‘How I Met Your Father’ honors original narrator Bob Saget
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“The wit, the wisdom, and, above all, the kindness fans heard in Bob Saget’s voice (as Ted Mosby in the year 2030) was no act. It’s who Bob really was. And it’s how all of us in the How I Met Your Mother family will always remember him,” executive producers Craig Thomas, Carter Bays and Pam Fryman said in a statement to the Daily News Tuesday.
Is It Going To Take Nine Year To Tell This Love Story?
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Is It Going To Take Nine Year To Tell This Love Story?
By Genevieve Burgess | TV | January 18, 2022 |
How I Met Your Father on Hulu at 12:01am ET. Series premiere. Hilary Duff and Chris Lowell attempt to recapture the magic of How I Met Your Mother. This is also what Kim Cattrall is doing instead of And Just Like That.
American Auto on NBC at 8:00pm ET.
Abbott Elementary on ABC at 9:00pm ET.
Our Kind of People on Fox at 9:00pm ET.
This is Us on NBC at 9:00pm ET. We are into the final season for this show, which has been on for six years somehow. It still feels like a relatively new show, but since I’m regularly covering series that have been on TV so long they could be eligible to vote I guess it sort of is a new series compared to others.
← HBO Max’s ‘Somebody Somewhere’: Life is a Cabaret! |
Genevieve Burgess is a Features Contributor for Pajiba. You can follow Genevieve Burgess on Twitter.
Header Image Source: Hulu
Superman Comes Clean, HIMYF Premiere and More
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On TV this Tuesday: Hulu launches How I Met Your Father, Naomi has an ominous encounter and Superman opens up about his visions. Here are 10 programs to keep on your radar; all times are Eastern.
New this week: Mellencamp, Hilary Duff and ‘Fraggle Rock’
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This combination of photos shows promotional art for “A Hero,” a film premiering Jan. 21 on Amazon, left, “Munich: The Edge of War,” a film premiering Jan. 21 on Netflix and “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock,” premiering Jan. 21 on Apple TV+. (Amazon/Netflix/Apple TV+ via AP)
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES
— Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi latest masterpiece, “A Hero,” comes to Amazon Prime Video on Jan. 21. AP Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote in his review that this saga about a good deed gone wrong, in which a man imprisoned for a debt returns a bag of gold to its owner, is, “ one of the most labyrinthine moral tales you’re likely to encounter… Farhadi’s film grows increasingly knotty with fictions to cover truths, and vice-versa.”
— The Sundance Film Festival kicks off Thursday night and, like last year, it is entirely virtual and movie lovers from around the world can buy tickets to see the films when they premiere from the comfort of their homes. Opening night offerings on Jan. 20 include “La Guerra Civil,” a documentary about the rivalry between Oscar De La Hoya and Julio César Chávez in the 1990s directed by Eva Longoria, Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut “When You Finish Saving the World,” starring Julianne Moore, and “The Princess,” a documentary about Princess Diana that turns the lens on the audience. Or if you can’t score tickets to any of the Sundance films this year, MUBI is programming some breakouts and underseen gems of years past, like “But I’m a Cheerleader” (Jan. 23), “Tarnation” (Jan. 20) and “Whirlybird” (Jan. 22).
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— It’s the fall of 1938 and tensions are boiling over as Hitler readies to invade Czechoslovakia and Britain seeks peace in “Munich: The Edge of War,” coming to Netflix on Friday. Based on the book by Robert Harris, this fictional tale directed by German filmmaker Christian Schwochow centers on two old Oxford classmates, one British (George MacKay) and one German (Jannis Niewöhner), who are sent to the Munich Conference for negotiations. Jeremy Irons plays Neville Chamberlain and Ulrich Matthes is Hitler.
— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr
MUSIC
— In the fall of 2021, two quintessentially American singer-songwriters got together for a song about making the most of the time we’ve got left. John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen’s “Wasted Days” is just one highlight of Mellencamp’s upcoming album, “Strictly a One-Eyed Jack,” set for release Friday. Mellencamp’s gravely voice and rootsy rock are all over the 12-track collection, the sound of an artist looking back with some regret and at the present with a critical eye. “Worries occupy my brain,” he sings in one song. It’s not all gloomy, though: In the single “Chasing Rainbows,” Mellencamp says our search should end: “At the end of the rainbow/Turns out it’s not somewhere/Look around it’s everywhere/For anyone who cares.”
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— Norwegian pop star Aurora album is back with a divine new album, “The Gods We Can Touch,” out Friday. This time she leans into religion and Greek myths, like the track “Giving In to the Love,” which was inspired by Prometheus stealing fire for humans and has the line: “I want to live my life, be all of its pages/And underline that I am not an angel.” The lead single, “Cure For Me,” is a radical jaunty pop affirmation that dismisses the need for outside approval.
— Keb’ Mo’ releases the 13-track album “Good To Be” on Friday. Darius Rucker, Kristin Chenoweth and Old Crow Medicine Show all make guest appearances and Vince Gill produced three cuts. Some of the singles include “Good Strong Woman,” “Sunny and Warm,” “The Medicine Man” and a cover of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.” The album was written between Nashville and his childhood home in Compton, California. The sunny, welcoming ″Good To Be (Home Again)," the musician says, “feels like the title track to my life.”
