Category: Celebrities (Page 22 of 34)

TCA Tour, Jan. 2009: “American Idol”

January 23, 2009 /

I should hope that regular Premium Hollywood readers know by now that I’m in no way the person who should be writing about “American Idol.” That title goes to Mike Farley, of course, whose regular blog for the series has developed a loyal following over the past several seasons, and God bless him for being able to watch the show week after week after week. Still, I figure there are enough “AI” fans floating around who might be interested at least this one highlight from the show’s panel during the TCA tour, so allow me to offer it up for you.

Obviously, the predominant focus on the conversation was on Ms. Kara DioGuardi and her addition to the “AI” mix as the series’ fourth judge. Alas, neither Simon nor Randy could be in attendance, but in an unexpected turn of events, we were gifted with the presence of one P. Abdul, whose name had appeared nowhere in any of Fox’s schedules for the day. It was a nice bonus, and, of course, we all had our fingers crossed in hopes that Paula might gift us with a couple of batshit crazy remarks, as is so wont to do. Sadly, she remained coherent throughout the proceedings, but she did at least completely freak Kara out with her decision to divulge some information about their history together.

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American Idol, Celebrities, External Entertainment, External TV, News, Reality TV, TCA Blog 2009, TCA Press Tour, TV

Bullz-Eye’s TCA 2009 Winter Press Tour Recap

January 23, 2009 /

Wait, didn’t I just go to one of these press tours…?

Actually, that was back in July, when the networks were busy pimping their new fall schedules; this time, they were presenting us with an idea of what we can expect to see on our favorite broadcast and cable channels from now until they premiere their next fall schedule.

Going out to L.A. in January was a new thing for me, though. It was my first winter tour since becoming a member of the Television Critics Association in 2007 – last year’s was canceled due to the writers’ strike – and, if the rumblings throughout the ballrooms at the Universal Hilton were any indication, it may well prove to be my last January tour. I’m hopeful that this presumption turns out to be inaccurate, but given the current economic climate and an increasing tendency for newspapers and publications to only send their TV critics out for one tour per year, there’s every reason to suspect that the networks will join suit and only be willing to pamper those critics once per year.

Sorry, did I say “pamper”? Of course, I meant, “Treat with the utmost respect.”

It feels a bit odd to be doing a wrap-up of my experiences at the tour before I’ve even had a chance to write up all of the panels I attended while I was out there, but, hey, when you get a good spot on the calendar, you make it work however you can. So still keep your eyes open for my ongoing pieces on the various shows you can expect to find on the broadcast networks during the next few months, but in the meantime, here’s a look at some of the best and worst bits from the January ’09 tour as a whole.

Most enjoyable panel by a cable network: “Rescue Me,” FX.

I’ve been a big Denis Leary fan every since No Cure for Cancer, so I knew the guy was inevitably going to go off on a profanity-filled rant before the end of the panel. What I didn’t expect, however, was that Peter Tolan – who co-created the show with Leary – would start the proceedings by telling Leary to watch his mouth, adding, “If you were going to say ‘cunt,’ don’t.”

From there, the two of them seemingly battled each other in an attempt to offer up the most memorable line. Leary complained about his salary. (“I had a crazy idea of getting paid, like, $250,000 an episode. They put limits on that, let me tell you. That’s Kiefer Sutherland money right there.”) Then Tolan claimed that he was at fault for the show’s fourth-season slump, blaming it on a drug problem and that “I was heavy into a kazillion hookers that year.” Then Leary bitched about how Michael J. Fox was going to guest on “Rescue Me” and get the Emmy that Leary himself has yet to earn. (“Five fucking episodes, he comes in. God damn, $700 million from ‘Spin City.’ He never asked me to do the show. He’s going to walk away with the fucking Emmy. That son of a bitch.”) Then Tolan started mocking Hugh Laurie’s American accent by talking about how he could do a British accent. (“Aye, pip, pip, mate, aye! ‘Allo, Mary Poppins!”) And…well, as you can see, there was really no contest: this may well have been the greatest panel ever.

