Category: External TV (Page 131 of 419)

News from the sleepy town of H-wood

Nothing too exciting to report today, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to report.

* Dreamworks and, presumably, Steven Spielberg are “eying” one last project based on a book by the late Michael Crichton, to be written by David Koepp. Much as I admire Spielberg, this particular triumvirate has never done much to get me excited as a filmgoer, and yes, that includes the original “Jurassic Park.” Still, this time the topic is a non-fantasy pirate story, so who knows.

* Some movies to TV news, the cult teen black comedy, “Heathers,” is being adapted for TV, which I guess makes sense in the era of “Gossip Girl.” Also, Sam Raimi, still a major movie player courtesy of “Spiderman” and what not but also licking his wounds from the utterly unfair box office failure of “Drag Me to Hell,” is making a new tubular type deal.

Christina Hendricks on * Christina Hendricks, on the other hand, is going from TV to movies. Ms. Hendricks is a first rate actress currently making hearts go pitty-pat as the multifaceted Joan on “Mad Men.” She previously contributed a couple of tour-de-force guest spots on a show that was just about as outstanding in its own way, “Firefly.” Yes, I’m a big fan. And, sure, her movie gig is only a “best friend” kind of thing, but you gotta start someplace.

Top Chef Las Vegas: fun in the sun

On last night’s “Top Chef Las Vegas” on Bravo, there was another high stakes quick fire challenge, and an elimination challenge that was to cook for a dual bachelor/bachelorette party. At one point during the episode, one of the chefs was talking about how he had nicknames for all of his fellow contestants….so I’m going to start using a few of my own nicknames too.

Kevin will now be known as Kris Kringle.
Ashley will now be known as Ben Folds.

That’s all I can think of right now, but if you watch this show and know what I’m talking about, you are probably laughing right now.

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A Quick Chat with Joan Rivers

There’s little question that one of the most lively panels during the early days of the TCA tour was the one dedicated to Joan Rivers’ new TV Land series, “How’d You Get So Rich?” Or, if you read my coverage of the panel, you may be more familiar with it as “How’d You Get So Fucking Rich?” But, y’know, that’s Joan for you. You can learn just about anything you need to know about the concept of the series by checking out the link to my panel coverage that I just offered up (though I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there’s a new episode of the series airing tonight at 10 PM EST / PST), but after she held court before the crowd of critics, a few of us actually had a chance to speak to her one on one for a few minutes each.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that, were it a contest to see who got the best pull quotes out of Joan, Joel Keller of TV Squad – who preceded me in speaking with her – would have taken the victory (she hadn’t been aware that David Tutera was scheduled to have his own TCA panel, but when he brought it up, she let fly with her thoughts on him in her usual forthright manner), but I still managed to get a couple of good lines from Ms. Rivers about “Z Rock,” “The Celebrity Apprentice,” and “Rabbit Test,” and the closing moments of our conversation will live in my memory forever.

Bullz-Eye: It’s a pleasure to meet you.

Joan Rivers: And it’s a pleasure to…well, we’ll see.

BE: (Laughs) I’ve got only got a couple of minutes, but I’ll do my best.

JR: Ask whatever you want.

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Hell’s Kitchen: rolling the dice

Last night’s “Hell’s Kitchen” episode on FOX began with the guys all getting along and telling each other they felt like a new team without Robert, who had spent the night in a hospital with chest pains. Then Gordon Ramsay had the two teams roll dice at a makeshift craps table, and each one had a letter that represented part of a meal they would cook. For instance, the ladies started with an “R” and Suzanne chose rabbit…can I say something here? EWWWWWWWW. That’s one step below cooking a dog or cat for dinner, isn’t it? Anyway, each team member had the chance to roll and select an ingredient. The red team wound up with rabbit, haricot verts (a fancy French term for thin green beans), potatoes, garlic and ham hocks. Ramsay praised them for having the basis for a nice, rustic dinner.

The blue team, meanwhile, started with haddock, and then Dave, who rolled an “F,” chose figs. The guys were giving Dave a hard time and hoping he would say fennel, but he didn’t. Van chose angel hair pasta for “A,” and they also had apples and tomatoes. Then each team had to cook their meal for Ramsay, and the guys were all surprised at how good their fig/tomato sauce tasted. Ramsay loved the rabbit dish (again, ewwww) but he loved the haddock dish with the figs even more, and the blue team won the challenge. Part of the reason they won was that the garlic in the rabbit dish was too overpowering, something Tennille had warned Ariel about.
The guys’ prize was a trip to Vegas, while the ladies had to unload delivery trucks all day, and even at 1am after they had gone to sleep. Yikes.

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Redbox, the meaning of zombies and “Soul Train”

A few items worthy of your attention this evening.

* A new study predicts that the Redbox video kiosks will be taking over 30% of the DVD market before the end of 2010. There’s no stopping this and you can’t really argue with success, but I fear this will only narrow the already narrow marketing of films further, as the kiosks can only rent a very limited of inevitably mostly recent and blockbuster titles. It’s really the opposite of Netflix, which is a godsend for those who want to broaden their movie/TV horizons.

* The healthcare crisis hits film business folks in need of longterm care.

* Speaking of matters of life and death, writer Johnathon Williams finds truth in his love of zombie flicks. (H/t David Hudson)

* Also via The Autuers/Mr. Hudson’s invaluable Twitter feed, comes this interesting comparison of the late John Hughes and the even later master of forties screwball comedy, Preston Sturges.  I personally would never really compare the two but it is slightly spooky that they both died on August 6th and were almost the same age, and there were some similarities to their respective careers, but not to their sensibilities. Of course, that also happens to be the day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and my sister’s birthday, draw whatever connections you want. (My sister is, however, way nicer than an atom bomb or a writer-director’s untimely death.) I will say that, to me, Sturges movies are much, much funnier and a lot more interesting.

* Another TV-to-movie adaptation. This one based on Fred Astaire’s favorite show. See why below. And, no, that guy just doesn’t look like Rerun, he is Rerun.

That was too much fun. I’ll have a couple of bonus “Soul Train” videos after the flip.

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