Friday, March 20, 2009

Someone over at the official Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles "wiki" had an idea for a scheduling move they'd like to see Fox make...



(click to see in full)

I could go along with that...except Wednesday nights are no good (that's when I watch Life). However, Sarah Connor would go great after Bones on Thursdays...

Heh...I gotta start doing more research

I was wrong about Party Down being John Enbom's first big credit. Turns out, Enbom was story editor on Veronica Mars, and supervising producer on a little show I like to call...heh heh...Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

You can well imagine my embarrassment.

Pause to ponder

It's fine to have fun as a fan, but to define yourself as a fanboy -- to offer that as the reply to "what are you?" -- is sad.


--Ebert.

I think I might actually kinda like this movie

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...

David Boreanaz' Bones alter ego will suffer a life-threatening health crisis this May that will cause him to hallucinate. Well, I can finally reveal the destination of his head trip: Quahog, Rhode Island. Put another way, Booth is getting a visit from Family Guy's acid-tongued baby villain, Stewie!



Y'know, I could forgive this--even though I find Family Guy sickeningly unfunny--I could forgive this, if Bones' ratings were in trouble and it needed the help. But according to the latest ratings, it's number one in its timeslot.

It's Family Guy that needs the help (number three in its timeslot). So why let it mess up Bones?

Why, god, why?

(Best guess: Because The Simpsons won't have anything to do with it and That '70's Show is off the air.)

PS: This won't make sense to those of you who don't watch the series, but as long as Booth's having hallucinations, couldn't one of them be the whole "Zach is apprentice to a cannibalistic serial killer" thing? I really miss that guy...

Right here in Party town, They really party down. Yeah, yeah

Thanks to Starz making it available On-Demand before the "official" start-date, I've already seen the first episode of the new comedy series Party Down.

This was co-created by Rob Thomas of Veronica Mars, actor/writer Paul Rudd (Knocked Up), Dan Etheridge, who produced and directed for Mars, and John Enbom. I think this is Enbom's first big credit; he's apparently been writing most of the episodes.

It's a largely improvised series revolving around a team of cater-waiters made up of would-be Hollywood performers waiting for their "big break." Speaking of which, this is the part where I make full disclosure:

One of the reasons I'm watching this series is because my pal Corey "The Beaver" Klemow has a small role in one of the later episodes. Tho I might have watched anyway, as Rob Thomas is a sometime hero of mine from Veronica and the original Cupid.

Based on the first episode, I would say this show has a lot of potential. Whether it lives up to that, for me, will depend upon whether the characters develop with any substance. It strikes me as the sort of thing that if it's kept too light, has the danger of floating into "so what?" territory.

The lead is Adam Scott (that cannot possibly be his real name) as an actor whose career has failed despite/because of appearing in a once-popular series of commercials.

Now he's forever known as "Were you...that guy?"

Scott himself is stepping up to leads after several years of supporting roles. Supporting him on this show is:

Comedienne Jane Lynch, subject of many a lesbian crush. Her character is the permanently-deluded never-will-be, aging actress.

Lizzy Caplan. Caplan is a star of Mean Girls and quite possibly the subject of my next straight crush.
When not serving drinks to the more succesful, her character is a comedian and possible romantic interest for Scott (she's married, though not altogether happily; her husband is..."difficult.").

Ken Marino. Another Mars vet, as the just slightly tightly wound boss.

Ryan Hansen (ditto, plus he was in the 2009 Friday the 13th) as the prototypical stupid actor.

And Martin Starr. Of Knocked Up, as well as Freaks & Geeks. He plays a bitter, seething, resentful, self-hating writer. And as we all know, such men are just catnip to the ladies.

(and you said Lynch's character was deluded, Varkentine?)

Incidentally, many of the episodes are directed by Fred Savage--brother of Ben Savage; star of Little Monsters and some TV show or another.

Don't do it, Dita

Marilyn Manson is trying to get Dita Von Teese back.

You can do without that twisted little freak, Ms. Von Teese.

FYI

The latest in my ever-changing series of blog header images was taken from this tapestry by Robyn Cloke of Los Angeles, California. It's for sale, and she has others.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

I would have to read this story the same day as I brought home some grapes, wouldn't I?

One of the most deadly spiders in the world has been found in the produce section of a Tulsa grocery store. An employee of Whole Foods Market found the Brazilian Wandering Spider Sunday in bananas from Honduras and managed to catch it in a container.

The spider was given to University of Tulsa Animal Facilities director Terry Childs who said this type of spider kills more people than any other.

Childs said a bite will kill a person in about 25 minutes and while there is an antidote he doesn't know of any in the Tulsa area.

