Featured Stories
“Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” “Orange Is the New Black” “Beauty and the Beast”
Profiled athlete
Scott Van Slyke
CELEBRITY SPOTLIGHTS
David Duchovny Emmanuelle Chriqui Bill Paxton Kellan Lutz Shane Reynolds
WHAT'S FOR DINNER
Featuring: Andrew Zimmern
JAY Bobbin's movies to watch
The story The 69th Annual Tony Awards Kristin Chenoweth is a nominee and co-host of The 69th Annual Tony Awards, airing Sunday on CBS.
And so much more!
Connect to these shows within this magazine!
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Featured
Stories
The 69th Annual Tony Awards airing Sunday on CBS. p3
“Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”
premiering Saturday on BBC America. p 11
“Orange Is the New Black”
premiering its third season Friday on Netflix. pp 12-13
“Beauty and the Beast”
Season 3 premiere of “Beauty and the Beast” Thursday on The CW. pp 14-15
SIX
Celebrity potlights David Duchovny
Andrew Zimmern
p4
p7
Emmanuelle Chriqui
Kellan Lutz
of “Aquarius” on NBC.
“Murder in the First” on TNT. p5
Bill Paxton
of ‘Texas Rising’ on History.
Pictured: Kellan Lutz at a photocall of the movie “EXPENDABLES 3,” at George V Hotel in Paris.
of “Bizarre Foods.”
Checking In. p8
Shane Reynolds of the Travel Channel. p9
p6
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Profiled Athlete Scott Van Slyke pp 16-17
Editor's choice
STORY
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Kristin Chenoweth co-hosts, competes in Tony Awards telecast By John Crook
Co-hosting a nationally televised awards show would be stressful enough for most performers, but Kristin Chenoweth is pulling double duty during The 69th Annual Tony Awards Sunday, June 7, on CBS. In addition to co-hosting the ceremonies with Alan Cumming (“The Good Wife”), Chenoweth also is a front runner in the race for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical for the current Broadway revival of “On the Twentieth Century.” Many TV viewers first were introduced to both Chenoweth and Cumming in Rob Marshall’s 1999 TV adaptation of “Annie,” and the actress says they have been friends for years. “I think the thing that I am most looking forward to is the feeling of being off the cuff,” she says of her co-hosting chores. “We’re rehearsing and working on some of the material right now, but basically we’re just going to have a good time. I’m just looking forward to playing with my buddy.” In that televised “Annie,” Chenoweth played Cumming’s dim-bulb girlfriend, Lily St. Regis. In “On the Twentieth Century,” she plays another Lily – Oscar-winning actress and diva Lily Garland, who finds herself on the same Chicago-to-New York train as her former mentor and lover Oscar Jaffee (Peter Gallagher). Although Lily is accompanied by her latest boy-toy, Bruce Granit (Tony nominee Andy Karl), she and Oscar inevitably start to rekindle old feelings as he tries to woo her for his latest theater project.
Fans of screwball comedy may recall the story from its classic 1934 movie incarnation with John Barrymore and Carole Lombard as Oscar and Lily. Originally created for Madeline Kahn – coincidentally, one of Chenoweth’s idols – the musical version of Lily is a tour de force for any actress who can belt out difficult, faux-operetta songs while simultaneously delivering the requisite comedy bits. Kahn left only two months after the original production opened in 1978, unable to handle the daunting vocal demands for eight performances a week. Chenoweth, who continues in the current production through mid-July, says the role is indeed a killer. “I’ll be honest, when I sat down and went over the score, which is just one challenge after another, I thought that this was a mountain I couldn’t climb,” the actress admits. “And on top of everything else, I knew I had to make it look easy. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, that’s for sure, but this is a beast that I am so happy to tackle every time we do it.” Many Tony handicappers peg Chenoweth as all but a shoo-in, but her category also includes two other favorites: two-time Tony winner Chita Rivera, 82, in “The Visit,” the last musical from John Kander and Fred Ebb, and Kelli O’Hara in “The King and I.” The latter has been nominated in this category five times without a win, and she’s gotten stellar reviews for this role, which previously earned Tonys for actresses Gertrude Lawrence and Donna Murphy.
