What's Right with This Picture?
Tonight at 10 p.m. ET, ABC presents the second installment of its excellent documentary series "Hopkins," NBC presents the latest installment in its creepy suspense anthology series "Fear Itself," and CBS presents another new episode of its period drama series, "Swingtown." So I ask you: What's right with this picture?... (more)
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WIMBLEDON TENNIS ESPN2, 7 a.m. ET; NBC, noon ET If Serena and Venus Williams can win their respective semifinal matches today, they’ll be facing each other in an all-sisters Wimbledon final for the third time. But to do that, Serena must beat Zheng Jie, now the most accomplished tennis player in the history of China, and Venus must beat Elena Dementieva, the sole remaining Russian in the female field. U.S. vs. China and Russia. Seems like the Cold War all over again. |
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE AMC, 8 p.m. ET John Belushi hijacked this 1978 screen comedy and never let go. He became a movie star because of his unfettered energy here, but the movie itself also provided a template for a new generation of comedy. More than one generation, actually. |
ALMOST FAMOUS More Max, 9 p.m. ET Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this semi-autobiographical account of his salad days as a young stringer for Rolling Stone magazine (Patrick Fugit plays his alter ego, William). Kate Hudson plays a groupie he met, and with whom he fell in love, along the way. Watch for small but tasty supporting performances by Philip Seymour Hoffman as rock critic Lester Bangs, Zooey Deschanel as William’s older sister, and Jason Lee as a member of a rock band. |
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FEAR ITSELF NBC, 10 p.m. ET Elisabeth Moss, who plays the new secretary on Mad Men, has another starter position in tonight’s anthology drama. She plays a rookie cop who’s guarding a serial killer, on a night when something strange invades the precinct house. |
HOPKINS ABC, 10 p.m. ET This second installment has my favorite moment in the entire series. A dual lung transplant is taking place, and the doctor takes time to explain what he’s doing for the camera – pointing out the first replacement lung as they remove the clamp and check to see if it inflates properly. It does. How amazing. How instructive. How cocky. |
SMOKIN' ACES Cinemax,10p.m. ET Jason Bateman, currently starring with Will Smith in Hancock, says he got that movie role, in large part, because of his small but flashy role in this fast-moving 2007 action comedy-drama. It’s a movie full of small but flashy roles – including one for singer Alicia Keys, who plays a lesbian hit woman. |
HOT SPOT: 'Friday Night Lights' daily
FLICK PICKS: Big band movies on TCM
FLICK PICKS: Rosalind Russell month starts with 'His Girl Friday'
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NEW and RECOMMENDED
Buried with a donkey/He's my favorite honky/King Tut. We are twowildandcrazyguys! La Dolce Gilda. Yes, it was a very good year. Saturday Night Live in 1977-78 still had its original troupe intact (if you count Bill Murray replacing Chevy Chase) and still had a certifiably underground sensibility, before it morphed into the
corporate "institution" of today. The counterculture kids were still
running loose on live TV after the grownups went to bed. CLASSICS TO CONSIDER
How perverse WERE the 1950s? Get a load of these kiddie shows. Hosts whose attitudes would probably get them run through criminal databases today. Shrieking studio audiences of tots clearly mainlining sugar
before the show. Unbridled, unapologetic product shillery. The
innocent days? They're now, people! These folks were sick. |




















FOR BETTER OR WERTS
Just noticed that Universal HD is starting a full run of the first season of the must-see drama "Friday Night Lights" weekdays at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. (as of July 1). That means you'd get the complete first season by the end of July, which is a fleet way to fulfill this addictive fix . . .
Well, beat me daddy, eight to the bar -- Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Artie Shaw, Kay Kyser and Cab Calloway [left] are just a few of the varied big band leaders being showcased on Wednesday nights throughout July by Turner Classic Movies. They're appearing in dramatized musicals like 1937's "Hollywood Hotel" with Benny Goodman ("Sing Sing Sing") and 1941's "Las Vegas Nights" with Tommy Dorsey and his skinny young vocalist named Frank something . . .
It's great enough seeing a prime-time screening of the 1940 Cary Grant-Rosalind Russell screwball delight "His Girl Friday" (Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies). But this zippy newspaper tale/knockabout romance is only the first of 36 Russell films airing Wednesdays throughout July in TCM's Star of the Month salute. And it's followed this first night by Russell's classic 1939 catfight comedy . . .



