Damages’ third season has added another regular to its table: Royal Pains’ Campbell Scott. Also, Greek’s Jesse Williams (who will soon star in Cabin in the Woods) has just joined Grey’s Anatomy for a multi episode arc.
Dollhouse has added loads of great actors including kind of a Whedonverse reunion with Summer Glau and Alexis Denisof. Michael Hogan and Keith Carradine are also joining the cast. Does the show have the best cast on TV right now or what?
And Superman Returns’ Brandon Routh is joining Chuck for a substantial arc.
Speaking of, Josh Schwartz is teaming up again with another Chuck exec, Matt Miller, to write a multicamera sitcom script for CBS. The potential show would follow young newlyweds shortly after their honeymoon. The series is supposedely inspired by both Miller and Schwartz’s recent marriages. I wonder how that will turn out.
After The L Word, here comes another letter-word Showtime series, The C Word. The cable network has ordered to pilot a show that would star none other than Frasier/John Adams’ Laura Linney. C Word, created by Darlene Hunt, will be a dark comedy about cancer. Linney will play “a suburban mom forced to deal with a cancer diagnosis”. I’m intrigued.
And finally, some fantastic news for all Leverage fans out there. The show has already been renewed for a third season (to be aired later next year). Awesome.
Hey again, Lordofnoyze here with an unusual look at one overlooked master of animation. Now, for this blog, I will talk about a time way before DreamWorks Animation and Pixar, way before 3-D (well, as we know it or we are about to know it…I see you, James). Ever since the launch of Walt Disney Studios, in the 1930s, the Mouse firm maintained a strong domination in terms of animation feature films. (Warner Bros. and Universal only competed in short films). That is, until the 1980s, when a renegade director born in El Paso, Texas (*insert Clint Eastwood music here*) took the challenge to direct animation feature films and fight Dinsey on their own turf.
The first Don Bluth-directed movie was for MGM, a little movie called “Brisby and The Secret of Nimh”. It was adapted from a Robert O’Brien book, that may have its second coming on screen thanks to Paramount and Neil Burger (but this time, it would be live-action…with a little CGI enhancement, of course).
It was followed by two videogames: “Dragon’s Lair”, and “Space Ace”. But Don Bluth hit the jackpot when he associated with Steven Spielberg and Universal. The results were two of the better-remembered 80’s kids flicks: “An American Tail” in 1986, and “The Land Before Time” in 1988. It spawned two franchises built around the heroes, Fievel the Mouse from the West, and Littlefoot. Fievel had one theatrical sequel, and two direct-to-video sequels. Littlefoot returned in a staggering 12 video sequels (!!!), the most recent dating way back to 2007. Both also had animated shows, and proved worth a lot of money for Universal.
This is where I pause. You know the first time when I cried while watching a movie? Nope, it sure wasn’t “Bambi”. It was the earthquake scene of “The Land Before Time”, when Littlefoot loses his mother. It was disturbing as hell to me, and it was the first time where I realised my own mortality, as well as the ones around me. Needless to say, putting four orphan dinosaurs put into situations of danger, all while grieving, took a lot of balls. It made for a highly emotional movie, that disputed any of the Disney classics.
Shortly after that, Bluth reunited with MGM for his most daring movie yet, “All Dogs Go To Heaven”. And if you thought that “The Land Before Time” had dark subject matter, I present to you the IMDB pitch.
A dog returns from the dead looking for revenge on his killer using an orphan girl who can talk to animals.
Yes, we’re talking about a G-rated movie.
And a kind soul put the ending on YouTube, so to all of you that are not afraid of spoilers (right…like you cared about this movie until now), enjoy the imagery.
I mean…
Come on. The movie was the first one produced under his new Sullivan Bluth Studios in Ireland. Right after the average box office scores, trouble began. Right after finding trouble in investments, and having a hard time distributing “Rock-A-Doodle”, his final movie for the Lion Firm, Bluth signed a deal with Warner Animation Studios, a newly founded wing destined to produce animation movies…and also compete with Disney. He produced two movies under the Warner banner: an adaptation of “Thumbelina”, one of Hans Christian Andersen’s tales, and “The Pebble and The Penguin”. The first one did good, the second one was a flop, critically and commercially.
