MTV (Wed., June 1, 10 p.m. ET)
A
Mick Jagger? Rock's Methuselah. Eddie Vedder? Last week's hero. Madonna? Surely you jest. Hey, times and tastes change rapidly. You've got to stay current. This is the '90s. Fin de siècle, baby. The really happening dude in pop music right now is...Tony Bennett? That's right. Somehow the sexagenarian saloon singer has become an adopted favorite of the cyber-set. Say what you will about today's slacker generation, at least they have good taste.
It's an imperishable pleasure to hear Mr. Mellifluous bell out such pop classics as "Fly Me to the Moon" and "I Wanna Be Around." Tony seems visibly relieved, however, when the young audience signals by its applause that it recognizes the chestnut "It Had to Be You." But then, they probably think Tony copped the tune from the soundtrack of When Harry Met Sally...
Later Bennett is joined by duet partners k.d. lang ("Moonglow") and Elvis Costello ("They Can't Take That Away From Me"). J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and Evan Dando of the Lemon-heads were also at the taping, but they didn't make the cut. Go ride someone else's natty coattails, you pups!
First Eric Clapton. Then Rod Stewart (who actually had to perch on a stool to make it through his set). Now Tony Bennett. It occurs to me that if MTV continues to raise the age limit on this series, the title Unplugged may take on a meaning more depilatory than electrical.
HBO (Mon., June 6, 10:15 p.m. ET)
B+
Here's a tour of the largest jail complex in the country, Rikers island. The 415-acre holding facility that festers in New York City's East River is a stockade for 15,000 prisoners, most of them awaiting trial.
As we drift from one segregated unit to the next (men, women, gays, suicidals, paranoids), the documentary begins to seem like a descent through the nine circles of Dante's Inferno. Perhaps the saddest of all is the ward made up of pregnant women watching All My Children with dead eyes on a dinged-up communal TV set and using a clothes iron to make themselves grilled cheese sandwiches.
Welcome to the poller's field of the penal system. It's a terrifying little universe: the confinement, the constant cacophony, the rancid surroundings, the impending air of violence.
Sans narration, this is a shapeless film. But the footage speaks—forcefully—for itself.
>YOUTH MUST BE SERVED
HERE ARE TWO FOR THE TOTS. STORY-TIME, a mix of live action, puppets and illustrations designed to encourage parents to read to their children, comes to PBS weekdays beginning June 6 (check local listings). The series, a winner of three local Emmys in Los Angeles, gainfully employs the energetic rhetorical skills of such celebrities as Ellen DeGeneres, Meshach Taylor, Mayim Bialik and Wilford Brimley to make children's books come alive.
Kiddie impresario Shelley Duvall presents a new series on Showtime, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (Tues., June 7, 9:30 p.m. ET), starring Jean Staple-ton as the serendipitous savior of the Belly MacDonald books. The first of these gentle live-action fables about problem-solving features Christopher Lloyd (Taxi) and Macaulay Culkin look-alike Nathanael Meyst. On subsequent Tuesdays, this series will air at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