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CELEBRITY Jay Bobbin’s Q&A
DavidDuchovny of ‘Aquarius’ on NBC Does the way series television is being done now, with limited runs in cases such as “Aquarius,” make returning to it more appealing to you? That’s exactly right. When I finished “The X-Files,” I would have said – and I would have meant it – that I was never going to do television again, and not because television is any less legitimate as film for an actor, writer, director or producer. I would have said that at that time because there was no way I wanted to spend 10 months a year doing 22 to 25 episodes. I just didn’t have it in me at that point. Then when the cable model started to become prevalent, which was right around that time as “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos” started to hit, people woke up and saw this amazing work was being done in only 12 or 13 episodes (per season). I didn’t see it coming ... but a few years later, I woke up and said, “Sure, I’ll do that TV. Anytime.” And now, it’s not just cable. Does the feeling of having been accepted in other projects, including your long run on “Californication,” make it more comfortable for you to return to the role of Mulder in next year’s revival of “The XFiles”? Oh, yeah. It would be a whole different story if I felt like nothing else had happened and I hadn’t been able to get anything else going during the years we were off the air. I feel a great sense of freedom in that I’m not making choices based on what other people’s perceptions of my career or my talent – or me – are. At this point, it’s just like, “Let’s do the best work we can do, do the most interesting work we can do, and be the best artist we can be.”
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CELEBRITY Jay Bobbin’s Q&A
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EmmanuelleChriqui ‘Murder in the First’ on TNT Your police character is in the midst of the action, quite literally, from the moment she first appears in Monday’s (June 8) Season 2 premiere of “Murder in the First.” How was it for you to start out that way? It’s crazy, and the thing is that it’s so big and so intense, then it turns the corner in that amazing way where it’s super characterdriven. It just takes you on a ride, and I think it’s going to be a great season. What’s the background of your character in the show? She’s half-Mexican and half-Israeli, and she used to serve in the Israeli Army and was very, very good at what she did. She grew up in San Francisco, then went to Israel and came back, and she’s actually a plainclothes sergeant in the Gang Unit. She’s an interesting cat, not anyone I’ve played before ... not even close. Someone you have played before is Sloan on “Entourage.” Did you always keep the faith that the current movie version would happen? Not at all. At one point, I didn’t think it would happen at all and had really pushed it aside, then there was talk of it again. It was not an easy project to put together. However, when you see the film, it’s so worth it. I think a lot of people will be really happy with it. I can say with utmost confidence that if you’re a fan of the show, this is the best version of the show possible. It’s like a string of three or four episodes, but the best ones. The show was such a love letter to Los Angeles, shot just beautifully – and the film is the same way, but cinematic. It’s so impressive.
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CELEBRITY George Dickie’s Q&A
BillPaxton of ‘Texas Rising’ on History As a Texan who’s related to Sam Houston, you’re uniquely qualified to play him on History’s “Texas Rising.” Yeah (chuckles). Being a Texan is kind of random. My dad was from Kansas City, Mo., and my mom was from Joliet, Ill. They ended up in Fort Worth, and that’s where I was born, so I’m a first-generation Texan. But my dad’s family has family that goes back – Sam Houston and I, we share common grandparents six generations back on my father’s side. His mother would have been a great aunt of mine and he’s my second cousin I think four or five times removed. I keep forgetting which one it is. I think it’s four times removed – my second cousin four times removed. So is it fair to say you were intimately familiar with the story when you were cast? Oh yeah but it had been a long time. I’d read “The Raven,” the Marquis James biography. My dad had given me that when I was probably late teens or something. But it was a lot of fun to delve back into it. Again, a very remarkable American. Oh my God, his stats are unbelievable. You know, president of a country. Probably could have been president of the United States but he abdicated the governorship going into his second term because of the breakup with his first wife, which he never spoke about, took it to his grave. He had great chivalry, a romantic character who loved his dad and loved reading the Homeric tales that his dad had in his library, “The Iliad” and these things, and was a very game guy.