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— AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy
TELEVISION
— When a title is as catchy as “How I Met Your Mother,” there’s reason to think it will be recycled. Say hello to Hulu’s iteration, “How I Met Your Father,” with Hilary Duff as the woman searching for love and a tale for future offspring. Kim Cattrall, who skipped the sequel to “Sex and the City,” is Sophie circa 2050, filling her son in on his origin story and her frisky salad days. Co-stars Christopher Lowell, Francia Raisa, Tom Ainsley, Tien Tran and Suraj Sharma play friends and others in Sophie’s circle. The series debuts Tuesday.
— Writer-producer Jason Katims, who gifted TV with “Friday Night Lights” and “Parenthood,” is steering Amazon’s “As We See It,” an adaptation of an Israeli series about 20-something roommates navigating the road to adulthood. Jack (Rick Glassman), Harrison (Albert Rutecki), and Violet (Sue Ann Pien) share something else: They are all on the autism spectrum. (The actors playing them also identify as being on the spectrum). The eight-episode comedic drama, which also stars Sosie Bacon, Chris Pang and Joe Mantegna, is out Friday.
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— It’s party time again for Gobo, Red, Mokey, Wembley and Boober on the Apple TV+ reboot “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock,” debuting Friday. New friends are also promised in the 13 puppet-populated episodes with roots in the 1983 series created by Muppets mastermind Jim Henson. Signature elements: Bouncy tunes, silly jokes and good will. The streaming service also is home to the original show’s 88 episodes, along with “Fraggle Rock” shorts and specials.
— AP Television Writer Lynn Elber
Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/apf-entertainment.
Lowell residents make history as first Black couple elected to SAG-AFTRA
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LOWELL — Gilda and Chris James will be celebrating their 48th wedding anniversary next week, but in August, the Lowell residents marked a different milestone: they became the first Black married couple elected to leadership positions in SAG-AFTRA, the Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
Gilda and Chris met in the 1970s when they were both in the Navy, Gilda as a civilian and Chris on a submarine.
The pair joined the union in 1997 when, helped along by Gilda’s brother, Harry Thomas, they served in background roles in the Steven Spielberg film “Amistad.” At the time, they were living in Mystic, Conn., and soon they began earning a variety of roles in both Boston and New York City.
“When they were doing a production within 25 miles of our home in Mystic, (Thomas) just thought it’d be a great opportunity for all of us to go down and audition. We did and it turned into 21 days of work for the both of us,” Chris said. “We were equidistant between New York and Boston, and those at the time were the two premier movie worksites.”
Gilda, who had loved performing since childhood but had not yet had a professional opportunity to do so, said they loved the experience of working on the movie, with the exception of filming in the dead of a New England winter.
“I had just come back from Florida,” she said. “We had some very flimsy cotton clothes on, and we weren’t too happy about that.”
Since then, both have worked on a variety of projects. Gilda has worked as a model and done background work and been a stand-in for other actors, including Leslie Silva in the pilot of the show “Providence” and more recently for Enuka Okuma in “The Sleepover.” She has done more than 100 movies, television shows, commercials and talk shows.
“I enjoy meeting different actors and getting to see them in real life,” she said.
Chris has also had his fair share of roles, including working on the first season of the show “Body of Proof.” He said that one of his favorite experiences was last year, when he got to work on a movie starring Kevin Bacon, and the day he was there happened to be Bacon’s birthday, as well as the birthday of Chris’ boss at his full-time job with the Boston VA Medical Center.
“Kevin Bacon is still one of my premiere, most-loved actors in the business,” Chris said. “He just had a casual sit-down on a couple lawn chairs and we’re talking and he said, ‘Wish your boss a happy birthday for me.’ I said, ‘She’ll be tickled pink!’”
Eventually, there were fewer opportunities in New York, and the couple made the decision to move closer to Boston in 2015, settling in Lowell. Chris had just finished his degree in social work and started his current job.
Gilda first ran for union office in 2017, but was unsuccessful. Undeterred, she ran again and was elected as board member for the New England Local SAG-AFTRA and won.
“Once I moved here, got established, did more networking and got the opportunity to meet other people, it was the time for me to get in there and check out how the system was run,” she said.
She traveled to the 2019 national convention in Los Angeles, joined by Chris, but he was unable to attend any of the convention events because he wasn’t an elected member. So, in 2021, both ran and were elected, Gilda again as a board member and Chris as a convention delegate.
“It’s been a good opportunity to work with a really amazing group of people,” Chris said.
Gilda has been able to work with other union members on things like preserving film and television tax incentives for production companies to encourage the creation of more local jobs in the industry. She was able to participate in demonstrations at the State House and successfully lobby the legislature to pass Amendment 846, which protected the tax incentive.
However, she said COVID-19 put a damper on her experience during her first term as a board member.
“I really couldn’t get out there and do what I wanted to do,” she said.
However, the 2021 convention was successfully held virtually, and both are optimistic about the future of their union work.
“We’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Gilda said. “We’ve all been very fortunate. It’s a team effort.”