An entertaining TV ad for Ed Begley Jr.'s new green-devoted television channel. Oh, prison ads.
Click here to watch!
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Click here to watch!
Here is a television movie trailer for the 1975 movie, "MANDINGO":
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Awwww, isn't it just a darling? Look how tiny and innocent it is. It fits right in between your fingers. Gotta have one, right? And just wait until its fur grows out and it's soft, cuddly, and so loving towards you. And, of course, makes the cutest little squeal noise.
This is bringing back a childhood memory. Something about a cute little critter, but it destroys and creates havoc as it gets older. Noooo, not Gremlins. Ohhhhhh.....I've had recall!! No, get rid of the innocent little cutie. Put it in a zoo by itself, and round up any others you find....QUICKLY. Never let them mate. Don't look now, but that is a baby Tribble! *shocking intake of breath*
Do you remember, or were you around, in 1967? Captain James T. Kirk had a whole heck of a lot of "Trouble With Tribbles". It made all the front pages of the world's newspapers. They multiplied beyond belief, and got into everything....including all the equipment that ran the Starship Enterprise and allowed for the personnel to survive (such as the processes allowing for oxygen aboard ship). They don't mean any harm, but.......get that Tribble out of your hand!!!!!!!! Massive trouble predicted!!!!
See, see? How Captain Kirk and his crew survived the adorable, loving creatures is beyond me. These little guys got into everything imaginable. Tribbles are trouble, no matter how sweet and loving they are towards humans!
[And, of course, anyone too young to know about that episode from the original Star Trek series will think that I have totally lost it. But honestly...Tribbles are trouble!]
]]>I love this show, and even more so now because of this advert.
]]>Say it ain't so. Just say it ain't so.
]]>Estelle Getty, 84:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080722.wobgetty0722/BNStory/Entertainment/home
The Associated Press
July 22, 2008 at 2:29 PM EDTLOS ANGELES -- Estelle Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success before landing a role of a lifetime in 1985 as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's The Golden Girls, has died. She was 84.
I just watched the PBS' Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason where Moyers interviewed author Margaret Atwood. You can watch the entire interview here.
Atwood is a fascinating person with interesting beliefs on religion. I tend to agree with her on much of what she said during this interview. Atwood is also a fellow Canadian.
What's so great about summer TV schedules? True there are slim pickings for new quality programming. But that also means when something good is on, chances are nothing is competing against it. And many are on cable so they are also repeated often if you miss them the first time. Here are a few of my summer favorites:
- Generation Kill owns me. I watched the first episode multiple times to catch everything. Like a current Band of Brothers written by David Simon and Ed Burns, so yet another Simon show I can obsess over. I haven't read Evan Wright's book (usually don't go for war/combat-related books, fiction or non-fiction, except for The Things They Carried, a personal favorite), but it's on my list. Especially after reading Jacob's recap on TWoP. Yeah, the first episode's is thirty pages (knew it had to be Jacob with that page count), but as always with his recaps, it's well worth the read.
- Mad Men returns this Sunday. And this past Sunday, we were blessed with a marathon of season one, which was perfect timing for me while I worked on a project. Oh, Joan Holloway, how I covet your sense of fashion and fabulous red hair. She's the perfect combination of bitch and sass.
- Burn Notice is back and such damn fun. I decided to give it a try last summer because I became a fan of Jeffery Donovan's with Touching Evil. He's pretty magnetic, that one. And you can't go wrong with Bruce Campbell in the supporting cast. I've never cared one way or the other for Gabrielle Anwar as an actress, but her kick-ass Fiona won me over, and I now forgive her for ice skating into Brandon Walsh's heart in one of the lamest 90210 Old School episodes ever (and that's saying a lot).
- Psych is back too. I don't catch every episode, but never fail to laugh a lot when I do. It may not be tops in terms of story, but it makes up for it with character. And I love seeing Dule Hill be goofy.
- The Closer returned and is as charming as ever. Although I find the mysteries to be incredibly predictable, the show makes up for it in character and B-plots. Plus, I wasn't joking when I said I'd follow J.K. Simmons anywhere. Kyra Sedgwick may rock, wonky unrealistic southern accent aside, but after Oz, I watch in awe and fascination every time he erases the strong stench of Schillinger clouding my perception.