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FOOD George Dickie’s What's for Dinner
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AndrewZimmern
Zimmern and ‘Bizarre Foods’ sample the fruits of the Peruvian jungle Last year, Andrew Zimmern brought “Bizarre Foods” to Lima to sample the unusual eats of the Peruvian capital. This week on Travel Channel, he heads back to the Land of the Incas to get a completely different culinary take. “It’s a transcendent place,” Zimmern says, “with hundreds of stories to be told, and its many cultures float at the surface of society. It’s also a horizontal culture, not a vertical one like America’s particular zeitgeist.” In the Monday, June 8, episode titled “Peruvian Amazon: Giant Rodents & Biting Ants,” Zimmern heads into the heart of the Amazon jungle to Iquitos to try his hand at catching and cooking giant biting ants. “You find the hive and break the walls down and grab them at the shoulders,” he says of how to catch them. “It’s easy to not get bitten by the ones you are snatching. It’s the other 77,000 of them coming at your legs that make it hard. We cooked them in tucupi (a yellow sauce made from the root of the native manioc plant) with a local shaman. It’s a superfood stew.” He also swam with paiche, an important food fish in South America that can reach 12 feet in length. In the past, it has been fished to near extinction in some parts of the continent and commercial fishing of it is banned in Brazil. “It’s one of the best fish on earth – clean, white-fleshed and delicate,” Zimmern says. “... I tried to lift it out of the net to free it. It’s got armor plating so it was very tricky, but fun to be in the water with them. The man responsible for making them nearly extinct by hunting them down is the guy dedicated to farming them now, so it was an inspiring story.” And as for those giant rodents, known as mahas, they’re smoked and Zimmern says they taste “like ham.” Bon appetit. What book are you currently reading? “ ‘I Married Adventure,’ the story of the 19th century explorer Martin Johnson. He was also a nature photographer who brought home stunning movies of Africa and the South Seas to eager Americans and spent a lifetime traveling the world with his cameras and his wife. ”
three shows we are working on, and I am expanding my restaurant business by a factor of about 20. I have another season of ‘Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations’ I am working on, and of course another season of ‘Bizarre Foods.’ ”
When was the last vacation you took, where and why? What did you have for dinner last night? “Disney World. It is the most magical place “Seared beef, roasted tomatoes, sweet on Earth. We go a few times a year. I love potatoes charred in a fire with sour cream Costa Rica, on the Pacific south coast. We and hot chiles.” go there a lot.” What is your next project? “I am about to try to sell a cookbook, I just launched a production company that has
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CELEBRITY Jay Bobbin’s Celebrity ScooP
KellanLutz
If anyone is surprised by Kellan Lutz’s move from the “Twilight” movies to hosting a competition series, they likely don’t know his own background in the type of competition. The actor who played Emmet Cullen in the hugely popular screen franchise based on Stephenie Meyer’s novels is presiding over Fox’s new Wednesday show “Bullseye.” It’s from the producers of “Wipeout,” who now are using extreme sports – something Lutz, a fan of such activities, is well-versed in – instead of the wacky obstacle course of the former ABC program. As with that series, though, a $50,000 grand prize is available to each hour-long episode’s winner. “When they approached me with this, I never saw myself hosting something,” Lutz says, “but this is a competition that allows people to step outside their comfort zones, which I’m all about. I love pushing myself to the limit; I’m such a risk-taker, I love extreme adventures, and it’s always great to see my friends do what I do ... and that feeling they face afterward, that smile on their faces and the sense that they can do anything.” Still, Lutz admits he initially was “a bit hesitant” to take the “Bullseye” job: “I love doing my movies, but a show like this could go for many seasons. As soon as they showed me the reel about what it is and what they wanted it to be, I told them, ‘If you really want me, you have to promise me that I can do some of the stunts.’ Then they were hesitant, but they came back and said, ‘We’ll get the insurance, and we’ll have to know a week in advance which stunts they are.’ ” As a result, “The Legend of Hercules” star Lutz is quite content with his “Bullseye” role. “It’s just been fun,” he maintains. “I’m having the time of my life. I love people, and I guess that’s what hosting is about.” Birthdate: March 15, 1985 Birthplace: Dickinson, N.D. Current residence: Los Angeles Marital status: Single Movies include: “The Expendables 3,” “The Legend of Hercules,” “Twilight,” “The Twilight Saga: New
