TVSquad

I think I'm going to coin a new term. I'm a movie grazer. I like watching TV and grazing in and out of movies that I've seen before, know well, and enjoy watching again in bits and pieces. I know this sounds crazy to some who have to watch a movie from the opening studio logo to the end credits (even as they're being smushed on commercial TV broadcasts).

I'm not like that, though. On Friday, amid the post-Thanksgiving haze and without much interest in the college football games or reruns of CBS soaps or syndicated fare, I was channel surfing. Every time I saw something I liked, I stopped for a while. It was mostly movies. I watch Cary Grant and Sophia Loren in Houseboat, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle, there was a whole bunch of Goodfellas, because Bravo showed it back to back. So I watched the ending first, then stuck around to watch the beginning. What an incredible movie -- still!

Movie actors are a unique bunch of characters in Hollywood. Adept at script memorization, method acting, and being snobby little princesses (the males included), they are somewhat limited in their performance venues. They can switch pretty easily and thrive in theater productions because most of them began their acting lives on the stage in front of adoring audiences. Decades ago they could also do radio pretty easily; most likely because they could read right from the script and no one listening would know any different.

Television? Well, that's a whole different loaf a bread! For some reason, big-named movie stars with their Oscars and Golden Globes just tank when they decide to jump to the small screen. Their failures could be due to the show they've decided to star in, who they play on the show, or the fact that they are catering to a different audience than film-goers. Whatever the reason, some of Hollywood's most famous film stars had some famously big television flops. Here are but a few of them to digest.

• FOX has the Coca-Cola 600 Nextel Cup race all night (starts at 5).
• At 7, CBS has a new 60 Minutes.
• NBC has a new Dateline at NBC.
• At 8, PBS has the National Memorial Day Concert.
• Food Network has a new Emeril Live at 8, followed by a new Iron Chef America and the All-Star Grill Fest: South Beach special.
• Also at 8: TCM has Houseboat, with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, followed by Yours, Mine & Ours, with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.
• At 8:30, TNT has the Pistons/Cavaliers NBA playoffs game.
• At 9, HBO has the new movie Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Peter Bogdanovich has updated his 1971 documentary Directed By John Ford for Turner Classic Movies. The new version, which will air on November 7 at 8 pm as part of a month-long tribute to the legendary director, will retain much of its original material, such as narration by Orson Welles, with new footage including interviews with Steven Spielberg (who was heavily influenced by Ford's The Searchers), Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood and Walter Hill. Interviews from the original version with Henry Fonda, James Stewart, John Wayne and Ford himself will also remain. Ford's films will be shown on TCM throughout the month of November as part of the tribute.