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Actors, Actresses, Celebrities, External Entertainment, External TV, Lost, News, Reality TV, Rescue Me, TCA Blog 2009, TCA Press Tour, The Office, TV, TV Action, TV Comedies, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

Academy Awards recap: Oscar loves Nazis, hates robots, superheroes

January 22, 2009 /

Wow. Just…wow. Do you ever wonder just what movies the Academy voters are watching, and if they’re seeing the same movies the rest of us are? I certainly had that thought after scouring through the list of nominees for the 81st Academy Awards, when I saw that most of my favorite movies – one of which made over half a billion dollars – were discarded in favor of an overripe Nazi legal drama. And, just to have some fun with how far off some of these selections are, I’m going to include the Rotten Tomatoes freshness ratings. Let’s start at the top:

Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (72%)
Frost/Nixon (91%)
Milk (92%)
The Reader (60%)
Slumdog Millionaire (95%)

Now, fellow BE movie critic Jason Zingale and I admit that we are in the minority on “Milk” – it’s a fine movie, but neither of us understands what people think is so wonderful about it – but I’m not surprised to see it here. It’s about a gay California poilitician in the year that Prop 8 passed. Of course Hollywood’s going to get behind this one. But “The Reader” for Best Picture? You have got to be kidding me. Look again at that freshness rating. Sixty percent, which means only three out of every five people liked it. Granted, “Benjamin Button” isn’t rated much higher, but movies with that kind of scope and reach always have their detractors. (Indeed, in our local film critics’ poll, “Benjamin Button” finished ninth.) Simply put, “The Reader” has no business whatsoever being nominated for Best Picture, not in the same year that saw the release of “The Dark Knight” (94%) and “WALL-E” (96%).

So why is it here? My personal theory: because Hollywood’s liberal populace sees Kate Winslet’s character getting tried for war crimes, and fantasizes about doing the same to George W. Bush. Get over yourselves, people. “The Reader” isn’t about you, or us, or now. It’s overdone melodrama, nothing more.

Best Actor
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Man, I’m torn here. On the one hand, I’m thrilled for Richard Jenkins that he finally got a lead role, and earned an Oscar nomination for his efforts. On the other hand, Clint freaking Eastwood just gave his final acting performance, and it was unforgettable. Again, I don’t think Sean Penn belongs here, but I’m starting to think Jason is right when he says he’s going to win. Damn. I’m totally pulling for Mickey Rourke.

Best Actress
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

Kate was far better in “Revolutionary Road,” for my money, and for the life of me I can’t understand why the Academy is throwing that movie under the bus. This is not a strong list of nominees, if you ask me. My money’s on Melissa Leo to surprise the world.

Best Supporting Actor
Please. Does it even matter who else is nominated here? This is Heath Ledger’s to lose, and he’s not going to lose. Bonus points for nominating Robert Downey Jr. for “Tropic Thunder,” though.

Best Supporting Actress
Both Amy Adams and Viola Davis from “Doubt” were nominated, and will surely split the vote. I’d like to see Marisa Tomei (“The Wrestler”) or Taraji P. Henson (“Benjamin Button”) win, but my gut tells me Penelope Cruz (“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”) will be the winner.

Best Director
Danny Boyle, Danny Boyle, Danny Boyle. Again, Stephen Daldry is here for “The Reader,” while Christopher Nolan (“Dark Knight”) and Andrew Stanton (“WALL-E”) watch from the cheap seats. Absurd.

Best Animated Feature
Here’s your bone, “WALL-E.”

Best Foreign Language Film
Where the hell is “Let the Right One In”? Inexcusable oversight, that.

Best Song
Where the hell is “The Wrestler”? They know that Springsteen wrote it, right? Wouldn’t that alone guarantee it a nod? Ugh.