Moon,” “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1,” “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” “Tarzan” (voice only), “Java Heat,” “Immortals,” “Love, Wedding, Marriage,” “A Warrior’s Heart,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (2010), “Prom Night” (2008), “Accepted,” “Stick It”
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CELEBRITY CelebritY profile
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S h ane R e y nolds
Shane Reynolds works as a host, writer, producer, director and editor on the Travel Channel. - Reynolds, aka “Shane O,” is a traveling one-man band. As the owner of the mobile TV production company Color Earth, he has spent the past decade working as a travel show host. - He has traveled to more than 50 countries across the globe and often wears all production hats as he did for the Travel Channel series “Not Your Average Travel Guide” and the Nat Geo Wild series “Shane Untamed.” - Reynolds has produced several Travel Channel original Web series, including “Host’s Hometown,” “The Perfect Shot,” “Top 10 Locals List” and “Real.” - His journey to capture the world on video started after he received a B.A. in telecommunications from the University of Florida. After school he left Florida to become a professional producer in Nashville, Tenn., for five years. - Reynolds has shot video in more than 35 countries, producing countless commercials, documentaries, music videos, TV specials and TV series as well as corporate and promotional videos. He has won more than 25 major awards for his work, including Billboard, Telly and Addy awards. - Today, Reynolds continues to produce long-form and short-form material in the most adventurous destinations around the world. Whether he’s hosting, shooting, or editing ... his musical background, adventurous spirit, and laid-back humor are evident in his unique style. - Reynolds’ other passions include surfing, snowboarding, scuba diving, wakeboarding, break dancing, juggling, unicycling, happy hour, and the “O” stands for karaoke.
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CELEBRITY Celebs’ favorite shows
Emmanuelle Chriqui
Kristin Kreuk
Bill Paxton
Set the DVR
Jeff Foxworthy
Bill Paxton of “Texas Rising” on History Kristin Kreuk of “Beauty and the Beast” on The CW “I watched ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and ‘Breaking Bad.’ I haven’t “I am re-watching ‘The Wire,’ because I love it. I also seen much this year. I’ve just been on the road.” watched ‘Transparent,’ which was excellent – and those are the main two I’ve been watching.” Emmanuelle Chriqui of “Murder in the First” on TNT “I was a huge ‘Dexter’ fan, and the first two seasons of ‘Homeland,’ I was obsessed with. I really love ‘Masters of Sex,’ and I recently watched ‘Bloodline’ – and ‘Ray Donovan’ just rocks my world. What kills me is that Liev Schreiber makes it seem so effortless, there’s that feeling of him being underused, but that’s because he’s a genius.”
Jeff Foxworthy of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” on Fox “I just finished the whole ‘Justified’ series, and we’ve just started ‘Bloodline,’ which is excellent. By the end of the first episode, they have you hooked.”
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STORY
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Epic fantasy ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell’ comes to BBC America By John Crook
Pictured: Bertie Carvel
As England struggles to cope during the Napoleonic Wars with France, two great English mages engage in a dangerous battle in “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,” a seven-part miniseries adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s fantasy novel premiering Saturday, June 13, on BBC America. The story opens in 1806, as a reclusive gentleman named Mr. Norrell (Eddie Marsan, “Ray Donovan”) comes to London to offer his magical services to his government. Norrell has sharpened his powers, which are otherwise long-gone from England, through years of tireless scholarship delving through occult tomes. To gain the trust of a rising politician, Sir Walter Pole (Samuel West), Norrell raises the man’s beloved late fiancée from the dead. In doing so, however, Norrell unwittingly unleashes a malevolent faerie spirit (Marc Warren) known as The Gentleman with the thistle-down hair. Norrell is understandably irritated when, as his own fame begins to rise, so does that of another, previously unknown magician, Jonathan Strange (Bertie Carvel), a wealthy dandy whose powers appear to be stronger than Norrell’s, albeit with no apparent effort on Jonathan’s part. This sets up a tense dynamic like that between Mozart and Salieri in “Amadeus,” as each man tries to prove he is the greatest magician in the world. If Jonathan comes by his gifts through no apparent effort on his part, however, the character grows in stature as the story unfolds.
