A Glorious Geeky Gospel-Infused Pop Culture Collision

Grant Gustin & Jesse L Martin in "The Flash"I wasn't aware that Jesse L Martin, one of the best singing actors, was hoping to finance a musical short for himself but he is. The world collectively fell for his voice on the Original Cast Recording of "Rent." David E Kelley let him sing fairly regularly on "Ally McBeal" (those bar scenes made full use of the many musical alums in Ally McBeal's cast) and then he reprised his star-making role for the ill-conceived Rent movie. Since then he tends to be cast in non-singing roles -- even in musical shows like "Smash"! He's currently the adoptive father / police detective hero on CW's hit "The Flash" and he doesn't get to sing on that show either.

But listen to this -- here he is with two of his current co-stars on "The Flash" (Carlos Valdes and Rick Cosnett) to sing the theme song for Joss Whedon's "Firefly" It's a thank you to Joss who donated to their collective kickstarter project. A fourth co-star is also involved in this would be short (Patrick Sabongui who plays the incidentally gay police captain boss on the series) but he's not in this thank you video. Maybe he sings, too?

Let this double as a cry for action aimed at the CW writers room: The Flash obviously and desperately needs a musical episode. Make it happen in Season 2. To its very entertaining credit your show already embraces "anything can happen" insanity (Gorilla Grodd, hi!) so if Grant Gustin can't sing, just give the other guys all the songs. Make it work.

UPDATE: Grant Gustin can very much sing. (Sorry, I stopped watching "Glee" before he arrived and have never regretted the decision). A musical episode must happen.

Why are actors always so multi-talented? It's unfair. And wonderful.

Team Top Ten: Best TV to Film Adaptations of All Time

Amir here, to welcome you to another edition of Team Top Ten, a poll of all of the website’s contributors. The topic du jour given that it's Emmy season is Best Films Adaptated from TV Series.

For as long as film and TV have coexisted, their fates, stars, successes, failures and histories have been entangled. Their ever-shifting dynamic has had an immense impact on both industries. The complexity of their relationship made devising a list like this one quite difficult, beginning with the question of what really constitutes an adaptation. For example, The Holy Grail and Life of Brian are not adapted from Monty Python's The Flying Circus; they are inspired by it, but one is more inspired than the other, so we rendered the former film eligible and the latter ineligible. On the other hand, series like Mission Impossible and Naked Gun present a different type of challenge because the sequels are continuations of the original film, rather than the TV series, but we considered them eligible nonetheless. We faced another difficulty with franchises like The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values, based on a series that is itself based on comics. The extent to which the films were inspired by either source was taken into account and we considered only the former film eligible in this case though the latter has far more ardent fans among the team here.

And so on and so forth. The point is to take this list with a grain of salt and add your personal favourites in the comments below. Without further ado…

TEAM TOP TEN
BEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME INSPIRED BY TV SERIES

10. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Unlike these days, David Lynch needed to make a film in order to portray all of the incest, rape, pedophilia, murder and drugs that his and Mark Frost’s television series mostly only alluded to. While Twin Peaks, which ran for two seasons in the early 1990s, was a woozy blend of murder mystery, soap opera, dark comedy and surrealist imagery, the film was an altogether different beast. A dark and often brutally ugly ‘horror melodrama’, it angered many fans and even filmmakers (Quentin Tarantino was not a fan). For people willing to take the plunge, however, into the dark recesses of Lynch’s mind, it is a compelling and tragic affair that remains one of the definitive directorial statements of the ‘90s. Plus, David Bowie as an FBI agent who may be a ghost. Or an alien. Or a shape-shifter. Who can tell? –Glenn Dunks

9. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Ghost Protocol seemed like a squeaker eligibility-wise, with the show a distant, tenuously related memory and three other movies interceding between them. But the film is one of the great pop entertainments U.S. studios have produced in recent years, dynamically edited and gorgeously shot by Robert Elswit without the self-conscious handsomeness of There Will Be Blood or Good Night, and Good Luck. With set-pieces as stunning as the Kremlin infiltration, the sandstorm chase, and everything else that happens in, on, or around the Burj Khalifa, this is top-notch, exuberant, and imaginative action filmmaking.  I liked De Palma’s gimcrackery and Abrams’ more traditional and character-driven suspenser, but Ghost Protocol is the franchise’s happiest marriage of scene construction, silliness, and star charisma (not just from Cruise, but from everybody).  Its division into discrete, flavorful sequences gives it the roaming energy of a television serial. You want to binge four more movies afterward. –Nick Davis

8 more after the jump

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Firefly / Serenity"

For this week's edition of Hit Me With Your Best Shot, the series wherein we invite everyone to get opinionated and choose the single best shot from pre-selected movies, we offered up an atypical two-for-one deal. You could either choose an image from Firefly's first episode (if you'd never seen the Joss Whedon series and wanted to start at the beginning) or an image from its movie spinoff Serenity. Or both if you're crazy about Captain Tightpants. I am but I chose only the latter in order to tie it into 2012's Joss Whedon film frenzy.

Though Whedon had been Oscar nominated for screenwriting (Toy Story, 1995) even before Buffy the Vampire Slayer bowed on TV making him famous, Serenity was his feature film directorial debut. You might even call it his audition piece for The Avengers. Transitioning between medium is rarely simple for creative talent and Whedon wisely made the leap by leaning right into his earned TV auteur status. 

I know. We're going for a ride."

I never read contributor posts until I've finished mine but I'll be surprised if someone doesn't choose the bravura post title scene. It's actually a four and a half minute long continuous shot reintroducing us to the entire Serenity crew from the shortlived but wonderful Firefly series. It begins by following Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) around as he barks order to his crew until its finally handed off like a baton to the stowaway siblings Simon (Sean Maher) and River (Summer Glau) at the heart of the plot. Whedon rarely resists self-mythologizing the Whedonverse and it's just perfect that the shot ends with the mysterious psychic River Tam promising you a good time at the movies -- "we're going for a ride" -- just as Joss's name materializes on her body like a branding. 

My two sibling choices for "Best Shots" are after the jump.

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