Author: Will Harris (Page 9 of 261)

Will is a member of the Television Critics Association and has written for Decider.com, the Onion A.V. Club, The Dissolve, Indiewire, Rhino.com, TV Week Magazine, The Virginian-Pilot, Popdose.com, and EW.com along with writing for Bullz-Eye.com and Premium Hollywood.

A Chat with Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (“Sherlock”)

October 23, 2010 /

The characters of Sherlock Holmes and his trusty associate Dr. John Watson have been interpreted every which way but loose since their original inception in 1887, courtesy of Arthur Conan Doyle, and with Guy Ritchie’s take on the Holmes mythos having only just hit theaters last year, it would seem to be a bit premature to put Baker Street’s most famous detective onto the small screen as well…but, then, “Sherlock” – premiering here in the States as part of PBS’s “Masterpiece” on Sunday, Oct. 24, bears precious little resemblance to Robert Downey, Jr.’s big-screen adventure. This is a modern-day look at the characters and their mythology, and for those who might be skeptical that they can successfully survive such a transformation, I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’ve only seen a portion of the first episode (“A Study in Pink”) thus far, but it was more than enough to sell me on tuning in on the 24th. Mind you, I also had the advantage of sitting down with the series’ executive producers, Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis, whose enthusiasm for the project proved decidedly contagious.

Bullz-Eye: Steven, you and I met in passing a few years ago at the “Jekyll” panel…a show which I loved, by the way…

Steven Moffat: Oh, thank you. Oh, good!

BE: …and, Mark, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I now know that you made an appearance in that series.

Mark Gatiss: That’s right!

BE: So, Steven, what do you enjoy about the challenge of contemporizing British icons? I mean, you can argue that Dr. Jekyll is an icon of sorts, but then you’ve got Doctor Who, and now Sherlock Holmes.

SM: Well, being honest, for me, there isn’t really…it looks like there’s a narrative through that, that I’m trolling for things, but I’m really, really not. “Jekyll” was a totally different experience to this, the one big difference being that it was a sequel set in the modern day. And, really, it looks as if I’ve just been doing that, but, really, seriously, it wasn’t that. This is a completely different experience, and the challenge of this…well, they’re just joys, aren’t they?

MG: It’s true, yeah.

SM: There are so many things that…well, once having started talking about this, we realized it was going to work, because he can still be coming home from Afghanistan, a flat share is what we now call sharing rooms, we’ve gone back to sending telegrams by sending texts…it’s just perfect.

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Doctor Who, External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, TCA Blog 2010, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

Boardwalk Empire 1.5 – Irish Blood, Jersey Heart

October 18, 2010 /

I’m not sure if this week’s episode was the best installment of “Boardwalk Empire” to date, but at the very least, it was the first episode where those of us who’ve been watching since the beginning of the series felt like we were finally getting some payoff to the storylines we’d been diligently following for the past month.

Margaret is awakened by a bustling at the garage across street, and given that it’s a garage, you could almost believe that it’s barrels of oil being rolled in…right up until the point when the gentleman takes a sip of the product. It seems at first that Margaret isn’t terribly bothered by the sight, nor even by being awoken so early, since she heads straight to the kitchen to whip up a batch of soda bread. As it turns out, however, she’s baking up a plan of action. Cut to Nucky and Eli, neither of whom are in the best of moods: Nucky isn’t exactly ecstatic about St. Patrick’s Day, and Eli quickly matches him with his annoyance over being slighted at breakfast. It’s not really about the breakfast, though. It’s about being considered of lesser importance by everyone all the way down to the waiter. Looks like the Celtic dinner is going to be interesting, what with Eli’s speech and the brothers’ dad being in attendance. It isn’t long before Margaret turns up to deliver the soda bread to Nucky…but what’s this? After several episodes of the show underlining Nucky’s interest in Margaret, suddenly he’s blowing her off? Interesting. He says, “My life’s complicated enough,” but something’s got to be up…and, clearly, Margaret’s pissed off by the reception, given that she promptly throws the soda bread into the wastebasket.

