News and Quick Comments

News and Quick Comments

“Mulan”: Great at home, better in theaters

I just remembered why I love movies – the big, sweeping kind that fill the screen and fill your eyes and ears and thoughts.
I also found that I miss seeing them in their natural habitat. Watching one at home is great fun; watching it in a movie theater would have been much better.
This comes up because people can now pay extra and see “Mulan” (shown here) – the new adventure epic, not the 1998 cartoon – at home.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, of course. Disney spent $200 million on “Mulan,” creating a mega-movie for theaters. It had its premiere March 9 … moments before the COVID shutdown Read more…

By Mike Hughes / September 3, 2020
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FX film digs into the Breonna Taylor case

In the heated debate over Breonna Taylor’s death, David James is situated perfectly.
The argument has multiple sides – police, politicians, Blacks and officials. He happens to fit all of those – a Black councilman in Louisville and a former narcotics officer who spent 14 years as a cop.
And now he’s key to “The New York Times Presents,” at 10 p.m. Friday (Sept. 4) on FX and Hulu.
This is an extensive look – an hour without commercials, 81 minutes on FX. It has a brief portrayal of Taylor, 26, described by friends, her mother and her boyfriend (Kenneth Walker, shown here with Taylor) as an upbeat soul, an emergency medical technician at work, a fun person at home. Then it gets into the case. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / September 1, 2020
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Boseman’s films offered quality and variety

(Disney’s grand gesture — showing “Black Panther on ABC, commercial free, as a tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman — has ended now, but plenty of other Boseman films are available. Here’s the story I posted Saturday and updated Sunday.)
The flow of tributes to the late Chadwick Boseman now includes an unprecedented one:
At 8 p.m. today (Sunday, Aug. 30), ABC will show his “Black Panther” movie commercial-free. That will be followed by a special – “Chadwick Boseman — Tribute For a King” – from 10:20 to 11 p.m.
Boseman played the king of a fictional African land in “Black Panther,” but he also played real-life heroes – Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall – and music superstar James Bown.
He had a six-year stretch of great movie roles. Now we learn that for four of those years, he was fighting colon cancer.
He died at 43 on Friday (Aug. 28), which happened to be Jackie Robinson Day for Major League Baseball. In the days ahead, viewers can catch his work on TV and via streaming. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 29, 2020
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ABC sets specials on Washington march, shark survivor

ABC News has set specials on two opposite subjects –one about a massive march (shown here) and the other an individual ordeal. They are:
FRIDAY (Aug. 28): On the 57th anniversary of the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” ABC will rerun “The March.” Narrated by Denzel Washington, the 2013 film interviewed John Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Joan Baez, Oprah Winfrey and others, including Clarence Jones, who helped draft Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 26, 2020
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A strong Canadian drama transplants to NBC

“Transplant” lives up to its name in many ways.
It’s a Canadian series, transplanted to the U.S. and NBC. It’s about a Syrian man (Hamza Haq, shown here), transplanted to Canada. It’s about a restaurant worker, transplanted to …
Well, we won’t get ahead of ourselves on that. The show’s opening episode (10 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 1) parcels out information slowly and deliberately. It’s best to watch it in that way. When you get to the spoiler point, later in this review, please stop reding until you’ve seen the episode. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 26, 2020
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Oprah special Aug. 28 ripples with history

Six key moments in Black history – from the tragedy of the Emmet Till lynching to the triumph (shown here) of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech – all happened on the same date.
That was Aug. 28, which was dramatized in a short film by Oscar-nominee Ava DuVernay. Now that will be the centerpiece of an Oprah Winfrey Network special on – appropriately – Friday, Aug. 28.
“OWN Spotlight: Culture Connection & August 28th, Ava DuVernay & Rev. Sharpton” will air at 1, 4 and 6 p.m. that day. It will also be on OWN YouTube page, starting at 2 p.m. ET. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 24, 2020
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Social-distance drama? This one feels hopeful

It’s the kind of challenge writers and actors should savor: Create stories about isolation … filmed under isolated conditions.
There have already been some interesting ones, crafted during the COVID slowdown – episodes of “All Rise” and “Mythic Quest,” a reunion of “Parks and Recreation,” a British hour called “Isolation Stories.” Coming (Sept. 12 on HBO) is “Coastal Elites,” with playwright Paul Rudnick giving monologs to Sarah Paulson, Bette Midler, Dan Levy, Issa Rae and Kaitlyn Dever.
But before that, Freeform gets a chance. “Love in the Time of Corona” (shown here) is Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 22-23, then rerunning Monday, juggling four slightly related stories. It’s a tad predictable, but skillfully written and acted. It’s also optimistic; you could say it’s very American … or maybe very Californian. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 20, 2020
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“Supernatural” returns in CW’s new fall line-up

(Note: Information in this story was subsequently folded into a longer overview. See the “stories” category.)
For impatient TV viewers, there’s a smidgen more of good news: Another network has announced specific dates to start its fall season.
This is a tiny network (CW), with a makeshift schedule (plus the final burst of the long-running “Supernatural,” shown here). Still, it joins Fox, which launches its own makeshift line-up on Sept. 21; ABC, CBS and NBC haven’t said when they’ll start.
(A previously written story rounds up Fox and other networks. It’s under “stories” and at the top of the main page.) Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 17, 2020
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Sci-fi surge propels streamers and HBO

For fantasy fans, this is a time of plenty.
Most movie theaters may be closed, but our TV sets and computers have big stories, big ideas and, especially, big budgets.
Misha Green, a showrunner, can attest to that. Her previous series, for basic-cable, was about the Underground Railroad; her current one – “Lovecraft Country” (shown here), starting 9 p.m. Aug. 16 on HBO – also has racial themes, but puts them alongside big-deal monster stories.
The budget difference, she told the Television Critics Association, is huge. “One episode of this show is maybe five of ‘Underground.’”
From “Umbrella Academy” to “Utopia,” the TCA this week saw lots of big-budget science-fiction, Could this be a golden age for fantasy and sci-fi on TV and streaming? “I would say that’s absolutely true,” said Aaron Guzikowski, whose “Raised By Wolves” arrives next month on HBO Max. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 7, 2020
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100th anniversary of women’s vote? It’s semi-overlooked

As other issues seize our attention, TV may be ignoring one key date: Aug. 26 marks the 100th anniversary of women’s vote in federal elections.
Well, semi-ignoring, anyway. CW has announced a special for that night, “Women in Film Presents: Make It Work!” It will include generations of Hollywood women, from Jane Fonda (shown here), 83, to Beanie Feldstein, 27.
And PBS has already had a string of shows, now available online. Details include: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 5, 2020