TELEVISION Q&A
In a Huff looking for Showtime series DVDs
BY RICH HELDENFELS
Akron Beacon Journal
Q: I was in Sweden this summer and watched an episode of Huff with Hank Azaria and Blythe Danner. It was awesome! When I returned to the States I was able to locate the complete first season and am hooked. How many seasons were there? Can I buy them?
A: Huff, starring Azaria as a troubled psychiatrist, aired on Showtime for two seasons in 2004-06, with a total of 26 episodes. It won three Emmys, including two for Danner as best supporting actress in a drama. So far only the first season has been released on DVD.
Q: Can you tell me the name of the song on the commercial for Travelers Insurance where a cute dog is worried about his bone and can't rest 'til he gets it insured? I love that commercial and the dog.
A: The song is called Trouble and is performed by Ray LaMontagne. You can learn more about him at www.raylamontagne.com.
Q: I was a big fan of the Ally McBeal series. Nobody seems to show reruns of it, nor can I find it in the video stores.
A: While it took some time to get to DVD, the complete series has been released in a single package, and there is a separate DVD release of the first season.
Q: Two of my favorite movies are Humoresque with Joan Crawford and John Garfield and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Are these available on DVD? I haven't seen them lately on TCM or AMC.
A: Both films have been released on DVD. If your local video retailer will not order either title, try an online seller like Amazon.com.
Q: I am trying to find a Sally Field movie -- with Judy Davis, I think -- where Sally is hired as a maid in a difficult New England household. Might it be on DVD and/or available from Netflix?
A: The movie, A Cooler Climate, first aired on Showtime in 1999. It was released on VHS, and I have seen old copies in that format for sale, but I do not know of an authorized DVD version.
Q: In the late '60s I saw a full-length movie (in parts) at my high school during lunch. It was not a new movie, obviously. It had Lloyd Bridges in it as a scuba diver. He rescued some people from an island using an underwater inflatable room as a base and swimming in and cutting the bars of an underwater intake conduit to gain covert access. Can you identify it?
A: You saw Daring Game, a 1968 film starring Bridges, and produced by Ivan Tors, who had worked with Bridges on TV's Sea Hunt. ``Credit Mr. Tors and company with coming up with such devices as . . . Instant Underwater Habitat, or `Igloo,' a contraption dropped from a plane and then inflated on the ocean floor to bungalow proportions, to thwart the villains,'' the New York Times noted when the film premiered.
Q: One of my all-time favorite movies is The World According to Garp. It starred Robin Williams, John Lithgow and Glenn Close. Yet you never hear these stars mention this movie in their credits. I know the critics were not crazy about this film but I was. Why isn't it ever mentioned?
A: I like the movie, too. But you overstate its neglect. Robin Williams' bio, for example, lists it. And this is from Glenn Close's bio for the FX series Damages: ``Glenn Close made her feature film debut in George Roy Hill's The World According to Garp. Her performance in the film earned her awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review as well as an Academy Award nomination.'' If you don't hear the actors talking about the movie, maybe it's just that -- considering all the other things they have done -- they don't get asked about it.
Send questions to rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com or The Akron Beacon Journal, 44 E. Exchange St., Akron, OH 44309. Individual replies cannot be guaranteed.





















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