It’s been well-documented that, when Conan O’Brien departs the less-stringent 12:30 AM timeslot in favor of replacing Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show,” he will not be taking one of his most renown characters with him: the Masturbating Bear. It’s a shame, but it’s not a big surprise, either. (Can you imagine the number of heart attacks the great beast would cause in middle America if he were to go through his trademark schtick at 11:30 PM?) Fortunately, however, Conan gave the forest’s most famous knuckle shuffler the heave-ho with dignity…and with no less than two Harrison Ford homages, plus a very special guest star.
Category: Actors (Page 177 of 343)
There are times when we swear that “Entertainment Weekly” has either bugged our office or is tapping into our conference calls. Numerous pieces of ours wind up on their pages at almost the exact same time, be it a list of the best sequels, cinematic stoners, or our long-gestating piece on the Bullz-Eye Fantasy Band Draft, which will drop later this year. They’ve even named their hot/not meter “The Bullseye.” Hmmm.
And sure enough, they scooped us once again, when they put the top awards from various Academy Awards results to a new vote, to see how the current Academy would fix the previous generation’s “mistakes.” We’ve been throwing that idea around for over a year, and just when we begin to put pen to paper: boom! — they beat us to the punch. We’re not at all surprised that they saw the appeal in such a topic; every year there is at least one head-scratching moment, one that usually owes more to awarding a long-overdue actor for their overall body of work than for the performance at hand (ahem, Al Pacino, “Scent of a Woman”). Enter Bullz-Eye, Mighty Mouse-style, to save the day and make sure justice is served. We’ve examined recent Academy Award winners and their competitors, and we found a few, um, irregularities. Revisionist history begins now.
Elaine Benes summed up our feelings for “The English Patient” as well as anyone. Actually, that’s a tad unfair; we didn’t think “Patient” was awful, just long and, in the end, anti-climactic. Without Juliette Binoche carrying her co-stars from start to finish (her Oscar, unlike this one, was well deserved), we wonder if “Patient” would have received half the praise that it did. Then there’s “Fargo,” which featured invaluable contributions from its leads, the supporting cast, and even the characters who were only in a scene or two (Marge Gunderson’s Japanese high school classmate had us in tears). It’s funny, shocking, coy, and best of all, normal, an expertly crafted movie all the way around. Guess the Academy wasn’t quite ready for the Coen brothers yet.
To be fair, this one isn’t a staff pick; it’s mine and mine alone. My colleague Jason Zingale loved “Crash,” as did most people. I, however, loathed it like no movie I’ve seen since “Shrek.” The manner in which people would instantly spew the most hateful, ignorant nonsense in scene after scene was just unbearable, and I wanted to throttle Sandra Bullock’s ridiculously underwritten shrew of a character. Granted, “Brokeback Mountain” is not a perfect movie by any stretch, but I’ll take it over “Crash” any day of the week and twice on Sunday for the sheer fact that it didn’t try to beat me into a coma about what a racist pig I am. Fuck you, Paul Haggis.
C’mon, who else out there is a “My Boys” supporter?
I swear, I think I’m the only one within the Bullz-Eye / Premium Hollywood corral of contributors who has a full-on love for this show, but the camaraderie between P.J. (Jordana Spiro) and the boys (Jamie Kaler, Kyle Howard, Reid Scott, Michael Bunin, and the inestimable Jim Gaffigan) feels as real as any sitcom ensemble this side of “How I Met Your Mother,” as does the back-and-forth between P.J. and Stephanie (Kellee Stewart)
If you haven’t seen the show yet, it won’t surprise you that I heartily endorse the Season 1 DVD set, but if your wallet’s about as empty as mine, then you can at least check out this quick but effective wrap-up of Season 2’s events in time to prepare for the March 31st premiere of Season 3:
Tonight brings the first of the two parts of the first-season finale of TNT’s “Leverage.” We’ve commented on the show in the past here on Premium Hollywood, but after a slight false start in the early days of the series, it’s become an enjoyable blend of action, drama, and comedy that allows the viewer to escape into a world where the little guy actually gets to win once in awhile. We had a chance to talk to Christian Kane, who plays the rough-and-tumble Eliot Spencer on the show, and quizzed him about how the show’s gone for him. (We also snuck in a quick “Angel” question and checked on the status of his music career, too.)
1. If you can approach “Leverage” as a viewer rather than a fan for a second, are you surprised that “Leverage” was able to find an audience? Because a lot of series are in, out, and done in just a couple of episodes, but you guys found an audience quickly.
