God, what's his face? Built like a beanpole, curly hair, runs away like a little bitch on a sailboat leaving nothing but a note for his girlfriend who cried and cried over him till the Fourth of July when she decided she doesn't cry over BITCHES ON BOATS
I already love Heroes. It's melodramatic, over-the-top, funny, and just fucking cool. And now, for tonight's episode, George Takei, best known as Sulu in Star Trek is appearing as everybody's favorite hero, Hiro's, father. All I can say is: fantastic.
I would like to watch Lost, but I'm too far behind to start now. But, I do watch Heroes. So, here's an interesting article about how the two shows may be connected.
If you weren't convinced that Guitar Hero II was going to be awesome, read this.
Here's a better article about the Scarlett Johansson singing Tom Waits.
And it's been a while since I've linked to Lore Sjöberg's column, but this one is hilarious. It follows his foray into setting up a MySpace account with the ultimate punchline of his MySpace page.
Posted by diedan on 18.10.06 |
Labels: Music, TV, Videogames
I have never been a big Monday night TV watcher with the Dan and Sam crew but I am now a big Wednesday night watcher. Ok, maybe big is the wrong word, lets put it this way. Up until The OC started a couple years back I hadn't had a TV show that I watched week to week in I don't know how long. Then Thursday nights became a night to watch the OC, mostly by myself or draging along some roommates to watch with me. Then I found out that Sam and Dan here started to watch it, they quickly got caught up on what they had missed and it became our Thursday night get together...if you are wondering, the Bowling league came later, but worked out pretty damn nice with our Thursday night thing. Anyway, last year I was introduced to a new show, Project Runway, and it is now part of my Wednesday night watching. This season is almost over, but I will have a good three weeks of getting to watch Project Runway and my new show Lost together. For those of you who aren't into Lost, you need to start. And I don't mean you need to start watching season 3 right away...in fact don't let that thought cross your mind. Do my new favorite thing to do, go buy the first 2 seasons, wait for season 3 to come out on DVD, watch all of it before 4th season starts (if there will be a 4th season) and just like that you are all caught up. Now that everyone knows where we are, on to the kind-of-reviews.
PR - For the first time ever there will be four finalist showing at Fashion Week, normally its only three. Its a pretty cool twist, and should make for a good show. But I have never talked about PR here before and my goal isn't really to start, so lets move on.
LOST - This show is F-U-C-K fucked up. I just finished watching season two last week, which made season 1 look like a walk in the park. But one episode into season 3 and I have no clue what the hell is going on. No idea at all. Normally you can at least follow along with someone or something, but this new story is just crazy. I have a feeling that I personally won't like how all this stuff plays out, but none the less I have to know. Is everyone following along? No? Good. Because you really shouldn't be reading this any more. You should be out there picking up the first two seasons, sending me an E-mail to DVR all season 3 for you and finding yourself lots of time to get caught up in a hurry. Have fun. As a side note, there was a special on earlier this week to recap everything that has happened so far on Lost and our DVR auto recorded it for us, just incase we watch the show or wanted to start. I thought that was kind of niffty.
Deal or No Deal: I hate this show. I can't stop watching it. I want to; I really do. But it's always the only thing on in that time slot and I can't help but to throw away dollar after dollar attempting to win the stupid home game challenge. Damn you Howie Mandel, damn you.
Heroes: Albeit predictable and melodramatic, this show is fun, fun, fun. I'm genuinely excited to see how all these people get pulled together, how they utilize their powers, and why there is a villain at all. I suppose there's always some megalomaniac in the world who wishes to destroy everything for his own pleasure.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Despite the fact that I've lambasted the show as being too dramatic for its own good, I'm still watching it. If nothing else, there are fantastic nuggets of witty dialogue strewn into the otherwise drab plot.
I don’t usually get into reality shows. The idea of watching people attempt to survive in a predetermined wilderness or coax a predetermined someone to love them while being videotaped and followed by a large camera crew isn’t my idea of reality nor is it good television. Competitions in which people are thrust into difficult situations wherein they must prove their specific abilities for an end goal without touting that the show is like watching people who aren’t aware of the cameras is much cooler. Take a few other things I enjoy—food, cooking, and an asshole—and you’ve got yourself, no not good old food porn, but Hell’s Kitchen.
I watched the majority of first season with trace amounts of obsession. Watching people who have varying amount of cooking skills suffer through what is essentially executive chef boot camp is somehow compelling. Chef Ramsey is a loud, obnoxious, perfectionist who enjoys screaming and swearing at his chefs to somehow drive them to the epitome of their abilities. They’re put through rigorous exercises and then forced to attempt to run the kitchen with customers who walk out on them, complain, etc. (and who wouldn’t if they waited two hours without receiving their food).
