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Entries in TV (906)

Wednesday
Jul032013

Visual Index ~ American Graffiti's Best Shot(s)

Where were you on 7/2? Hopefully watching American Graffiti (1973) to better appreciate today's edition of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", our collective series in which we invite anyone who loves movies  'round the web to select their favorite image from a pre-selected movie. [Next Wednesday we'll be discussing the brilliant and disturbing Dead Ringers (1988) so do not miss that.] This week we return to simpler times...

1962 by way of 1973, in point of fact, courtesy of George Lucas's first Best Picture nominee, the very fine nostalgia fest American Graffiti which we thought an appropriate choice for the 4th of July Holiday. more...

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Friday
Jun282013

Linky Together

The Awl has a good piece on the metaphorical zombies and in blockbuster cinema
My New Plaid Pants a delightfully unexpected list: 5 tertiary characters from Paul Thomas Anderson movies deserve their own spin-off. I totally forgot about Brad the Bartender with Braces in Magnolia!
Atlantic prompted by all the "legacy" talk of TV after James Gandolfini (RIP) & The Sopranos... "where is the female Tony Soprano?"
HitFix David Chases' full eulogy for James Gandolfini

Coming Soon Sir Ian McKellen has wrapped filming The Hobbit trilogy, never to return to Gandalf the Grey (or White)
In Contention's wondering about Foxcatcher in Sony's Oscar Hopeful slate
Hollywood Vin Diesel meeting with Marvel Studios. Hmmm, I can't really see him as any of the characters mentioned beyond Thanos 
Exploding Actresses on Tumblr. You will cry. Or laugh. Possibly both depending on the movie.
Antagony & Ecstasy has a well thought through piece on Joss Whedon's tossed-off Much Ado About Nothing

Today's Watch
Filmmaker IQ's John Hess on Aspect Ratio in cinema. 18 minutes long but well produced and worth it, if your understanding of Aspect Ratio is, like mine, limited to Almost Squares vs Various Shaped Rectangles and trivia knowledge of gimmicks like "Cinerama." Watch it, it's Edumucational!

The Changing Shape of Cinema: The History of Aspect Ratio from FilmmakerIQ.com on Vimeo.

 

Belated Tony
Filmsploitation Check out this wonderful photo and quote from cinematographer Christopher Doyle about set photography and the making of Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together (1997) which I had just been thinking of for no apparent reason (since I used a different photo for The Film Experience on Facebook... a page you should obviously "like", duh)

And while we're on the subject... Happy (belated) birthday to Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Lust Caution, In the Mood for Love, Hero), our favorite Asian movie star who celebrated his 51st yesterday. His wife Carina Lau posted this picture of him eating cake. 

You missed the thumb Tony. Let me get that for you...

 

Wednesday
Jun052013

Teen Wolf Returns, Gets "Tattoo"

With Smash gone to its grave and Mad Men nearing its end and still no official word on a second season of Bunheads (i'm losing hope) I need a new TV show to write about weekly. So indulge me in TEEN WOLF which has finally given werewolves a good name again. It's roughly three trillion times better than Hemlock Grove and roughly one billion times sexier than The Twilight Saga probably because the guys and girls are hotter and have personalities that extend beyond "mopey" and "lovestruck" though they amply cover those character traits, too.  I have flirted with covering it before writing up the first three episodes and ogling the muscles. But weirdly, though I realized the leaps and bounds it made in quality in Season 2, I didn't commit to blogging it. So... Season Three!

Teen Wolf Magical Logic #1: Werewolves can't get tattoos because they heal too quickly. Unless those tattoos are by torch in which case the healing just gives up or something?

"Tattoo"
In the first episode we pick up as the school year begins (teen shows always have this trouble of built-in expiration dates that they always botch by NOT allowing for a rotating cast of different-aged main characters right from season 1!). Scott and Stiles (Tyler Posey, Dylan O'Brien) are still pining for Alison (Crystal Reed) and Lydia (Holland Roden) who they've barely seen during the summer. Lydia's boyfriend and season 1 & 2's half villain / full hunk Jackson (Coulton Haynes) left the show *sniffle* so we learn that his rich daddy has moved him overseas. In a supernatural show where killing off a main character would be totally dramatic (and dramatically sensible) this feels like a cheat. It's obviously only Blighty so they can make an American Werewolf in London joke. That honor goes to Lydia.  [more...]

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Monday
Jun032013

Burning Questions: Can Binge Watching Hurt a Show?

Hello, dear readers. Michael C here to take a detour into TV blogging.

Is season four picking at the carcass of a once great show or just more greatness?

It has now been a full week since Netflix returned the Bluth family to us, which in Internet time means by this point I may as well writing about the final episode of MASH. By midweek the long awaited return of Arrested Development had already been watched, analyzed, celebrated, backlashed, and defended a few times over. [more...]

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Monday
May272013

R.I.P. "Smash"

Smash, age 2, passed away on Sunday May 26th, 2013 at an undisclosed location at NBC after airing its final two-part episode "The Nominations" and "The Tony Awards". Few were there to mark its passing due to its long and quite unamusing terminal illness. Smash's difficult short life was plagued by self-sabotage, and two unfortunately common showbiz ailments: Actress Dysmorphia Disorder, in which everyone pretends that a gifted actress is NOT awesome so as to place another lesser being on a pedestal, and the no less deadly Audience Prosopagnosia in which a piece of showbiz believes it is performing for a different audience entirely than the one it's got.

Smash, television's first and now only Broadway musical series, was born on February 6th, 2012 to stubborn scarf-aficionado Theresa Rebeck but wrestled away from her and placed in the care of foster parents who, from all filmed evidence, had never set foot inside a Broadway theater, never witnessed a Tony Awards telecast and prefer American Idol Results Shows to Broadway Musicals. 

In its final death rattle on Sunday night, Smash continued to exhibit all of its usual signs of self-loathing and  mental illness: oh look another "Cute" moment about leaving your cel phone on during live theater!; oh look a lame subplot suggesting the show's best actress should chuck aside her showbiz career the second she's earned it; oh look, more encouraging of absolutely unprofessional behavior to get your way in your profession as if everyone working in musical theater is a complete sociopath and everyone else is okay with this!). In its final two hours of life Smash drifted in and out of consciousness and lucidity forgetting it was a musical and then remembering and even breaking the fourth wall (during one bizarre gay flirtation) on the way to its "Big Finish", a cute reminder that McPhee & Hilty did always sound good singing together, despite all the rest.

In the tradition of all self-immolating entertainments, Smash will be buried with the careers of several of its participants though these names are as yet undisclosed and mourners are asked to withhold petitions calling for Katharine McPhee, Jeremy Jordan, and Joshua Safran's entombment. Smash is survived by Megan Hilty (aka "Ivy Lynn"), actress, Christian Borle & Debra Messing (aka "Will & Grace" "Tom & Julia"), actors, and presumably by Anjelica Huston, diva, who survived Jack Nicholson and is rumored to be indestructible.