“More so than any other script that I have ever read or had a chance to be involved in, the arc of this man’s journey is absolutely huge,” Carvel says. “The horizon of his story keeps receding, a bit like when you’re walking through hills and you get to the top of a peak and you see another one looming beyond it. The story just continually keeps surprising one. By the end of the third episode, you probably feel as if you’ve experienced seven hours’ worth of drama. “Jonathan grows up once when his father dies and then again when he goes to war, yet he continues to grow up again and again and again, and his arc becomes richer and richer as it goes along, like a really good wine.” Carvel says that while this sprawling fantasy is epic in scale, he found it fairly easy to master his role simply because screenwriter Peter Harness’s adaptation of Clarke’s novel is so rich. “My job really is about paying close attention to the words on the page and then letting my imagination rip,” he says. “When you’re dealing with material like this, that’s quite easy, because it’s fertile ground for one’s imagination, especially one like mine. I’ve always loved literature and history and been interested in imaginary realms. A lot of stars aligned for me with this role.”
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STORY
“Orange Is the New Black,” premiering its third season Friday on Netflix. Story on next page
YaelStone Page 12 YOUR TV LINK Courtesy of Gracenote June 7 - 13, 2015
STORY
‘Netflix’s
‘Orange’
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peels away more character layers in Season 3
By John Crook If the Season 3 trailer for “Orange Is the New Black” is any indication, the return of Alex Vause (Laura Prepon), erstwhile lover of Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), to Litchfield Penitentiary is a major story line as Netflix begins streaming new episodes of its hit prison dramedy on Friday, June 12. It certainly won’t be the only compelling story, however. As fans know from the two previous seasons, “Orange Is the New Black” has woven a fascinating tapestry of characters of every temperament, color and sexual orientation. Cast members who started out with only one or two lines per episode have broken out and revealed their characters to be complex, fascinating women. Perhaps that’s true of no character more than Lorna Morello (Yael Stone), the lovely, emotionally fragile prison driver who spent most of her screen time sighing over Christopher (or “Christuffah,” as she pronounced it), her devoted fiancé on the outside. Most fans were stunned in Season 2 when a memorable episode revealed that this Prince Charming was a fairy-tale character in Morello’s obsessive fantasy, a handsome stranger she had been stalking. After she broke into his home while out on an errand, Christopher came to the prison in a rage and threatened to kill her if she came near him again. Stone admits she was just as stunned as anyone else by that revelation. “I certainly had a sense that the fairy-tale portrait that she had been painting for two seasons seemed to have a few holes in it,” the actress says. “For one thing, this guy never came in to visit her. If she was the love of his life, then where was he? So I sensed that something was amiss, but I certainly didn’t know the extent that the fantasy played out in her life or that it directly related to her prison sentence.” Morello will spend part of Season 3 confronting the reality of her situation, but that makes more room for personal growth, Stone adds. Keep an eye on Gloria Mendoza (Selenis Leyva) as well. She’s the tough broad who wrestled control of the prison kitchen away from the imposing Red (Kate Mulgrew). Leyva says she knew series creator Jenji Kohan had faith in her work when she picked Leyva to face off with the formidable Mulgrew. “It’s easy to try to pigeonhole Gloria as a tough cookie, but there are so many layers to her,” Leyva says. “We got to see quite a bit more of who this woman is in Season 2. She’s a fighter, a survivor of domestic violence, but she’s also a spiritual woman, a mother hen to some of these girls. You’re going to see more of that in Season 3.” Leyva jokes that she hopes Gloria never gets out of prison, because the role is so rewarding. “I think Gloria should serve many, many years, and maybe have more years added on because she has to ‘take care of’ someone in the prison,” she says, laughing.
