For the second time this year, Colin Farrell proves he is one of the finest actors on our time. Earlier he starred in the role of the versatile detective who is adept at finding the lost while keeping his mind and health sharp in “Sugar” for Apple TV. Now he joins the ranks of actors who played Oswald Cobblepot, better known at The Penguin from Batman cartoon and movie lore.
Farrell has the features of Cobblepot with the the costume effects Danny DeVito and Burgess Meredith used in “Batman” movies and on television. His Penguin is not so much a caricature as a grown man who has survived in Gotham City’s highest criminal circles. In the new series, “The Penguin,” on Max, he is on the verge of playing two major mob families against each other to supersede both as the head of regionwide misdoing.
Farrell is amazing as he shows Cobblepot’s coarseness and self-deprecation while illustrating his brilliance at strategy and diplomacy. He even reveals some unexpected sentimentality, especially in scenes with Cobblepot’s mother — the wily Deirdre O’Connell — and a kid he could have killed but enlists to be his chauffeur and protege (Rhenzy Feliz). Although a constant Batman reader in my D.
C. comic collecting youth, I have become immune to the spate of shows built on characters from the D.C.
and Marvel canons. They seem to be competing against one another for which can be darker and make its title character more complex. The humor, creativity and good old evil of the original comics is gone.
“The Penguin” restores one’s faith. Its story keeps you going. So do the twists and turns Cobblepot engineers to make situations turn in his favorable direction.
Farrell is amazing. He can make Cobblepot close to ingenuous one moment while making him a cold pragmatic perpetrator the next. You never get tired seeing him know exactly how to work the person he needs to impress, only to laugh at them and throw them under the bus in the next scene.
Except in profile, you might never know the corpulent, hook-nosed cripple making brash move after brash move in Gotham’s underworld is Farrell. He looks nothing like his usual self. The deft, abundant acting talent tells you you’re watching the guy who entertained so grandly and movingly in “Sugar,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Saving Mr.
Banks,” “In Bruges,” and various other roles. Cobblepot finds a great foil in Sophia Falcone, who becomes head of one mob family after the father and brother die. Like Farrell, Cristina Milioti is adroit at moving from one personality, a pert stylish young socialite, to another, a psychopathic killer who has been institutionalized for her sadistic brand of violence.
Her presence is enough to create tension and suspense. She is also the only one who can match Cobblepot in devising schemes to achieve desired ends. Deidre O’Connell is funny as Cobblepot’s mother.
She’s another chameleon, endearing and maternal one minute, deprecating, calling her son a coward and childish the next. “The Penguin” also features good writing (Lauren LeFranc) and direction (Craig Zobel) is also excellent. Channel 29 A-list programs While Channel 29’s competitors rely entirely on syndicated fare for non-news portions of their daytime television schedules, the local Fox-owned has shown a knack for doing something different.
And interesting. I make no secret about my favorite morning show, local or syndicated, being Fox 29’s “Aftershow” at 10 a.m.
weekdays when host Thomas Drayton taps a variety of colleagues from Channel 29’s newsroom to ask their opinions on everything from the day’s headlines to hypothetical situations and everyday life issues. “Aftershow” is unique in local programming history as topics to be discussed are, I’m sure, discussed at meetings, but comments and opinions are totally random. The station is equally good at filling what might be gaps at 2, 2:30, and 6:30 p.
m. with local fare. It would be easy for Channel 29 to slot in a syndicated show, especially at 6:30.
Instead, it fields programs featuring its own talent. Back to 6:30 in a minute. Let’s start with the 2 p.
m. hour, once occupied, before a U.S.
Senate run, by Dr. Mehmet Oz. Now Channel 29 divides the hour between two local shows.
At 2 p.m. it airs “Good Day Uncut with Hank Flynn,” with Flynn, a roving reporter with an eye for the unusual, finding personal stories and interesting shops and eateries throughout the Delaware Valley.
At 2:30, Flynn’s show gives way to “Live with Bill Anderson,” which also visits communities and tells its story as much via smartphones as through cameras. At 6:30 weekdays, Fox fields a different locally produced show every evening. On Monday, it’s “Mondays with Mike.
” This time it’s “Good Day Philadelphia” anchor Mike Jerrick taking viewers to various places. On Tuesdays, it’s Bill Anderson time again, as he is host of a program called “The Pulse.” Wednesdays in a return to the days of “College Bowl,” only high school-style as students from a local senior high compete against teachers from their school on “The ClassH-room,” a test of knowledge presided over by Richard Curtis, a teacher from Souderton High School.
Thursday, it’s traffic mayven Bob Kelly’s turn to show us special spots in the region as he roams the area in “Kelly Drives.” Friday, it’s a digest of the week’s news on “Fox 29 News Special.” WHYY celebrates 70 WHYY is 70! Although it’s most remembered for its long status as a PBS affiliate and producer of many important programs, I remember when it was a UHF station, broadcasting on Channel 35 and seen often in schools.
Mort Sonnenfeld taught me Spanish, Bess Barg science, and Miss Bovaird history on WHYY. Of course, ‘HYY’s current station, Channel 12, carries some of the finest international shows, one of the most popular being “All Creatures Great and Small.” WHYY celebrates its 70 years by holding an “All Creatures Pet Fest” from noon to 3:30 p.
m. at Peddler’s Village in Lahaska, Pa., near New Hope.
