No TiVo Stampede Tragedy

Last Friday, TiVo was giving away free DVRs to Comcast customers. I was worried that this would turn into one of those 300-women-injured-and-killed incidents that sometimes happen when some logistically challenged company gives things away in and doesn't count on very large crowds. Thankfully, there was no bloodshed.

- nyanko

Serenity

Early reviews are coming out for Serenity, the motion picture based off of the short-lived, but quite entertaining Joss Whedon show Firefly. Awesome!

- nyanko

Everwood & Summerland

The second season of Summerland will return to the WB on February 28 in Everwood's time slot for seven weeks. This means that Everwood will play without repeats from January 17 until the end of the season. This also means that I won't have a conflict with 24 for seven weeks!

In other news, NBC appears to be playing Las Vegas at 9 pm and 10 pm in the next few weeks, and I'm wondering if they are thinking about returning it to its original Monday 10 pm slot. It may be better matched up against CSI:Miami to get bettter ratings... I do have to admit to liking Las Vegas - not enough to tape it when it conflicts with another show, but it's definitely a fun fluff show that doesn't take itself too seriously.

- nyanko

24's premiere

Looks like the Fox execs agree with me about 24 marathons making it more addictive. The season premiere will be two consecutive nights of two hours of 24. Yes!

- nyanko

Spooks

I'm newly addicted to the BBC's Spooks, known as MI-5 in the US. The show is of course about British spies. The first season is out on DVD, and the second season will be out on Jan 11. However, the third season will be airing on A&E starting on January 8. And before the third season premiere, there will be a marathon of some first and all of the second season episodes. I guess I'll have to clear off the TiVo to make room for that.

- nyanko

Controversial Amazing Race Team Colin & Christie comment on the new season of TAR

Colin and Christie, the villians of last season, are writing a column commenting on the current season of the Amazing Race.

- nyanko

24, you're evil!

In a nine hour "moment" of weakness spread over this past weekend, I watched the last half of season 3 of 24. I watched the first half of the season last year, but lost interest and dropped the season pass when it conflicted with another show (Scrubs, I think). Anyway, I always get sucked in by the previews for 24, and every year I hope that they will recreate the addictive quality of the first season.

After I watching a ridiculous number of episodes in a compressed period of time, I think I found that watching a number of episodes in a row makes the show more compelling and intense. The claustrophobia and fear are more real, and you don't have an entire week between episodes in which to contemplate the flaws in the plot. The season premiere will be 2 hours, followed by another new episodes the next night, giving viewers 3 hours in which to get hooked on the new season. I think that mini-marathons might be a great way to broadcast the show and keep vieweres addicted. A two or three hour block of episodes of 24 every week would be a larger time commitment, but could keep me glued to the set.
- nyanko

A fun interview with JJ Abrams

This is a fun interview with JJ Abrams where he talks about poaching writers from Angel as soon as it was announced that Angel had been cancelled and hiring them for Lost and Alias. That bodes well for those two shows.

- nyanko

Chrismukkah

You can buy Chrismukkah merchandise on the Fox's www.theocinsider.com. Sweet! Yarmuclaus. Heh.

- nyanko

The North Shore gets washed out to sea

Fox looks like it's basically killing The North Shore. However, this does make it possible for Hailey to come back to the OC. Yay!

- nyanko

My Only Wish!

OMG, MTV is selling a My Only Wish ringtone! This is almost worth paying for! I wonder if my phone will take it...

- nyanko

Amazon.com: Music: Speak

Lindsay Lohan's first album is out. I'm not sure what the deal is with all the teen divas getting albums, but it seems that their philosophy is that if they are famous and the latest It Girl, they should definitely have an album. You can watch her first video here. Seems a little forced to me...

- nyanko

Fiddler on the Roof!

If you listen to the song Rich Girl on Gwen Stefani's new Love, Angel, Music, Baby, you can hear that she basically remade If I Were a Rich Man from the Fiddler on the Roof musical. It's pretty funny. I can't find a full length streaming version of the song, but if you listen to the clip on iTunes, the very first part has the melody of the original song. And if you can't find humor in Gwen Stefani taking a song from a Jewish musical into mainstream pop music, well, I don't know what to say.

- nyanko

Not much TV until January

November sweeps is now offically over, so there won't be a lot of TV until after the holidays. I think the WB is going to put most of its shows on reruns until the middle or end of January. But there is lots of excitement for January. Alias and 24 will be starting up at the beginning of January. Here's a list of what will be premiering on cable in January, including Queer Eye for the Straight Girl and Monk.

Plus, a bunch of the networks will be premiering some of their midseason replacements. Fox has announced premiere dates for two new shows, CBS has set a date for their new show Numb3rs.

- nyanko

Eeek

Joan of Arcadia is being invaded by the Duff sisters. Frightening.

- nyanko

Survivors cross over to the Amazing Race

Rumor is that the Amazing Race 7 started a few weeks ago and that Rob and Amber from Survivor will be on it...

- nyanko

Books

Since I'm on a reading kick, I figured I'd post some of my favorite books:

+ Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris [a fast-paced biography of Teddy Roosevelt]
+ PRIZE : THE EPIC QUEST FOR OIL, MONEY & POWER by Daniel Yergin [a history of the oil industry]
+ The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley [a young adult fantasy book - yay!]
+ Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley [another young adult book with magic, horses and castles]
+ Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
+ Sophie's Choice by WILLIAM STYRON [a very well-written book about a man who meets a Holocaust survivor]
+ The Brothers K by DAVID JAMES DUNCAN [a family saga revolving around baseball; this book is frequently side-splittingly funny]
+ Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
+ Terra Firma by Thomas Centolella [poetry!]
+ All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, Vol 1) by CORMAC MCCARTHY [a buddy adventure book set in Mexico]
+ Sunne in Splendour by SHARON KAY PENMAN [historical fiction about Richard III]
+ The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett
+ The Princess Bride: S Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by WILLIAM GOLDMAN [very much like the movie, but even funnier]
+ The English Patient by MICHAEL ONDAATJE
+ Dealing with Dragons: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Book One by Patricia C. Wrede
+ The Dark Is Rising Sequence: Silver on the Tree/The Grey King/Greenwitch/The Dark Is Rising/Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper [more young adult fantasy]
+ Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 1) by ROBIN HOBB [true book crack- beware!]
+ The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst [a book about typography that is fun to read and actually funny at times]
+ Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger [football in Texas... what else can you say?]

- nyanko

Fox, you suck!

Fox will be premiering a new show called Point Pleasant at the end of January. The blurb actually describes the main character as "the offspring of a mortal woman and the Devil - and although she doesn't know it, the battle for her soul has begun." Oh, good gravy.

But anyway, a number of new midseason shows will be launching in January, so there should be a whole new set of shows to check out.

- nyanko

A math TV show. Hmmm.

CBS has scheduled a start date for a tv show about mathematics and crime. Heh. I might be on a slight math kick after reading Cryptonomicon, but I sure am glad that I don't have to do math in my job. Unfortunately, the show is called Numb3rs. Barf.

- nyanko

Books and plane rides

I've been on a reading kick, due to a strategic error on my part in dealing with my library book requests. I requested a few books a while back, and as always, there was a long waiting line for the books I wanted. So I left both requests active, but in an unexpected turn of events, both books were available within a few days of each other. Of course, I couldn't just let one of them go, so I had to read about 1300 pages over the two week checkout period. (No renewals allowed when others have also requested the book.)

