Category: Actors (Page 144 of 343)

The “Mad Men” cast talks about Season 3

August 14, 2009 /

With two critically revered seasons on the books — and a third kicking off on Sunday — AMC’s “Mad Men” is certifiably one of the hottest shows on the cable TV dial. So if you happened to be at the summer’s TCA press tour, you’d probably do exactly what Bullz-Eye’s Will Harris did — namely, move heaven and earth to get some face time with the members of the cast who showed up for a TCA cocktail party. Of course, none of us are Will Harris, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, we don’t have to be — he’s gone and put the transcripts of his chat with the “Mad Men” cast online for all to see.

Will’s “Mad Men” interviewees were Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell), Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway), and Jon Hamm (Don Draper) — plus, he’s reached back into the not-so-distant past to include some of the highlights from his recent talk with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane). Though none of the cast members let down their guard enough to let slip any details about the upcoming third season, we can rest assured that plenty of surprises are in store. In the words of Kartheiser:

“This season, season three, I have been blindsided by, like, four or five stories. Like, literally, I have been reading the scripts like, ‘Holy shit! Are you kidding me?'”

Of course, a major component of the show has always been its time period — and as “Mad Men” moves from the early ’60s into the turbulent later years of the decade, it’s reasonable to expect some of that upheaval to make its way onto the screen. Hamm confirmed this, saying:

“Everything changes, and I think that’s a big part of the story we’re trying to tell this season. The culture and the attitudes of the United States at that time are shifting, and these people have to deal with what that shift entails. Not only in their own lives, but in how they deal with their coworkers, how they deal with their workspace, how they deal with their relationships…how they deal with all of that.”

And that’s just scratching the surface of the article. To read the rest of Will Harris’ chat with the “Mad Men” cast, click on the image above or follow this link!

Actors, External TV, Interviews, Mad Men

The strange weekend of five

August 14, 2009 /

This is one interesting movie August we’re in. In fact, if you go to a mutliplex this weekend and can’t find anything that interests you, then you probably don’t belong anywhere near a contemporary movie theater. At this point in film history, things just don’t get that much more diverse, and more interesting, than the new films on offer this weekend.

* Anyone with a geek bone in their body has heard and/or seen a fair amount about the movie box office prognosticators expect to end the reign of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” By most accounts a thoughtful yet violent/bloody R-rated science fiction actioner from first-time feature director Neill Blomkamp, “District 9” benefits from a lot of really good buzz, truly outstanding reviews, and a very high-profile variant of a viral campaign; the “humans only” signs have been up at bus-stops in Los Angeles for what seems like years and the film’s association with executive producer Peter Jackson won’t hurt. (Just like the filmgoers who probably still believe that Quentin Tarantino directed “Hostel” and have no clue who Eli Roth is, many casual movie fans will give Jackson the credit/blame on this.)

On the possible downside: there are no stars or recognizable faces and the film’s setting of South Africa might put off some people. We Americans, I fear, can be an obnoxiously xenophobic bunch at times. However, this is a new age we’re in (I think) and certainly this film, about space aliens being oppressed by us literally xenophobic humans, has a much easier to grasp premise than “Serenity,” the last star-free but excitement-heavy, well-reviewed science fiction film to rely on viral marketing, and the virus is far more virulent this time. So, the projections of a take of somewhere in the $20 millions or more for Sony offered both by Variety‘s Pamela McClintock and The Hollywood Reporter‘s ever-jolly Carl DiOrio, who guesses it at at least $25 million, make some sense.

Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams * Unless they’re seeing someone very special and very insistent, the young males who will be flocking to “District 9” likely won’t be seeing this week’s promising box office hopeful, even though it’s also science fiction, though obviously of a very different sort. Warner’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is unusual for the movies I write about here in that I’ve actually seen this one before its release date, and you can read all about my opinion of the film over at the link. Suffice it to say that fantastical romantic melodrama is not generating a whole bunch of critical excitement, though that underwhelming 37% RT rating is not so much a collective groan as a chorus of “meh.”

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Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Reviews, Sci-Fi Movies, TV Action, TV Comedies, TV Dramas

Black on “Big Bang”

August 13, 2009 /

CBS has let slip…and by “let slip,” I mean that they’ve released a formal press release…that comedian Lewis Black will be appearing on the second episode of the new season of “The Big Bang Theory.”

Black will guest star as Professor Crawley, a brilliant professor of entomology – he even has a dung beetle named after him – who works at Caltech with the guys. Unfortunately, Crawley’s life is falling apart: his department’s being shut down because of budget cutbacks, his wife left him for someone who studies birds, and he’s moving in with his daughter in Oxnard…not Oxnard on the beach, but Oxnard by the onion fields. None of these things, however, prove nearly as aggravating as Sheldon, who keeps pestering him to settle a bet with Wolowitz about a cricket.

The third season of “The Big Bang Theory” premieres Monday, Sept. 21, at 9:30 PM, so Black’s episode should – at least in theory – air on the 28th.

