Tag: Showtime (Page 1 of 3)

Trailer for “Veronica Mars” movie

Uber-cute blondie Kristen Bell will be back soon in the new “Veronica Mars” movie, and the trailer has just hit the web. Judge for yourself whether it’s worth seeing, though we expect the Veronica Mars fans to hit the theaters in droves.

You can also see the lovely Kristen Bell in a racier role in “House of Lies” on Showtime, with Season 3 premiering on Sunday, January 12th. Kristen plays a promiscous management consultant who is willing to use sex for career advancement. In Season 1 she had a pretty awesome private dance scene in a hotel room wearing only skimpy lingerie, but she had to tone things down in Season 2 as she was pregnant during filming.

So fans of this blonde hottie will have plenty to watch in 2014. Enjoy!

Winter 2011 TCA Press Tour: Day 10 – or – The Day Will Hit the Wall

The TCA tour lasts for about two weeks. That’s two weeks away from your family where you’re spending the majority of your time sitting in a hotel ballroom, listening to panel after panel about upcoming TV shows. Don’t get me wrong: I’m enough of a TV geek that I enjoy it from start to finish, but at a certain point, you find that your enjoyment begins to be regularly supplanted by the desire to just grab your shit and go the hell home. As a professional, I do my best to rise above this, which is why I invariably stick it out ’til the very last panel of the tour, but when you start considering the shit-grabbing and home-going more often than you find yourself thinking, “Say, this show sounds pretty good / awful,” this is what is known in TV critic parlance as “hitting the wall.”

And, baby, I have hit it.

When I woke up on the morning of Day 10 of the tour, I had a headache. It was the first time I’d had one since arriving in Pasadena, and, of course, I took it for what it was: a sign that both my body and mind were ready to return to Virginia. Little did I realize that it was really more of a portent of the evil that would cross my path on this day…but we’ll get to that. With a job to do, I popped a couple of Motrin, swigged some coffee, and entered into the day’s panels, which consisted of shows from the CBS family of networks, which includes, of course, CBS (“Chaos,” “Mad Love,” “The Good Wife”), but also Showtime (“The Borgias,” “Shameless,” “Californication,” “Episodes”) and The CW (“Shedding for the Wedding”). There were also executive sessions for the various networks, as well as one for the “Kick Ass Women of The CW,” featuring stars from “Hellcats,” “The Vampire Diaries,” “Nikita,” and “Smallville.”

Looking at the talent list for the various panels, there were certainly people I wanted to chat with, but I’ve always had trouble picking up interviews for Showtime series, a fact which all but killed my chances with many of the most interesting actors in attendance, including Jeremy Irons, William H. Macy, David Duchovny, and Matt LeBlanc. Heck, I couldn’t even pull a one-on-one with Colm Feore, although I did end up chatting with him later in the evening while pretending to be Canadian. (Don’t ask.) But I did at least make it into post-panel scrums for Irons, Macy, and the ever-gorgeous Carla Gugino, so there’s that, at least. And amongst the cast of CBS’s “Mad Love” is the always amiable Tyler Labine, who I’ve been interviewing at TCA since my first tour, when “Reaper” debuted, so he and I got in a good one-on-one.

Most of my afternoon, however, was spent in a funk. Maybe it’s because I’d hit the wall, but I found myself getting progressively grumpier about the way various actors’ personal publicists were acting. One assured me that I could do a walk-and-talk with their client, who was in a rush to get to another appointment, only to promise the same thing to another writer moments later and leave me in the dust. Another deigned to let me do a one-on-one with her client, then – outside of her client’s line of vision – starting tapping her watch ferociously before I’d even had two minutes of conversation. (This was particularly infuriating because the writers before and after me had neither a time limit nor been “chaperoned” during their interviews.) It was also a major bummer that the evening event was an hour-long cocktail party where the attendees were limited to the shows on The CW which were represented on the network’s panels.

Despite my relatively grouchy attitude throughout the day, there were still some highlights on the panels that are worth mentioning, so here they are…

1. Q: Given Charlie Sheen’s antics over the weekend, how would you characterize your level of concern about him, and what is the network doing to help him?
Nina Tassler (with all due sarcasm): Well, I really didn’t expect that question this morning. So I’m just…I’m really taken by surprise. Look, obviously, we’ve thought, and I personally have thought, a lot about this, and we have a high level of concern. How could we not? But I have to speak to this personally first. On a very basic, human level, concern, of course. This man is a father. He’s got children. He has a family. So, obviously, there’s concern on a personal level. But you can’t look at it simplistically. Charlie is a professional. He comes to work. He does his job extremely well. We are taping tonight, and it’s…it’s very complicated, but we have a very good relationship with Warner Bros. I have a tremendous trust and respect in the way they are managing the situation. So, on a personal level, obviously concerned. On a professional level, he does his job, he does it well, the show is a hit, and…that’s really all I have to say.