Anyway, the end result is that I finally read the geek bible, Cryptonomicon, over the Thanksgiving break. Two cross-country plane rides and some spare time (and one late night) gave me the chance to finish this book and I was highly entertained, but not so addicted that I lost all reason and stayed up all night for days in a row. Which I have to say is a good thing; books that keep you up all night for consecutive nights get exhausting and make me stay away from books for a while after a nasty book-crack experience. Totoro recommended the book to me years ago and even lent me a copy, which I left to get dusty for over six months before finally returning it to him. But I finally got back to it - thanks for the recommendation Totoro!

- nyanko

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for many things in our lives. And I want to say that I am thankful for many things:

1) my TiVo, so that I can automatically record my favorite shows and fast forward through commercials, credits, science montages, fight sequences and longing angst-filled glances. Tivo is my enabler, and I love it for that.

2) the functionality of the Tivo remote that automatically jumps back several seconds to account for reaction time when fast forwarding and then pressing the play button. Instead of ending up several seconds into the show or having to guess what will be on directly before the show starts again, I can hit the button I start seeing scenes from my show and it will back up to just about the right place. I hear the Tivo people futz with the timing on this frequently so they can get it just right. I wish this came on my DVD player so that I can easily zip through the fights in Angel. DVD manufacturers should also think about picking up the replay button that replays the last 8 seconds, for when you miss a line of dialog...

3) Fox for not cancelling Arrested Development. P.S. M and C, you should really be watching this show!

4) ABC for actually coming up with some decent shows other than Alias, and for scheduling Alias at a time slot that is currently free for me, so I won't have to agonize about dropping some other show in favor of Alias. One can only hope that Fox will be so kind as to put 24 at 8 pm on Mondays, 10 pm on Tuesdays, 10 pm Wednesday, 10 pm on Sunday, or really 8 pm on Tuesday. Yes, I realize it's really way too violent for the 8 pm timeslot, but hey, it's just wishes.

5) UPN for not sucking! Now that the WB appears to be letting me down (I haven't been super excited about any of their shows this season, including new and old shows), UPN is picking up the slack with Veronica Mars!

- nyanko

LAX goes bye bye

NBC has finally seen the inevitable and cancelled LAX. This show was never worthy of Heather Locklear.

However, life as we know it appears to be clinging on, as MTV has picked it up in a repurposing deal. They will be running the first three episodes this coming Saturday and the next three episodes the following Saturday. This will finally let me TiVo enough episodes to pass judgement on whether this show is inexplicably compelling enough to keep on the season pass, or so crappy that the pass should be immediately revoked. (No, there is no option that the show is pure genius.)

However, MTV also picked up Veronica Mars, but has not been rerunning the episodes, which is disappointing since I want to watch but have had too many conflicts on Tuesday night.

- nyanko

Earthsea part II

The Sci Fi channel has a whole website up for the Earthsea miniseries that will be airing during mid-December. Bad hairdos abound, but there is Kristen Kruek...

- nyanko

JLH is back!

Just when you thought Jennifer Love Hewitt's career was totally dead, her tv show gets picked up for six episodes as a midseason replacement show for ABC. Also, this Sunday, I believe she'll be in the tv movie A Christmas Carol, starring Kelsey Grammer. I can't help myself - that whole concept makes me laugh. Also, it's a musical. Heh. Oh God, her hair!

- nyanko

House, M.D.

I was told that I'd have to say something about Fox's new medical drama House, so here goes.

First, there were some definite laugh out loud moments in this show, which I would never have guessed from the one trailer of this show that I saw. For some reason, the trailer made me think this was some kind of medical horror drama, and the "House" was referring to some Evil House of the Dead, rather than the name of the lead character. Maybe I was thinking about zombies for some reason. Other than the usual ones of course.

The show centers around a doctor named House played by Hugh Laurie (Wooster, from Jeeves & Wooster as my sister pointed out to me earlier today). Dr. House is your typical brilliant doctor who thrives on solving cases that no one else can figure out, and he also hates people. He sees the purpose of medicine to be the curing diseases, not patients. This is the gimmick that most of the quirk and humor in the show is derived from, and it works quite well. He's definitely not a Dr. Cox from Scrubs kind of people-hating person, but he makes it pretty well known in his own way and it's fun to watch.

Unlike shows like CSI, I didn't find the actual mystery solving part of this pilot to be incredibly engaging, though there were some definite CSI-like dramatizations of what was going on in the body that did grab my attention. However, since I like to watch shows that can carry themselves completely on dialogue, this one is going on the Currently Watching list until further notice.

- totoro

T.G.I.J.J.

Well, instead of TGIF, ABC will now have a TGIJJ on Wednesday nights since they will be airing Alias at 9 pm, right after Lost. It will be a big two hour block of J.J. Abrams fun. And happily, I have nothing in that time slot, so this will not create any sad scheduling conflicts for Mr. TiVo.

- nyanko

The Early Show does the Amazing Race

Two of CBS' Early Show hosts are doing the first leg of the Amazing Race. They were pretty wacky/bizarro during their Olympics coverage, so I have no doubt that this will be more of the same, but I still think it will be fun to watch the behind the scenes footage of the Amazing Race. I want to the camera and sounds guys running after the contestants with all their equipment. They must have to give the contestants those heavy packs just to even the odds for the camera guys.

- nyanko

Geez

For goodness sakes, it's only CSI: NY.

- nyanko

Jerry Bruckheimer: The Man with the Golden Touch

Okay, so Jerry Bruckheimer had definitely had some dogs (Bad Boys II, Pearl Harbor, Fearless) and you could say that since he's involved in so many things, he has to have some winners, but hey, I liked Armageddon and the Pirates of the Caribbean. And sadly, I'm excited about National Treasure. Yeah, I'm sorry. You don't have to talk to me after this.

However, I've been keeping my excitement in check since a Bruckheimer movie can be great cinematic fluff, or it can be a neverending disaster. Or sometimes a bit of both. But it looks like some of the early reviews are looking positive. Yes! The nyanko boyfriend may have to go see this with me.

- nyanko

getting lost

Totoro and I had a fun reunion last week - we got to do our usual pasttime of watching TV (although the show we watched was significantly better than the stuff we used to watch: Roswell, Dark Angel...). We watched Lost with egreenbe and had a great time enjoying the show, but with the requisite heckling. I need someone who will watch TV with me when I'm in my home city, who will heckle with me. Sigh. It's so hard to find someone who will heckle at the same level as you - they can't complain too much that they ruin the show, or talk over important dialog. Ah, the art of jeering.

Unfortunately, Wimbledon was already out of the theaters so I couldn't see it with bjc, but I'm sure we'll find some crappy romantic comedy the next time I'm in town.

- nyanko

916-CALL-TURK

Call the number that Turk gave in the latest Scrubs episode and you can hear a message from Turk or uh, possibly talk to Dr. Kelso or some other Scrubs cast member. Sweet! Really, follow the link for a funny story in the article.

Also, sounds like Scrubs might be moving to 9 pm on Tuesday sometime in the near future.

- nyanko

low ratings

life as we know it has been preempted for all of November sweeps, so it sounds like it could be getting the axe sometime soon.

Also, TV Guide has an article about declining ratings for a number of returning shows that did well last year, including Joan of Arcadia and Law & Order.

- nyanko

Arrested Development is back!

Yay! Arrested Development started again and even better, it's actually getting good ratings! Hopefully this will last beyond the first few episodes. I'm thrilled to have it back, although I have to admit that I haven't watched it yet. I was gone over the weekend and I have a backlog of TV, but I want to save AD for a a good time, when I can really watch and enjoy the episode.

The other interesting thing is that the WB's television premiere of Lord of the Rings did not get stellar ratings, which is too bad since I think the WB paid an arm and a leg for the rights.