Bluth had to wait until 1997 until luck found him again. 20th Century Fox appointed him and Gary Goldman to be chairmen of Fox Animation Studios, also a new division destined to compete with Disney and soon-to-be-open DreamWorks Animation. The success of “Anastasia”, with voices from Meg Ryan, John Cusack and Kelsey Grammer, led to a DTV sequel around Bartok the rat (again). But the phenomenal flop of “Titan A.E.” in 2000, scripted by three screenwriters well-known of us geeks, John August, Ben Edlund and Joss Whedon, led to an early retirement.
Now he’s opened his own website, donbluth.com, and his Don Bluth Films based in Phoenix, AZ, produces content for Web and IPhones alike.
OK, so…what’s my point?
Well, Bluth is a forgotten “artisan” that always stayed true to 2-D animation, and if you can see anything in his movies, it’s uncompromising (and yes, often dark) subject matter. But even if seeing it with very young kids is not a very good idea, it stays great to rediscover an alternative to rosy-colored, two-dimensional characters. I mean, for crissakes, the dogs in “Charlie” gamble, and it’s set in 1930s New Orleans, Vice City before Miami claimed that crown!!! But think about it: if there weren’t any Bluth movies, would Disney execs have accepted a pitch where an old man goes on a quest for adventure when his wife dies of illness?
(Well…they probably would have, since it’s Pixar. But you get my point.)
Oh, and a lot of his movies may be available on the YouTubes.
I said “may”.
About the Author
Based in Southwest France, Lordy is a local reporter in all areas of France (really, look it up). As a hobby though, he has a keen and often deconstructing look on the entertainment business, even as a simple fan. — You can follow him on @lordofnoyze
As the Emmy shift fallout is continuing to make waves (#emmysfail was yesterday the second hashtag on the Twitter trend topic list), this little post by theonetruebix on the Whedonesque forum sums it all up nicely with various links leading to other articles talking about the important issues at hand here. Will there be a boycott of the Emmy ceremony when the time comes?
There’s also some new details that have emerged regarding Avatar day (August 21).
Well, it’s actually more about what’s going on in France for Avatar Day but I would assume the same thing is going to go down elsewhere, including the States. Basically, the 3-D 15-minute preview will be shown for free every 30 minutes, starting at 6PM. More info should come out around the 19th.
In the meantime, Time Magazine has a great piece by Richard Corliss on Thirst and how it shows that “Vampires Beat Zombies”.
There’s also a couple of TV announcements with Bryan Singer producing and writing another Syfy mini following The Triangle in 2005. This 6-hour limited series will be about the 2012 myth and the Mayan calendar predicting the end of the world. USA also revealed a huge list of projects, including a lot of cop shows. Good Cop, Bad Cop, Busy Bodies, Gourmet Detective, you name it. There was as well a show entitled Hotel Dix written and produced by…Tom Fontana. Yes. A Tom Fontana show on the USA Network.
The news on everyone’s mind is yesterday’s Emmy nomination list. As some of you saw via my Twitter reactions, I was pretty pissed at some stuff that got on the list.
Let’s begin with Family Guy. Now, I don’t hate the show, actually I watch it religiously. My problem has to do with that it’s Family Guy getting the honors of being the first animated program to be nominated in the Best Comedy category in 50 years or so, instead of The Simpsons. Also, I don’t believe the show is that good. It might have been during the first few seasons but not currently.
I don’t appreciate the various writing noms this year either. And by various, I mean the complete opposite. Four out of five comedy writing noms are for 30 Rock, and four out of five drama writing noms are for Mad Men! Ridiculous.
My third problem is with another nomination, this time Drama-side: Lost. Yet again, I’m a huge Lost fan (remember when I interviewed Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse? I sure do), I’ve been with the show since day one. But this latest season was just atrociously bad, let alone majorly retcon. Long story short, Lost’s Season Five shouldn’t be worth the nomination. Remember how four out of five drama writing noms were for Mad Men? Well the other one is for, wait for it, Lost’s The Incident (Season 5 finale). Out of every drama hours from the past year, they chose this one? Not even a tiny Breakind Bad episode?