“Morning Edition” host and producer Jennifer Lynn leads the festivities to which everyone and his or her pet is invited. Among events are a chance to “Ask-a-Vet” at 1 p.m.
, a pet costume contest at 2 p.m., and pet adoptions throughout the day.
There will also be a booth to take photos of pets, giveaways, and a pavilion featuring all kinds of vendors whose businesses cater to pets. The All Creatures Pet Fest, says Bill Marrazzo, WHYY president and CEO, is also a good way to get excited for the upcoming season of “All Creatures Great and Small.” Admission to the event is $10 for adults, Children age 12 and younger can attend free with an adult ticket holder.
Tribute to retiring Art Moore Television without Art Moore, it’s a difficult notion to conceive. I have been involved in television, one way or another for almost 50 years. If I had to list the people I admired and respected during that time, Moore’s name would be among the top five.
Moore, known to the public for being perennially on set at the syndicated weekday talk show “Live with Kelly and Mark” — and before that “”Regis and Kathie Lee,” Regis and Kelly,” “Kelly and Michael” and “Kelly and Ryan” — is one of the shrewdest, foresightful, and overall savvy people I’ve met. I knew him when he was at Channel 6. Here my memory is dodgy.
I remember Art primarily at the head of WPVI-TV promotions, yet one who had a strong hand in programming, including the creation of the popular talk show, “AM Philadelphia,” and weekend magazine series “Prime Time.” Art was certainly the chief spokesperson for Channel 6 in the ’70s and ’80s, when I began writing about TV. In that role, he was amiable, funny, reliable, educational, and yes, firm if he disagreed with a published opinion or wanted to drive home a point.
His talents as a conceiver, producer and TV executive led, deservedly from my point of view, to one of the most remarkable and creative careers in television. A tribute to Art is his ability to construct the right talk show for a local station in the seven-channel world (“AM”), then guide a huge national success (“Live!” with whomever) through early stages of syndication and through several eras of television production, so that “Live!” remains an important deep into the multi-channel, multi-option world of the 21st century. Moore personifies the history of local television, with national overtones.
That why I said at the beginning, it’s hard to imagine television without Art Moore being involved in it. I guess everyone needs a rest, even from a career “Live!” audiences could see was successful and rewarding. After 53 years in broadcasting, all with ABC or one of its affiliates, Art Moore is retiring.
His longest-lasting and ultimate title was vice president of programming for WABC-TV, the ABC-owned television in New York. Art has been in that role since 1989, one year after the syndication of WABC’s “Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee.” Before that, he spent more than a decade at Channel 6, for most of the time an ABC affiliate but an owned station by the time Art moved on to New York.
Prior to Channel 6, he was what I used to joke was the “feeder station” or “Triple-A team ”for WPVI, the ABC affiliate in Buffalo, N.Y. Jim Gardner, Marc Howard, and Dave Roberts all came to Channel 6 from Buffalo.
Before being owned by ABC, both the Buffalo station and Channel 6 were owned by Capital Cities, one of the smartest ownership groups in broadcasting. Cap Cities merged with ABC. Channel 6 was a major catalyst in the merger.
It gave Cap Cities the wherewithal to absorb a large major television network. Cap Cities ran its stations in a unique way. Art Moore contributed to that management while also learning the subtle but cunning style in which Cap Cities operated.
That style, unlike Art’s, was never flashy. It concentrated on the local audience and provided what it wanted in a simple way that emphasized, ‘We are not stars, but one of you.” WABC, always an ABC-owned station, one that was acquired in the Cap Cities merger, was a different story.
It was local to New York, and it had one show and one particular talent, Regis Philbin, that made it special beyond even being in the Big Apple. It was the right milieu for Art Moore. He always thought big, and WABC was more suited to the scope of his imagination.
A show like “Live!” also suited his interests and the impression he gave of being a man about town. As often I saw Art Moore professionally at Channel 6 or talked to him reporter-to-spokesperson, I saw him at movie screenings at the Top of the Fox, the place where reviewers and folks who would now be called influencers saw movies before they were generally released. This was at a time long before cable, streaming, and even before the heyday of Beta, VHS, and Blockbuster! Art would be present in his usual bright green or bold plaid jacket.
If for some reason, that jacket would be subdued, Art’s tie would be some flamboyant shade. With him at the screenings would often be Jim O’Brien, whose “Dialing for Dollars” show gave way to “AM,” or Steve Levy. Art was a special person in this market, a standout.
Few in Philadelphia television history were smarter or more able to engineer what he wanted, whether it be on the air on in the newspaper. I have not spoken to Art Moore since bumping into him on a New York street, perhaps in an earlier century. He may not remember me at all, but I enjoyed seeing him frequently on “Live!” and realizing how much the respect and affection he engendered continued through the decades and the ongoing parade of “Live!” Hosts.
Your laurels are many Art, including at one time being the chairman of the board of Philadelphia Broadcast Pioneers. Your earned them. Now enjoy what’s next.
I have no doubt you will..