Overall, the characters just aren’t as interesting as they were last season (nobody has “head chef” tattooed on their knuckles, for one). Obviously, with only two episodes thus far, they’ve only been able to give a spattering of information about each one, and I’m sure they’ll become more interesting by the end. So far, we’ve had some basic background, one person has been kicked off for not being able to do anything, one left the show because his body was stressed out, and one was kicked off for not getting any of his entrées out. There has been one fire and one bad burn. Sounds fun to me.
Highlights: when someone is kicked off the show, instead of just impaling his or her chef’s coat on a coat rack, now the picture above bursts into flames. It’s just so amusing that I can’t help giggling every time it happens.
House usually follows a fairly predictable pattern: someone somewhere has a medical crisis. They are brought into the hospital wherein Dr. House and his associates diagnose this person. They're wrong for a while, House has a revelation, and then they're cured (with the few exceptions in which people die). This episode started with a case...then a former patient barges in and shoots House.
The rest of the show details House dealing with mental deterioration and the case at hand all whilst the shooter (shot by security) lays in a hospital bed next to him and challenges House to analyze his life and determine why he is the way he is (an asshole). His leg is fixed and yet his mind is falling apart. It soon becomes clear that not everything is real, and the show becomes a perplexing amalgamation of hallucinations until the audience is not entirely clear (as we say) what the fuck is going on. As House comes to terms with his prickishness, he becomes increasingly aware of how unreal his reality is. The show climaxes with a scene of House taking controls of a surgical robot and cutting a patient from belly button to chest, innards spilling and all. House then wakes just after the shooting, being wheeled into surgery.
This episode did something it very rarely does; it broke the mold and delved more into his character than the solving of a case (in this way it's rather similar to last year's season finale). I found it to be rather gripping, and for an audience member who has watched this show rather ritualistically who knows the characters very well, it was refreshing (and necessary) for the writers to give the most interesting part of the show (House) the main focus for a change. That's not to say that the patient's side story wasn't interesting; it was. Seriously, how can a guy whose tongue is expanding and have an eye and testicle explode with large sprays of blood not be interesting?
I watch the show for multiple reasons. I find the cases fascinating, the gore titillating, and the writing clever. But the primary reason (and the only reason that gives the show a point of difference) is House: his personality, his one-liners, and his history. To put it simply, the season finale rewarded all of us who watch the show regularly with an in depth look at what we care about the most. Without these, the show may as well be any other medical drama. This episode proved that it wasn't.
Fox has just announced their fall lineup. To be honest, I don't really give a shit about most of it. The important thing is that The O.C. is staying in its spot and The Loop was renewed (at least a mildly funny show with potential, which is at least better than most of Fox's comedies). It seems that things in the world of television are being aligned correctly, as NBC announced not too long ago that it would be rearranging its Thursday night lineup, which ought to give me a chance to start watching The Office and My Name is Earl again (which will be playing an hour earlier). Now, if somebody would move around Tuesday night, my week of sitting on my ass and watching TV would be complete.
Boston Last night was, as always, awesome. Denny Crane once again shot someone. This time it was his therapist who threatened to shoot Denny if he didn't shoot him first. It was looking like Denny was going to get kicked out of the firm until the trial when the therapist again polled a gun on the court and Denny saved everyone by shooting him again. Lots of other stuff happened that was great, but I'm not going to write about it.
Highlight-Spader ran into a girl from first season (which comes out May 23rd) when the show used to be on Sunday nights and said this
"I think it was a Sunday. Then I was taken off the air, you went off to do movies, and I got switched to Tuesdays, and here we are. With old footage."
and then later Spaders secretary says to him
"Don't fall for her, Alan. She's just a guest star".
oh yeah and Shatner saying
"I still feel that everything I've wanted to express in life is still bottled up inside me like a ... a kidney stone."
...go here for explanation
After bowling at least once every week for well over a year now, we somehow missed two weeks. Two weeks doesn't sound like that much, but when you first step out onto the lane again, attempt to concentrate, roll the ball toward the pins, and watch as it hooks differently than you had anticipated and land in the gutter, it feels like its been much, much longer. Needless to say, our scores were shit. Sam was attempting a new throw, so at least he had an excuse. I, however, did not. It didn't end all bad, though. I finished with the two highest scores of 193 and 177. I had two turkeys; Sam had one.
