MONDAY
Things aren’t looking good in Hollywood. A week from today, on June 30, the Screen Actors Guild’s contract will expire. And as Variety reported on Friday, it seems increasingly unlikely that a deal with producers will be struck by then. Anyway, time for S.A.G. to celebrate! The labor union turns 75 this year, and Turner Classic Movies will salute its birth with a marathon of classic films from the 30’s and 40’s—starting at 8 p.m. with the 1932 comedy, Movie Crazy, in which "a stage struck young actor accidentally receives somebody else’s invitation to test in Hollywood." From there it moves to 1933’s The Kennel Murder Case, a suspense flick about a murder tied to a Long Island dog show (9:45 p.m.), and next, to the 1932 musical The Kid From Spain (11:15 p.m.). But wait, there’s more! Boris Karloff in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1 a.m.), Joan Crawford in The Last of Mrs. Cheney (2:15 a.m.) and, if you’re really committed, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly in For Me and My Gal (4 a.m.). The two-part tribute picks up next Monday, just in time for S.A.G.’s big day.
TUESDAY
Legal historians will probably write books about some of the ground-breaking state supreme court decisions allowing gay marriage in recent years. Of course, when it comes to Californaia, Tila Tequila is the answer.The questionably bisexual former MySpace sensation told Us magazine that her hit MTV reality show, A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila, was a major factor in the California Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn the state’s same-sex marriage ban. "It is because of me — I definitely think [my show] has helped the movement," she said. "Before it came out, everyone was still a little apprehensive about [same sex relationships] … Then they realized, ‘Wow, everyone is really into this stuff, and it is fine.’ The next thing you know, [gay marriage] is legal."
Not sure who Tila Tequila is? Tonight the cast of season two reunites, and attempts to answer that question, probably over a passed bottle of Smirnoff Watermelon Twist. (10 p.m.) P.S. You missed your chance to be there.
WEDNESDAY
Do you like to dive down the occasional educational rabbit-hole on obscure and sometimes almost ostentatiously boring-sounding topics? PBS has your back! Season two of Great Lodges of the National Parks begins tonight. In this episode: the Furnace Creek Inn in Death Valley, Lake Quinault Lodge in the heart of the Pacific Northwest’s Olympic National Forest, and Wallowa Lake Lodge in Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park. (8 p.m.) This is as close as PBS comes to HGTV. At 10 p.m., ESPN previews the NBA draft, and at 11, Coldplay does The Daily Show.
THURSDAY
Rob Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses was an unlikely charmer. The washed-up metalhead somehow achieved the delicate balance between over-the-top gore, eerie motifs, comedy/kitsch and genuine fright that makes a horror flick worth watching. As Dave Kehr noted in The New York Times when he reviewed the film (unfavorably) in April of 2003: "Mr. Zombie (yes, it’s his legally assumed name) is clearly a scholar of the roadside slash-and-slaughter movies that achieved their apotheosis with Tobe Hooper’s 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Exactly! (9 p.m. on IFC) Or you could just subject yourself to the alternately horrifying/edifying comedy stylings of of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List; it’s a new episode.(10 p.m. on Bravo)
FRIDAY
Who would have thought a show about a pack of mongooses roaming the South African desert would be such a hit? If you’re a fan of those cute, albeit sometimes brutal little critters on Animal Planet’s Meerkate Manor, then you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about when we tell you that on tonight’s new episode, Rocket Dog is pregnant, and even though she still has some beef with Sophie, she now has a legitimate claim as the Whiskers’ dominant female. (9 p.m.) And is it just us, or does Bravo air Brokeback Mountain every Friday night? (9 p.m.)