- Project Runway, sigh. All hail Tim Gunn, but the show just doesn't grab me the way it once did. I still enjoy it, but maybe I'm just over it? And mentally preparing for next season when it makes the possibly disastrous move to Lifetime and L.A. (no Nina Garcia!). Watching it just makes me miss Top Chef. As does Shear Genius, which I watched a few weeks ago while on the elliptical and I cannot handle the whiny, diva attitudes. I don't think styling hair is easy, and does take skill and talent, but they don't even break a sweat and act like they deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for creating an updo. So annoying.
- Okay, so I can't ignore the giant elephant that is the Emmy nods. Yeah, yeah, they did recognize more outstanding cable shows this year (might that be because so many were already complete due to their production schedules or at least in the can before the strike?) and Mad Men was graced with sixteen nods, a show voters would have been stupid to ignore, what with the critical praise, ratings, and utter awesome that it is every single week. But giving The Wire one nom for its farewell season, possibly the best of all five amazing seasons? Well, once again the Emmys miss the mark, and not just when it comes to The Wire (maybe third show's a charm, Simon will get notice for Generation Kill). As always, it will be interesting to see who wins (kind of) but in the end, it doesn't really matter to anyone who watches shows that do.
- So, the TCA press tour wrapped up. Um, I didn't really follow it this year. With the end of last season, I contracted a bout of TV burn-out, I think. And I am so tired of hearing about the new 90210 (blah, blah, successful stage actress Brenda returns to West Bev in an over-convoluted plot to direct the high school musical. Freaks & Geeks pedigree aside, I question the sanity of a producer who says, "The audience has become more sophisticated...from following celebrity gossip." Thanks to The Hills? Sophisticated is not really the word I would choose). Jessica Walters rocks though. Diane Ruggiero does too. And I was intrigued to hear about what's up for Friday Night Lights. I love its premise, how the story organically can evolve, skipping ahead eight months and picking up with our favorite characters' lives, and the need to bring in new characters as others naturally leave the story; if it gets better ratings, it could last many seasons and remain fresh. As for Dollhouse and Fringe, I'd rather wait to hear what comes out of ComicCon.
- How cool is it to see so many tributes to the fabulous Estelle Getty? She made Sophia Petrillo truly unforgettable, snarky yet lovingly sincere when the time was right. I vividly remember watching Golden Girls with my Nana (as well as Dallas, Falcon Crest, The Love Boat, and Fantasy Island). She's currently in her own Shady Pines and although her short term memory wasn't great before cancer, her senility and dementia was accelerated thanks to "chemo brain." She can solve Wheel of Fortune's puzzles before a vowel is bought but can't tell you what she had for dinner an hour earlier. My heart goes out to Estelle Getty's family and friends who supported and cared for her.
Those who understand only what can be explained understand very little.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian writer of psychological novels (1830-1916)
We live in a world molded to a great extent by both science and economics. They don't control our moment to moment existence, but they form the framework around which we tend to build our belief system.
For example, science creates a drug and physicians (some of whom derive a commission by prescribing that drug) prescribe it, while the patients accept that taking the prescribed drug must be necessary as the only way to heal because a respected professional recommended it. We believe because we trust the source, or think we must.
Almost every major newscast on radio and television includes a stock market report even though its content bears extremely little on everyone but a few who may be listening. However, many listeners will believe that the rise or fall of the share price for Microsoft or Exxon has some magical effect on something that influences their lives, somewhere.
Scientists and economists, indeed all people in the traditional professions, work with factors they can understand and manipulate (or could if they had the power). The scientific method (hypothesis, testing, conclusion) depends on the users having factors they understand and can work with ("massage" in the case of economists). What they don't understand, they can't manipulate, thus isn't important.
That extends to what isn't important to them--as they have so much influence on our lives--being considered as non-existent or unimportant to us. In fact, some people claim the inability to prove the existence of God using scientific method as evidence, even as proof, that God does not exist.
That thinking is an easy sell for people who believe that science has the answers (proofs) and for those who understand just how much fraud has been perpetrated on simple minded people over the past millennia of human history.
Just as the fact that because someone robbed a bank means that banks are unsafe places to save our money cannot be accepted as valid by most people, the perpetration of fraudulent "facts" and imagined history on people who will not take the trouble to investigate for themselves should not make anyone believe that God does not exist. Even if science searches for evidence of God, but in places where God has no interest, though people have made fantastic claims about God working in these ways, that does not prove that God does not exist.
The article is not about the existence of God, but about how easily people's minds and belief sets can be influenced by convincing arguments made by determined people.
