CNN got into the comic news business Saturday night at 10 with "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News." I like D.L. He seems smart, thoughtful and has a sharpness to his comic observations.
He's also wildly uneven when it comes to maintaining the funny. And so was his show.
If you have the National Geographic Channel, make some time for "Inside New Orleans High."
It focuses on Walter L. Cohen High School in the Crescent City, where in these post-Katrina classrooms, homicide rates are rising, only 25 percent of seniors make it to colleage, and about one in six girls have babies or are pregnant.
During the six months of filming, the filmmakers focus on a few students, the principal and a first-year teacher. One of them, Cardwell, bounces from house to house, trying to avoid the dysfunction in his family that could take him off his path to a better life. Indeed, all the kids want so much but sometimes their circumstances overwhelm them.
What's clear is that 3 years after the flood, young people are still lost, people are still struggling, and there are still glimmers of hope.
It's not brilliant filmmaking, but it's good. And we need to remember what happened — and is still happening — to our fellow citizens.
It's on Sunday @ 10pm. NatGeo is on channel 70 in the Triangle.
OK, maybe watching last-minute host T-Pain struggle through BET's Hip Hop Awards without his vocoder might not be your cup of tea.
So skip that show and tune in tonight at 10pm to watch the first episode in season 3 of "American Gangster," narrated by actor Ving Rhames. It's one of the best things on the network, typically well-produced without glorifying the criminals, but instead presenting context and balance. If the gangster is still alive, and not in witness protection, you get to see the mix of bravado, smarts and hubris that led to the fall, and the perspective that comes from a long prison stint.
I haven't seen tonight's episode, but it tells the Larry Davis story. Davis became a kind of anti-hero in the South Bronx after he wounded six NYC police officers in a shootout when they came to arrest him on charges of murdering five drug dealers. Davis maintained at trial that he had been recruited by corrupt police to deal drugs and that the raid was actually a murder attempt to silence him. The cast of characters in this case include radical lawyer William Kunstler, and there's a final twist that raises more questions.
It's worth checking out. BET is on channel 52 in the Triangle.
Did you catch Blair Waldorf's modern twist on the Yale preppie last night on "Gossip Girl?" Turns out, the green cashmere cardigan and silk knot tie were by Phineas Cole, a line launched last October by Paul Stuart that takes classics and gives them a fashion-forward twist.
Chuck Bass, meanwhile, was also in Paul Stuart, with a Phineas Cole jacket, mole skin trouser and pink dress shirt.
"Worst Week" (9:30 p.m. Mondays, CBS)
"Gary Unmarried" (8:30 p.m. Wednesdays, CBS)
Every fall, as new TV shows are rolled out for our approval, no genre causes more trepidation than the situation comedy. Do we really need any new ones?CBS does nothing to allay our justifiable skepticism this week, as the network debuts two more: "Worst Week" tonight at 9:30, and "Gary Unmarried," at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The single-camera, no-laugh-track approach of "Worst Week" suggests an edgy comedy of the new school, and indeed, it has some edgy moments, such as when the hapless protagonist Sam (Kyle Bornheimer) accidently urinates on a goose that his girlfriend's mother is preparing to cook.
Yep, you read it right, and you probably gets the imagery — it's Sam's own goose that gets cooked (or, you know, the other thing) over and over again, as he unwittingly walks into a series of mishaps while trying to impress the parents of his soon-to-be wife (Erinn Hayes).
The cast is fine, especially Bornheimer and "That 70s Show" alumnus Kurtwood Smith, once again playing the sourpuss dad. But if you immediately thought of "Meet the Parents" when you read the description, you're right on the money. This show is nothing new, and the formula gets tedious fast.
As unpromising as "Worst Week" is, it's "The Office" compared to the horribly-titled "Gary Unmarried." This cute, depressingly average comedy stars Jay Mohr as a newly-divorced working stiff who tries to start a relationship with a new hottie (Jaime King) whose house he painted, while navigating the difficulties of sharing custody of two kids with a control freak of an ex-wife (Paula Marshall).
