is a novelist. His dad is merely a lawyer, but four paternal uncles have written novels.
And his link to “The Mosquito Coast” – by Paul Theroux, one of those uncles – is especially strong. “I have a long history with the novel,” he told the Television Critics Association.
He was 10 when it was published, 15 when it became a movie, with Harrison Ford and River Phoenix. And now, at 50, he stars in a seven-hour mini-series (shown here) that starts Friday (April 30) on Apple TV+ Read more…

By Mike Hughes / April 27, 2021

Stories

“Handmaid’s Tale” returns (at last)

The annoying thing about high-quality television is that it takes so much time to make.
Other shows can churn out 100 episodes without a thought. (Literally.) But “The Handmaid’s Tale” (shown here) – which finally returns to Hulu on Wednesday (April 28) – takes almost forever.
The first three seasons totaled only 36 episodes, while getting heaps of praise and awards. The fourth arrives 20 months after the third ended; it has only 10 episodes, three of them on opening night.
Part of that involved a six-month COVID shut-down and the changes that followed, producer Bruce Miller told the Television Critics Association. “We were constantly making adjustments to the script.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / April 26, 2021

Stories

In the dog-limb world, he’s a superstar

Derrick Campana never expected that he’d be a BYUtv star, making artificial limbs for dogs and such.
“I had never heard of animal prosthetics,” he told the Television Critics Association.
Then again, he hadn’t heard of BYUtv. Many people haven’t.
But here he is: “Wizard of Paws” launches its second season at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday (April 28) – the same time that Joe Biden gives his first address to Congress – and reruns at midnight, on BYUtv. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / April 25, 2021

Stories

She’s a poet, a skater and a schoolkid

If the world needs another superhero, it could choose Detroit’s Alyvia Lockett.
She’s a skilled poet, a budding figure-skater … and an elementary-school student. “It’s a shame that an 8-year-old has to tell you this,” she says in a poem about violence.
Or maybe it could choose Kameryn Everett, 20, her coach. (They’re shown here.) “I know that Alyvia looks up to (her) so much,” said Vanessa Roth, producer and director of “Impact,” which arrives Monday (April 26) on National Geographic’s YouTube channel.
The show is produced and hosted by Gal Gadot, who pretends to be a superhero (Wonder Woman) in movies. These people are the real thing, she said in a virtual session with the Television Critics Association. “I keep on calling them my ‘women of wonder,’ because they are the true heroes.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / April 23, 2021

Stories

A drama star by accident, Buckley shines

This wasn’t supposed to be Jessie Buckley’s life, you know.
It was supposed to be all-music. She would do concerts and musicals, just as she’d been doing since she was a kid in County Kerry.
Instead … she’s a noted Shakespearean. “I am as surprised as everyone else,” Buckley (shown here) – starring with Josh O’Connor in a beautifully crafted “Romeo and Juliet,” at 9 p.m. Friday (April 23) on PBS – told the Television Critics Association. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / April 21, 2021

Stories

Separated by 76 years, they’re Earth Day giants

This was like a downsized climate summit.
The world’s two best-know nature activists met, reflecting different eras: David Attenborough is 94; Greta Thunberg (shown here) is 18.
He started working on his first animal show a half-century before she was born; later, he began including warnings about climate change. “I’ve been promoting this for a long time,” he tells her in a PBS film. “But the big changes came when you spoke.” Now both have their say:
– She’s at the core of PBS’ “Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World,” which debuted on Earth Day and reruns at 8 p.m. on three Wednesdays. It’s a journey across North America and Europe, including that brief chat (shown in the May 5 episode) with Attenborough. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / April 18, 2021