Friday, September 28, 2012

What happens there can change their lives...

The most important moment in the life of a young pianist is when he or she walks out onto the stage of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Gut-wrenching drama, strung-out nerves and the joy of victory are the elements that make up this extraordinary film retrospective...tonight at 8pm

Part circus and part athletic contest, Mexican wrestling, famous for its masked competitors, provides a sense of "home" for new immigrants in the United States. Lucha libre is contributing a lasting cultural idiom to America's pop culture landscape...VOCES ON PBS: TALES OF MASKED MEN...tonight at 9pm  

Award-winning director Natalia Almada returns with a mesmerizing new film as she accompanies Martin, a guard who watches over the extravagant mausoleums of some of Mexico's most notorious drug lords. In the labyrinth of the cemetery, this film about violence without violence reminds us that, amid the turmoil of a drug war that has claimed more than 50,000 lives, ordinary existence persists in Mexico and quietly defies the dead...POV: EL VELADOR...Saturday at 11pm

PBS launches a new series about a newly qualified midwife, Jenny Lee as she arrives in the East End of London to begin her career. Nonnatus House is a convent where she quickly becomes immersed in her new life...CALL OF THE MIDWIFE...Sunday at 7pm

Thursday, September 27, 2012

spoiler alert...blue dog is a werewolf!

Tonight is the premiere of artZONE 6, our ongoing and in-depth look at the art scene in the Panhandle. Cowboy poet Baxter Black tells some very funny stories about life on the ranch. Amarillo's first Anime, Comic, and Steam Punk convention is thoroughly analyzed, and we get an up close look at the work of artist George Rodrigue - and learn the origins of the blue dog...
artZONE 6...8pm

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Animals making stuff, and people making stuff...

From a small depression in the sand to an elaborate, multi-chambered tunnel - animal structures can be simple or architectural marvels. In each case, the goal is the same - protection from predators and a nearby source of food. From master builders like termites and beavers, to master decorators like the bowerbird, which places colorful flowers at the entrance to its nest, "The Animal House"on NATURE...7pm


The New York Times' technology correspondent and best-selling author David Pogue brings his trademark goofball humor and techie zeal to this exploration of the future of "stuff." Each episode explores the talent, luck and determination that can turn a wild idea into a cutting-edge material or high-tech breakthrough...NOVA: MAKING STUFF CLEANER...8pm

Making Stuff Smarter - An army tanker truck that heals its own bullet wounds. An airplane wing that changes shape as it flies. Clothing that can monitor its wearer's heart rate, health and mood. Host David Pogue looks into the growing number of smart materials that can respond, change and even learn. NOVA: MAKING STUFF SMARTER...9pm

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

How to make Money and Medicine work for you...

MONEY AND MEDICINE tackles the medical, ethical and financial challenges of containing runaway health care spending. This documentary explores promising ways to reduce health care expenditures while improving the overall quality of medical care. It captures the painful end-of-life treatment choices made by patients and their families, ranging from very aggressive interventions in the ICU to palliative care at home. MONEY AND MEDICINE...7pm

What does it take to save a student? Every year, hundreds of thousands of teenagers in the United States quit high school without diplomas -- an epidemic so out of control that nobody knows the exact number. What is clear is that massive dropout rates cripple individual career prospects and cloud the country's future. FRONTLINE spent a semester immersed in Houston's Sharpstown school district to produce a portrait of four students in crisis and the teachers, counselors and principal waging a daily, personal struggle to get them to graduation. DROPOUT NATION...9pm

Monday, September 24, 2012

Remember "The fog comes on little cat feet..."

Carl Sandburg was a classic American tale of success -- a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, a biographer, a journalist, children's storyteller, folk song collector, novelist and autobiographer. He became one of the most successful writers in the English language, rising from impoverished beginnings on the prairie of Illinois to the halls of Congress to the Ed Sullivan Show, on the force of his free verse poetry. After his death in 1967 his star has dimmed a little...but it seems to be coming back. AMERICAN MASTERS: THE DAY CARL SANDBURG DIED...9pm

Monday, September 17, 2012

At the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City...

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW experts favorably judge such outstanding finds as a 1920s to 1930s-era folk art quilt depicting scenes from Mormon history; a valuable Utah landscape painting by 20th-century Swedish-American artist Birger Sandzen; and a mid-19th-century archive of materials documenting the career of Philip Margetts, considered the first prominent Mormon actor, brought in by his great-granddaughter and valued at $100,000 to $150,000...7pm


Friday, September 14, 2012

Don't know Dobro? Really? It's Jerry Douglas bro...