The snarky one-liners fly, the kids (Ryan Malgarini and Kathryn Newton) are as precocious and quirky as most TV kids, Mohr acts like he's dying to say something that's actually funny, and the show is nothing more than a tepid, modestly pleasant way to kill a half-hour — really kill it, in the sense that you won't remember a thing.
GRADES: "Worst Week," C plus; "Gary Unmarried," C
First of all, let's be real. The show was horrible. HORRIBLE.
OK, there were two highlights: a funny tribute to great TV theme songs, performed by Josh Groban, who proved to be a good sport and a talented mimic (loved his "South Park" theme).
And there was Jimmy Kimmel, who lampooned the tiresome reality TV format by making the five nominees for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program sweat a faux "elimination" round. (Jeff Probst won — eccchhh.)
The hosts themselves were unfunny as can be, and ditto for the presenters' dialogue, as the great Don Rickles pointed out quite bluntly, to everybody's delight. In another highlight Ricky Gervais did a funny bit with Steve Carrell, lead actor in the U.S. version of "The Office."
But that was about it. The rest of the show was as corny and painful to watch as these things often are.
At least your humble scribe can claim 5-for-7 in his Emmy picks (view here, just scroll down), which were published in the Sunday N&O.
I was wrong about Steve Carrell and "The Colbert Report" (the awards went to Alec Baldwin and "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," both deserving of the honors).
But I was right about "30 Rock," "Mad Men," Tina Fey, Glenn Close, and I literally leapt from the sofa and screamed when Bryan Cranston won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for "Breaking Bad." Can I call it, or what?
So how did you guys do with your predictions?
It's a shame only 35 of the Hurricanes' 41 road games will be on TV, but that's not the big problem.
After all, three of those missing games conflict with Versus exclusive games. There's no way around that.
But the other three are missing because FSN South didn't want them, and wasn't required to carry them. That's the big problem.
CBS's cable partner Showtime is one of the options reportedly being considered as a new, more appropriate cable venue for its ratings-challenged racy summer series about `70s swingers.
From a VH1 press release:
NEW YORK, August 12, 2008 – VH1 Classic and VH1 Soul will air The Golden Globe nominated documentary “Wattstax” on Wednesday, August 13 at 8:00PM ET/PT in honor of soul singer Issac Hayes. Filmmaker Mel Stuart captured the August 20, 1972 Wattstax music festival known as “the black Woodstock” at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in this epochal documentary. Memphis’s Stax Records commemorated the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots with this festival featuring powerful performances by Isaac Hayes, Albert King, Rufus and Carla Thomas, the Staple Singers, the Emotions, the Bar-Kays, and other greats of soul, R&B, and gospel—plus biting humor from a then little-known comedian Richard Pryor.
Wattstax brought out a rapt audience of 100,000 in a celebration of music, soul and the 1970’s “black is beautiful movement.” The documentary features exclusive interviews with Richard Pryor and Ted Lange among others and told the story of the 70’s Black experience through topical street interviews throughout Watts. The documentary closes with one of the most seminal moments in soul history, the late Issac Hayes performance of his classics “Theme from Shaft,” “Soulsville” and “Rolling Down A Mountain.”
VH1 Soul’s Isaac Hayes Tribute programming beginning Wednesday, August 13 - Sunday, August 17 to include:
• WATTSTAX – airs on Wednesday, August 13, Friday, August 15 and Sunday, August 17 at 8PM* each night
• SOUL DEEP "Southern Soul" - airs on August 13, 15 and 17 at 8PM* each night 2PM* and 10PM* each night
• Isaac Hayes video block following both programs
Hayes died Sunday at the age of 65, most likely of a stroke.
Actor James Ransone, the Baltimore native best-known for his portrayal
of tweaked-out stevedore Ziggy Sobotka on season two of HBO's "The
Wire," now stars in another project from the creative team of David
Simon and Ed Burns.
Ransone, 29, plays Marine Cpl. Ray Person in HBO's "Generation Kill" (9
p.m. Sundays), a seven-part miniseries based on the nonfiction book by
reporter Evan Wright, who was embedded with the 1st Reconnaissance
Battalion during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Ransone talked recently to The N&O about his experience in Africa
during the shoot last year, and his feelings about the Marines and the
war.