And it's no surprise that CBS has pulledClubhouse for sweeps. I guess the midseason shows are going to start up soon. You can see all the midseason replacements in production at the futon critic.

- nyanko

Pretty clothes!

I've finally found what I've been looking for for over a year, thanks to bjc: a website all about the clothes that appear onscreen (tv, movies, etc.) Reel-Style.com has pages on a number of TV shows, including the O.C.. Now I can dress like Summer, or at least know where she gets her clothes. I like the dress from the wedding episode last year.

- nyanko

Pixar the Behemoth

If you are one of the two people in the country who have not yet seen The Incredibles, you really should. I was watching HBO's Entourage today and part of the plot involved the main character's new movie opening on the same weekend as Pixar's new film (which is apparently about a squirrel), thereby causing some concern about its opening weekend take. No kidding! Why would you ever pit your film against a Pixar film?

Now that Pixar has yet one more film out there, I think the "What's the best Pixar film?" argument is going to become a common one, causing much dissension among friends and couples around the world. When the next election rolls around, we're going to hear about national security, the economy, education, and favorite Pixar film.

- totoro

UPN does the Right Thing

According to AICN, Veronica Mars and Kevin Hill have both been picked up for a full season. This is great news, as Veronica Mars and Lost are holding steady as my two favorite new shows of the season, and if you're not yet watching either one of those two... Do it. Do it now.

- totoro

Yahoo! News - 'CSI: NY' Booked for Season

CSI: NY has been picked up for a full season.

-nyanko

oh NO.

"According" to Page Six of the NY Post, the new Bennifer may strike Alias. As in, Ben Affleck may guest star on Jennifer Garner's show. Of course, since this is the Post, this could be total rumor, and I'm going to hope desperately that it is in fact not based on any truth.

- nyanko.

Ripped from the headlines

This is prime for a Medical Investigation "Ripped from the Headlines!" episode. Damn you, petting zoo.

- nyanko

Review: A Time for Dancing

Yet again, I have no one to blame but myself. Last night I watched A Time for Dancing, a straight to video movie about two girls who love to dance, and then one of them gets cancer (leukemia, just like Mandy in A Walk to Remember!). Just in case you're wondering, of course she dies, but not before having sex and getting into Julliard. It starred Larisa Oleynik of 10 Things I Hate About You and Shiri Appleby of Roswell, which what got me hooked into watching this movie. Two teenybopper starlets + dancing = an unavoidable movie for nyanko.

Anyway, it was just what you would expect from a straight to video movie, except it also included interpretive dance sequences during the chemotherapy. Huh. Another funny thing was that Shiri's character was a waitress that worked at a themed drive in called Burgertory, where her uniform was (shades of Roswell!) roller skates, a pointy tail and devil horns. And in what I'm sure was an homage to A Walk to Remember, Shane West was also a main character.

Yes, I'm an idiot.

- nyanko

U2 is everywhere

U2 is popping up everywhere - first the iPod, now on CSI.

- nyanko

Review: A Cinderella Story

I'm not a huge Hilary Duff fan - I saw her on Making the Video and in the Lizzie McGuire movie, and was not impressed. However, A Cinderella Story seemed like it was a movie just for me, so I had to watch it. And hey, not so bad. It had less klutzy Hilary gags and the romance was kind of cute. Or my standards are completely shot. Either way, I enjoyed it.

- nyanko

dr. vegas gets kicked to the curb

dr. vegas has been pulled from the schedule for November and December. Rob Lowe has crashed and burned two fall seasons in a row. Hmm, will Madison now return to Everwood?

- nyanko

Uh oh, Father of the Pride looks like it's on its last legs

Father of the Pride is getting dumped for sweeps. A cancellation probably isn't far behind.

- nyanko

WB's is looking at a pilot called 'Spygirl'

The WB is looking a pilot called Spygirl that sounds like a cross between Veronica Mars and Alias. Huh.

- nyanko

More Veronica & Kevin Hill

UPN has ordered four more scripts each of Kevin Hill and Veronic Mars. Woo! There's hope for those shows yet!

Also, Jack & Bobby just lost its season pass. It's never good when you're always looking forward to the flash-forwards, since there really aren't very many of those...

- nyanko

Wonderfalls on DVD

Wonderfalls will be released on DVD on February 1st. There will be 9 unaired episodes since the show met a very quick end last spring on FOX.

- nyanko

Heh, Hot 100

TiVo is posting a Hot 100 list of the most popular season passes for their subcribers. However, they decided to choose a very Billboard/E! Weeklyl type of name for their list. Puh-leeze.

- nyanko

Alicia Silverstone returns to TV

Looks like Alicia Silverstone will be coming back to TV. Hopefully, it will have a better fate than Miss Match, but still be somewhat cute. Of course, a show about mean Queen bee type from high school really doesn't sound like it has as much cute potential.

Also, thanks to totoro for the unaired Miss Match episodes.

- nyanko

Queer Eye for the Straight Girl

The new team of queer guys has been announced for the Bravo spin-off, Queer Eye for the Straight Girl. I can't help loving Queer Eye for the Straight Guy - the guys are hilarious and Thom's redecorating is always amazing. However, I'm not sure that a whole new group of people will be able to create their own magic. I watched the UK version of Queer Eye and it was just kind of scary. QE for the Straight Girl premieres in January, when I'll have some extra TV viewing time so I'll probably check it out.

- nyanko

'Amazing Race 6' Cast announced

The teams for the Amazing Race 6 have been announced. I'm eagerly anticipating the next installment of the show and wondering when I'll be able to get my hands on old season - hopefully they will come out on DVD soon... Woo, November 16!

- nyanko

Ah, Miss Match

I've been watching the unaired episodes of Miss Match, and I had forgotten what a pleasant show it was. Granted, it was not a great show, and definitely had it's share of painful moments, but it was like having a nice little romantic comedy on TV every week. Anyway, its too bad that it got such terrible ratings and got cut down so quickly, because it was a cute show. Sigh.

- nyanko

Lemony Snicket

After seeing the trailer for Lemony Snicket, I decided to read the book to see what the fuss was about. This book is a children's book and seemingly has been fairly popular. I figured this book is the next in line for the Harry Potter crowd. However, when I read the book, I found it as depressing and sad as the book cover said it would be. I'm just not sure why this is popular... The book warned me, but I can't fathom why kids would be excited about this.

- nyanko

more info on shows I like

TV Guide has a column where readers can ask questions about their favorite shows. Lots of questions about what shows might get cancelled, Veronica Mars, and various other shows that I'm interested in.

Also, frighteningly, Las Vegas and Crossing Jordan are going to be having crossover episodes in November.

- nyanko

No surprise

Medical Investigation has also been picked up for a full season, which isn't really a surprise. It's doing pretty well on Friday nights, and is one of those emotionally berating shows, ala CSI: Miami, which people just seem to watch, though I can't quite figure out why.

P.S. Jack & Bobby appears to be hemorrhaging viewers like crazy. I wonder if the WB thinks they made a mistaking giving a full season order so early. Also, I wonder if they will eventually cut back their order...

- nyanko

Desperate Housewives & Lost get full seasons

Zap2it reports that Desperate Housewives and Lost have been picked up for full seasons. Woo!

- nyanko

Rating comparisons of this fall's shows with last fall

the futon critic has a comparison of ratings of this fall's shows to ratings last fall. Some of the interesting tidbits: The Mountain is doing 40% worse than Angel did last year in the same time slot, and Jack & Bobby is 36% worse in ratings than (gasp) Tarzan. Heh.

- nyanko

Amazing Race, and more WB news

This article says that the Amazing Race will be starting its next season on Nov 16. Unfortunately, it will be at Tuesday at 9 pm, which will conflict with Scrubs. Curses. Maybe they'll schedule encores on Saturday night... Otherwise, I'll have to start programming my VCR again...

