TV News and Reviews

I was going to do a post on nice family-friendly programming that was on for those who celebrate Easter, until I realized that there isn’t any nice family-friendly programming for Easter. Looking at the TV listings, you’d think it was just any other day. NBC isn’t even bothering to show the excellent primetime drama Kings, that has a biblical theme and spiritual tone.

I realize that the country, and certainly TV, has gotten more secular over time. TV execs also no doubt consider Easter to not be a very commercial holiday, so they don’t bother hyping it as much. It just seems a little sad that the networks and cable can’t manage to have one day without Rock of Love or a violent Batman movie out of respect for those who do celebrate Easter. The afternoon schedule on Nickelodeon starts with The Naked Brothers Band. I realize it’s only a teen drama, but still. Couldn’t we try just a little bit?

The History Channel has a couple religious history segments on in the afternoon, but it’s once again not exactly family friendly stuff. If you do celebrate Easter and feel the desire to watch TV, your best bet is to stick with sports programming on the main networks. If you have HBO, the George Clooney, Renée Zellweger movie Leatherheads is on at 4pm Eastern/3pm Central. And no, despite TV trends on Sunday, Leatherheads is not an S&M film. It’s a very nice, old-fashioned romantic comedy that takes place during the early days of pro football. It’s got style and snappy dialogue and it covers love, friendship, morality, and patriotism. It’s an entertaining, funny, and pleasant film to watch at any time, but it’s also a nice movie for the holidays.

If you’re looking for religious or holiday-themed movie suggestions to pop into the DVD player, head over to see About.com’s Top Christian Easter Movies, or CD Universe’s ecclectic Easter holdiay DVD list.

I hope you all have a pleasant weekend, and Happy Easter wishes to all who celebrate.

For all you Property Ladder fans, I just thought I’d let you know to enjoy any episodes you see in repeats on TLC. Word from the network is that they currently have no plans to make further installments of Property Ladder. Such careful wording (as opposed to “canceled”) leaves an opening for a possible reincarnation at some point, but as I said in an earlier Property Ladder post , the current state of the economy and housing market doesn’t fit well with a show about inexperienced house flippers.

In other news, ironically after I’d just given the show a shout out, Shootout (aka Sunday Morning Shootout) with the two Peters (Bart and Guber) is leaving AMC. The vague word given by the hosts is that it will be moving to another network and time, but no details about the move were given. I’m guessing AMC wouldn’t be too keen to let them advertise for another network on their last show, but Peter Bart gives no further information on his blog at Variety, either. If I find out any more details about the end of Shootout’s six year run and possible future network, I’ll let you know.

Photo of Kirsten Kemp of Property Ladder, c2007 Giles Mingasson, TLC.

AMC has this great little industry insider show on Sunday morning’s called Shootout. Two old hands in the business, Peter Bart and Peter Guber, discuss the movies–and their usually widely differing takes on issues in media–and have on special guests each week. Shootout’s Bart is currently editor-in-chief of Variety and Peter Guber is a big-time Hollywood producer. Both men have worked inside the industry for decades and have a wealth of knowledge and opinions on how movies work or don’t work, how they reflect and affect society, how politics plays into it all, and much more.

Bart and Guber get a lot of the biggest actors and directors to appear on Shootout, and while these movie giants are usually there to promote a particular film, viewers are also treated to old war stories of previous movies, conflicts with studio heads or actors, previously unknown inspirations for films, and fun gossip and backstories. But above all is an intense love of the movies and the continual pursuit of making worthwhile and successful pictures.

Today the two Peters had Ron Howard and Brian Grazer as guests on Shootout, talking about their working relationship and previous films, as well as their current project: a film adaptation of a play about the Nixon/Frost interviews:

It was a treat to see this episode and listen to Ron Howard talk about his acting career as well as his passion for being a director that began at the age of 8. He and Grazer are both earnest about the projects they choose to do, and seem to have found the right balance and trust for a perfect movie partnership.

I think this show flies under a lot of people’s radar. They don’t expect Judd Apatow or Clint Eastwood or Denzel Washington to show up on AMC on Sunday morning, but they’re missing some wonderfully in-depth and candid interviews with the stars and creators of the best cinema.

Check your local listings for Shootout airings on AMC–times tend to vary, but hover around 11am Eastern/10am Central.