SelenisLeyva
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STORY
CW unveils
more ‘Beauty’ Season 3 premiere of “Beauty and the Beast” Thursday on The CW. Story on next page
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STORY
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are still in the eye of The CW By Jay Bobbin Few broadcast-network stars can talk about the start of their show’s new season already knowing there will be another beyond it. Kristin Kreuk is in that happy position: Soon after the third-season premiere of “Beauty and the Beast” – which returns Thursday, June 11, on The CW – she’ll go back before the cameras to start filming Season 4, likely to air next year. She never had that kind of early job security during her “Smallville” run as Lana Lang, so it’s a big bonus for her that the love story of police-detective beauty Catherine Chandler and her “beastly” beau Vincent (Jay Ryan) is guaranteed to go on. “It is awesome,” Kreuk confirms of having a fourth season of “Beauty” in store. She notes she’s “never actually experienced” completing a whole round of a show before it airs, as with Season 3, but “it feels good to have it done. The weird thing is that we’ll be shooting Season 4 while Season 3 is airing, which will be funny, I think. The fans will be talking about what we did earlier.” Kreuk gives major credit to those fans, often referred to as “Beasties,” for helping to keep the series going. “It’s pretty amazing. They will watch it wherever it’s placed on the schedule, and that is so fantastic. They’re solid and they’re engaged and they care deeply, and that’s all you can ask for from fans. And I think every guest star who comes in and tweets about their experience just gets bombarded by Beastie love.” “Beauty and the Beast” could have ended with Season 2, since the closing scene that gave Catherine and Vincent the prospect of a happy life together would have served that purpose. “We weren’t sure,” Kreuk recalls, “so Brad (executive producer Kern) ended it purposely that way.
Pictured: Jay Ryan and Kristin Kreuk
There was a cliffhanger in there, but there also was a finality to it. We did that in New York at the end of shooting, and you usually never know if you’re coming back. You’re constantly in limbo.” However, “Beauty and the Beast” picks up from that point with what Kreuk deems “a new chapter for the characters. They have come to a very different place after Season 2, especially in regard to their relationship. They have as normal a life as they’ve ever had ... so with that feeling solid for them, all the drama in Season 3 is easier to navigate.” The same may – or may not – hold true for Catherine’s police partner Tess (Nisa Lisandrello) and Vincent’s comrade J.T (Austin Basis), who have become personally involved. Nicole Gale Anderson has seriesregular status now as Catherine’s ever-lively sister Heather, and familiar faces Natasha Henstridge (“Species”) and Jason Gedrick (“Boomtown”) have been added in new roles. “The season has a lot of space for humor” from Catherine and Vincent, Kreuk notes, “with two people who clearly are abnormal trying to be normal. And not able to quite be that.”
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SPORTS
Scott Van Slyke Burns Up the
Ballpark Story on next page
Name: Scott T. Van Slyke
Height/weight: 6 feet 4 inches/220 pounds
Drafted: 2005, Round 14, by the Dodgers
Birth date: July 24, 1986 (age 28)
Uniform number: 33
Birthplace: Chesterfield, Mo.
Bats/throws: Right/ right
Honors and achievements: Dodgers’ Minor League Player of the Year, 2011; Missouri Gatorade (High School) Player of the Year, 2005
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SPORTS
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By Dan Ladd Once again, the Los Angeles Dodgers are one of the top teams in the National League. Although it’s early in the season, they are already eyeing a third straight National League West title and a trip to the postseason. To get over the hump and make it to their first World Series since 1988, they’ll have to contend with teams such as the St. Louis Cardinals, whom they’ll meet Sunday, June 7, on ESPN. While the Dodgers have their share of stars, they’ve got a bench full of players such as Scott Van Slyke who are getting things done. Van Slyke has been platooning in the outfield and at first base since making his major league debut in 2012. This season, however, he appears to be ready to make his mark. If the last name sounds familiar, it is because Van Slyke is the son of Andy Van Slyke, who spent the majority of his career in the 1980s and ’90s with the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates. Scott, therefore, has been around professional baseball for most of his life. After a lengthy but solid run in the minors, the younger Van Slyke found himself one of a number of talented players in the Dodgers organization competing for playing time. He’s been on fire as of late, both at the plate and in the field, proving he’d be a starter on any other team.
