There are plenty of great books out there, still waiting to be movies or TV series.
Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” seemed to be a long shot. Jared Stern recalled his first reaction:
“I was like, ‘Uh huh – there’s like 50 words in the book. How do we make it into a movie?’” Stern told the Television Critics Association in August.
Or into something bigger. Now it’s a 13-week series (shown here) that reaches Netflix on Friday (Nov. 8). Read more…
Jim Ivins insisted that his daughter have a respectable name.
Ivins – an oil executive nicknamed “General Jim” – chose Mary Tyler Ivins. His wife disagreed; so, eventually, did their daughter (shown here).
This was no mere Mary; by 12, she was 6 feet tall and brash. She re-named herself Molly Ivins.
She would become a newspaper columnist, known for both her wit and her venom, and then a “60 Minutes” commentator. She had a great little life (dying of cancer at 62) and is the subject of a great movie. Read more…
For Auli’i Cravalho (shown here), this is a pleasant bit of type-casting. She’s in a water-y life – again.
She had the title role in “Moana,” as an adventurous islander; now it’s “Little Mermaid Live.”
In real life, Cravalho hasn’t, to our knowledge, taken a solo ocean trip in search of a legendary demigod, as Moana did. Or collected artifacts in an undersea kingdom, as Ariel the mermaid did.
But she is Hawaiian, which makes her close to both. “(I) grew up maybe 20 minutes from beach,” she said, “so I would say I was pretty water-active as a kid.”
Read more…
(For HBO, this is the post-“Thrones” era. “Game of Thrones” — shown here — is gone; one of its prequels has been nixed. The next epic fantasy? There’s “Watchmen” at 9 p.m. Sunday and now “His Dark Materials,” debuting at 9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4. Here’s a look at Lin-Manuel Miranda — yes, the “Hamilton” guy — who is the show’s co-star and its superfan.)
By Mike Hughes
Lin-Manuel Miranda was talking to TV critics, which was familiar turf.
He had met the Television Critics Association back in 2013, when he was the co-star of … well, something or other
“The legendary ‘Do No Harm’ … The lowest-rated show in the history of NBC,” Miranda recalled.
Read more…
Every now and then, TV remembers one of its highest callings – to give us full-scale musicals.
Then it forgets again, sometimes for years. But now comes a spurt; there are three musicals in eight days, covering a rich range
On Friday (Nov. 1), PBS has the relentlessly giddy “42nd Street.” The songs are peppy, the dancing is zesty and the story … well, no one tried to improve on the 1933 movie this is based on.
A week later, it has the exact opposite with “The King and I” (shown here). Once you get past the lush music and costumes, you have the serious story of a 19th-century despot. Read more…
Michael Douglas has had to rethink this whole notion of retirement.
He’s 75, an age when retiring might seem reasonable. But in “The Kominsky Method” (shown here), his co-star (Alan Arkin) is 85; also, his dad (Kirk Douglas) will turn 103 on Dec. 9.
“I’ve got a long ways to go,” said Douglas, whose second “Kominsky” season starts Friday on Netflix. “It’s very exciting. I never anticipated (these) options as I reach the three-quarter-century mark.” Read more…
Just how long is Halloween, anyway?
It used to be one day; some cable networks seem to think it’s an entire month. But for most TV viewers, it’s one crowded week: From Oct. 25-31, Halloween overruns our TV sets.
The Disney properties (ABC, Freeform, Disney Channel) lead, but others jump in. Here are some highlights of what’s new; the days listed refer to the 25th through 31st: Read more…
There are some careers that job counselors don’t seem to encourage – cowboys, shepherds and, especially, explorers.
“By middle school and high school,” Albert Lin said, “we’re told that everything has been discovered …. We’ve been to the moon; we’ve been to the bottom of every ocean.”
What’s left? Re-discovery, using modern tools. Lin (shown here “has completely re-invented how we explore, using cutting-edge technology,” said Courteney Monroe, head of the National Geographic Channel.
So now her channel has “Lost Cities with Albert Lin,” a six-week series that crosses the globe. Read more…
TV used to savor anthologies
.There were high-profile, high-prestige ones — “Studio One” and “Playhouse 90” and more. They drew praise and awards; some episodes (“12 Angry Men,” “Requiem For a Heavyweight,” “Days of Wine and Roses”) became acclaimed movies.
Then anthologies faded away … for a while .Now one streamer, Amazon Prime, has been nudging them back. Last year, it had the steeply ambitious “Romanoffs”; that’s been cancelled, but on Friday (Oct. 18) is the splendid “Modern Love” (shown here with Anne Hathaway). Read more…
On the surface, Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn were sort of the same
.They had worn fringed cowgirl suits and worked the fringes of show business. Lynn did juke joints and grange halls; Cline once sang atop the concession stand at a drive-in theater, drawing honks and boos.Both found Nashville fame.
Still, said Callie Khouri, “they were two extremely different people.”
That’s what Khouri savors in movie characters, whether fictional (she wrote “Thelma & Louise”) or real: She directed “Patsy & Loretta” (shown here with Megan Hilty as Cline and Jessie Mueller as Lynn), debuting Oct. 19 on Lifetime. Read more…