If I were to tell you that our moon will appear as a square rather than as its usual disk on August 1, a considerable number of people would make a point of checking out the sky on that date. Because they believe the moon will appear square? No, because they believe me as someone with authority on one subject, so I might have expertise in another. How many predictions of Armageddon go unfulfilled each year around the world, despite the fact that many people prepared for the Final Event in each case?
In the investment business there is a saying that "If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is." That should apply to what we believe as well.
Asking followers to "just believe" or to "have faith" that something that sounds unbelievable is real or true should be a tipoff that a fraud is in progress. Or at least a distortion of reality. Though there are many examples of this in religions, more happen every day in television commercials, in unsolicited mail in our mail boxes and email inboxes, even in movie promos that precede the feature we went to watch.
Those who understand only what can be explained not only understand very little, as our Austrian writer stated, it's more important for us to know that they may not be capable of understanding more than they can manipulate in their minds. They form beliefs based on what they can and cannot manipulate with their minds.
Let's take a common example that has been foisted on us for decades. Science fiction movies have made us believe that if "aliens" came to earth from a distant planet, they would almost certainly want to harm us, to obliterate us. According to these movies, the only viable action we should take is to destroy them as soon and as completely as possible.
Other movies have humans travelling through space to other planets and approaching them in peace, with the objectives to make contact, to share and to help them if we can.
Apparently in the movie business only humans are civilized enough to travel with peaceful intentions. Peace, just like here on earth, right?
Those two possible scenarios have been repeated dozens of times in movies, even though together they are not just hypocritical, they are absurd. Yet one of our major forms of entertainment perpetrates this absurdity on us again and again. We go in peace, everyone else comes to destroy us. We find enemies not just on earth, but we invent them in space.
If Moses or Jesus of Nazareth or the great prophet of Islam were to return to earth today, how long would they last before they were killed in some manner or another? Half the people alive in the world today purport to believe in these people and to follow their ways and their words (which differ very little, except in ritual). You can be certain that one of the "believers" would be the murderer, not someone who doesn't believe in that person in the first place.
Do we really believe that peace is possible in the world? Our media don't present us that way. Should the real heroes not be those who can bring peace where none existed before, not those who can defeat one invented enemy after another? Which is the greater accomplishment, bringing peace or making war? Heroes should save lives, not destroy them.
If we will ever make sense of a world that is trying to twist our minds into knots, we need to teach children how to think critically and to not be bamboozled by frauds, charlatans and propagandists. We could never teach the older ones, the adults, because they already believe what they have been told to believe.
Beliefs are at the centre of the life of every human. Everyone accepts that we need to teach beliefs to children. I propose that we need to teach how to distinguish among that fraudulent claims made by many people and many sources about what we should believe. The only way that could succeed would be to teach children before their minds get tangled, twisted, molded.
That change would not be hard to enact. But we can't expect schools to change themselves because teachers get paid to teach what is on the curriculum and teachers rarely have the final say about what goes on the curriculum.
Talk about it.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can avoid becoming automatons, products of corporate interests.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
No, I don't mean the Beatles or Stones...
It's the latest influx of British actors into mainstream US television!
I have been observing the steady stream of UK's finest actors making the trip across the pond for some play in jolly, ole' Hollywood. I believe it starting catching on when Fox's House debuted with a surly, yet sexy doctor House, played by Hugh Laurie.
And now it is a steady trend with...
- Damien Lewis starring in NBC's Life (I love this show!!)
- Jack Davenport starring in CBS's Swingtown
- and the premier of CBS's Eleventh Hour starring Rufus Sewell
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia returns September 18 on FX. This three-minute music video/commercial for the show makes me so very happy. I especially enjoy Charlie's spelling of "Filly."
So I'll abandon myself in the comforting light of bad television this afternoon.
Apparently I still can't tag my post right. I'm useless.
S.
So, we're getting our television from a wider variety of sources than ever nowadays. DVDs, iTunes, streaming video, and IPTV have all invaded our livingroom (and iPhones and Macs). Not much of it originates from the American networks or cable channels, especially during the Summer.
A recent discovery is one of ABC's new shows. That's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, by the way, not to be confused with the American Bradcasting Corporation or ABC, Martin Fry's pop band from the '80s. You see, unlike the American Broadcasting Corporation, the Austrailian Broadcasting Corporation makes their program streams availaible internationally (in Singapore at any rate).
That new show is called The Hollowmen, not to be confused with T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" or the short-lived sketch comedy show The Hollow Men from Comedy Central.