Spiders often are found in imported produce, and a manager at Whole Foods says the store regularly checks its goods and that's how the spider was found.

It was almost inevitable, wasn't it?

Via PopCrunch...

For those of you who may have wondered why Rihanna would've taken her...allegedly...abusive boyfriend Chris Brown back, two words.

Sex tape.

Marriage, defined

Via Pam's House Blend...

The new Webster's is providing a secondary definition of marriage as
(2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage (same-sex marriage)


And ooh, those who wish we could move back to 1941 don't much like it...

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

'Life' alert

Gabrielle Union* is joining Life for a few episodes starting tonight.

She'll be playing Charlie Crews/Damian Lewis' new partner.

I hope their relationship works out better than Holly Hunter's did with new partner Christina Ricci on Saving Grace...

(And if you watched that show, you'd know what I was talking about...)

*Recently named one of the sexiest black women alive.

Have I mentioned that to be a fan of Amber Benson is to be resigned to a lot of movies in which she is the only source of joy?

But I think she's going to have her work cut out for her with this one...



(If you don't know, BTW, Amber's the one who says "It's got a name!")

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

New Amazon review

Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future by Will Bunch

Think this has a prayer of being any good?

Sylvester Stallone has been making some additions to the cast of his up and coming film The Expendables. Actor and WWE alum, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and horror actress Charisma Carpenter have been added to the lineup of an already all-star cast including Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Forest Whitaker, Mickey Rourke, Danny Trejo and Eric Roberts.



On the one hand, we got Stallone...who pretty much peaked as a writer with Rocky...35 years ago. As an actor, he still can be kind of fun when he pokes fun at himself, but how often does he do that? As a director, well...he's probably more accomplished at it than I am...

Then the cast. Jason Statham is in a lot of crap movies. So is Jet Li, though it hasn't seemed to have hurt his fame any (I think it's the name). Same goes for Danny Trejo.

Dolph Lundgren, of course, simply never peaked at all. I've never heard of this Randy Couture fellow (apparently he, like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, is a wrestler of some reknown).

On the other hand, I maintain that Charisma Carpenter is capable of creating a well-layered character...when she's given good scripts, which this may or may not be.

Forest Whitaker is an acclaimed, Academy Award-winning actor. Mickey Rourke just rose back to the top.

Eric Roberts is coming off of a big hit with The Dark Knight, as well as having been in Heroes on television...so he might finally be shaking off that whole "brother of Julia/father of Emma" thing.

Place your bets...

McCain Refuses To Condemn Ingraham’s Attacks On His Daughter

Oh my god, again.

To the shock of...well, really no one who's been paying attention.

Good god. Al Bundy was a better father than this guy.

That's how much of a big brave hero John McCain is, folks--if people with political power over him want to take cheap shots at his daughter...that's perfectly all right with him.

Imagine, for a moment, what would happen if someone like Rachel Maddow made a remark about one of Obama's kids.

(I mean, I know Rachel wouldn't, because she's a lady*, but let's just say.)

What do you think Barack Obama's response to that would be?

For that matter, consider what Mr. Truman did when someone criticized his daughter's singing voice.

*In the sense of "Ladies and gentlemen," not just because she is a girl-person.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Tucker Carlson is an awful human being (#9 in a series)

From Media Matters:

On Reliable Sources, Tucker Carlson asserted regarding Jon Stewart's recent criticism of CNBC's Jim Cramer: "This was a partisan attack. He went after -- he went after Cramer the moment Cramer criticized [President] Obama's budget. That was the mortal sin. That's what kicked off this entire feud." Carlson made a similar claim to the Politico. In fact, Stewart criticized Cramer at least as far back as March 17, 2008, for claiming that investment firm Bear Stearns was "not in trouble" less than a week before the company collapsed.


Tucker's just still sore that Jon embarrassed him about five years ago. But what do you expect? Awful, awful human being.

The speech that will live on.

The actor Ron Silver has died.

He was in a dozen or so movies and won a Tony onstage but I knew him best from The West Wing, where he recurred as Bruno Gianelli, who headed up the campaign to reelect Martin Sheen.

As such he had one of my most-referenced speeches.



Ironically, at or around the time that speech was filmed, Silver was making a transition in his own life from Democrat to republican. He really became quite buddy-buddy with Bush, at least for while. But at a time like this, a man should be judged by the best and not the least of his actions.

Just as an aside, my "Everything I like is connected to everything else I like" theory still holds true...in that clip, you might also notice future Friday Night Lights star Connie Britton...

Caption this image

Photobucket

10 minutes of a legend.