Day: June 12, 2020

Stories

Mae West: A brassy burst of women’s history

Mae West strolled into a Hollywood that wasn’t ready for her.
This was a place that preferred women to be young, thin and quiet. She was none of those.
West (shown here) was 39, buxom and brassy. “I don’t allow myself any negative thinking,” she would explain later.
Now a documentary – “Mae West: Dirty Blonde” – debuts at 8 p.m. Tuesday (June 16), launching what Paula Kerger, the PBS president, calls an “effort to highlight trailblazing women this summer.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 12, 2020
Weekly Previews

Week’s top-10 for June 15: Three shows end; Mae and Ann arrive

1) “Songland” season-finale, 10 p.m. today, NBC. Four songwriters pitch songs to Usher (shown here) … who can sometimes mean a route to the top. He’s had 18 top-10 singles on the Billboard chart, half of them reaching No.1. Many lingered; for more than half of 2004 (28 of 52 weeks), an Usher song was No. 1. He also had two seasons on “The Voice,” coaching a champion (Josh Kaufman) and a runner-up. Now he’ll hear the pitches and choose three of the four songs for refining. Then he’ll pick one to record. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 12, 2020
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for June 14: The Brits are back

1) “Grantchester” season-opener, 9 p.m., PBS. Like most English villages, it seems, Grantchester has pleasant people, idyllic settings … and lots of murder. Fortunately, it also has a crimesolving vicar and his weary friend the cop. Their domain includes Cambridge University, where tonight they visit parties (shown here) and find beautiful students keeping ugly secrets. The whole thing gets solved quite easily, giving the show more time to work on lots of character details. The result is fairly entertaining, in a quietly classy way. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 12, 2020