Her next move: to attend a meeting of the Women’s Temperance League…her first in quite some time, based on the reaction she receives when she strolls in…but when the topic turns to what can be done to prop up Prohibition, Margaret chimes in about what she witnessed earlier that morning. As I watched, I couldn’t help but suspect that neither Thompson brother would be quite as much of a friend after St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone. Little did I know that one would be decidedly more than a friend by the end of the episode.

Can’t say as I expected that Nucky’s offhanded “I’m a little short” joke would ultimately result in a storyline devoted to the vertically-challenged – who knew there was such a substantial population of midgets in Atlantic City? – but they’re apparently none too thrilled about the way they’re being treated with this whole Celtic parade. Carl Healy comes to visit Nucky, who’s not in the mood to put up with small talk…no pun intended. Carl asks for a raise from $5 to $10, but Nucky’s not having it. He is, however, willing to cut a deal where the guys get a slight raise and Carl gets an extra cut. Not a bad deal, but somehow I envision it going wrong. When Margaret comes in, she’s clearly a woman on a mission herself, only taking time to confirm her suspicions that Nucky’s just another sheister politician (yeah, that soda bread sure wasn’t tasty, wasn’t it, Nuck?) before getting down to business. Clearly, no matter what these two may have thought of each other in the past, there’s nothing but annoyance between them now, thanks to this latest development. “This isn’t a personal favor, Mrs. Schroeder.” Yeah, no shit, Nucky.

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Boardwalk Empire, External Entertainment, External TV, Reviews, TV, TV Dramas

Mad Men 4.13 – No, seriously, who IS Don Draper?

October 18, 2010 /

A lot of TV critics spent much of last week trying to work out what would come to pass in this season’s final episode of “Mad Men,” but I can honestly say that I didn’t give it too much thought. The most I did, really, was reflect on how the previous season of “Mad Men” ended, which only served to leave me thinking, “Okay, there’s no way the end of Season 4 is going to leave me as excited about next season as the end of Season 3 did.” And I was right: it didn’t…but that doesn’t mean that Matthew Weiner didn’t still do yet another fine job of setting the stage for the series’ next go-round.

Maybe it’s just the cocktails talking, but since this is the season finale, I don’t think there’s any point in going through the episode scene by scene by scene, so let’s just look at the various events that went down, along with their repercussions:

Don and Fay: I think we all knew they were more or less doomed from the moment Don sexed up Megan in his office, but, man, it just got more and more depressing to watch them interact, especially knowing that Fay had basically betrayed her principles for the sake of their relationship. Her speech to him before she headed off on her flight underlined yet again how much she cared about him. I really do think that Don wanted it to work out between them, but as he proved last week with his letter to The New York Times (and, of course, on probably a hundred more occasions in other episodes), he’s a man who does things on impulse, rarely bothering to concern himself with the possible repercussions. I can’t imagine that their final phone conversation will prove to be the last we see of Fay, but if it is, you can’t say she didn’t get the best possible last word, snapping, “I hope she knows you only like the beginnings of things.”

Don sitting on bed next to Megan

Don and Megan: As soon I saw Don start talking to Megan, I said to my wife, “Oh, God, don’t tell me he’s going to ask her to watch the kids for him…” But, of course, he did. I knew that the fire between them was destined to be rekindled at some point during the trip to California, but, really, did anyone anticipate that it would all go down so fast? Even when Stephanie gave Don the ring, I couldn’t imagine that he and Fay would ever actually make it to the altar, but, Jesus, it never occurred to me that, before episode’s end, the ring would be on Megan’s finger…and, yet, looking back at the episode, it’s very easy to see how Don got so caught up in it all.

First and foremost, Megan loves the kids and the kids love Megan. Don’s initial line when he walks into the room to a French chorus – “You said you didn’t have any experience, but you’re like Maria von Trapp!” – was hilarious, but it still wasn’t as funny as the expressions on the faces of Sally, Bobby, and Don when Megan kept her cool after Sally’s milkshake spillage. On top of that, she’s gorgeous, smart, and respects what Don does, all of which are important qualities. Still, let’s not kid ourselves: it’s the way she handles the kids that seals the deal.

In the midst of post-coital bliss, Megan tells Don, “I know who you are now.” Except she doesn’t. Not really, anyway. But she’ll no doubt find out at some point in the future. Maybe Betty and Fay can fill her in…?