ScottVanSlyke
This certainly raises the question of whether he’ll be a Dodger when the season is over as his name will likely surface in trade talks around July 31. June 7 - 13, 2015 YOUR TV LINK Courtesy of Gracenote Page 17
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MOVIES JAY BOBBIN's Theatrical movie review
review
‘Hot Pursuit’ puts buddy formula to new test Pictured: Sofia Vergara (left) and Reese Witherspoon
Few movie formulas have been as time-tested as the one about mismatched partners bonding through shared circumstances. From “It Happened One Night” to “Lethal Weapon,” it’s been repainted and taken out for new spins over and over. One of the latest variations on the theme is “Hot Pursuit,” which answers the question, “Would anyone ever think of teaming Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara?” Immediately, that combination has “mismatched partners” written all over it – Witherspoon coming off the serious intensity of “Wild,” and Vergara being known for her sometimes wild humor on “Modern Family” – and the fact is that “Hot Pursuit” works best when it’s simply the two actresses clearly enjoying riffing off each other. That said, the script seems weirdly intent on tripping them up as often as possible. The set-up wasn’t developed at Rocket Science School, with Witherspoon as a Type A cop who has to transport a drug dealer and his moll (Vergara) to testify against a powerful trafficker. Before you know it (and since director Anne Fletcher keeps the picture moving briskly at less than 90 minutes,
much happens here before you know it), Witherspoon’s partner and Vergara’s spouse both have been eliminated by those who don’t want that testimony to happen. Let the hot pursuit across Texas begin! From that point, much snarking and masquerading ensues for the two women as they try to survive, much less get to the courthouse on time. Both producers of the picture as well, Witherspoon and Vergara aren’t exactly known for slow talk once they get revved up, and a certain amount of fun can be had from trying to gauge how many miles per hour their jaws are moving at. (An extra bonus: their bloopers that close the picture.) The truth, though, is that they both deserve better material ... Witherspoon in particular, since “Election” and “Legally Blonde” stand as testimony to just how much she can do with comedy that has a dose of wit. And the same goes for Vergara, frankly, considering how many times “Modern Family” has been honored for its writing. There’s little in “Hot Pursuit” that will be mistaken for wit, but you still can be grateful that its main stars bring their natural gifts to the party.
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MOVIES JAY BOBBIN's movie review movies to watch
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Top Pick
DVD
“KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE” The spy game gets some twists from someone it would be expected of – director and coscreenwriter Matthew Vaughn (“Kick-Ass”) – in this fun, comic-book-inspired adventure, with its surprises indicated by the fact that the normally staid Colin Firth sees some of the action. He plays a veteran Secret Service operative involved in recruiting a street-smart youth (Taron Egerton) for global espionage work. Samuel L. Jackson, who’s been doing more heroic duty lately as Nick Fury in various Marvel projects, is the villain of this piece; Michael Caine, Mark Strong, Jack Davenport (“Smash”) and Mark Hamill also star. ››› (R: AS, P, V) (Also on Blu-ray) Pictured: Colin Firth
upcoming DVD releases
Coming Soon on DVD... “CHAPPIE” (June 16): A stolen, futuristic police robot becomes a threat when it’s enabled to think for itself; Hugh Jackman stars in writer-director Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi thriller. (R: N, P, V) “THE LAZARUS EFFECT” (June 16): Medical researchers find a way to resurrect the deceased; Mark Duplass and Olivia Wilde star. (PG-13: AS, P, V) “RUN ALL NIGHT” (June 16): To protect his son, a veteran hit man (Liam Neeson) must oppose his underworld-kingpin friend (Ed Harris). (R: AS, P, V)
“UNFINISHED BUSINESS” (June 16): Several businessmen (Vince Vaughn, Dave Franco, Tom Wilkinson) run into endless complications while trying to close a deal in Europe. (R: AS, N, P) “DANNY COLLINS” (June 30): Al Pacino plays a literal rock star who reassesses his life after receiving a special letter. (R: AS, N, P) “THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL” (July 14): Richard Gere joins returnees Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy in the seriocomic sequel. (PG: AS, P)
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FAVORITE SHOWS
Paula Abdul is a judge in “So You Think You Can Dance”
Scott Bakula stars in “NCIS: New Orleans”