In tribute, here’s a clip of Mr. Black talking religion with Bob Schieffer, followed by my favorite moment in “Big Bang” history:

Actors, External Entertainment, External TV, News, Stand-Up Comics, TV, TV Comedies

Rich Sommer is one of TV’s happiest “Mad Men”

August 10, 2009 /

As any television fan worth his salt knows, the new season of “Mad Men” is just around the corner — and if you’re a fan of the series, you’ll be happy to know that Bullz-Eye’s Will Harris just so happens to have had a chat with series star Rich Sommer recently. It will come as no surprise that the ever-intrepid Harris tried to pry some tidbits about the upcoming season out of Sommer…and it should be equally unsurprising that Sommer, not wanting to run afoul of show producer Matt Weiner, begged off, saying “You might be able to get that out of someone else, but I can’t be the guy, because I have a good relationship with Matt Weiner…and I’ve got to keep it that way!”

Of course, even if he wasn’t leery of breaking Weiner’s trust, Sommer might not be able to tell us what to look for. As he says in the interview, that kind of information doesn’t exactly flow freely on the “Mad Men” set:

Matt (Weiner) is a little bit impish and likes to sort of tease you with things. Like, in the first season, when Harry was going to sleep with Hildy, he sort of would tease me and say, ‘Oh, you’ve got a little story coming up in a couple of episodes.’ I would say, ‘Oh, that’s awesome. What is it?’ He would say, ‘You have to guess.’

Okay, so you won’t find any “Mad Men” spoilers — but that doesn’t mean Sommer’s Bullz-Eye interview is a bore. Far from it: Over the course of two discussions with Will, he discusses life behind the scenes of one of television’s best-reviewed series, reflects on his other high-profile gigs (The Devil Wears Prada, The Office), and provides some perspective on how he went from endless fruitless auditions to a steady job on the boob tube:

It was my final audition of the pilot season. It had been three miserable, horrible months where I had zero callbacks, zero positive reception, one of those pilot seasons that makes you pretty sure you are never going to be an actor and never want to be an actor. And then that happened.

To read the rest of the interview, just follow this link!

Actors, External TV, Interviews

“Almost Famous” director’s cut…worth your time?

August 10, 2009 /

After reading Bill Simmons’ tribute to “Almost Famous,” which he deems the quintessential movie of the aughts (a.k.a. the ’00s), I felt compelled to track down the “Bootleg Cut” (a.k.a. “Untitled”) to see what the hullabaloo was about. Here is what Simmons had to say about the extra footage in the DC.

Best four extra scenes from the director’s cut: Russell and William talking music before the first Stillwater concert; Jeff Bebe’s interview with William during which he utters quote No. 23; Penny’s birthday cake scene; and Russell and Jeff making up at the end and botching their man-hug. There’s also an 11-minute scene in which William makes his mother listen to “Stairway to Heaven” — yes, the entire song — in an attempt to get her to understand rock ‘n’ roll. It’s indescribable. I loved it; some hated it. Crowe couldn’t get the rights to the song, so it didn’t matter. More importantly, how is this not on YouTube? Wasn’t YouTube invented for stray clips like that?

FYI, quote No. 23 is…

Show me any guy who ever said he didn’t want to be popular, and I’ll show you a scared guy. I’ve studied the entire history of music. Most of the time, the best stuff is the popular stuff. It’s much safer to say popularity sucks, because that allows you to forgive yourself if you suck. And I don’t forgive myself. Do you?

A few thoughts…

– The version I saw had a running time of 2:41 and didn’t include an 11-minute scene where William plays his mother “Stairway to Heaven” in order to convince her that he should be able to complete his assignment for Rolling Stone. I’ve only been able to find that scene here, and since Cameron Crowe was unable to get the rights, the viewer has to play his own copy of the song. I always felt that it was out of character for William’s mother to let him go on tour with a rock band with so little discussion, and this great “Stairway to Heaven” scene fills in some of these blanks. In the version I saw, Elaine’s decision still seemed rushed.

– I have mixed feelings about the other four scenes that Simmons mentioned. I thought Penny’s birthday cake scene was terrific, especially towards the end when Jimmy Fallon’s character broke the news that she wasn’t going to with the band to New York. Kate Hudson’s reaction was a nice bit of acting and the movie is better as a whole because it’s clear that inside the tough exterior of Penny Lane, there is just a normal girl — and she’s in love. I also thought Bebe’s quote about popularity was insightful but not crucial. The other two scenes — Russell’s first interview with William and Jeff and Russell’s make-up scene — were extraneous. Russell’s eagerness and availability to talk contradicted the sense throughout the remainder of the movie that William wouldn’t be able to get his interview with Russell.

I’d recommend “Untitled” to fans of the original that haven’t seen it in a while. Jeff’s problems with Russell seem more fleshed out and the relationship between the two has more closure. In fact, all of the various storylines seem a little deeper, and that’s no surprise since the DC runs about 38 minutes longer.

Does it make it better? I’ll let you be the judge. The movie worked really well in its original form, but after watching the DC, I certainly wouldn’t say that the extra footage hurts the film.

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie DVDs, Movies

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