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External Entertainment, External TV, Mad Men, TV, TV Dramas

Johnny Depp or John Cusack as Marty McFly? It could have happened…

October 15, 2010 /

With the release of “Back to the Future: The 25th Anniversary Trilogy” preparing to hit DVD and Blu-ray on October 26th, Bob Gale – co-writer and producer of the films – has been doing a lot of press, providing him not only with the opportunity to wax nostalgic but also the chance to dispel a few rumors, some of which are more ridiculous than others.

For instance, I can now confirm definitively that, despite what you may have read on Wikipedia, it seems very unlikely that Corey Hart, the man who made a career out of wearing his sunglasses at night, was ever really in the running to play Marty McFly.

“I don’t think so,” said Gale, chuckling. “I don’t have any memory of that. Somebody said that he was our first choice, but that’s insane. I don’t know where that one came from. C. Thomas Howell was the other finalist at the time. John Cusack was somebody we considered. Johnny Depp read for this, believe it or not. I don’t remember the screen test. I looked through the notes, and I said, ‘Geez, I don’t even remember that we read Johnny Depp!’ So whatever he did, it wasn’t all that memorable, I guess! And there was a kid called George Newbern who flew out from Chicago for an open casting call who was pretty good. I think he’s on some TV series now. I don’t remember what it is, but I remember him. But Corey Hart? Nope. Don’t think so.”

There have also been rumors that John Lithgow was in the running for the role of Doc Brown, but according to Gale, any such discussions didn’t get very far.

“That was just kind of in passing,” said Gale. “The only other guy we really seriously considered for Doc Brown was Jeff Goldblum. Jeff came in, and…I’m certain we talked about John Lithgow, but I don’t remember if he ever actually came in, or if we met him. But I vividly remember meeting Jeff and liking him.”

In regards to the long-unreleased Eric Stoltz footage that has finally emerged within one of the documentaries on the 25th anniversary set, one can’t help but notice that we never hear so much as a single line of dialogue uttered by Stoltz.

“It was Laurent Bouzereau, who directed and produced the documentaries, who really badgered us about putting that footage in,” said Gale. “So if you like seeing it, he’s the guy to give the credit to and the thanks to.”

“Look, we don’t bear any ill will to Eric at all,” Gale continued. “We don’t want to make him look bad. We don’t think this makes him look bad. We hope it doesn’t. We figured, ‘Let’s just soft-pedal it and not put a whole lot of that in there,’ because, you know, the story’s about how the movie got made, not about him. Maybe in the 35th or 45th anniversary edition, we’ll put the actual scenes in. We never destroyed that footage. We recognized at the time that there was historical significance to it, so the footage exists. But Eric’s a working actor. We don’t want him to have to answer questions about it…not unless he comes forward and says, ‘Hey, I wanted to talk about that!’”

Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Interviews, Movie Comedies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

“Hey, did you hear Obama’s gonna kill our grandmas?”

October 14, 2010 /

Jack Black is…Nathan Spewman, Professional Mis-Informant!

Or, at least, that’s the role he’s playing in a new series of videos that he and America Ferrera have filmed in order to show their support for HCAN (Healthcare For America NOW).

I’m very much of the “politics, schmolitics: funny is funny” mindset, so I’d laugh at these videos whether I agreed with the message it’s spreading or not, but the fact that they’re arguably the funniest thing Jack Black’s done since “Tropic Thunder” doesn’t hurt, either. Unsurprisingly, though, many are too busy grousing about the overall message of the videos to acknowledge their value as entertainment.

In an article on FoxNews.com, Patrick Dorinson, GOP communications strategist and founder/CEO of Dorinson Communications, was quoted as saying, “In 20 years, no one will remember these two ‘stars’ ever existed, but the debt we will pay for ObamaCare will still be here.” Having never really watched “Ugly Betty,” I can’t speak to Ferrara’s chances at career longevity, but given that Black has already been in the business for two decades, I think it’s fair to say that Dorison was really just scrambling to come up with something that would grab people’s attention.

Yeah, I know, there are people out there who really are stupid enough to vote for or against something just because Jack Black says they should. I’m not one of them, though. I’m just enjoying the laughs.

P.S. Don’t tell anybody, but Obama’s the Devil.

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, Humor, News, Video

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