TV — newish, new and noted
The Comedy Central series “Big Time in Hollywood, FL” premiered on March 25. It centers on two brothers who are deluded, self-proclaimed filmmakers. Their parents, played by Kathy Baker and Stephen Tobolowsky, 63, kick them out of their house. Tobolowsky had recurring roles on “Glee” (Sandy Ryerson) and “Californication” (Stu Beggs) — but he’ll always be best known to me and millions of others as the pestering insurance salesman in 1993’s “Groundhog Day.”
“Weird Loners” premieres on Fox on Tuesday, March 31. Four 30-somethings, who haven’t had romantic luck, end up living together in a Queens, New York, townhouse. One of the two female residents is Caryn Goldfarb, a high-strung dental hygienist who is “Jewish-by-adoption.” (Becki Newton, who plays Goldfarb, isn’t Jewish). Susie Essman, 59 (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), who can be quite funny, plays Caryn’s mother.
Miriam Shor, 43, is one of the co-stars of the new TV Land series “Younger” (starts March 31). She plays a publishing-firm executive who hires series star Sutton Foster as her assistant. Foster’s character is 40, but makes herself over to appear younger and get the job. Shor has guested on a lot of hit shows, while starring in a number of short-lived series.
TV info note: Yes, both the accused murderer in the documentary series “The Jinx,” Robert Durst, 71, and its filmmaker, Andrew Jarecki, 54, are Jewish.
At the movies
The comedy “Get Hard,” opening March 27, stars Will Ferrell as James, a millionaire hedge fund manager who is sentenced to a long stretch in San Quentin and has 30 days to put his affairs in order. He hires Darnell (Kevin Hart), the only African American he knows, to prep him for prison life (in other words, “get hard”). Darnell has never been to prison, so they have to make educated guesses as to what James should do to “get hard.” Alison Brie, 34, plays Darnell’s promiscuous fiancée.
Many critics branded the flick racist and homophobic after a recent preview festival showing. There is racially tinged language throughout and, in one scene, James tries to accost a gay man in a public toilet and offers to perform a sex act on him to prepare himself for life in prison. The director, Etan Cohen, 41, defended the movie in a post-festival press conference, noting it is a satire and the racial humor was “a delicate balance to find … It was hard to modulate … how far to push it.” Cohen was born in Israel to an Orthodox family and raised in the States. This is his directorial debut. He is best known as the writer or co-writer of hits like “Tropic Thunder.”
Also opening March 27 in San Francisco and Berkeley is the documentary “The Wrecking Crew.” The title refers to a large group of Los Angeles–based studio musicians who played behind an astonishing number of the biggest rock and pop artists of the 1960s and ’70s. Sometimes they provided all the instrumentation (even if credit was often elusive). Their name was coined by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer Hal Blaine, 86 (born Harold Simon Belsky, according to the 2003 book “Stars of David”), whose 35,000 recordings include the drumming on “Good Vibrations.” Blaine is interviewed in the film, along with many other dual “tribe and crew” members. Two of the more interesting are jazz and rock pianist Don Randi, 78 (born Don Schwartz), and guitarist Carol Kaye, 79, who was virtually unique in her heyday — a top female studio musician. Kaye’s musical credits include playing guitar on Ritchie Valens’ original “La Bamba” and backing some of the best Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel recordings.
Columnist Nate Bloom , an Oaklander, can be reached at [email protected].