Miscellanea

TELEVISION
- Discovery Channel's Auction Kings returns next Wednesday, April 25 at 10:00 PM EST. Great show.
- Discovery cancelled Cash Cab. Bad channel. I am in mourning.
- It's that time of year again. TVLand's 10th Anniversary Awards Show will air on -- where else? -- TVLand on Sunday, April 29 at 9 PM EST. Look forward to seeing all your favorites, including reunions of Laverne And Shirley and One Day At A Time, as well as appearances by Pee-Wee Herman and Aretha Franklin. Murphy Brown and In Living Color will be honored. No word on whether Dan Quayle will be presenting the cast of Murphy Brown with their award. This year's host is Kelly Ripa, despite the fact that she lacks a sort of... je ne sais Reege.
- One of my few cable obsessions, Syfy's Hollywood Treasure, returns May 22 (Morrissey's birthday) with a look at Sean Astin's Lord of the Rings memorabilia collection! I can't WAIT until this show starts up again. [via the show's official Facebook page]
- Can you believe it's officially been 25 years since the Simpsons first appeared as a short on the Tracy Ullman show? I wasn't an instant fan, but it sure is hard to remember a time before the Simpsons. Sadly, no one is celebrating any such anniversaries for Herman's Head.
- A new documentary, Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys, is about, arguably, the best part of the Star Wars universe: THE TOYS! I'm going to watch the newly released trailer with my two favorite fellas, Bib Fortuna and Squidhead. And perhaps Salacious Crumb. I wonder if director Brian Stillman can track down my beloved (and missing) Return of the Jedi cup with the chocolate milk stain.

MUSIC
- Morrissey's official Facebook page announced a handful of US tour dates coming up (two in Hawaii and his birthday, May 22, in San Diego)! Will he next turn his lovely head to the east? I say yes. He says no, but he might change his mind.
- Blur is celebrating 21 years since the release of their debut album, Leisure, with an incredible box set and expanded remastered albums. It's a 21 disc box set with all seven of their albums receiving the expanded two-disc treatment. Plus four discs of exclusive rarities (claiming 3 1/2 hours of 'unreleased' material). Plus three DVDs (claiming over 2 hours of 'unreleased' footage) with two live shows and an exclusive disc of video rarities. Plus a collectible 7" of a very early (Seymour-era) live track. Plus a deluxe hard-bound book with new interviews, extensive liner notes, and unseen photos. There's no way that such an incredible sounding bit of loot won't boast an equally incredible price tag [note: £158?! YIKES. NO WAY.]. It's worth noting that the remastered two-disc albums will be available separately and will also be available on vinyl. Apparently, you can pre-order through Blur's official site or Amazon.co.uk. If only they would throw in every single b-side plus the various EPs like Bustin' + Dronin'.. AND the new post-reunion tracks (that were mostly for the independent Record Store Day), as well as the live albums that stemmed from their recent reunion concerts. Despite the completeness of the Blur box set, I figure if I refused to shell out the big bucks for The Smiths' comparable box set, (which, to be fair, had none of the earth-shattering rarities), I won't do it for Blur.
- Since Pulp's 2011 live reunion of the classic Different Class-era line-up [Jarvis Cocker, Russell Senior, Steve Mackey, Candida Doyle, Mark Weber, and Nick Banks], they have continued to headline some major festivals and concerts. Recently they made it to America, most tragically for two sold-out shows at New York's Radio City Music Hall. They also headlined Coachella (along with those crazy kids from Madness)! Last week, Pulp made their first appearance on American television in fourteen years on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (they performed 'Common People' and one other song that is exclusively on Jimmy Fallon's website). The performance was fantastic, though it was soured somewhat by the lack of Russell Senior (note that two people had to take his place). I don't know if that means that he didn't make it to America with the rest of the group. Here's a clip of Pulp making their American televison debut in 1995 on David Letterman. By the time I saw this performance, I had heard Pulp but didn't have any of their albums. I was immediately hooked and bought the album by the end of the month. They've been a favorite ever since!

LITERATURE
- J.K. Rowling recently announced she will be publishing her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy in September.
- J.K. Rowling will also be publishing an official Harry Potter encyclopedia.
- Noir scholar Robert Polito has compiled five novels by the cult Philadelphia noir writer David Goodis. Five Noir Novels of the 1940s & 50s received a rave review by the Philadelphia Inquirer. A panel discussion on David Goodis appeared to be the highlight of this year's abbreviated Philadelphia Book Festival.