2. Question: Jason, what about your character (in “Mad Love”)?
Jason Biggs: Without giving too much away, obviously, I have sex with a sheet cake in the second episode.
Sarah Chalke: We weren’t going to reveal that!
Judy Greer: Way to go.
Jason Biggs: I don’t know if that’s a spoiler alert. Sorry, guys.
Judy Greer: That’s the cake we used for what’s her name’s birthday? Just kidding.
Jason Biggs: Yes. Yes, it was.
Judy Greer: I had a piece of that!
Jason Biggs: No. There are some situations. I wouldn’t say they are exactly, you know, akin to some of the I mean, let’s be honest. Those were very R rated, and some pushing NC 17 scenarios.
Matt Tarses: He loses his pants in Staten Island.
Jason Biggs: But I do lose my pants in Staten Island. So you do see me pantsless, which I think is what my fans demand of me in general and but yeah, there are some I mean, Matt has written, for all of us, some kinds of crazy situations. I mean, it’s inherent to this format, I think, is to create situations that are quite comical and kind of crazy. And for someone who can the person that does it right, they are funny, but they are also grounded in reality somehow, and they are with characters that you like and all that good stuff. And I feel like that’s what’s happening here. So, among those situations, which I believe there are some in every episode, one of them I lose my pants in Staten Island. The other one I have sex with a sheet cake.

3. Q: Freddy, describe what happens when you read a script that says, “Next, Rick eats a scorpion.” What was that like? And when you filmed it…I’m sure you didn’t eat a scorpion, but whatever you were holding…
Freddy Rodriquez: How are you so sure?
Q: It looked realistic. You were holding something that was wiggly and scary. Just describe what it was like when you heard you were going to do it and what it was like to do that scene.
Freddy Rodriquez: Well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure what it was going to be when I got there. And when I got there, if you remember, Tom…
Tom Spezialy: Oh, I remember.

Freddy Rodriguez: …it was a real scorpion. I had a slight anxiety attack, to be honest, right? And then I got over it. And then I asked Brett Ratner to hold it. I would do it if he would hold it, and he refused, and we had an exchange. And after a while I got over it, and it was fun. I mean, when I read the script, there were so many great things that my character was doing in the pilot that I had to be involved even if it had to do with holding a scorpion. It was a real scorpion. I think they put Krazy Glue on the stinger, (but), yeah, it was real.
Q: What does it look like to see that thing wiggling in front of your eyes?
Freddy Rodriguez: Scary. It’s scary.
Tom Spezialy: It peed on him.
Freddy Rodriguez: Oh, yeah, it did. At one point in the night, it just…I didn’t enjoy the experience…it started peeing on me. And I didn’t know what it was. I just thought it was, like, spraying me with some sort of poison or…I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was urine.
Eric Close: Are you sure it was urine?
Freddy Rodriguez: Yeah, it was urine. Gave me golden sunshine, I guess.

Continue reading »

Nurse Jackie 2.3 – Don’t Even Try To Hide Behind That Stupid Lie

The unexpected return of Kaitlyn Flynn to Grace’s circle of friends was…well, not that unexpected, really, since her appearance in the “previously on” segment clearly indicated that we’d be seeing that storyline rearing its head again this week. Still, I knew the tension between Jackie and Kaitlyn’s mom would be revisited at some point, given the way it was clearly underlined that Kevin had had some sort of history with Ginny Flynn was surprised to see that “I was wrong, you were right” look appear on Jackie’s face when Kevin reminded her that Grace needs to hang out with her friends, but given that Grace’s list of friends is only one name long, I guess she had no choice but to concede the point. It sure came back to bite her in the ass, though…and, of course, the nose as well. Is any doubt that Kaitlyn will report back to her mother what she witnessed? Jackie’s judgment is obviously less than sound when dealing with Ginny, but it struck me as an astonishingly poor plan to dump the casserole into the trash right in front of the girls, especially knowing full well that Ginny doesn’t do well with things like lying and, uh, fitting in with her peers.

Oh, man: how sad is it that Coop’s buying Ramen noodles for dinner? The camera didn’t go out of its way to focus on his choice of food, but I’d know a package of those anywhere. (Hand on heart, I’m eating a bowl of them as I write this very blog…which, come to think of it, is pretty tragic in and of itself.) Between his one-man meals, his overemphasis on how many folks on Twitter are following his every move, and his repeated reminders to Eddie that he’s there for him if he needs to talk, it’s clear that Cooper’s life is pretty pitiful these days…almost, it seems, as pitiful as Eddie’s. (The way he grills Coop about who’s spreading the word about his supposed suicide attempt, you can tell that he wants to find any possible excuse to hate Jackie.) I hope making the list of the 25 Best Doctors in Manhattan pays off for Coop…and not just because he spent money on a publicist to earn his position. At this rate, the guy’s going to fall into a serious depression way sooner than later.