Yeah, we did, man. Y’know, it’s always surprising to me what works and what doesn’t work. I mean, I can’t believe that some of the stuff that’s on right now is on, and I can’t believe that “Arrested Development” ever went off the air. (Laughs) But it wasn’t surprising to know the track record of the people behind it. I mean, it was Tim (Hutton)’s first series (since “Kidnapped”), and I felt comfortable with that, but also John Rogers is an unbelievable writer, and Dean Devlin has had unbelievable success in the entertainment world, so we came in with a couple of big guns pulled out, unlike maybe some of the other people. So I felt confident in that. And then I started watching, and I got more confident. But then I remembered that, with the economy the way it is and the way the entertainment business is going… (Laughs) …it got a little bit scary for awhile, y’know, because you start thinking of stuff. But then when I went back to the economy stuff, and I went, “Y’know what? In this day and age, when The Man is sticking it to everybody, I think people are really going to want to sit back on the couch and really be part of the team and watch some people go out and stick it back to The Man.”
2. The “Ocean’s Eleven” comparisons that were being thrown around in the beginning were obviously really, really apt. Do you think the series has found its own identity yet, or is it still finding it?
There are times when I think that casting agents don’t realize how much they handicap their shows. We all knew Billy Walsh was dirty, if for no other reason than the fact that he was played by the guy that played Billy Walsh on “Entourage.” Using this logic, we can also safely conclude that Ethan Kanin is dirty because he’s played by the same actor that played Warden Norton in “The Shawshank Redemption.” He also played a baddie in “Demolition Man” and, perhaps most damning, was the boat captain in “Boat Trip.” Yikes. I bet he scrubs his hands for an hour each night before he goes to bed, murmuring, “So…dirty…can’t…get…clean…”
Janice’s method of blackmailing Billy was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe he actually gave in to it. If he’s willing to cheat on his wife, then he’s willing to lie to her, so why not turn the tables on Janice by ratting her out to Dudley Do-Right for blackmail and getting her fired? The worst Janice can do at that point is tell his wife about the affair, but he can always deny it and write her off as a sore, jealous lunatic. Seems like a foolproof plan from here. As it stands, he’s exposed as a potential candidate for the server breach, but Janice’s paranoia will serve as a good smoke screen while he continues issuing APBs for the arrests of Jack and Jackie. Remember that scene where Billy used someone else’s clearance to get his wife’s plane moved to the front of the queue? Our first clue.
Famous last words for any potential Federal witness: “We’ll be able to track you from up to a mile away.” If you hear those words, you can guarantee that your saviors will wind up more than a mile away. Col. Ike earned his Ike Turner nickname this week, showing his volatile nature the moment poor Tina resisted his brilliant plan to run away together. Then he won her over with the lamest trick in the Weasel Boyfriend playbook: “Do you love me?” Ladies, if your guy ever hits you with a sucker question like that in order to get his way, run. Whatever he’s planning is not in your best interests. And who would have thought that, as we were all debating why he would choose to start a relationship with a waitress in a diner while plotting a terrorist attack, it would be because he liked her? We all thought that there had to be a reason for it, and it turned out to be the simplest reason of all. I’m guessing Tina probably reminds him of some old flame in Sangala, whom he fed to crocodiles after she told him she was pregnant or something.
“I’m sorry Ms. Taylor, I can’t hear you over the roar of the crowd cheering my return.”
We had two great old-school “24” callbacks this week. The first is when Morris O’Brian, fresh off of his brief appearance in “Saw V,” dropped Chloe off at the FBI offices. We also got to see Morris and Chloe’s son Prescott. (Prescott? Really?) And while I love Morris, I was practically pumping my fists in the air the second I heard Old Yeller’s voice as he approached the First Daughter. Welcome back, Agent Pierce. I hope nobody shoots you this time around.
The whole end-justify-the-means aspect to Jack’s methods is clearly wearing on Jacqueline, who – gasp! – wept at the thought of what she did to Vossler’s wife and child once DDR laid some righteous guilt on her. What’s it gonna take to change DDR’s tune about Jack, especially after Chloe hilariously reminded him that he’d be wise to clean up his own backyard before pointing any fingers? You’d think the fact that Jack SAVED HER LIFE would be enough, but no, I guess Jack didn’t follow the proper channels. I can’t wait to see how the scene in next week’s episode plays out, where she’s slapping him over and over. “Can you feel that? How about that?” That scene has to end with him kissing her, right?
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