This week on... TCM (June 27 - July 2)

It seems like this won't be a dry week on the good ol' television. There's quite an excellent array of TCM movies scheduled, many of which will be new to me and, hopefully, to you, too. Elsewhere on the dial, I'm still overjoyed that Hollywood Treasure has returned to Syfy (and, more importantly, to me). It's a pop culture enthusiast's half-hour paradise, and I don't think there's another show on cable that I love as much as this one. It's currently airing two new episodes a week on Wednesdays (from 10:00-11:00 PM EST). Check your local listings. My TV Guide indicated that Syfy will be showing a marathon of Hollywood Treasure later this week (Friday or Saturday, I think). That will be a perfect time for those who have missed out to catch up. I urge all fans of pop culture, movies, television, and comics to check it out. Incidentally, the auction house behind the show, Profiles in History, is also responsible for the monumental Debbie Reynolds auction. I'm hoping that the only other auction/collectible-related show I love (as per my auction/pawn shop/collectible review post from last December), Discovery Channel's Auction Kings (about Atlanta's Gallery 63), will be returning soon.

I'm also still enjoying BBC America's Come Fly With Me (as reviewed in my previous post) which does air on Saturdays at 11:30 PM. You can't go wrong with David Walliams and Matt Lucas, and David Schwimmer was actually hilarious on the second episode. Don't miss this show; there are only six episodes total!

Monday, June 27, 2011
Lili (1953) 4:15 PM - A sweet French-themed musical starring Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer. A joy to behold, I assure you!
Stage Fright (1950) 8:00 PM - A Hitchcock double-feature (both of which I've never seen!)
I Confess (1953) 10:00 PM - Montgomery Clift in a Hitchcock film!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Brigadoon (1954) 10:00 PM - Brigadoon always puzzled me. I haven't seen it for at least 15 years, and I'm eager to reassess it now.
Let's Be Happy (1957) 12:00 AM - An unknown (by me) Vera-Ellen/Tony Martin musical

Friday, July 1, 2011 (theme: Farley Granger, Roy Rogers during prime time)
Strangers On A Train (1951) 3:00 PM - One of my favorite Hitchcock films mostly because of Robert Walker's character. Incidentally, this is why you should always put your bag or coat on the other seat and pretend that you have a companion who is elsewhere. The life of Farley Granger's character would have been less stressful had he done that.
Side Street (1950) 4:45 PM - Looks like Farley Granger may not be quite as innocent in this film noir.
They Live By Night (1949) 6:15 PM - I've never seen this, but the premise ('After an unjust prison sentence, a young innocent gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape.') sounds like a sequel to the excellent Paul Muni film I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang.
Frankenstein 1970 (1958) 2:45 AM - Starring Boris Karloff. I'm mostly interested in seeing 1958's vision of 1970 (if that has any part in the movie).

Saturday, July 2, 2011
City Lights (1931) 8:00 PM - It's an Essential!

On The Television Auction Block

Auction and collectible shows are the hottest thing on cable right now. While hit shows like Antiques Roadshow [2] and the British series Bargain Hunt [2] and Cash In The Attic have been delighting arm chair collectors and art aficionados for over a decade, they have often appealed more to people with an eye for rococo antiques of the 'don't touch' variety. Not to suggest that all Antiques Roadshow fans are stodgy snobs who prefer ugly paintings, overly ornate porcelainware, and early American furnishings gushed over by the hunky Keno brothers! But this new breed of collectible show showcases more in the way of ooooh-inspiring pop culture and historical artifacts than its antecedents.

This new spate of collectible series is as much reality tv (as in: you can't believe what you're seeing is actually real) as it is about antiques and collectibles. And, who knows, when the credits begin to roll, a newly rich couple might strike up a pitch-perfect rendition of 'We're In The Money' to an approving panel of celebrity judges, landing the couple on Broadway starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest smash called...

Okay, okay I'm getting ahead of myself here. Still, I suppose the moral of the story is that you are undoubtedly sitting on a priceless treasure trove, so why not wrench apart old family photos to double-check if there's an extra copy of the Declaration of Independence or a real Van Gogh under there (or, maybe just Abraham Lincoln's grocery shopping list)? And, when you inevitably find the Fabargé egg hidden in the last dimple of the egg carton, rush it on over to your friendly neighborhood auction house where you will get top dollar for your accidental find. Before you quit your job and move to your own private island, however, you may want to watch one or two of these super-hot auction shows for inspiration, but.. they're on every channel, they're all on at the same time, and they all have similar generic-sounding names. There are no less than half a dozen them, so it's impossible to remember if the one you liked last week was Auction Kings, Auction Hunters, or Auction Circus. How will you know which one is the real diamond? Let me root out my loupe, and I'll tell you!