Recently, I had a double hernia surgery. If that happens to sound unpleasant, I would most enthusiastically agree. As a matter of fact, it was one of the most unpleasant things I have ever managed to go through. Some of the related unpleasantness involved being on a couch unable to move. At certain points, that also involved not having a remote. To say the least, I was not exactly overwhelmed in the joys of discovery. The following is a few of the things that I managed to discover during a little while of uncomfortableness. I freely admit that none of it was intended for a thirty-eight year old just coming off of surgery with no other real choices. Continue Reading
Film/Television
All posts related to film/television, including reviews, news, editorials, profiles, and anything else we think up!
I have easily seen the 2005 movie The Producers (a musical update of Mel Brook’s 1968 classic based on the Broadway play of the same name) a hundred times. I have always followed a strict policy of never apologizing for the intelligence of your jokes. If someone does not get the joke, then rightly the onus should be on them for not getting the joke. However, The Producers contains some of the smartest humor you will see anywhere. As a matter of fact, you probably need a college degree to catch some of it. Continue Reading
One of the stories that has either been under-reported or sadly unacknowledged recently is the death of a comedic and character actor Conrad Bain. Bain died of natural causes on January 14th , 2013. Bain is best remembered for his role of Phillip Drummond on the situation comedy Diff’rent Strokes in the early 1980s. Diff’rent Strokes is generally as famous today for being the breeding ground of troubled lives for child stars as it is for being a sit-com. By all accounts, Bain became a real father figure to his television children during their troubled lives, particularly Todd Bridges. Continue Reading
Most people, even some of the ones that are familiar with Star Trek, tend to discount the importance of the animated series which was produced by Filmation. This is an interesting phenomenon for several reasons. First of all, The Animated Series is one of the few times in which nearly the entire case of a live action television show reunited for an animated series playing the same characters. The only regular cast member who was not in the voice cast was Walter Koenig. Koenig also made a contibution to the animated series in that Koenig was the first cast member to write any type of episode for Star Trek. Koenig wrote the episode for the animated series. In the 2009 movie Star Trek, they essentially allowed themselves a time reset situation in which any of the details of the Star Trek universe could be kept or thrown away. It may be lazy storytelling, but it essentially allowed the producers to come up with new entertainment. The surprising part is that in all that was jettisoned, there was a surprising amount which was kept directly from the animated series and no where else. Continue Reading
The other day, I was watching the Fairly Oddparents with my ten year old child when I saw something that made me stop, pause the television with the DVR, and give the child a full explanation. Specifically, the episode was in the fifth season and the first half of the seventy fourth episode. The road sign flashes for a second and you would have to know exactly what was going on as well as the reference to even laugh at it. To say that this is a joke intended for ‘one percent’ of the audience may be giving one percent of the audience too much credit. You would have to be a student of animation and be able to process it as soon as you saw it within the context of the overall wish. In the episode, Timmy’s regular babysitter Vicki is replaced by an addled old man named Pappy. Pappy seems to hate all things that are modern. Pappy and Timmy seem to have nothing in common at all until they come upon a cartoon from the 1930′s. Timmy wishes Pappy and himself into an old 1930′s cartoon. As a tribute, the street sign above reads ‘Ub Iwerks.’ It works on two levels. To the average fan, it might simply read as nonsense and you might get a bit of a chuckle. To others, the mere mention would mean so much more. Continue Reading
With the opportunity to have now seen The Dark Knight Rises several times as well as in the comfort of my own home and having the ability to pause as well as rewind, the more I see watch it the more similar the movie starts to seem to be with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Lets examine a few of them. This is mostly to either establish whether I am or am not in fact out of my mind.
[Warning: This blog contains spoilers from both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Dark Knight Rises.]
In my last entry, I discussed that money could be saved by watching movies at home. I also stated that there were a limited amount of movies coming out that truly caught my interest. So you might be questioning what are you going to watch if there are only 15 +/- good movies coming out every year. For example, there are plenty of lists online that are available to get you started.
I recently saw a segment of Clark Howard on the news where he discussed how much money can be saved by getting rid of cable. He suggested by getting Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime you could save a ton of money and get a better selection of shows. I think the same could be said about watching movies. I remember 10 years ago, I went to around 15 movies a year, probably more. On top of that, I would rent movies 2 at a time at the video store at least twice a month. Now my habits have dropped to next to nothing. I still see movies but not at the same frequency. There has been a major dent in my movie going habits. People who know me would say that is what happens when you have children. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Dec 15, 2012
Anne Sweeney
Co-Chairman Disney Media Networks and President Disney – ABC Television Group
Walt Disney Company
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521
Dear Anne,
I was disappointed in your holiday lineup this year. This year should be the biggest year in Disney-ABC history. After looking over the holiday schedule on all your affiliated networks, and checking it twice. It seems that someone is being naughty. You have failed to include the holiday programming your viewing audience most wants to see. The programming could be the most watched show in TV history if someone at the Disney Company had not been naughty. This would be a chance to beat the viewing audience of the MASH “ Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.” Continue Reading
The more that I think about, the more I think that I might be a bit jazzed about something that everyone considers to be sacrilege.I 
will back track a little bit here. I am jazzed about the potential for something that everyone considers to be sacrilege. The sacrilege in question is a potential sequel that Warner Brothers seems to be moving on The Watchmen. One of the things that was essentially postulated in the original comic as well as movie was the theory that a mass destruction in New York City (that was made to look like the work of aliens) would have in unifying the world in the name of peace. The interesting part of this is that it was created in the pre-9/11 world of the 1980s. At the end of the book, there is a scene of things so peaceful that Rorshach’s journal is about to be read.