What is it about medical shows that they feel obliged to make their male viewers squirm for all they’re worth…or am I the only one who reacted that way at the below-the-waist issues of the dog-bite victim? Mind you, it took a little bit of the sting away when his wife’s first reaction to her husband’s injuries was to muse, “I’ll probably be banned from the kennel club for life…” Thank God we didn’t get a shot of the guy whose cell phone blew up in his face…

Continue reading »

United States of Tara 2.2 – Baby, I’m Your Man

Okay, I admit it: when I ended last week’s blog by suggesting the possibility that there might’ve been sparks between Buck and the bartender, I’d already seen Episode 2.2, so I knew full well that it was going to be kicking off with a shot of the two of them in bed together. I have to imagine that many a viewer laughed at the sight of Tara offering up a “what died in my mouth?” face, given the obvious implications, but in my case, that quickly gave way to surprise over the fact that it wasn’t Tara. It was Buck. Have we ever seen Tara wake up with an alter in control? If so, I can’t remember it. I have to presume that this is an occurrence of note, as opposed to simply being an excuse to let Buck look proud of himself. Either way, Tara quickly took over again, returning home to find Charmaine unabashedly flashing her new engagement ring.

It’s so hard to maintain excitement for Charmaine, given Tara’s history of fucking up everything in the lives of her family, but her enthusiasm is so freaking infectious. Still, the idea of Charmaine staying at Casa de Gregson is clearly going to make for some rough going particularly given that Tara can’t even remember what lies she’s spinning about her past whereabouts. Also, in Charmaine’s hesitation to believe that she’s actually found a good man who truly loves her, she offered up a comment that struck me as possibly relating to Tara’s condition: “We were raised to believe we should eat dog shit, so you get used to dog shit.” This is presumably a metaphor rather than a description of their actual childhood, but it strikes me as telling. It may, however, not have anything to do with Tara at all. It may just mean that Charmaine’s so used to expecting the worst from her relationships that she’ll end up sabotaging this one because she can’t believe she’s good enough for it…and I thought that before she started obsessing over the engagement ring to an unhealthy degree.

Continue reading »

Nurse Jackie 2.2 – There Goes God

Every episode of “Nurse Jackie” brings a new reminder of how far a drug addict can sink, but, c’mon, Jackie, hiding your pills in the Easter eggs? Really? Wow.

You can’t say the set designers haven’t come up with a realistic looking garage for the Peyton family, and as soon as I saw the shot of the electrical outlets, I knew it was going to play into the storyline in some capacity, but I didn’t expect that it would involve the ever-paranoid Grace going around and unplugging all of the appliances in the house every night so as to avoid possible house fires. Good lord, the child has been saving her allowance to buy the safest possible smoke detector for the house…? That’s a whole new level of paranoia, so I figured it wouldn’t be long before the child entered therapy on a full-time basis, and, of course, I was right: Jackie was looking into it before the end of the episode. And speaking of that particular discussion, Akalitis’s comment about how the psychiatrist “was extremely helpful with my boy” is, unless I missed something last season, the first actual clarification as to why she was so enamored of the baby last season. She used to have a son, it seems, and the fact that there’s been no mention of him up to this point leads me to suspect that the boy in question is no longer among the living, though given Akalitis’s age, I suppose it’s equally possible that he’s now grown up and out in the world somewhere.

So Eleanor “partied like a 20-year-old last night,” scored some Ecstasy, and admits that she’s still high. I’m watching this, and I’m thinking with all due sarcasm, “Oh, no, that’s not going to come back into play. Never!” Well, at the very least, it didn’t come back into play this episode, which truly surprised me. I guess it’s just part of the overall “I miss Mummy” arc, along with Eleanor’s recurring demand that Jackie inform her daughters that they now have a godmother with a crisp British accent, but the end result was that, on second viewing, I could just sit back and enjoy Eleanor’s hysterical run / dance down the hallway (and the resulting scream from Zoe) and her unabashed flirtation with and up-and-down admiration of Sam without fear that it was all going to be tainted by Eleanor screwing up on the job while still under the influence. To be momentarily melancholy, though, I must mention one bit about Eleanor’s mourning of her mother that really hit home for me: her uncertainty about how to remove her from the list of contacts on her cell phone. Having witnessed someone have a breakdown when they accidentally stumbled upon their deceased parent’s number on their phone, I can say with 100% seriousness that this is a very valid point of concern.

Continue reading »

« Older posts

© 2023 Premium Hollywood

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