POV brings one of my favorite docs...in "Kings of Pastry," 16 chefs whip up the most gorgeous, delectable, gravity-defying concoctions and edge-of-your-seat drama...competing for international acclaim or professional humiliation. Real, real life drama...Saturday 11pm

13-time Grammy winner Jerry Douglas has, frankly, re-invented the dobro with unprecedented speed and haunting lyricism...playing with everyone from Emmylou Harris to Eric Clapton, and from Paul Simon to Elvis Costello and James Taylor, all while working as one of Nashville's most in-demand session players. For me, his ongoing relationship with Alison Krauss & Union Station is the perfect blend of art and soul...don't miss him on BLUEGRASS UNDERGROUND...Sunday at 4pm


What happens when you take what's funny here, and find out it's not funny...in Russia? TV megahit Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal discusses the (not so) universal language of comedy in his hilarious documentary EXPORTING RAYMOND with KISS KISS BANG BANG writer/director Shane Black...ON STORY Sunday afternoon at 5:30pm 

The second episode of BROADWAY OR BUST is all about Boot Camp...fighting fatigue, the eager performers quickly see what a learn-by-immersion experience is all about - and get an eye-opening look at what life is like on Broadway. As the week moves along and the final auditions loom, the program closes with another round of uncertainty. Participants dig in and launch into last-minute preparations for their auditions. Did boot camp pay off or not? Find out Sunday at 7pm 


Thursday, September 13, 2012

Is this a great country or what?

You can swing from Eddie Vedder and the boys of Pearl Jam tearing it up on AUSTIN CITY LIMITS at 7pm, to the incredible staging and performances of Part 4 of Wagner's Ring Cycle on GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET at 8pm...try to restrain yourselves!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

It's been 50 years since we learned to love "Elsa"...

The story of "Born Free" -- a book and film that forever changed the way we think about wildlife. What has happened to lions since this story? And what has happened to the people featured in the film? NATURE...7pm

In the next episode of Wagner's Ring Cycle - Das Rheingold, the mysterious hero Siegmund finds shelter in the familiar arms of a lonely woman named Sieglinde...GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET...8pm

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Where do you start to rebuild Ground Zero?

NOVA captures the behind-the-scenes struggle of architects and engineers in an epic story of  innovation, engineering and the perseverance of the human spirit. With extraordinary access granted by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, "Rebuilding Ground Zero" follows the five-year construction of the Freedom Tower and the World Trade Center Memorial...culminating with the topping off ceremony at the hallowed site. NOVA: REBUILDING GROUND ZERO...7pm

In a historic first for any major performing arts institution in this country or abroad, the Metropolitan Opera this season presents Wagner's THE RING CYCLE...beginning tonight at 8pm

Monday, September 10, 2012

Let the Ring Cycle begin...

A documentary by Susan Froemke, shot over five years, captures the unprecedented challenges of bringing Director Robert Lepage's electrifying production to life. The stakes could not be higher as the Metropolitan Opera tackle Wagner's Ring Cycle. An intimate look at the near impossible theatrical and musical task of staging opera's most monumental work, WAGNER'S DREAM chronicles the quest to fulfill Wagner's dream of the perfect Ring...8-pm 


Friday, September 7, 2012

Alas, McCartney joins the "standards" crowd...

GREAT PERFORMANCES joins Sir Paul for an intimate concert recorded at the historic Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, featuring performances of such standards as "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,"...really...Friday at 8pm

Meanwhile, Pearl Jam rocks it out on Austin City Limits, Saturday at 10pm                                                                       

POV follows the four-year journey of childhood friends who join the National Guard after graduating from high school. As it chronicles the young men's transformation from restless teenagers to soldiers looking for roadside bombs in Afghanistan, to 23-year-old combat veterans trying to start their lives again, the film offers an intimate look at the young Americans who fight our wars, the families and towns they come from -- WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM, Saturday at 11pm 

This weeks ON STORY features the creators behind the explosions of CON AIR, GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS, HULK, ZOMBIELAND and MACHETE...and debate what makes a great action movie. Sunday at 5:30

The REALLY BIG NEWS this weekend is BROADWAY OR BUST...cameras follow talented high school performers, the best in the country, to New York, where they meet their colleagues face-to-face and begin competition for a Broadway break. As day one unfolds, they learn a new opening number from director Van Kaplan and choreographer Kiesha Lalama, get one-on-one coaching in music, theater, dancing and acting from some of Broadway's top talent - including Leslie Odom, Jr. ("Smash"; Rent); Michael McElroy (Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations for Big River; Rent, Miss Saigon); Liz Callaway (Tony Award nomination for Baby; Cats, Miss Saigon) - and prepare for their solos in front of an influential group of judges. The episode ends with students wondering, "Do I have what it takes to make it on Broadway?" Sunday night at 7pm 

Thursday, September 6, 2012

there will be no balloon drop following his speech...

John Kerry, Joe Biden, Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson round out the names of speakers who will appear...culminating with President Barak Obama's acceptance of the nomination...and PBS has the whole thing - gavel to gavel. Tonight starting at 6pm

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Back in the fold, Mr. Clinton's at center stage...

It's Day 2 of the Democrat National Convention, covered gavel-to-gavel on PBS...
tonight featuring sexual-health activist Sandra Fluke, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi,
and the Democratic candidate battling Scott Brown for a Massachusetts Senate seat Elizabeth Warren...all leading up to Bill Clinton. Coverage begins during PBS Newshour at 6pm

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Power Politics...Part Deux...

Tonight's Democrat National Convention, covered gavel-to-gavel on PBS, features San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro with the keynote, and First Lady Michelle Obama stepping us as a "character witness" for her husband, the president. Coverage begins during PBS Newshour at 6pm