The Hollowmen is a sort of a combination of The West Wing, The Office and Flight of the Conchords with a dash of Mad Men and a nod to Office Space. It's not as overtly preachy as The West Wing, not as cringey as The Office, not as surreal as Conchords, and not as stylish as Mad Men, but has some of the better qualities of each.
The show is about the folks who make the Austrailian PM and his policies look good and polish them for public consumption. As an American, much of it feels familiar, but foreign at the same time...more so than English shows and less so than Canadian. The production value, acting and writing are excellent and is making me curious what other gems of Austrailan TV I've missed.
Anyhow, each week's episode is up on ABC's website and they are only half an hour long. Try one and see what you think. They make for nice Summer viewing...er, I mean Winter viewing.
"NORTH AND SOUTH Trilogy" - Certain Topics
In the past, there have been questions regarding plot points for the three miniseries of the "NORTH AND SOUTH" Trilogy. I thought I would clear up a few matters.
Elkhannah Bent's Survival Following Fight with Orry Main
Some "NORTH AND SOUTH" fans have wondered how Elkhannah Bent (Philip Casnoff) had survived his fight with Orry Main (Patrick Swayze) in the second book, "Book II - Love and War". In the second novel, Orry and Bent had some sort of fight near the James River that ended when Orry shoved the latter over the falls and (at least I thought) to his death. Imagine my surprise when I read "Book III - Heaven and Hell" and saw that Bent never died after all. He ended up in an army hospital in Richmond.
In the second miniseries, North and South - Book II", Bent rushed inside that warehouse just before it blew up. I thought that was the end of that bugger - until I read the novel, "Heaven and Hell" one year later. When the miniseries, "Book III - Heaven and Hell" finally aired, Bent was alive at the beginning of the first, although scarred. How he had survived that explosion, I don't know. After Bent killed Orry, he and Ashton Main Huntoon (Terri Garber) quarrelled. Bent had said the wrong thing to Ashton and she did to him, what Orry did in the book - shoved him over the falls and into the James River. And just as in the book, Bent ended up in an army hospital, crazy as ever.
Orry's Swordsmanship in Book I
I must admit that I had a problem with Orry defeating Bent in that brief sword fight in Part I of the first miniseries. Especially since Orry was described as not being a talented swordsman. I had asked several people about sword fighting and according to them, brains and a solid understanding of strategy are required to be a good swordsman.
Since Orry was never that great with his studies (including military subjects), I never saw how he was able to defeat Bent, who was. The explanation that Patrick Swayze (who portrayed Orry) happened to be an excellent dancer did not seem much of an excuse. Nor did it seem like a good excuse to include that scene in the miniseries. This does not mean that all Northern cadets made better swordsmen than Southern cadets. After all, I can think of a good number of Southerners who had excelled academically at West Point - including Robert E. Lee, Pierre Beauregard and Porter Alexander.
Hanging in Book III
In the third miniseries, one of the characters - an ex-slave named Issac (Stan Shaw), ended up hanged by the local Ku Klux Klan. A "NORTH AND SOUTH" fan had believed that a similar hanging had taken place in the third novel, "Heaven and Hell". I am here to say that no such hanging scene in the third novel. Issac's literary counterpoint in the third novel turned out to be a former Mont Royal slave named Andy Sherman. Andy ended up being killed during the Klan's attack upon Mont Royal. Ironically, Andy's counterpoint in the second miniseries, was Ezra (Beau Billingslea), who happened to be in love with Semiramis (Erica Gimpel).
Mortgage on Mont Royal
In both the first novel and the first miniseries, Orry had put Mont Royal on mortgage, so he could pay back George for: a) the funds George gave to the Mains for construction of a steamship in the novel; and b) George's investment in a cotton mill he co-owned with Orry in the miniseries. For those who do not know, the character of Cooper Main - Orry's older brother - appeared in all THREE novels. However, the producers had decided to cut out his character in the first two miniseries. When Cooper finally appeared in Book III (in the form of Robert Wagner), the writers explained that he was the one who held the mortgage on Mont Royal. Where he had been all this time, they never bothered to explain. A moment of sloppy writing, if you ask me.
If you have any further questions regarding the plots of Jakes' three novels or the three miniseries, please do not hesitate to ask.
What happened to Friday Night Musing? Dexter happened. The latest-in-Oz/ancient-in-America television entertainment, that's what happened.
