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Posts tagged as “Politics”

One Year of (various) Posts

One Year of (various) Posts

First post of the birthday week.
This might feel to some like one of those sitcom epis with clip shows of the best moments because writers have become lazy.
Don’t worry though, this is just a blog taking a look back at a year’s worth of random posts, because I’m lazy.

Like J.D. said:


“I know I’d love to forget all the [things] that have happened to me. But unfortunately I keep replaying them in my head like some clip show from a bad sitcom too lazy to come up with a fresh story.“

So much incredible stuff happened in the past year…

Let’s get started with TV.
This year has been marked by crazy actions on this side of the biz.
From CBS to FOX or HBO, we’ve seen some pretty incredible stuff.
Most of all, there was some serious NBC talk thanks to Dumb and Dumber‘s stupid moves, especially moving Leno to the 10PM slot, Mondays thru Fridays.
You can bet I’ll be talking about this more in Wednesday’s post.

Equally as mind-boggling was SciFi‘s atrocious name-change planned for July (SyFy? Really?):

Let me get this straight.
You want to change everything from your logo to your slogan, and from the brand to your core audience (you know, the one that made you what you are now). And do all that for absolutely no reason at all (given the channel’s top-10 network status)?

Syfyllis is still a serious condition and just plain dumb.
One very recent Twitter justification was equally as spastic (is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?):

If it’s such a good time for sci fi, why change your network name to SyFy?
To differentiate our brand in an increasingly competitive category where we’re competing in more countries and on a growing number of platforms. For instance, type “scifi” into Hulu search and you won’t get any results from our shows on the first page. Just one example of many.

Continuing on the TV side of things, we’ve seen our fair share of TV Shows throughout the year, including an interview I did with Lost‘s Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.
Some shows were unfortunately cancelled, like The Middleman (my favorite from last summer), others surprisingly not, like Dollhouse. Others meanwhile were fortunately renewed, such as Leverage.
There was also an introduction to this new little ABC show called Flash Forward (now renamed FlashForward, following the author’s original wish).

We talked a bit as well about the Arrested Development movie that shouldn’t come out for another year or two.
In the meantime, you should check out the awesome Arrested Developement documentary (yes there is one) when it comes out (2009?).

Perfect segue to the movie front of the year, which had a lot of…interesting happenings (besides Cannes).
Watchmen was probably the most talked-about film here, followed closely by Star Trek.
Speaking of, Warner Bros. just loved my posting of the epic Watchmen opening sequence and asked Blogger to delete my post with no warning.
Like I said at the time:

I’m not going to post the sequence again for the sake of it, but suffice to say that I’m quite disappointed by the behind-my-back actions taken.
I also find quite ridiculous that said actions were done in the name of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, let alone the crusade against people posting the opening Watchmen sequence.
Are they afraid people will find it is so awesome they decide not to go watch the rest of the movie?
Even yU+Co was forced to take it down, even though it’s their own company that made the titles.
Quite ridiculous indeed.

Another Watchmen scandal was with its ending.
Squid or no Squid? I asked back in November.
You should know by now the answer (spoiler alert: it’s not like in the graphic novel).
Let’s not forget as well the FOX versus WB case regarding the movie’s rights.
Ultimately, and unsurprisingly, they settled.
No harm done.

What is however a harm (to my brain) are phenomenons such as that Twilight thing.
Remakes of remakes were as well discussed.
And I almost forgot to talk about all the game adaptations, like Monopoly, and Clue.
Where is the originality?
Here it is:
The big talk of upcoming 2009 films must be James Cameron’s Avatar.
You know, the movie I’m saying will revolutionize 3-D.
This is like my own personal TOLDJA! moment regarding 3-D (and Avatar):

Sound was introduced in 1927.
Color was introduced in 1938.
3-D will be introduced in 2009.

I think I called it.

Continuing on the entertainment industry…
We’ve seen our fair share of (not-that-funny) award shows this year, from the Golden Globes to the Oscars.
This year might prove different with either Neil Patrick Harris or Craig Ferguson hosting the Emmys.
That’s epicness right here.

Moving on, there was a lot of talk about technology.
From the floppy disk to Twitter (who had even heard of Twitter a year ago?).
Some talk around the future of entertainment, especially television, has as well been present throughout the year.
Whether it is via Strike.TV in last August, or more re
cently Hulu, with its financial investments.
Yet again, we’ll talk more about this on Friday’s post thanks to a couple of new articles regarding rebranding (SyFy) and broadcast future (NBC and CBS specifically).

