HBO (Sat., July 11, 8 P.M. ET)
B
In this amusing baseball movie, Joe Mantegna stars as a cantankerous future Hall of Famer down on his luck. He reluctantly accepts an offer from the Russian Sports Ministry to come over and whip the Soviet team into shape for the '92 Olympics. (All right, the premise is dated: Filming was completed before the breakup of the U.S.S.R. But is HBO going to throw away a hunk of money just because of a fluky thing like world events?)
The movie begins as a spoof of big-bucks professional sports. (Sparky's career-ending injury happens while he's filming a car commercial.) It soon shifts to a culture-clash comedy.
The athletic action is markedly unconvincing. If none of the other actors can throw, at least the ones playing pitchers should toss a ball as well as the cast of A League of Their Own. Predictably the Soviet team goes from weenies to world beaters and Mantegna must find not only redemption but love—with Natalya (Little Vera) Negoda. But the movie is nicely paced by director Tommy Lee Wallace, and Mantegna is disarming.
Discovery (Sun., July 12, 8 P.M. ET)
C-
The channel is running a summer ratings grabber known as Sharks Week, a series of specials about the raptors of the deep. This year it kicks off with this profile of diver and marine cinematographer (The Deep) Stan Waterman.
It amounts to two hours of a very long home movie. If the tide were more honest, it would read The Man Who Loves the Ocean (With Just Enough Sharks Thrown in to Allow Us to Sneak This into Our Showcase Week).
Disney (Sun., July 12, 9 P.M. ET)
A-
In the most imaginative of the channel's Going Home music specials, Loggins, who is from Everett, Wash., visits the Grand Canyon to perform his pretty pop catalog.
He ranges over his entire career, from a Loggins-Messina medley to such '80s hits as "This Is It" to selections from his recent Leap of Faith album, including a sweet song to his son, Cody, and his environmentalist "Conviction of the Heart." He delivers them all with what is still one of pop music's most lilting voices. Handsome music and beautiful nature photography make this a most enjoyable TV hour.
Fox (Sundays, 7 P.M. ET)
C+
Who says there's a dearth of ideas in Hollywood? The concept of two chowderhead teens who use a magical phone booth to travel in time has now sparked not only two movies but a cartoon series and this sitcom. OK, this show isn't totally heinous, but it isn't funny either.
The spacey duo is played here by Evan Richards and Christopher Kennedy. Rick Overton and Danny Breen costar as a futuristic mentor and the boys' boss at Nail World.
There is a dearth even of attempted jokes in the show, let alone successful ones. About all it has going are Bill and Ted's dude-speak ("He totally did not know the bogusness of his actions") and the time-travel gimmick. Even that, alas, is more than many sitcoms have these days.
TNT (Tues., July 14, 8 P.M. ET)
D+
In this tedious melodrama, Kelly McGillis plays a 19th-century woman, who, while vacationing with her husband (Jon DeVries) and sons at a Louisiana resort, flirts with a younger man (Adrian Pasdar). Upon the family's return to New Orleans, McGillis's marriage begins to dissolve.
The fine supporting cast (Glenne Headly, Julian Sands and Ellen Burstyn) seem to be slogging through quicksand, so slow, dull and solemn is this effort. About the only thing admirable in McGillis's vanity project (she narrates and produced too) is its sunny photography. So watch it with the sound off. Maybe the tragic ending will make sense.
>GRAND BASEBALL MEMORIES
ON MONDAY NIGHT, JULY 13, THE EVE of baseball's All-Star game, cable offers a wonderful nostalgia double-header. Baltimore's new Oriole Park at Camden Yards was an attempt to re-create the cozy baseball stadiums built in the early part of this century, and Last of America's Classic Ball-parka (Discovery, 9 P.M. ET), narrated by Jeff Daniels, looks at the few remaining originals: Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago. When It Was a Game II (HBO, July 13, 10 P.M. ET) reprises last summer's special, using abundant, fascinating 8-mm and 16-mm color film of major leaguers from the '30s, '40s and '50s taken by fans and players.
>RASTA MAN VIBRATIONS
IN WHAT MAY WELL BECOME THE standard marketing timetable in coming years, a film is available this week on pay-per-view before it goes to theaters. It's Time Will Tell (Sat., July 11, check with your local cable company), a biography of the Jamaican reggae star Bob Marley, who died of cancer and a brain tumor in 1981. The film combines animation, performance, interview and candid footage, snapshots and, of course, lots of Mar-ley's stirring music, including "Them Belly Full," "Lively Up Yourself," "Jamming" and "Exodus." The result is an intimate portrait of a thoughtful man and a giant talent, although the narrative device of using only Marley's spoken words becomes rather limiting.
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!