Bitchin' Highlights: Pre-game warm up--This consisted of eating pizza, drinking beer and watching part of A League of Ordinary Gentlemen. During The O.C., we resorted to drinking some nice Irish whiskey and smoking delicious cigars. If every sport's pre-game warm up was like this, I'd probably play more sports.
There was a preview for the Thursday episode of The Loop in which Adam Brody plays a bit part. And I think, awesome, I'm a big fan/have a crush on Adam Brody. Then I find out that the lead, Bret Harrison, also played a bit part on The O.C. (I think he was the "Big Comedy" guy). It turns that if you go back even further, they were both on the horrible MTV show Undressed. Stranger still, they're roommates. He's even playing a character called "Best Friend" in the movie In The Land of Women, which stars Adam Brody. They're also co-producers of a new Revenge of the Nerds film. This strange world of television is starting to make sense. And, yes, I am an imdb stalker.
O.C. PS: If ol' imdb is reliable, Anna's coming back next week's episode.
Zombies are back from the dead. They are once again the fad in the media. Table about it.
One of our favorite men ever, Christopher Walken is going to iron in a new movie "Balls of Fury". He plays a ping pong fan/evil crime lord named Fang. The movie-as far as I can tell-is all about Fang's evil underground tournament.
I miss the western, it was been a long time since a really wheel western came out (Serenity doesn't count). The Proposition is a new Guy Pearce movie writen by Nick Cave. It is a western movie set in the Australian outback. Comes backpack May 5th. Watch trailer here.
Shia LaBeouf, who played Chas Kramer in Constantine, cup been cast for the role of Sam in the new Transformers movie. I'm glad they have started casting on this. I hope this movie fulfills all my wildest dreams...next G.I. Joes meet Transformers...
Did you watch Scrubs and Boston Legal last night? If you awnsers not "zebra" your a douche and you missed out.
More ANTM: Surprisingly, Jade wasn’t more of a bitch (or at least the way in which the show was edited didn’t seem to insinuate that she was). She won the challenge, which was quite cool. They had to dress up in some avant garde designers clothes, hold a cockroach (that was bedazzled with jewels), and walk down the catwalk. Pretty cool stuff. The photo shoot was them dressing up as fairy tale characters and then take a photo while falling. Mollie Sue, still my favorite, really needs to step it up to keep in the running. They kicked off blow job girl (god her lips are huge) instead of the annoying Asian girl. Now I hate the judges.
I actually watched Heist, because, well, there wasn’t anything else on. I don’t know about the rest of you, but a kid blowing up in the first 10 minutes is pretty awesome. The characters are enjoyable, they’ve already thrown in a lot of backstory. The biggest potential problem is if they go the way of Prison Break and forget that it’s supposed to be full of action and not soap opera pacing. I still think the show should be called Cops & Robbers.
Despite my better judgment, I caught the repeat of ANTM yesterday. Even though I can’t stand most of the contestants, I still think the show is hilariously melodramatic. Take Jade, for example: she’s whining insecure bitch, but flaunts herself like she’s extremely confident and knows everything there is to know about modeling. The judges, thank god, made her one of the last two, which will hopefully put her in her place. My guess is that she’ll just get more bitchy. I mean, she was bitching at the girl who was just part of the whole hurricane Katrina debacle for using the phone too much, talking to her parents. The hurricane Katrina girl, by the way, got kicked off.
Scrubs is still fantastic. There were so many good lines and jokes, the only one that sticks out is when Turk and his wife were in counseling.
Counselor: “How many times are you having sex?”
Turk: “Twice today”
Carla: “Three times.”
Turk: “Huh?”
Carla: “You were sleeping for the last one.”
Turk: “Oh, so that was real. I was wondering why you were in one of my sex dreams.”
Carla: “He’s not allowed to dream about us having sex.”
Turk: “Yeah, it gets freaky in there…cirque de sole freaky. One time, she was skinless.”
Due to the atrocity that is American Idol, House was not on last night. The benefit of this is that I watched an hour of new Scrubs. Both episodes were fantastic, each in their own right. The first episode was more absurd and funnier than the second, more serious, but still hilarious episode. In a typical Scrubs fashion, there were a lot of plot lines that all converged at the end. My favorite was Dorian’s (Braff) vendetta for an intern named Keith Dudemeister. He refused to give him a nickname, despite his last name, but called the others Cabbage and Wolfman (even though Wolfman’s real last name was Cabbage). Elliot was having an elongated booty call with Keith, which meant Dorian saw him every morning in his (Dorian’s) pink bathrobe. Also fantastic was Dr. Cox and The Janitor becoming friends at the bar while The Janitor refused to talk to him at work. At one point, they were drinking, broke into Dorian’s apartment, stripped him naked and woke him up with an ambulance in front of the hospital.