Lost shouldn’t even be nominated for Best Drama, which brings me to my next problem. With seven contenders this year, I would have expected some outsiders joining the show. Fortunately, Flight of the Conchords was nominated. On the other hand however, Lost getting on meant The Shield’s final season got the boot. Not cool. I would have liked to see In Treatment in there as well. Hopefully, Breaking Bad will win.
A new category was announced as well, Outstanding Special Class — Short-format Live-Action Entertainment, also known as the ‘Online Stuff’ category. With the exception of the Super-Bowl show, all the other noms are webisodes of some kind. Obviously, Dr. Horrible was nominated. One might wonder if this category was made just for Dr. Horrible. It’s a given it will get the Emmy. Speaking of, Scifi Wire has an interview up with Joss Whedon talking about this nomination, amongst other things.
Another major snub includes Michael Giacchino’s wonderful Lost score being completely ignored from the Outstanding Music Composition category. Instead, such musical classic as Castle, Legend of the Seeker, and even Ghost Whisperer got the nom.
So much to complain about, I must have left out some other things. In any case, yeah, I’m pissed at the 61st Emmy Awards. And they haven’t even started yet.
A few previews have appeared for some interesting upcoming shows.
The first is AMC’s Rubicon starring James Badge Dale and Lili Taylor based on a Jason Horwitch script. Check out this trailer:
FX meanwhile has made a 6-episode order for an animated comedy series named Archer and created by Adam Reed and Matt Thompson who previously worked on Sealab 2021. As for what it is about, see the following extract:
And finally, two other TV tidbits. First, some Station news. The FOX show produced by Ben Stiller’s Red Hour, not a network station. John Goodman has been cast as the co-star alongside Justin Bartha on this series created by Kevin Napier about covert CIA operatives working on installing a new dictatorship in Central America. The pilot will be shot by Role Model’s David Wain.
Also, NBC has picked-up Persons Unknown, a 13-episode series Christopher McQuarrie, who won an Oscar in 1994 for his Usual Suspects script. The show, produced showrunner Remi Aubuchon, Christopher & Heather McQuarrie, revolves around strangers waking up in a deserted town with no recollection of how they got there. They must now work together to escape by solving puzzles.
As promised, here is my follow-up article to my previous Four Reasons why Dollhouse might be Renewed. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that Whedon’s Dollhouse is going to be gone soon, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Okay, that may not exactly be what is going to happen, but if we’re facing the harsh and bitter reality, FOX, the “notoriously-fickle” network, is often going one-way with shows that are not instant hits.
It’s hard, but here are four reasons why I believe Dollhouse will get cancelled.
Reason 1 : RatingsThe most obvious reason on this list: ratings are bad, real bad. Only 3.6 million viewers tuned in last Friday, the same numbers as for The Sarah Connor Chronicles season (series?) finale. The rest is pretty much straightforward: in the conventional TV world, bad ratings mean no renewal. And if you’re thinking of a pity renewal just there, Dollhouse as of yet still does not have as strong a following as Firefly has, so a pity renewal has yet to be seen regarding fanbase. Though the numbers have been steady, they are, at the end of the day, very weak, and weak is not good.
Reason 2 : Death SlotThis reason is quite self-explanatory. It’s no secret that Friday is also known as the death slot. Movies open on Fridays, people like to go out on Friday nights, almost no one is left to watch some TV. And when you combine Friday night with FOX, you get cancellation. Take a look at the 20 shows that were in this same death slot and were subsequently cancelled in the last 10 years, or just ask Firefly and Wonderfalls. Friday nights on FOX have always been the place where shows go to die in pain. Also, Tim Minear is producing the show, and we all know that Fox and Minear do not compute.
Reason 3 : Slow on the UptaleLast time we were here discussing in length the Dollhouse, I was talking about something I called the “Fourth Media Dilemma”. Picking up for a second season Dollhouse, despite its atrocious ratings and FOX’s precedents regarding the death slot, would mean in some way recognizing the (good) iTunes and Hulu numbers of the show, and therefore officially giving some power to the Internet, or at least acknowledging it. I doubt FOX execs have the balls to give some credit to the Internet just yet and basically vet the Fourth Media in relation to a TV show’s fate. TV execs are known to be “slow on the uptake”, or at the very least having a hard time acknowledging new technologies and new forms of content. This is basically no different, if not greater than that. A renewal would mean showing faith in iTunes sales, and this is a one-way leap of faith. Is FOX really ready to take that step?