Finally, there were changes in the political landscape this year, with the arrival of a new President and the departure of another.
Shifts in the economy as well were felt. Both in the TV industry and elsewhere.
And to finish us off, we shall mention this Lego man, who didn’t after all go on I’m a “Celebrity” (sarcasm quotes not included in original title).

Incredible postings aside, this year was riveting.
More to come tomorrow.

Upcoming


Former Illinois Governor Rod “Lego Man” Blagojevich has made a deal to star in NBC’s I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here, the American adaptation of the famous UK reality show.

I admit I laughed out loud a bit at the announcement.
And even more when an NBC spokesman soon after declared:

Rod Blagojevich will be a participant on the show pending the court’s approval.

Priceless.

On a whole other subject, most of the Stargate SG-1 cast will unite once again and join the spin-off Stargate Universe.
Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, and Gary Jones, will reprise their roles in guest stints.
Janelle Monáe will also guest as herself to play a couple of songs from her latest album.

I find interesting that so many cast members from the original show are jumping on the new ship, especially given the fact that this spin-off is supposed to be almost completely detached from its two predecessors with almost no real tie-in to the current Stargate mythology (except of course being the show’s launching pad).
Add that to the fact that the premise is based on them stuck on a spaceship and not being able to return to Earth, and you’ve got yourself some strange cameos throughout the show’s history.

And finally, a bit of 3-D news.
AMG TV is to become the first 3-D dedicated network in America.
For about $50, you’ll be able to turn any HDTV into a 3-D TV, including the cost of glasses, with the help of an add-on box for cable and satellite subscribers.

The deal links AMG to Signet International Holdings and to Kerner Broadcast Corp., a spin-off company from non other than the famous Industrial Light and Magic.
Kerner will basically supplying the programming, creating new 3-D content as well as upgrading and converting already-existing 2-D content.

Although the quality is not yet on par with actual High Definition (5 out of 10 in terms of quality says the CEO of Kerner Broadcasting), the technology is affordable enough to get it to the masses.

Surely a very interesting year to come for television.

Pilots in the Woods

Two actors have finally been cast for the Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard extremely-awaited horror movie inauspiciously entitled “The Cabin in the Woods“.
The two actors I am referring to are Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, also known as great actors. Just Richard Jenkins’ performances in Six Feet Under or The Visitor show how talented he is. Unfortunately I haven’t seen much of Bradley Whitford’s but a lot of praise was given to The West Wing so I’m sure his work there was tremendous.

You can sense by this casting that this horror film is going to twist the “young people stranded in the woods and scared shitless” movie.

Even Goddard (almost) says so:

It’s really just your basic typecasting: When you need two actors to run through the woods in low-cut nighties, you immediately think of Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.

The pair should play white-collar co-workers that have a mysterious connection to ‘the cabin’.
I just hope we’re not talking about Jacob’s cabin here.

The movie is set for a Feb. 5, 2010 release with a Spring shoot.

I am really excited about this pic. I like genre-twisting, I love Whedon and Goddard, and both Jenkins as well as Whitford are sublime actors; so this is going to be phenomenal.

FOX has ordered 7 pilots for its pilot slate, including 4 comedies, and 3 dramas.
Let’s take a quick look at them.

For the comedies:
The Station co-produced by Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Films, is about a covert CIA operative and his workmates who are embedded in a South American banana republic with a mission to install a new dictator.
That sounds like a prequel to a Fulgencio Batista biopic.
Walorsky revolves around a lazy ex-cop-turned-security guard patrolling a mall in Buffalo, N.Y., and is forced to grudgingly step it up after he is assigned an idiot partner.
Two Dollar Beer centers on a blue-collar couple and their extended family and friends in Detroit.
Sons of Tucson will talk about a charming but misguided hustler hired by three rich young brothers to act as their “father” while their real one serves time for a white-collar crime.
So is that Drillbit Taylor meets daddy-issues?

As for the dramas:
Maggie Hill will be about a brilliant female surgeon who thrives despite enduring adult-onset schizophrenia.
There’s also an untitled reincarnation pilot about ex-investigators using faking the idea of reincarnation to help clients solve mysteries from their past lives in order to resolve their problems in the present.
The Mentalist without the mental in it?
And last but not least we have a 24-companion on our hands with Human Target, based on the DC Comic of the same name. The show centers around a mysterious body guard named Christopher Chance that assumes the identities of his life-threatened clients to become himself the “human target”.

Another great news this morning is the announcement of Michelle Obama’s hairstylist inking a TV deal.
Isn’t that just great.