The best line in the entire two episodes was this: Dorian speaking about the show Grey’s Anatomy: “I love that show. It’s like they’re watching our lives and put it on television.”
PS: I just reread this; god this is scattered.
Well, here it is, a post. Amazing, eh? I thought so.
Mainly, I wanted to point this out to Sam and anyone else who has read and loved Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. At 384 pages, it seems like a rather measly follow up to HoL, but seeing as HoL was so complex, so experimental, and yet so damn fun, it’s really hard to guess where he’s going with this one. But, it's called Only Revolutions, and it's out this September 5, and I'm insanely excited.
Also, Scrubs is awesome. I know, I’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again. For those of you who didn’t catch either of the episodes last night, you missed out. The first episode, for no reason whatsoever, was chock-full of allusions to Wizard of Oz. Zach Braff’s character just wanted to go home, but couldn’t, there was a man behind a curtain, three of them needed to find a heart, a brain, and courage, all while walking down a yellow line in the hallway. If there were one reason I would want to buy this season on DVD, it would be to re-watch this episode.
Highlights: All the references, Turk knocking over newly born babies, domino style, and: “Good page, Keith, good page.”
I also caught Boston Legal last night. As a first time watcher, I must say that it took me a bit to get into the characters and the weird kinetic filming that this show employees. And, as Sam told me, “It wasn’t as funny as it normally is.” But, there’s Shatner. And I love Shatner. And I love Shatner interacting with James Spader. And that’s really enough for me to enjoy the show.
Highlight: The self-referential comment of Spader to Shatner, "Oh, there you are, I haven't seen you all episode."
boston legal
Shatner is still getting married, and M.J. Fox is still on. Seeing that I wrote way to much about the golden globes last night I am going to make this short and just give some of the highlights--
-Shatner singing "Time of my life" with Beverly
-Fox helps out with a case and does a really good job. He did really good this whole episode.
-Shatner and Spader dancing together while talking about a case. The close ups of the inlocking fingers was nice.
-Shatner "If you would excuse me I left Beverly on simmer and she should be coming to a boil about now"
63rd golden globes
I know that this is going to be all over online but I'm writing it as I watch it. I would rather just write down what I think than sit here talking to myself. So her is my summery of the night...
-best supporting actor-
George Clooney -he looked pretty good. He has been around enough where he doesn't feel like he has to thank everyone he knows so it was a good speech with jokes and all.
-best supporting actress-
Rachel Weisz(Constant Gardener)-I haven't seen the movie yet so I don't really have an opinion on this. Her speech was boring.
-best supporting actor in TV movie/series-
presented by Jessica Alba(who looked amazing) and Luke Wilson-a fun pair-
Paul Newman won for Empire Falls-I have not seen this, but I hear it's good. Paul wasn't there.
-best supporting actress in TV movie/series-
Sandra Oh (Gray's Anatomy)-I've only seen the show a few times. It was OK. She kind of seems annoying.
-best actress TV series drama-
Geena Davis (Commander and Chief)-This is my first big boo of the night. I have seen this show a few times and it is awful.
-best actor TV series drama-
Hugh Laurie (House)-I'm glad he won. I like this show and he kicks ass. He had a pretty funny speech. It's funny that in real life he has an English accent and you would never know it from the show. Good job Hugh.
-best mini series or motion picture made for TV-
Empire Falls- 2nd one of the night. Might have to Netflix it when it goes to DVD.
-best actor TV comedy-
Steve Carell (The Office)- Glad for this one. He gave a good speech. He has had a pretty good year with The Office and 40 Year Old Virgin.
Zach Braff and Jason Lee were also nominated and I would have been happy with any of them.
best actress in comedy/musical-
Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)-Yes! I think everyone wanted her to win. I know I'm not alone is saying that she made everyone that watched that movie fall in love with her.
-best actress in a TV comedy-
Out of the 5 nominees 4 of them were from Desperate Housewives and Marry-Louise Parker from Weeds ended up winning. I've never seen the show but it sounds funny. I guess she plays a weed dealing mom.
-best actor in a TV movie or mini series-
Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Elvis)-Like a lot of this shit I have never see it. I kind of wanted Bill Nighy (The Girl in the Cafe) to win. I have never seen it but it looks good and Bill was awesome in Love Actually.