Reason 4 : Direct-to-DVDLast Thursday was announced that the “real” first (and only?) season finale of Dollhouse would only be available on DVD and not be shown on FOX, à la Middleman (although there the finale wasn’t actually produced, albeit available only in comic-book format). The official reason behind such a move is because FOX has already fulfilled its 13-episode order via the pilot’s reshooting. Tim Minear explained this better:
Because we scrapped the original pilot — and in fact cannibalized some of its parts for other eps — we really ended up with 12 episodes. But the studio makes DVD and other deals based on the original 13 number. So we created a standalone kind of coda episode. Which is the mythical new episode 13. The network had already paid for 13 episodes, and this included the one they agreed to let us scrap for parts. It does not include the one we made to bring the number back up to 13 for the studio side and its obligations.
If you believe in the show getting renewed, you’re going to show what looks like the best episode of the series and show it to the world as soon as you can.
If you don’t, on the other hand, no point in wasting your precious broadcast time for a dead show walking.
You’ve gotta admit though that FOX not even bothering to broadcast the final episode shows a certain lack of trust in Dollhouse’s future to say the least.
Ultimately, my previous “renewal” reasons are still valid, and, depending on your dubiousness, you can side either way on Dollhouse’s fate.
Hope is still not lost, and FOX might still have the balls to renew Dollhouse (and The Sarah Connor Chronicles for that matter).
Like always: Watch, Wait, and See.
I just finished reading Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard’s Cabin in the Woods, described by Wheddon himself as “the horror movie to end all horror movies”.
I don’t know to what extent I agree with that statement and basically to what extent I enjoyed the script/movie.
I wasn’t under-whelmed, but I wasn’t over-whelmed either.
The characters are definitely well-written, well introduced (so is the story for that matter), and the dialogue is sharp and witty.
I loved the white-collar characters of Richard Sitterson and Steve Hadley played respectively by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford. Definitely great casting choices.
I highly doubt that IMDb has the correct names associated with the actors. Fran Kranz is most likely not going to play Curt, unless he becomes your stereotypical football player overnight (could still happen though).
It should be noted there are no “twist” to the movie, at least not the way one might think. This is not The Sixth Sense where at the end you have some epic revelation that changes the scope of the movie and makes you re-evaluate every scene prior.
The only twist here is the genre-twist, and it is pretty straight-forward. You kind of get what is going on behind the scenes in the first 30 or so pages.
It is therefore not really a spoiler when describing Cabin as The Evil Dead/The Hills Have Eyes meets The Truman Show.
There’s a superior level to that whole “Truman Show” part though which I won’t spoil.
I was actually expecting more regarding said twist/superior level, like a final reveal that changes my whole perception of the story, but that unfortunately didn’t happen. It looked more like that Neo/Architect scene at the end of The Matrix Reloaded than anything for that matter (without the plot twists).
I don’t really know how to take the end, if I like it or not. It certainly is reminiscent of other Goddard endings though, so I won’t comment further.
There are also a few open questions and some inconsistencies regarding the rules set-out by the movie/story itself, so that was weird. Overall, suspension of disbelief is required but no more than for your average Buffy or Angel episode.
Suffice it to say that the movie will definitely be R-Rated as some of the deaths are grueling at best.
Brendon Connelly over at Slash Films says the end is a range of horror movie clichés, but I disagree here as I didn’t see much reference, if at all. Having a zombie in a movie doesn’t mean it’s a reference to any of those movies. So the same goes for the end of Cabin. The cabin deaths on the other hand, I can see how they could be considered references (for some at least).
I also disagree with him on how he compares Cabin to Scream, saying that the former tries to be like the latter: pioneer a new line of horror films. I didn’t get at all that feeling. If anything, it’s a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
The final product will most likely be a fun 90-minute ride, like Cloverfield was, but there certainly isn’t a revolution of genre here.