Best Documentary
God help them if something other than “Man on Wire” wins this.

Come Oscar night, I’m going to make sure I don’t have anything heavy in my hands when they announce the Best Picture winner. Because, if for some ungodly reason “The Reader” wins, I will kill my television, then fly to Hollywood and burn the place to the ground. Academy, you’ve been warned. Do the right thing.

Actors, Actresses, Celebrities, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies

TCA Tour, Jan. 2009: “Sit Down, Shut Up”

January 22, 2009 /

Need a good reason to watch Fox’s upcoming new animated series, “Sit Down, Shut Up”? Hell, I’ll give you ten good reasons…with resumes that include “Pushing Daisies,” “SpongeBob Squarepants,” “Saturday Night Live,” “The Simpsons,” “Futurama,” “Arrested Development,” “Two and a Half Men,” and, uh, “Cavemen”…and they’re all labeled by name in the photograph below.

(L-R) Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Kenney, Nick Kroll, Will Arnett (who is standing in front of Cheri Oteri), Jason Bateman, and executive producers Josh Weinstein, Eric and Kim Tannenbaum and Mitch Hurwitz

Now, I ask you: how can you not want to watch “Sit Down, Shut Up”?

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of the show, it’s based on a live-action Australian sitcom about a bunch of cranky, obnoxious, irresponsible teachers but has, over the course of several years of evolution, found its way into an animated adaptation instead, albeit one with live-action backgrounds.

“It’s changed so much, I guess we’re really wondering why we are still paying royalties to Australia,” admitted Hurwitz. “But we’re in over our heads at this point. There is no getting out of it.”

But why did they decide to switch it from live-action to animated in the first place?

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Actors, Actresses, Celebrities, External Entertainment, External TV, News, TCA Blog 2009, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Comedies

TCA Tour, Jan. 2009: “24”

January 21, 2009 /

As readers of David Medsker’s weekly blog are already well aware, “24” is back on Fox in a big way, and the show was back at the January TCA Tour in similar fashion, earning its own panel this time around. (The decision in July to relegate the series to a half-hearted “24”-sponsored luncheon, with critics being forced to fight from scrum to scrum in order to get their questions answered, earned my ire in this entry.) From the questions being posed, it was clear that, after a less-than-stellar sixth season, many in the audience have found themselves becoming fans of the show again in Season 7. In particular, it seems that the little moments are what’s doing it for them, such as the scene in the car with Jack and the cop, where Jack acknowledges that maybe they were right in questioning him.

“I think Jack Bauer is certainly in a position where he’s questioning a lot of the things that he has had to do either by his own choice or by orders,” said our man Kiefer Sutherland, “and certainly at the beginning of the season, you see him in Africa, very disconnected from the United States. And so he is wrestling with his own history, about what he actually believes was right and fair and whether or not he was, in fact, the kind of person that should have been put in the position to do these things. It’s a through-line that really travels all 24 episodes this year. And so there’s this constant balance of defending, for instance, in the Senate investigation, his own actions. On a much cleaner level and a much more personal moral level, he questions those things greatly, so this inner struggle is something that carries him through all 24 episodes.”

Of course, if you’ve been watching this season, then you’ve probably already noticed how many times Jack has been standing up for his actions after being condemned by others. This might…just maybe…be a case of the show’s writers lashing out at their critics.

“I would be lying if I said there wasn’t some of that in there,” said producer Howard Gordon, with a laugh. “Obviously, there was the conundrum of how do we do a show that had taken quite a bit of heat for allegedly advocating this way of law enforcement and this way of countering terrorism. It was a nuance and it is an evolving question that plays, as Kiefer said, throughout the entire season. So I counsel patience, and I hope people have the patience and the appetite and the desire to watch through the whole season, because I think the answer to these questions will not be known until the very last episode.”

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24, Actors, Actresses, Celebrities, External Entertainment, External TV, News, TCA Blog 2009, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

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