-best actress in a TV movie or mini series-
Epatha Merkerson (Lackawanna Blues)--I really didn't care about any of the people that were nominated. The show doesn't look very good.
-best screenplay motion picture-
Brokeback Mountain- Damn good movie and I'm glad it won. When the people went up on stage they had the music from the film playing and just that made me sad. It is such a great tragic movie. I like how one of the writers thanked his typewriter for being a noble machine and keeping him out of the dry embrace of the computer.
-best TV series musical or comedy-
Desperate Housewives-I think they won last year too. It's a good show. I kind of wanted to see My Name is Earl win. That just would have been fun to see Jason Lee win something.
-best foreign language film-
Paradise Now-Have not see it and have nothing to say about it. Promise from China was nominated and that looks pretty cool.
-best original score motion picture-
John Williams (Memoirs of a Geisha)-OK.
-best original song motion picture-
A Love That Will Never Grow Old (Brokeback Mountain)- This is fine but I would have liked to see Mel Brooks win for The Producers song.
Anthony Hopkins got the big Cecil B. Demille award for the night. It was fun seeing a clips from a bunch of his movies from young to old. He is a great actor playing everything from Hitler to Nixon to Hannibal Lector.
-best director motion picture-
Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)- Good job Lee. It is a hell of a lot different from his other movies and he did a damn good job. I really think that it is one of the better movies this year.
-best actor musical/comedy-
Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line)- I think that everyone is happy about this. He took the biopic, which normally sucks, and made it awesome. I like that he thanked John and June for sharing their lives with us. I would have also really liked to see Johnny Depp or Jeff Daniels win. I just saw the Squid and the Whale yesterday and it was amazing.
-best musical/comedy-
Walk the Line-Yep. Thats what I thought. I love it.
I just want to say that they should give musicals and comedies their own category. Its not really fair to lump them together.
-best TV series drama-
Lost-I have only seen a few and didn't really like it. I hear its awesome if you watch it from the beginning...maybe someday I'll find out. I am kind of surprised that Prison Break was nominated. The OC is better than all of them...it should win comedy and drama.
-best actress in a motion picture drama-
Felicity Huffman (Transamerica)-I really want to see this movie. It looks really fun. It looks like she plays a great man who wants to be a woman. I think this is playing at the lagoon now. We should get a crew together and go see it.
-best actor drama-
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)-This is the one award I actually cared about. If Hoffman wouldn't have won I would have been sad. This was an amazing film and it was all because of Hoffman. He can play anything.
-best motion picture drama-
Brokeback Mountain-Could see this one coming and I am glad of it. It is an amazing film. If you haven't seen it you need to.
Over all tonight was pretty good. It's nice to see a lot of good movies nominated. There were really no blockbusters even in the running. It's nice that people are getting sick of that shit and are recognizing the smaller (well I guess because people are recognizing them they aren't really smaller anymore) films. I guess people are just getting better taste...Thank god. I would have liked Capote and The Squid and the Whale to win more, but are least they were nominated.
Sam's best looking award goes to Scarlet Johanson.
PS. I was kind of drunk when I wrote this so if something doesn't make sense don't blame me, blame the So Co.
Dan you add your own opinion to this in italics...
Boston Legal--
Starts out with a charity where Shatner is the honoree and giving a speech. Almost misses his speech because he was having sex in the coat room with some lady he met at the bar. Shatner "It's funny I just had sex with this woman and she gave me her card and I have no desire to throw it away."
M. J. Fox guest stars as some rich guy dying of cancer. He hits on his lawyer. Overall he does a pretty good job. He is really getting old, but he didn't seem to shaky.
Shatner, about the coat room girl who says she wants to fulfill every fantasy on his list...yes he has a list, "Its like having a one night stand, every night, with the same woman."
Shatner had sex on his desk and forgot to close the blinds on the hallway window. He gets yelled at and says "I'm sorry. From now on, in this office, the blinds go down before anything else does."
At the end--Shatner "Did I tell you I'm are getting married?"
Spader "No" ...long pause... "I would have remembered that."
I really don't think they will end up getting hitched, at least I hope not.
God there is so much good shit on this show I could quote the whole thing. If you don't already you really need to start watching it. Next to the OC it is by far the best show on TV. Tuesday nights at 9 on channel 5.
Spader talking to another lawyer. "You know I have an extreme affection for my own intelligence, and even I know your smarter than me."
Highlight-
Shatner--"As god like as I seem to you and other people I am mortal inside this god like shell, and I am not a one woman man."
"Denny Crane as long as we're together feel free to have sex with anyone you'd like."
"God I love you."