Don’t call it a comeback; we’ve been posting for years.
In TV news, the Mad Men finale airs this weekend. 1965 has turned out a lot like the 1965 we remember. Expect some thoughts regarding this season, and the show as a whole, and the notion of drinking on the job, in the coming week.
Not done philandering yet.
Movies! We’ve got a pair of above-average pics opening this weekend: Red, loosely adapted from a Warren Ellis comic series and starring a CGI Bruce Willis; and Jackass 3-D, which promises to resolve all the plot twists set up in the first two Jackasses. Yours truly is glad that these movies exist in theory – Warren Ellis needs more work on the screen, and there’s a role for absurdist body humor in every generation – but maybe you don’t need to see them this weekend.
In music news, Prince announced a new tour starting this December. So far, he has given no indication of dates, locations, or other details you’d think would be relevant for a concert announcement. Doing that would give The Man too much advance notice, I suppose.
Hey, man, do whatever feels right.
Would Prince do the soundtrack for Warren Ellis’s Planetary, starring John Slattery as Elijah Snow? Or is there something else we missed? Sound off in the comments, for this is your … Open Thread.
Warren Ellis should write the novelisation of Jackass 3D.
I actually want to see Red. A lot. Helen Mirren with a machine gun? Hellz to the yeah.
The first installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will in fact not be in 3D. Yay! But the second one will be, as of now, at least. And apparently some of the older movies are being retro-3Dified for Blu Ray.
Order of the Phoenix filmed about 15 minutes in 3D and Half Blood Prince clocked in around 25 minutes. Are they retrofitting the rest of those films?
http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/10/13/harry-potter-3-d-blu-ray-dvds/
And I am going to see it tomorrow (Saturday), btw. Huzzah!
I want to see Red as well, although mainly for Karl Urban, however it still looks like it could be entertaining. I described the movie to a co-worker as something that “starred old guys who used to do action movies when they were young…kind of like the Stallone movie that just came out.”
Pretty on the button right?
My response to everybody I roped into going was basically, “It’s about ex-CIA ops, one of which is Hellen Mirren. With a machine gun. What more do you need? Oh, and God punches a dude in the face.” (God being Morgan Freeman)
The enthusiasm level usually skyrocketed. We’ll see how well it goes over with them, but I anticipate marvelous fun for myself.
And I must say, Karl Urban looks far better with his natural hair color than he does with that terrible blond shade in LotR.
Urban rarely goes blond, probably for that reason.
Of note: The graphic novel for RED is significantly different from the apparent plot of the movie. Bruce Willis’s character is the only protagonist, for one thing. For another, the tone is much, much darker.
I’m happy they added an ensemble and made it lighter. Grim action movies have their place, but I could use something diverting.
I haven’t read the graphic novel, but the movie was anything but dark. I laughed my a** off.
General consensus: “That was awesome!”
I agree with you, I liked his hair much better in Riddick than LOTR
For blond Urban, you gotta go with Cupid in Xena: Warrior Princess. Accept no substitute.
http://xena.softassteel.com/characters/A-C/cupid.jpg
And is this because it’s definitively awful?
I’m not a Mad Men fan, but I do enjoy Rubicon, which also ends this weekend. Hopefully it will get a second season, though there are concerns over the ratings, which is in and of itself kind of interesting. It is apparently getting better first season ratings than either Mad Men or Breaking Bad, but it shows how far AMC has come that such ratings won’t suffice anymore. Terriers, another very good show, also facing ratings worries. Meanwhile, Outsourced gets better ratings than Community and Parks and Recreation sits on the shelf.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Man Chris -are you reading my mind! This is the first season I have looked forward to Mad Men. If I were to ‘Tier’ my televison shows, Mad Men was always a Tier 3/4 show – just good enough to watch another episode and something good to watch while doing other things. This season it jumped to Tier 1 – or the “I’ll suffer through commercials and watch this think line” level.
Rubicon is already solid on Tier 2 (Can’t wait to watch it on DVR) – the first 6 or 7 episodes were questionable, just enough to get me along, but once I this show got its feet, I was hooked.
Breaking Bad, IMO, is the best show since the Wire.
Community is my favorite sitcom right now (This despite the writters of How I Met Your Mother following me and my friends around to get script ideas). Yesterdays episode was the funniest 1/2 on TV this fall. It is a shame it gets worse ratings then Outsourced, but I think it is funny and does have heart. At least it doesn’t have a laugh track like the CBS shows. I’m sorry – 30 years of televison watching, I think I know what is funny. Then again, after listening to them put the laughs in some spots – not sure if they do.
Oh – what did everyone think of last nights live 30 Rock?
It was kinda funny and had good moments but it didn’t work for me. The reason I like it is because the show is quick, subtle and smart. It was still smart (“My memory has Seinfeld money”) but beign live it couldn’t be subtle nor quick. In sports teams – it was an inferior team winning a game, you know they shoestringed things to work but do it again and the result probably won’t be as good.
I agree with you, it just wasn’t that funny and I sort of failed to see the whole point of doing a live show. Also I expected more gags that had the potential to fail in stead of the Morgan line and then a picture going crooked.
Yeah it wasn’t the best episode,but it was kind of fun as a one off. Nice to see what the show would be like with a laugh track etc. but nowhere near good enough to want them to change to that format full time.
I just watched the 30 Rock live episode and agree with all of the above. One thing I’ll add: just as the live 30 Rock paled in comparison to regular 30 Rock, it reminded us why “Saturday Night Live” pales in comparison to…30 Rock…because it’s…you know, live.
Seriously, why does NBC still bother with SNL as a live show? I think those comedians and writers could produce a far superior product if they had the luxury of multiple takes and subtle, fast-paced delivery.
Wouldn’t that stem back to why they even started the show in the first place, though? I’m probably on an entirely different field from you, but the way I see it, part of what makes SNL what it is is that LIVE factor- it’s in the title. Of course, there are times where it’s just simply unfunny, and this could happen for myriad reasons. Sure. Still, keeping in mind that they’re doing it on the spot and without takes and reshoots and all that kinda jazz gives it a different flare for me. They aren’t doing the same thing as 30 rock, so for the network to expect the same output of the two formats would be unrealistic. For me, it’s a case where a different formula also leads to different results.
But anyhoo, my point was, the purpose of the show IS the format, live comedic performances that have not been clipped and edited, so making it non-live would completely obliterate the show’s reason for existence. If they change the format, they may as well just scrap it and start calling it something else.*
And don’t get me wrong, I’m sure many of the comedians and writers on SNL could definitely do great in a movie or on television.
*This reminds me of how Cartoon Network has frikkin’ live shows now. Live shows. On Cartoon Network. With wannabe MythBusters. Twitch.
Well, back when the SNL cast was mostly improv people, i would say that it would kill the energy and excitement that improv people have while writing and performing.
Now that they’ve abandoned it for standup types… dunno