SUNDAY 8 p.m. on NATGEO Ultimate Dino Survivor In this new special, fossils reveal the brutal life of the Tyrannosaurus rex and its cousins along with their incredible ability to heal and survive what nature threw at them. Using cutting edge technology, the program reveals the source of the various injuries on the dead animal and recontructs the kind of fierce battles for survival these beasts had to fight on a regular basis. One theory suggests that T. rex combined the virtually foolproof immune system of crocodiles with the high metabolism of birds. New 9 p.m. on BRAVO Married to Medicine The first ladies of medicine are busier
James Van Der Beek stars in “CSI: Cyber”
than ever as they return for their third season, which finds Toya’s husband, Eugene, urging her to bury the hatchet with Simone at a Halloween party Toya is throwing to show off her new house. Elsewhere, Quad gets seriously bent out of shape when she learns Lisa Nicole ran a background check on her. Dr. Jackie tests out a lifestyle fitness program on the girls. Season Premiere New MONDAY 8 p.m. on FOX So You Think You Can Dance The show motors to the Motor City to assess the dance talent there in the new two-hour episode “Detroit Auditions.” The season’s theme of stage dancers vs. street dancers is upheld as judges Paula Abdul, Jason Derulo and Nigel Lythgoe survey
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Toya in “Married to Medicine”
the moves of those hoping to land a place in the competition. Series host Cat Deeley also is on hand for the proceedings. New TUESDAY 9 p.m. on CBS NCIS: New Orleans Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perrette and Rocky Carroll cross over in their “NCIS” roles in “Carrier.” After bubonic plague claims the life of a Navy lieutenant in the Big Easy, Pride (Scott Bakula) and his team get help from Tony DiNozzo (Weatherly) in trying to determine the source and locate other potential victims in time. James Eckhouse, alias Brandon
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FAVORITE SHOWS and Brenda’s dad on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” also guest stars. WEDNESDAY 10 p.m. on CBS CSI: Cyber Former “ER” co-star Eriq La Salle directed “Crowd Sourced,” in which Avery (Patricia Arquette) and her agents have a tricky case — involving the reason they work on the cases they do. A bomber protests society’s modern reliance on technology through his attacks, with the team using precisely some of that equipment and methodology to find and stop the felon. James Van Der Beek, Peter MacNicol and Shad Moss also star. THURSDAY 10 p.m. on CBS Elementary Mamie Gummer (“Emily Owens, M.D.”) — one of Meryl Streep’s fellow-actress daughters — guest stars as an heiress who’s party to a murder investigation in “Terra Pericolosa.” A very special map apparently prompted the homicide, which Holmes and Watson (Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu) probe. Watson isn’t happy about Holmes’ intrusion into Kitty’s (Ophelia Lovibond) offduty life. Skipp Sudduth (“Third Watch”) also guest stars.
interviews are interwoven into Smith’s performance for this broadcast. 9 p.m. on TLC Love, Lust or Run Style expert Stacy London returns for a new season of guiding a slate of diverse women with over-the-top looks through fashion make-unders to teach them that less is usually more. Among the women featured during the course of this new season are Lisa, a cancer survivor and single mom; Sarah, a community advocate who feels uncomfortable in her own skin; Tracy, a nurse who still bears the emotional scars of childhood bullying; and Ebonie,
Anna Deavere Smith is featured in “Great Performances”
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a former tomboy turned stylist who idolizes Stacy. Season Premiere New SATURDAY 9 p.m. on ABC In an Instant The series revisits, and re-creates, a “Rush Hour Disaster — Largest Bridge Collapse in America.” The bridge in question, located in Minneapolis, gave way in the summer of 2007. Youngsters trapped in a bus, next to a burning truck, were among those imperiled by the crisis. So was a woman who was inside her submerged car. Testimonials from survivors are combined with dramatized sequences.
“In an Instant”
FRIDAY 9 p.m. on PBS Great Performances Actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith (“The West Wing,” “Nurse Jackie”) transforms into 30 real people — including a Korean grocer, a talent agent, Police Chief Daryl Gates, and actor and National Rifle Association spokesman Charlton Heston — in “Twilight: Los Angeles,” her one-woman performance piece about the beating of Rodney King and its aftermath. News footage and Lucy Liu stars in “Elementary”
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