regarding recording television

no more pop.culture.tv?

is trio done for? some deals between nbc and directv just concluded and trio wasn't part of the package. most of trio's viewers are reached via the satellite system. it could be dark days ahead for my favorite cable channel. they were good enough to run THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND the other night. i only caught the last 25 minutes of the movie, but it was enough of a tease to make me excited to watch last night's premiere of AMISH IN THE CITY (UPN). i enjoyed the show and plan to watch another episode. more analysis when time allows.

just my 20 fav. channels, please

wired news has a story today about the debate in congress regarding the purchasing of cable television channels a la carte.

spirited (and rushed) debate

I've decided to revise my opinion about ULTIMATE FILM FANATIC (IFC, 10:30pm). I watched the second half of the first episode yesterday and enjoyed it. The contestants get a chance to quickly debate each other over various geeky movie topics. The debates only last the total of one minute, but there are "celebrity" judges! The way the show is shot (with various tilts and pans and zooms) is nonsensical and distracting, but I'm okay with that. If by the third episode this show improves, I'll actually be able to recommend it in person.

a few notes about the upcoming week

it's summer. nothing too exciting on television these days. and i want to be outside doing things, anyway. maybe that's not true. maybe i just want to be outside. i couldn't get up the energy and excitement necessary to play volleyball this evening. the thought of playing on a two-person team scared me. the idea of all that running made me want to return to my aparment and all the goodness waiting to be captured by the DVR. and that means a lot of movies. alex, the newish roommate, is a better movie watcher than i am. and that means he's good at looking for movies worth recording. this list features some of those.

Monday - 7/12
IN COLD BLOOD (TCM, 10pm). I haven't read the book and I haven't seen the movie. During the fall of 1995 I did go to dinner with Robert Osborne and a publicist from TCM. The dinner took place during the week I volunteered as a driver for the Virginia Festival of American Film. I remember eating a French Dip sandwich and talking about Star Wars.

Tuesday - 7/13
P.O.V. (THIRST) (PBS, 10pm). It's a documentary about water and the struggle for it between locals and global corporations looking for a profit. I think we all know that I'll record this, not watch it, and delete it four days later. But my heart is in the right place.

Wednesday - 7/14
IMAGES (Sundance, 3:25am). IMAGES is a Robert Altman film from 1972. I'm not expecting brilliance, but it's early Altman.

AMERICAN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP (Fox Sports, 6pm) - This is airing live (well, with a 5 minute delay) on Wednesday night.

(by the way, my computer's mp3 soundsystem just went from Invisibl Skratch Piklz to Crooked Fingers)

Friday - 7/16
ULTIMATE FILM FANATIC (IFC, 10:30pm). Ehh, I watched part of an episode of this over the weekend. The questions seemed to be on the easy side. But the host is Film Threat's Chris Gore. One of the categories had contestants trying to name the movie based on a sentence from a Chris Gore review. That's pretty cool. This will be perfect summer filler material during the commercials of baseball games.

Saturday - 7/17
IN A LONELY PLACE (TCM, 6am). I think Alex's movie watching theme for this week is "movies that start with 'in'." It's Bogart as directed by Nicholas Ray.

If anything interesting pops up during the week, I'll try to make note of it here.

(Also, the guys from The Star-Ledger's All TV column are in LA for the Television Critics Association's summer press tour. The plan seems to be that both Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz will be blogging from there. I can't seem to locate an RSS feed for this, though.)

world series of poker

the world series of poker starts airing tonight on ESPN. the full schedule indicates that things don't really start to get exciting until august 17th when the main event starts. until then we'll have to make do with what looks like a few satellites and a few non no limit hold 'em events.