Also, in TV Guide's Entertainment News, there is more news on the WB's schedule. The Mountain appears to not be dead yet, since the WB has ordered four more scripts. WHY???? And, as of the week of Oct 27, the Mountain and Jack & Bobby will be switching time slots. This will mean that I can watch since it will no longer conflict with any of the other shows I'm watching, but I'm just not sure if that's a good thing. But I guess it will give me a chance to truly decide if I want to keep the season pass. I was about to reject it, and then I watched the third episode and it pulled me back in. Damn you, WB!

- nyanko

Pretty PVR!

Sky, a British cable/satellite/something provider, is selling very pretty PVRs. If TiVo had something like this, I would be drooling over it. Of course, figuring out which one would best go with the living room decor could be a challenge. And you wouldn't want to hide it in the giant TV cabinet either...

- nyanko

NBC axes a show

Looks like Hawaii is on its way out, as NBC has put it on hiatus for November sweeps, and put LAX into its time slot. LAX will be up against Lost, but LAX was already on my boycott list, so that's not a problem for my TiVo.

- nyanko

new tunes

TV and movies seem to be the new vehicle for pushing new music out to the masses. I think I'm getting most of my new music from my TV shows - the OC, Scrubs, even (who knew?) Without a Trace.

Scrubs tends to have great music, some new stuff and some funny gags that revolve around older music or theme songs. I'm currently obsessed with the song that played during Brendan Fraser's character's funeral in last season, "Winter" by Josh Radin.

And frightenly, even terrible shows have been having intriguing music. Perhaps not as consistently good music, but once you're looking to Jack & Bobby for your new music, it feels like it's all downhill.

- nyanko

Price for monthly Netflix subscription will drop

Netflix is lowering its monthly fee to $17.99, as competition heats up in the DVD rental by mail space.

- nyanko

Shh!

So, the guy in the office next to me is one of those loud guys - he has a loud voice that somehow carries down the hall, through walls, etc. and he has a loud personality, so he raises his voice every time he starts telling a funny story to someone on the phone or in his office. I, on the other hand, have finally accepted that I can't do work when there's lots of noise, particularly music with lyrics or fully decipherable conversations, because I just start listening to that. I am beginning to comtemplate buying some noise reducing ear muff in an attempt to block the annoying noise. Passive agressive or effective? You make the call.

Also, if I attched two pieces of black yarn to the bottom of the ear muffs, would I look like less of a freak to my co-workers?

- nyanko

Review: Raising Helen

Damn you, Kate Hudson! She's so cute, and winning, and yet the vast majority of her movies scar me (and scare me). She lured me in with a few cute movies (Almost Famous, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), so I am compelled to watch her movies in the hope that I will see something quite fun and entertaining. Instead, I have gotten Alex and Emma, The Four Feathers and Raising Helen.

In stark contrast to Ella Enchanted, Raising Helen was as painful as I thought it would be. I think they tried to make the movie a romantic comedy, but with tragedy, and the trials of raising children thrown in. Huh. Not sure that will work out for you. Sadly, Stepmom was probably something that this movie should have aspired to. Granted, I cried watching Raising Helen, but I hated myself for it.

I know these movies are bad, and somehow, I can't help myself. I have to watch them. So I only have myself to blame, since really, the review tried to warn me away. Can't. Help. Myself. Gah.

- nyanko

talking about your tv, movie and music tastes

Way back in January, there was a funny article about Friendster in Esquire magazine and about what people think is interesting about themselves. Here's an excerpt:

"In real life, people wouldn't want to go to a party where everyone was desperate," says Jonathan Abrams, the thirty-three-year-old Canadian egomaniac who created Friendster. "They want to meet people through people they already know. I wanted to create a way for people to meet over the Internet that was more like real life."
Abrams's suggestion that meeting on Friendster is "like real life" is remarkably accurate, inasmuch as the people you encounter online are lying. Or at least they're lying about the things they seem to find unimportant, such as their appearance, their interests, and their relationship status. (Unless Friendster is reflecting something about society I'm missing, it seems unlikely that 30 percent of the U. S. populace would classify themselves as part of an "open marriage.") Yet weirdly, there are some elements of the Friendster personal profile that no one seems to lie about, most notably what TV shows they like. Friendsters seem totally comfortable with strangers assuming they cheat on their wives and sketch portraits of unicorns in their free time, but they don't want anyone to think they watch According to Jim unironically. This is similar to how a person will have oral sex with you on your very first date but won't let you look inside her glove compartment at the moment because it contains a Tori Amos cassette. True signposts of self-identity—especially for anyone born after 1970—tend to be the most trivial things we adore, which is why Friendster is so popular. It allows us to build two-dimensional personalities in which we can eradicate the things that matter to others (our looks, our sincerity, our intelligence, et cetera) while accentuating the things that matter only to us (whether or not we can quote Glengarry Glen Ross , whether or not we can communicate telepathically with our cat, whether or not we want to pretend that we read Finnegans Wake , et cetera). Our entire corporeality is dictated by what we think is interesting about ourselves. "

- nyanko

Review: Ella Enchanted

This past weekend, I watched Ella Enchanted, for which I had very low expectations. I figured it would probably be about as painful as the Princess Diaries, but had hopes for some cute princess/romance scenes. I was pleasantly surprised to find it very enjoyable. It's pure fluff, but I thought the movie was cute. Plus, Anne Hathaway's gown at the requisite ball was absolutely gorgeous. I now have a fantasy wedding dress!

- nyanko

Damn you, the Mountain

TV Guide (sixth item, at least for now) posted that Spike aka James Marsters from Angel/Buffy will be on the Nov 3 episode of the Mountain. Dammit, now I have to watch that damn show. But I guess I can fast forward through every scene except for the ones that he's in. Hopefully we'll finally see him with his natural hair color. Anyway, now I'm torn between praying for the show to be cancelled and hoping that it will make it to the Nov 3 episode...

- nyanko

24+ hours of tv per week?

One of my ex-co-workers used to work for TiVo and she told me that she was surprised at the number of TiVo users who were well paid men making over $100,000 a year, who watched over 24 hours of TV per week. (I believe 24+ hours per week is the highest category when you take TiVo surveys). That ends up being an average of 3.5 hours of TV a night. Honestly, I'm just not sure how anyone with a real job can watch that much TV. Granted, sporting events can be long (2-5 hours, depending on the sport) and there is sports all day on the weekends, but that's still a ton of TV.

I watch an ungodly amount of TV, and I think I'm only up to about 19 hours of programming (and this is an aberration since I'm watching Angel in syndication five nights a week, but that will end in three weeks when season 5 is over). Plus, this is the beginning of the season, so I'm sure some of my shows will bite the dust within the month or so. But happily, I will settle down to about 14 hours per week soon, which while indicative of no life, is not as embarassing as admitting to watching more than 24 hours of TV per week.

- nyanko

life as we know it encores on ABC Family

A TV Barn article mentions that life as we know it will be showing again on Saturday and Sunday night at 11 pm on ABC Family, if you miss the premiere due to conflicts with either CSI or the Apprentice.

- nyanko

Book review: Sunshine

I recently read Robin McKinley's new bookSunshine. It was a fun read, and definitely one of the most enjoyable of her recent books. Not as good as The Hero & the Crown or Beauty, but quite entertaining. It has magic, but no horses, animal companions, or princesses. That's probably because it's more genre of modern fantasy, with world like that of Buffy and Angel. The book about a girl who is kidnapped by vampires and ends up becoming involved in a world of vampire gangs and magic. Pretty fun, and the main character bakes lots of desserts, so that a win in my book.

