Show of the week
Somebody forgot to drive a stake through the heart of disco. There's a resurgence of interest in the pop culture of the 1970s, as exemplified by this lively documentary on the storied New York City nightclub that (according to the narration) "exploded with pure and excessive pleasure." Of course, a few people got hurt in the blast—including Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, two guys from Brooklyn who opened the Manhattan hot spot in 1977, got fat with profits and drunk with power, and wound up spending nearly a year in prison on tax charges. When they got out in early 1981, Studio 54's glory days were over.
This 90-minute entry in VH1's Behind the Music series is both entertaining and sobering as it recounts the up-and-down history of Schrager (now a thriving hotel owner), Rubell (whose 1989 death was AIDS-related) and their disco shrine. Exclusive yet oddly egalitarian, Studio employed imperious doormen who screened would-be entrants to ensure that the dance-floor crowd was (as one former doorman puts it) a "tossed salad" of gay and straight, celebrated and unknown. We get lots of shots of famous Studio patrons (from Mick Jagger to Mary Tyler Moore), but the show is balanced enough to include three average Joes who sit behind a velvet rope and recall the many nights they were judged too dull-looking for admission. Cheer up, guys: 54, with Mike Myers as Rubell, comes to theaters in August. And the price of a ticket is all anyone will need to get in.
Bottom Line: Hot time at the disco inferno
Showtime (Sun., May 24, 8 p.m. ET)
There's much to be said for brevity. The three fictional stories in this 90-minute Vietnam War anthology—all of which end with a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington—are lean and uncluttered, and they hold interest. But the characters in the first two are so sketchily developed that the audience may feel cheated in the end.
In The Pencil Holder, a stern colonel (Edward James Olmos) learns to pay more attention to his son (Trevor Blumas) after watching the boy comfort a dying soldier. Director Joseph Sargent (The Long Island Incident) packs plenty of tension and emotion into a half hour, but Olmos is given regrettably little to work with. In The Badge, Broadway dance star Savion Glover (Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk) fails to make a strong impression as a young soldier who carries his family's military tradition into battle. Although likely to grab viewers by the throat, the combat scenes leave us insufficient time to get into Glover's head. The final segment, The Player, features a first-class performance by Frank Whaley (Broken Arrow) as an Army wheeler-dealer whose conscience is stirred by a selfless front-line soldier (Michael De-Lorenzo, New York Undercover) who is dedicated to preserving the lives of the men in his unit. Character development is what this third one is all about; too bad the script doesn't make Whaley's moral awakening more convincing.
Bottom Line: A war effort with mixed results
CBS (Fridays, 8:30 p.m. ET)
Smile—you're watching Candid Camera again. The show has had numerous incarnations since its debut in 1948, but there's still a degree of amusement in seeing a Funt (now it's Peter, son of creator Allen) fool folks and record their reactions. Several weeks ago on the current series (which premiered in February), a guy stopped pedestrians and told them the time rather than asking for it. The double takes were pure, spontaneous comedy. But some segments run on forever with little payoff. And Funt's cohost, Suzanne Somers, is the very definition of window dressing.
Bottom Line: Slightly out of focus
PBS (Mon., May 25-June 15, 10 p.m. ET)
Recent headlines have touted a new combination of cancer drugs that has worked wonders in laboratory mice. "Cure" is the key word in large type. But public enthusiasm needs to be tempered by a knowledge of history, which Cancer Wars provides. It seems that for every genuine advance in the struggle, there has been a wave of false hope. For every solid finding about the causes of the disease, there has been a dubious scare story. If you've forgotten the days when laetrile was widely cited as a miracle cure, if you've forgotten that President Richard Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971—with a goal of victory in only five years—this four-part documentary will remind you that cancer is an enemy with enormous staying power.
Cancer Wars sometimes grows dry in its discussions of government policy and medical research, but it contains many remarkable human stories: of a Nazi health official who campaigned against the dangers of smoking yet was responsible for so-called euthanasia programs under which 70,000 people were killed; of spirited activists who fought tobacco advertising in Australia by creatively defacing cigarette billboards; of a compassionate American doctor who fights back tears as he recalls a child who thanked him for his efforts just two hours before dying of leukemia. It's unfortunate that Cancer Wars, seen in Britain earlier this year, is not up to date on the tobacco debate in the U.S. Congress or the latest encouraging word from the laboratory, but as background on the news it's of considerable value.
Bottom Line: A timely history lesson
>Sunday, May 24 INDIANAPOLIS 500 ABC (11 a.m. ET) The annual running of the legendary auto race kicks into high gear.
Monday, May 25 GEORGE & LEO CBS (9:30 p.m. ET) A choice rerun finds Bob Newhart and Judd Hirsch surrounded by actors from their old shows (Taxi, Newhart, etc.).
Tuesday, May 26 BOB HOPE: THE ROAD TO THE TOP American Movie Classics (10 p.m.ET) Whoopi Goldberg narrates a salute to Ski Nose, who turns 95 on Friday.
Wednesday, May 27 JIM CARREY: CELEBRITY PROFILE E! Entertainment Television (8 p.m. ET) Living-color portrait of the frenetic comedy star.
Thursday, May 28 LIVE BY REQUEST STARRING JOHNNY MATHIS A&E (9 p.m. ET) The romantic balladeer sings viewers' favorites.
Friday, May 29 UNSOLVED MYSTERIES CBS (9 p.m. ET) Host Robert Stack looks into a UFO story and other puzzlers.
Saturday, May 30 A BRIGHT SHINING LIE HBO (9 p.m. ET) Bill Paxton and Amy Madigan in the true story of maverick Vietnam warrior John Paul Vann.
>Jeffrey Tambor
How Now, Hank?
The cast was uncharacteristically misty-eyed on the set of The Larry Sanders Show. Jeffrey Tambor, who for six seasons has played Sanders's obnoxious sidekick Hank Kingsley on the HBO send-up of late-night talk shows, had just finished taping his last gags for the series' one-hour finale (Sun., May 31, 10 p.m. ET, costarring Warren Beatty, Jim Carrey and Jerry Seinfeld). "It felt like a family breaking up," he says of the last episode.
For Tambor, 53, playing the egocentric foil to the manically insecure Sanders (Garry Shandling) has catapulted him from the obscurity of bit TV parts to the point where fans now greet him with Hank's signature interjection, "Hey now!" "I also get 'Hey yous!' and 'Hey heys!' " he says with a laugh. But Tambor, who is divorced and has a 23-year-old daughter, Molly, isn't wasting any time capitalizing on his Sanders success. The actor will appear later this year in the films Doctor Dolittle with Eddie Murphy and Meet Joe Black with Brad Pitt.
Still, Tambor will miss his boorish alter ego. "I love Hank. He'd be great to hang out with," he says, "as long as you don't talk about things like books or current events."
- Contributors:
- Craig Tomashoff.
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!