I stumbled across a review of Dexter about a month back, then downloaded the audio book which the show is based on for a listen. I was intrigued by the plot, so went looking for bit torrent files and discovered the show is now in its third season in the States, with full torrents of seasons 1 and 2 available. I whacked them into UTorrent and a week or so later, we were sitting down nightly to watch one or two episodes of Dexter.
If you've not seen the first two episodes of season one on Network Ten, Sundays over the past fortnight, then you've missed a treat. The show is an engaging one about a Miami Police forensic scientist, Dexter Morgan, who due to a childhood trauma, carries a deep-seated sociopathic psychosis within his make-up. He feels empty, emotionless and seeks just to feel alive. Growing up, he found the closest he could come to feeling alive was by killing. It thrilled him. His foster father, Harry, recognised that his son had troubling undercurrents in his psyche, and so helped the young Dexter to manage and channel his urges. To pretend to be just like everyone else, while latently satisfying them but only in terms of the code of honour Harry instilled into Dexter. Dexter is a serial killer, but he only kills those who have done bad things and escaped the law. He's an artist, a collector and overall, a seemingly harmless and extremely likeable character. He gets into scrapes and despite the often morbid and macabre elements in the show, you find yourself always on Dexter's side, often chuckling as each episode develops.
We finished season one during the week and are now into season two. As I say, it's a very engaging, often funny and thoughtfully constructed show. The actors and characters are very believable with numerous sub-plots always running in the background. I highly recommend Dexter to anyone with a bent for something different.
Hi Everybody!
Well another week of summer come and gone. Have you ever thought about something really profound or at least you think it is profound, to write in your journal. Then you finally get a chance to sit down and type it, low and behold you can’t remember the great topic. Then you end up writing about really dumb things like people classifications.
So my family likes this show that used to be on tv years ago. Its called "Dead Like Me". Now after quite some time I have finally seen, or at least listened to while doing computer or artwork, the entire series as we have it.
In one episode a couple of the main characters start taking photographs of people that died, well before they die. And start classifying them. Like:
Mouth breathers-
Airplane Talkers-
There were a lot more but I can’t remember them. But I do remember the big category- "Mysterious and Reassuring"
Now I have met a Mouth Breather and a Mysterious and Reassuring.
Does anybody know the rest of the funny personality types mentioned in the show??
Have a happy summer.
Aura
P.S. Another dumb thought. On tv wrestling the women obviously have fake boobies. How come they don’t hurt when they full body face plant into the mat?
]]>"MIAMI VICE" Photo Gallery
Below are two galleries featuring photos from both the television and movie versions of "MIAMI VICE":
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Wow, I have this extreme urge to eat foods chock full of carbohydrates and play Pokemon, red version. My tongue is burned from this huge cup of coffee I drank too fast yesterday. It's not my fault I bought some delicious "gourmet Italian" coffee that keeps so well in the refrigerator. Yesterday morning, I sat with Kearstin and had some strange urge to pick up my DS and play Pokemon. It was amazing. Right now, I'm in Saffron City finally getting Team Rocket to leave so I can fight Sabrina. I'll probably play it, later.
In the real world, I'm watching this marathon of SVU episodes that lasts until 10pm. Yesterday was Aaron's birthday party and we had a good time. It was really nice spending time with everyone, and I'm so glad the red velvet cake turned out well. Today we went to Biscuitville and it was delicious. Nyssa and Samia left at about noon and then Aaron and I took a nap for a few hours. He just left to go out to eat with his mama, and I feel kinda bad about making her come get him.
My dad is coming home Saturday evening. I would say I'm going to have to overhaul tomorrow and clean everything, but it's actually not that dirty. I want everything to look nice for him, though, so that he won't have to deal with a messy house when he gets back. Whee responsibility!
"You have never done that with anybody but me. That is a gross misrepresentation of our marriage."
- A husband on last night's repeat of Wife Swap after he's discovered that his wife was demonstrating body shots while on her swap.
Look. I am not here to judge (speaking of gross misrepresentations...), but if you're like, 45 years old and you and your wife are regularly doing shots, let alone body shots, I would say that yelling at her for such behavior on national television is a little out of line.
Additionally, the angry husband made his "new wife", a conservative former Military captain or something, do 1) "promotional modeling" outside of a bike store and 2) clean the house with weights on her ankles in an outfit that could only be purchased at Fredrick's of Hollywood or the like.
Did anyone else watch this episode last night? Did anyone else want to fly to whatever state those people lived in, rescue poor Glory and then take her to your house, clean her up and give her a good meal?