Book crack rating (1 being took me months to finish, 10 being I stayed up later than 4 am on consecutive "school" nights): 8

woe to the mountain

Television Without Pity has cancelled their recaps of the Mountain, and that's a sign, because they can stand quite a bit of painful television...

- nyanko

TV anywhere

tvtattle.com had a link to this article about a new Sony tv that can access a "cable box, home computer, TiVo or DVD player via the Internet." I'm not sure I'd want to put this in my luggage on work trips, but it sure would be nice to have access to the TiVo. Let me tell you, evenings in Arkansas or the airport hotel in Munich aren't that exciting. Particularly if it's hard to find an English-language channel. I like dubbed Armageddon and Friends as much as the next person, but being able to keep the TiVo backlog at bay would be pretty nice. Of course, TiVo is supposed to be coming out with TiVo-to-go, but there hasn't been much news on the launch of that service which was supposed to start this fall.

- nyanko

Zach Braff!

TV Barn posted a link to an interview Zach Braff on NPR's Fresh Air.
- nyanko

life as we know it

Hmm, after hearing a lot of good pre-season buzz on life as we know it, it seems liek the reviews are more mixed:
+ a review from TV Gal
+ Matt Rousch from TV Guide

Uh oh, might be a disaster.

- nyanko

Netflix + TiVo = Fun

TiVo and Netflix are forming an alliance that will give you video on demand to your TiVo. Sweet! I would love to get on the beta program for this... You could get movies on demand, although I suppose "demand" is limited by how long it takes for the movie to download. I wonder if you could watch the movie as it's downloading onto TiVo.

This would definitely require a larger or second TiVo to accomodate an additional nine hours of movies or um, crap from Netflix, in addition to the total crap that we're recording.

But I would have to get broadband for this, since if it were actually possible, downloading a movie over a 56K modem might actually take longer than mailing back a movie and then receiving the next one (usually a two day turnaround for me).

- nyanko

Kevin Hill

I think I've become the designated UPN-show-reviewer for this blog. If you had told me I'd be talking about two new UPN shows in the span of two weeks just a little while ago, I'd have gone ahead and watched a CSI:Miami marathon and just gotten this whole mortal coil thing done with.

Instead, Veronica Mars did indeed live up to most of its hype (though I haven't watched past the pilot yet), and there is yet another show in Kevin Hill which has great promise. I had not heard a thing about this until yesterday, but after you get past the bizarre-yet-cliched premise, this show actually delivers on several levels.

You've got Taye Diggs (enough said, some might think) playing a womanizing high-powered lawyer who is forced to take care of his dead cousin's infant girl along with a gay nanny.

There are definitely some cliches going on here (now that I have a child in my care I must cease my bachelor ways and become a real man), but I couldn't deny that it was actually quite an entertaining show. Taye does his uber-charismatic thing as usual, the lawyer stuff is entertaining as it is with most of the other shows with lawyers (Miss Match and Ally McBeal come into mind), the gay nanny (the bookstore owner from Joan of Arcadia, actually) doesn't do much, but gets a little of the funny, and the supporting characters are able to carry the rest. Though really, it's all about Taye.

- totoro

CSI:TheGoodSpinoff

Let's ignore the existence of CSI:TheOriginal for now and instead focus on the two spin-offs of the series that is quickly trying to become the next Law & Order.

We have CSI:Miami starring David Caruso and Emily Procter and CSI:New York with Gary Sinise and Melina Kanalksajeiuhlkjs. After watching enough episodes of CSI:Miami last season to make me want to stick a sharp object in my eye every time David Caruso showed up and then watching one episode of CSI:NY last night, I've decided that CSI:TheGoodSpinoff which will begin next season will involve taking NY and trading Melina Kanalksajeiuhlkjs for Emily Procter in a blockbuster trade.

CSI:Miami will then become the show that people watch when they want to commit suicide but don't actually want to die.
And CSI:NY will become a viable option to fill that growing crime-show void in America that could not otherwise be filled by CSI:Las Vegas, Cold Case, L&O:TheMany, and... nevermind.

- totoro

'Jack & Bobby' picked up for full season

The WB is the first to pick up a new show for a full season. Some of Fox's summer shows already got picked up, but this is the first new fall show to hit the jackpot. I'm a little surprised that Jack and Bobby is the big winner since it hasn't been doing particularly well in the ratings. But perhaps this means the WB will kill off the Mountain sooner and give J&B an encore time when I can TiVo it, since Desperate Housewives will be getting priority on the TiVo.

- nyanko

Bradley Cooper on Jack & Bobby

Bradley Cooper (Will from Alias) will be showing up on Jack & Bobby. Unfortunately, he'll be a love interest for Grace, who I find to be a very annoying character. I just fast forward through her long monologues. And funnily enough, Bradley Cooper acknowledges in his interview that Grace is not a very likable character, which is why they brought him in. Well, if it keeps Bradley Cooper on our screen, I'll take it!

- nyanko

Earthsea miniseries

Looks like the Sci Fi channel is going to do a miniseries based on Ursula LeGuin's The Wizard of Earthsea. the futon critic has a blurb about it here (fifth item). The miniseries will be aired in December. Also, Kristen Kreuk is in it. Heh. I don't watch much on the Sci Fi channel, and I like to make fun of the Dune miniseries (because really, it's funny). But I definitely enjoyed the Earthsea series so I might have to check this out.

- nyanko

The Mountain

It's surprising how terrible this show was. It seems like it was a show made just for me, but after less than 20 minutes of the show, I paused and revoked the Season Pass. The only reason I watched the entire thing was that I told Totoro that I would watch it and write up a review. Frankly, I can't write up much of a review since I can't remember much, mainly because I've blocked out those memories. I think there were extended outdoors scenes (snowboarding, dirt biking) and a neverending hookup scene with Oliver Hudson and some girl who looks a little like Lauren Holly - but I fast forwarded through those. I thought the mom had bad hairstyling so that really needs work. Yeah, not much to share. But really, RUN AWAY.

In other news, my silly boyfriend actually gave this show a Season Pass of his OWN volition (he saw the WB ads and was suckered by the tagline that the show was from the same producers as that of the OC) and after watching it, said that it was okay and he would give it a few more episodes to get good. Ugh. I'm not sure I could stomach more than 44 minutes of the show. And now I won't have to.

- nyanko

casualties of the new fall season

It's probably morbid curiousity, but I have to say that one of the things I'm most interested to find out in the fall is which series are getting cancelled. Even when shows I like get taken down, I still find it extremely exciting (if also sad) to see how things unfold. It's like my own little soap opera, watching the networks play against each other, counterprogram and eventually cede defeat in places by cancelling some shows and moving around others.

Here are my predictions for some early casualties for the fall season: Clubhouse, LAX, and the Mountain. This is not to say that they can't have a turnaround or that the networks won't rework the shows to improve the ratings. One Tree Hill had terrible ratings when it first came out, but is now one of the higher rated shows on the WB. Go figure. But these seem like likely candidates for the chopping block. Clubhouse has actually only had one show aired, but it got so crushed it's hard to think it will continue. LAX got killed by CSI: Miami last week and lost a large percentage of its viewers in its second showing. Jack & Bobby is also rapidly losing viewers so it might soon make it to the "Not Long for this World" list.

Interestingly, Tru Calling seems to be a silent casualty of Fox - it has been bumped from its time slot and there are rumors that the 13 episode order got cut back to only the episodes already completed.

- nyanko

Look away!

Don't click on this. I recommend Hooked on a Feeling. There are evil uses for video editing software.

