Media Menu for July 9, 2011

Here are home viewing suggestions for the week, selected from online advanced TV program listings and aligned with the state and national K-12 academic standards available online. Please consult local listings also, since actual broadcast times may vary. The Websites cited in the “Log on“ box below the TV listing provide further details about the show’s topic and may contain links to video clips from the show or a complete streaming video version of the show.

Saturday, July 9, 2011,
3:45-5:30 p.m. ET, 1:45-3:15 p.m. PT
TCM – Turner Classic Movie Channel
English
Elementary, Middle and High School

Tom Sawyer

In this Oscar nominated movie musical based on Mark Twain's classic novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" , Tom and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral, and witnessing a murder.

For information on this movie log on http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070814/synopsis
For information on the novel log on http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/tomsawye/tomhompg.html

Sunday, July 10, 2011,
8-9 p.m. E/P
CNN
Science and Economics
Elementary, Middle and High School

Beyond Atlantis: The Next Frontier

CNN correspondent John Zarrella delivers a l report on the end of the Space Shuttle program and the future for NASA, as the glorious and sometimes tragic era comes to end. Zarrella talks with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden about the Space Shuttle program and NASA’s future, and takes viewers for a tour inside the Space Shuttle Discovery, exclusively, with former Commander Robert Cabana. The report examines the commercialization of space, through the eyes of visionaries like Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic, and Elon Musk of SpaceX, as they strive to make space travel more affordable, and dare to do what only governments could afford to do previously. Zarrella travels to Promontory, Utah, to visit the site where the space shuttle boosters were built, talks to people who have spent most of their adult life working on the Shuttle program, and he takes viewers on the train ride carrying the last set of boosters to Kennedy Space Center for the final Space Shuttle mission.
Log on http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/30/beyond-atlantis-the-next-frontier-airs-sunday-at-8-p-m/?iref=allsearch

Monday, July 11, 2011,
8-9 p.m. E/P
CNBC Channel
U.S. History Economics
Elementary, Middle and High School

Ford: Rebuilding an American Icon

This documentary goes behind the scenes at the Ford Motor Company to tell the inside story of its comeback just a few short years after nearly collapsing. Viewers will meet CEO, Alan Mulally, who bet nearly everything the company had in his quest to steer it back from the brink. Ford rescued itself without a government bailout, unlike rivals General Motors and Chrysler. Today, Ford appears to be a company with a bright future, but one shadowed by a mountain of debt. CNBC reporter Phil LeBeau was granted access to the company’s inner workings, introducing viewers to a pair of engineers charged with breathing new life into a legendary but tarnished Ford nameplate, the Explorer. The program also profiles the Ford family, who unlike many other famous American business clans, have never given up their hold on the family firm.
Viewers will also visit front lines of the brutally competitive automotive industry, the rapidly expanding car markets of South Asia. Ford’s toehold in India, where it is investing heavily, is small, but tenacious, and the blue Ford oval is becoming increasingly commonplace on the crowded and exotic streets of the world’s fastest growing auto market.
Log on http://www.cnbc.com/id/39759908

Tuesday, July 12, 2011,
10-11 p.m. E/P
History Channel
U.S. History and Geography
Elementary, Middle and High School

How The States Got Their Names: Mouthing Off

We all live in the same country, so why do we sound do different? It’s a matter of where you are on the map. Why didn’t the southern accent exist until after the Civil War? How did California athletes end up coining so many new words? Why do we have so many different words for the same things -- like pop versus soda? Will one particularly strong accent cause New York to break up and create a 51st state? Find out by watching – and listening to - this documentary.
Log on http://www.history.com/shows/how-the-states-got-their-shapes

Wednesday, July 13, 2011,
5:15–8:00 p.m. ET, 2:15–5 p.m. PT
TCM – Turner Classic Movie Channel
English and Arts
Middle and High School

Richard III

In 1955, Laurence Olivier brought to the screen what most critics consider his greatest Shakespearean role, the hunchbacked nobleman who murders his way to the throne, and won his fifth Oscar® nomination. The film is considered by many to be the best of his three Shakespeare films. TV-PG

For information on the film log on http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/88184/Richard-III
For information on the play log on http://absoluteshakespeare.com/plays/richard_III/richard_III.htm

Thursday, July 14, 2011,
9-10 p.m. E/P
National Geographic Channel
Economics and Technology
Elementary, Middle and High School

Ultimate Factories: Coca Cola

Coca-Cola reaches more countries than there are in the United Nations, and it takes a power factory to provide a beverage with a famously secret formula consumed in over 99 percent of the populated world. As shown in this documentary, machines in a bottling plant pump out almost 800 bottles per minute, utilizing specialized air-veyor belts to maximize efficiency.
Log on http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/ultimate-factories/5151/Overview

Friday, July 15, 2011,
9:30- p.m. - midnight E/P
PBS
Arts and Geography
Middle and High School

GREAT PERFORMANCES: Rigoletto from Mantua

This is a telecast of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto – transmitted in high definition from the Renaissance splendor of Mantua, Italy, set in the actual places and hours of the day specified in the libretto. Andrea Andermann, producer of the acclaimed on-location productions of Tosca From Rome and La Traviata From Paris, created this visually and musically spectacular production starring tenor Placido Domingo.
Log on http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/rigoletto-from-mantua/about-the-operatic-film/1148/

Saturday, July 16, 2011,
2-3 p.m. Eastern Time, 5-6- p.m. Pacific Time
HBO
U.S. History and Government
Middle and High School

Citizen USA

This is a documentary about new citizens produced, filmed and directed by Alexandra Pelosi, who is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter. This patriotic, upbeat and pro-immigrant piece argues that immigrants who become citizens are like blood transfusions for a country, giving it fresh energy and helping keep alive some of the ideals that long-time-citizens take for granted. Many of Pelosi's subjects talk about freedom. A gay man from the Middle East talks about how he can now walk down the street without fearing for his physical safety. A straight man from Afghanistan can hardly contain his joy that he could kiss a woman on the street, in public, without facing censure or arrest. A man from Canada immigrated here largely because he can now legally collect guns. Perhaps because so much of the immigration discussion in recent years has focused on Hispanics, Pelosi seems almost deliberately to focus on Asians, Europeans and Middle Easterners. The film deals very little with the immigration debate, though it has some scenes of immigration protests in Arizona. Rather, it focuses on why someone would leave his or her native country to pledge allegiance to another. Her conclusion is that the personal affection and motivation must be strong. Two of her celebrity citizens, former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, are here because their families were driven out of Europe by the World War II Nazi war machine.
Log on http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/citizen-usa-a-50-state-road-trip/synopsis.html#/documentaries/citizen-usa-a-50-state-road-trip/synopsis.html