- nyanko

ouch

Wow. Katie Holmes' latest movie First Daughter looks to be a flaming disaster: 8% right now on Rotten Tomatoes. Spectacularly, that is worse than Chasing Liberty, which was a truly bad movie.

- nyanko

What I'm listening to now

Sadly, my latest musical find is courtesy of John Mayer who has a column in Esquire magazine. The sadly refers more to John Mayer than to Esquire (which I like) since he seems really somewhat overhyped and definitely overplayed. But he recommended Teitur, some Danish guy, and the album is great if you like David Grey, Pete Yorn, and that type of stuff. [Editorial note: Flash sites are funky and even funkier to direct people to. You can listen to more clips by entering the site and clicking on the guitar. Yeah, sorry, no direct link for you.]

Listen to one of the songs here.

- nyanko

Veronica Mars

Reviews of Veronica Mars have overall been pretty positive, but since it's airing on UPN, I was a little uncertain of its prospects. Last fall, UPN quickly killed Jake 2.0 which was not great, but if a show can't even survive on UPN, things are not looking good. However, Veronica Mars looks like it will be around for a bit longer since it will be reairing on MTV. The good news is that this will get rid of one of my scheduling conflicts since its UPN timeslot overlaps with Scrubs. The bad news is it gets rid of one of my scheduling conflicts making it possible for me to record yet anther hour of TV.

Some middling shows will have to be dropped in order to leave me with a reasonable amount of TV to watch every week. Otherwise I won't be able to go to work because I'll have too much TV to watch!

- nyanko

Speaking of Veronica Mars... turns out it's actually quite entertaining.
I kept thinking Veronica was a clone of Chloe from Smallville, she even had the whole camera/investigative thing going on.

To briefly go into the actual content of the pilot episode...

Veronica is an outcast in a school full of rich=spoiled=evil kids. She used to be one of them, when her dad (the photographer from Just Shoot Me) was the town Sheriff, but dramatic circumstances ended up causing the loss of his job, her status, and her mom.
Now Daddy is a private investigator and Veronica works for him, while at the same time doing good deeds on the side and wrecking havoc against the evil hordes of the city. Without a wooden stake.

Excellent.

- totoro

Wimbledon

Can I say that I am sooo excited that Wimbledon has gotten good reviews? It has gotten 60% positive reviews, which is excellent for a romantic comedy and for my personal low standards - I'll actually consider seeing a romantic comedy in the theater if it's anything above 40%. And in the interest of honest, the Prince & Me got 28% and it really wasn't um, underrated. Kirsten Dunst seems like she might be kind of squeaky, but the previews looked like they were made just to persuade me to go! Unfortunately, these ads make me feel a bit like a sucker because I can tell I'm in the target demographic and gosh darn it, that marketing worked on me. It's like they know me, and know what I'm thinking! Marketing stalkers!

- nyanko

aha! Wimbledon has dropped below the 60% fresh mark. - totoro

dvd crack

One of my roommates has started referring to the Everwood season 1 DVDs as DVD crack because we just keep watching, and watching. And then crying when Greg Berlanti pours on the schmaltz. I'm addicted and I've made it through three of the discs in the past week or so. It's a little odd to watch two different seasons (the season on dvd and the current season) at the same time because sometimes I get a little confused about what is happening now and what was from the DVD, particularly since you get so much more immersed when you watch two or three or seven episodes in a row...

- nyanko

all growed up

Is it just me or does Ephram on Everwood look OLD this season? I can't tell if it's the haircut, the weird sideburn thingies, or if his face just filled out a little. Granted, he's 21 now so he might just have started to look more his age... And in contrast, Scott Wolf still looks the same age as in Party of Five. My roommates and I had a long discussion about how old he really was - and whether he just looks very young or whether he was very young when he was on Party of Five.

Okay, thanks to the wonders of imdb, we can find out that he's about 36 (if I did my math right) now and was about 26 when he started Party of Five. And the imdb also blesses us with the trivia that he was once engaged to Alyssa Milano. Wow. Scary.

- nyanko

IMDb + TV Tome = Unfathomable Power

Okay, so maybe it's not unfathomable, but there is power there.

For example, Nyanko and I were recently discussing Veronica Mars, an upcoming show on UPN which may be blogged about later. This resulted in a search on IMDb which revealed that the star of the show was actually in an earlier episode of Everwood (and also 24 years old). TV Tome then confirmed my suspicions that indeed, she was the unfortunate Everwood high school student last season having problems with her implants.

- totoro

Sky Captain

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow feels like a movie that I've been watching trailers for since the age of 6. That's a reference to the amount of time I've been hearing hype for this movie, rather than the implication that its old pulp 30-40's style is something that reminds me of my childhood.
Which gets me to the main point: stylistically fantastic as it was, I felt the movie was a letdown in terms of its potential to be a great movie, what with the high RT score and metascore.

There's not much memorable in terms of what actually happens in the movie, but the style of the movie is undeniable. Gwyneth tries hard to be Veronica Lake, but doesn't quite get there. Giovanni is likable and fun but seemed a bit out of place in the style of film we see here. And Jude puts in a solid performance but doesn't really stand out. Angelina, however, does stand out in the 2 minutes that she has.

The trailers gave me much more hope for having a old school sci-fi pulp action film with some cheezy action and witty banter and it does deliver the goods to some degree, but you can get almost as much just from the trailers. Not to say that the movie wasn't entertaining, because it certainly was, but it wasn't that memorable and my inclination to watch too many movie trailers and read too many articles about movies brought the expectations way up.

Bottom line: go find it on netflix, nyanko.

- totoro

the prince & me

I watched the Prince & Me over the weekend, in a moment of girlie movie weakness. Sadly, the movie was not very satisfying. The romantic scenes weren't that cute, the boy wasn't that sweet, there was a too-soon, too-quickly-accepted marriage proposal... Although at least there was a happy ending to give relatively happy closure to the whole affair. But the frightening part? In the deleted scenes, there was an alternate ending where the couple didn't get back together at the end. Gads. How would anyone actually get through the painful parts of romantic comedies if there wasn't the comfort throughout of at least having a happy ending?

- nyanko

revoking season passes

I revoked my first season pass for a new show this past weekend - the winner was Medical Investigation. It just wasn't a good show, even though it had many of the same components of other shows I like (mysteries to solve, the same types of characters, etc.). On the season pass death watch: Father of the Pride. So far, it just hasn't been interesting enough to capture my interest. I've already freed up one hour per week from the TiVo and my life; we'll see how the rest of the new shows fare.

(Also, when you are saving your post and the whole operation fails and deletes your post, I think it is a sign from the Internet gods, telling you the post was really not very good and should be rewritten or forgotten.)

- nyanko

brush with celebrity

When I was recently on vacation in Vancouver, I was eating dinner at the sushi restaurant Tojo's, and ended up sitting next to Smallville's Tom Welling and his wife at the sushi bar. Sounds like a fairly common place for Smallville and celebrity sightings. There was also some figure skating gold medalist there, but I think she was Canadian (and she's a figure skater), so heck if I know who she was...

I guess that'll be my big brush with celebrity for the near future. Hopefully this will not reduce my celebrity-sighting karma to a low level such that I won't get to see Britney at some point...

- nyanko

yay for fall!

A few fun tidbits:

Both Dean and Christopher will be back for a number of episodes of the Gilmore Girls this season. Yay!

There will be two OC behind-the-scenes specials on Oct 16 and 23. Hopefully they will be fun and entertaining.

Bradley Cooper (Will from Alias) will be on Jack & Bobby. Not sure if he's just guest starring or will be a regular.

- nyanko

TiVo + Netflix!

This could be a match made in heaven. Now this would get me to get broadband internet.

- nyanko

House of Anime

So, I have a story. About a week ago, I went on a bit of a nyanko shopping spree at a website called House of Anime. I happily made my purchases, which include the 17" giant potsticker nyanko. So in sum, it's going to take a large box to contain it. I always send packages to my office because there is someone to sign for them. So flash forward to this week. I was on vacation and for the second half of the week, I am working remotely. (Read: I'm not around to get packages from my office.) So, I call into my meeting yesterday and one of my co-workers says, "hey, there's a giant box outside your office." So I think, "yay, my nyanko has arrived!" Then he says, "and the box says House of Anime on it." Well, crap. Now I'm sad because really, who respects anyone who orders a giant box from a place called House of Anime? So I say, "Oh good gravy, just kick the box into my office." And hang my head in shame. Sigh.

But at least I have some good nyanko when I get back, including island nyanko, pot sticker nyanko, and snow cone nyanko.

- nyanko

Back from hiatus

After a bit of a hiatus that included vacation, a week-long bout with a death-like flu virus (have now vowed to get a flu shot every year), and a fun reunion with totoro, I think I'm back since there's tons of fun crap to babble about with the new fall season.

I have to say that I'm not a huge fan of watching the Olympics. I can only watch so much sports and then I get kind of bored. It's fun to see random sports that you usually don't see - the team rhythmic gymnastics routines with three hoops and two balls were actually pretty awesome, even though they were really basically Cirque du Soleil, but with less scary music. I also figured out that a girl from my high school who is a few years older than me was in the long jump competition.

However, TiVo or a DVR is totally clutch for this type of television, since it allows you to fast forward through coverage you're not interested in (men's basketball and weightlifting for me; schmatlzy personal interest stories; extended graphics about the standings).

- nyanko

Another TV columnist

TV Gal is another columnist who writes all about crap on TV. She likes stuff that is a little bit cornier than my taste (Two and a Half Men), but lots of good info about shows and the like. I was hoping that the Mountain would be decent, but my hopes are swiftly plummeting, the more I read about the show.

Based on totoro's review, I'll be setting a season pass for Jack & Bobby, although I suspect it will get lower priority than Alias/Desparate Housewives which are also on in the same time slot. However, I will have a couple weeks to check out the show before Desperate Housewives starts.

In other scary casting news, Anne Heche will be joining the cast of Everwood (scary) and Kerr Smith (Jack on Dawson's Creek) will be a love interest for Rose McGowan on Charmed (heh).

- nyanko

Jack and Bobby

This post is way overdue, but I am finally going to get around to talking about one of The WB's new shows this Fall, Jack and Bobby (Sundays 9 pm, starts 9/12).
The premise involves a single mother and her two sons named Jack and Bobby, and one of them becomes president in the future. The story is interrupted by what appear to be interviews with various personalities involved with the presidency around the year 2049 (you see the younger incarnations of some of these people), so the future president is just in high school for present day, when most of the story takes place.

Oh, and so you know, these kids are not named Kennedy. I guess the producers thought that using such familiar names would immediately clue people in as to the nature of the show.

The whole pilot makes a big deal about how "one" of them becomes president, and you get the feeling that they're trying to jerk you around and make you guess which of the two brothers it is. That whole aspect is a little distracting, but the story isn't so bad, and you get some good glimpses into the characters. They also lay on the drama pretty heavily, which all became clear when the credits rolled and my roommate pointed out that the executive producers are pretty much all involved with Everwood. The one that's not, Thomas Schlamme, has The West Wing and Ally McBeal on his CV.

There wasn't a whole lot of funny in this, it definitely had a WB feel to it, and I found some parts way too predictable, but the show is also redeeming in the way that most of the WB's shows tend to be. There are warm parts, you get some chuckles in, the characters are likable (enough), and the sap is just right at times so I will stick with this show for at least the first few episodes. We'll see how it pans out.

- totoro

The Return.

It's been months since I've posted here, strangely coinciding with a lack of new television and an increase in distractions of other sorts (work, for example).
Last night marked the beginning of the new season of television! For me, at least. Scrubs aired the premiere of its 4th season, and it was glorious. Heather Graham is on the show for a few episodes, and her character is completely insane, along with everyone else on the show.
I must say that I was none to pleased with the way the last season ended, at least in regards to J.D. and Elliot. Kind of similar to the way I was definitely unhappy with the way Rory of Gilmore Girls became a tree.

Speaking of Scrubs, and J.D., and Zach Braff, one must mention Garden State. Which really must henceforth be known as the movie where Natalie Portman's cuteness finally meets its potential. I mean, after seeing her in a variety of other roles over the years (Star Wars Ep2 might even count), this one finally gets it.

- totoro

The Corrections

I just finished reading the Corrections, and I'm just not sure what to say. I've heard it recommended by a number of people and it seems like it's always in one of those front tables in the bookstore... But the characters are painfully flawed, which makes it hard to read about them. There is no heroic character or even a character that you really want to relate to. (You might relate to them, but you want to pretend you don't...) It's well-written, but I just can't give this a strong recommendation. Read it at your own risk.

- nyanko

FX's Rescue Me

Word has it that FX's new show Rescue Me, statting Dennis Leary, is excellent. It's about NY firefighters and is described as dramedy. Anyway, I've heard great things about it and it premieres tonight, Wednesday, at 10 pm.

- nyanko

fall TV grid

Well, here's what my fall TV watching is going to be like, at least until some shows get put on hiatus and I figure out what totally sucks.
 
Monday:
8 pm: Athens (due mid-season; a new series by the creator of the O.C.)
9 pm: Las Vegas/Everwood. [I'm not sure which will be TiVo'd and which will get put on tape.]; possibly 24 at mid-season.
10 pm: LAX [I'm such a sucker, I'll have to watch at least a couple episodes of this one. I'm picturing it being much like Las Vegas - light and soapy...]
 
Tuesday:
8 pm: Gilmore Girls
9 pm: Father of the Pride & Scrubs
 
Wednesday:
8 pm: Lost
9 pm: The Mountain
10 pm: Law & Order/CSI: New York*
 
Thursday:
8 pm: The O.C. Might check out Joey at the beginning of the season, before the O.C. starts.
9 pm: CSI/life as we know it
10 pm: Without a Trace
 
Friday:
8 pm: Joan of Arcadia
10 pm: Medical Investigation
 
Saturday:
8 pm: Amazing Race [maybe...]
 
Sunday:
8 pm: Charmed/Arrested Development
9 pm: Desperate Housewives & Alias (both on ABC)/Jack & Bobby
 
*Additional commentary. I've been drawn into L&O again, but not sure if it will last. Maybe I'll save this for summer reruns... And amazingly, CSI:New York already looked so annoying from the spinoff CSI:Miami episode that I'm not sure I'll be able to stomach it. All the people. Talk. Like. This. And sadly, it seems to have retained CSI:Miami's prentiousness and well, crappiness. So, both these shows might quickly drop off the list.
 
This is really an alarming amount of TV, but I'm sure a couple of the shows will quickly bite the dust or turn out to be horrendous, such that I can cut down on some of my TV time...
- nyanko

Frequent flying

Since I've been travelling so much for both work and fun, I've managed to qualify for a quasi-elite status on Alaska's frequent flyer program. Not the super-good status, but the one-step-up-from-the-peons status. I finally figured out that they won't just automatically give you first class upgrades, and that you need to call two days in advance and see if they have any open first class seats, so I recently managed to get myself an upgrade. (And yes, I am trying to avoid being one of those consultant-like people who are purely obsessed with accumulating, using and talking about their miles.)
 
First class was quite nice - a big seat, decent food, and free and continuous alcohol (if you are into that, as my row-mate was). But the neatest thing was the Digeplayer, a nifty little personal media player that had movies (a variety including Mystic River, That Thing You Do, Man on Fire, My Cousin Vinny), television (The Simpsons, and two other choices), music, something on golf and airport information. I didn't really use the player since I wasn't interested in the movies, but if they had had Ella Enchanted or the Prince & Me, I would have been all over it!
 
- nyanko

The Assistant and the Apprentice

Mr. Boyfriend claims that the Assistant, on MTV, is hilarious. He says that Andy Dick is just messing with these poor kids. But he likes the Real World, so take this advice with a grain of salt...
 
And as for the Apprentice, when I was recently in Boston, they were having a casting call for the Apprentice 3 in my hotel. There was a huge line of guys in suits standing outside on the sidewalk at 9 am on a Saturday. Pretty funny.  Guess the Apprentice franchise is still going strong. My co-worker was hanging around the lobby for a while to eavesdrop and hear gossip, but I don't think she got any real dirt.
 
- nyanko

damn, cast changes on CSI

 
There was a link on tvtattle.com with an article about how Jorja Fox and George Eads have been fired from CSI. This seems rather sudden - is it a ploy to play hardball with the actors or is it final? Hmm. Guess we might not see any resolution to the alcoholic Sara storyline (not that there was really any development or resolution to any of the personal story lines).
 
- nyanko

sorry totoro!

From tvguide.com:

SUMMER EXTENDED: This season is proving to be a good one for Summerland. WB has ordered 13 more episodes of the beach-set family drama as a midseason replacement. The series, starring Lori Loughlin, follows a thirtysomething single who takes in her sister's children after their parents are killed in an accident.

Unfortunately, Totoro, you could be tormented further by the crappiness of this show...

- nyanko

too much tivo stuff

Okay, so this contractor working in my office was talking to me yesterday. I have two TiVo theme items in my office - one is a little cling decal in the window and the other is a little plush Christmas ornament that is hanging from my bulletin board. And this guy said that if I didn't work for TiVo, that was two things too many. Now, is that reasonable (i.e., am I a total dork for having those things up?) or is that just being mean? I admit it's not the coolest thing in the world, but really, is it that bad? Comments welcome, since I'm debating whether I should take down my TiVo memorabilia so as to avoid being a total office loser. I have to maintain my office cred...

- nyanko

new releases on netflix

This weblog posts a list of the new movies added to Netflix every Tuesday, which is a great way to see if any interesting movies/DVDs are now available through Netflix.

- nyanko

giving in to the reality of the Amazing Race

Okay, until now, I've avoid most reality TV. I've loosely followed the tragedies of Real World, without actually having to the experience the pain firsthand, by reading TWOP recaps and talking to Mr. Boyfriend, who is inexplicably drawn to horrible MTV reality shows. I've caught random episodes of other reality shows, although the pain has usually driven me to tears so I've avoided getting sucked in.

But I finally watched an episode of the Amazing Race which just started last week. It wasn't great, but hey, it's better than Summerland and it could improve as it continues. So I guess I can no longer claim moral superiority, but I will claim that this show involves a decent competition (as opposed to the hokey immunity challenges in Survivor) and that it's less manipulative (though not manipulation free) than say, Real World. Plus, I get to see lots of different countries so I can decide whether I want to take a vacation there later on!

- nyanko

what is the nyanko?

If you're wondering what nyanko is, look no further. So much cat-in-food goodness.

And if you want to see it in Japanese, go here!

- nyanko

The WB casting machine at work

TV Guide Online says that Scott Wolf (Bailey from Party of Five) will be a new doctor in town on Everwood. The WB casting agents have been busy lately. And they just keep giving us gems of casting. Heh.

- nyanko

reading addictions

I just finished reading Robin McKinley's Spindle's End, which was enh. I'm hoping to get some more reading done, now that this summer is turning out to be such a drought of televised entertainment. And I'm actually capable of doing some fun reading now that I have cut myself off from the Sunday New York Times. It always took me the whole week to read almost all of the paper, and some of the less time sensitive sections piled up because I wanted to read them, but didn't have time. I just finished off a big pile during a long plane right last week, but I think there are still a couple travel sections sitting at home... Mr. Boyfriend mocks me for reading every article, but I like it! Take that, Boyfriend! But really, there was no time to read anything else with the NY Times arriving every Sunday. Perhaps I'll pick up something less voluminous so I can keep up with current affairs, like the Economist...

However, I am hoping to avoid the crack-like addiction I had earlier this year to the nine book Robin Hobb series that ate about three months of my life and every evening until 3 am, even on "school nights." That was a tragedy that was only escaped when I realized that I needed to just drop everything and power through the books so I could get my life back. I'm still not sure whether I should recommend the books to others, since they might also end up with their own three month crack-like addiction and never take my book recommendations again.

Hmm, apparently this year I have just gone straight from one reading addiction to another - I wonder at what point I will have to admit that I have a problem and start my own branch of Readers Anonymous.

- nyanko

ABC Family movies

The next ABC Family movie is going to be Crimes of Fashion, with Dominic Chianese (Uncle Junior from the Sopranos). Here's the blurb:

Brooke (Kaley Cuoco) is a shy but ambitious student at a top fashion school. After the death of her long-lost grandfather, Brooke finds out she has inherited his job at the family business…mob boss of the Sarto crime family! With the help of an old school mobster, George (Dominic Chianese), she tries to make her family legit, but trouble arises when she falls in love with an undercover FBI agent who is sent to take her down. Can Brooke give the mob a makeover before it's too late?

Heh. Should be tragic/funny.

Also, my Netflix recommendation told me I should watch Lucky 7, an older ABC Family movie, so I guess ABC Family has decided to try for some additional revenue from DVD sales. Lucky 7 was pretty cute, but some of the more recent original movies have been somewhat disappointing (Picking Up & Dropping Off, Brave New Girl). Still I'm a total sucker for crappy romantic comedy so I keep watching...

- nyanko

Ha ha ha ha ha

From the futon critic:

CHARMED (WB) - "Newlyweds'" star Nick Lachey is set to join the cast of the veteran Frog drama this season for a six-episode arc. He'll play the ghost writer for witch Phoebe Halliwell's (Alyssa Milano) advice column when she goes on a sabbatical and ends up romantically involved with her.

YES!

- nyanko

Freaks & Geeks, now on DVD

I finally got to watch the first disc of the short-lived TV series, Freaks & Geeks, by Judd Apatow (who also worked on the also short-lived Undeclared and the upcoming Life as We Know It). It was hilarious, and sometimes horribly painful (but in a funny way). The story revolves around a bunch of kids in high school in the 80s, who are either freaks or geeks. They have the most awkward, but very funny actual 14 and 15-year olds playing the freshman geeks. It's funny because they look tiny, which is what most pre-growth spurt freshmen actually look like, and they look so young, though perhaps because we've gotten used to seeing a bunch of 25-30 year-olds playing high schoolers (I'm talking to you, Dawson's Creek and the O.C.). I highly recommend the show because it will make you laugh out loud.

I guess this means that I'll have to check out Life as We Know It, even though Kelly Osbourne is in the cast, and she makes me want to run and hide.

- nyanko

Ah, signs of fall

Heather Graham is going to be on Scrubs next fall!

And something to get you through the bleakness that is summer TV, NBC will be launching their fall schedule right after the summer Olympics, which means their shows will start in late August, instead of late September. Also, the WB has mentioned, though not officially, that they may hold the premiere of Everwood until November to cut down on the number of reruns, which usually don't get very good ratings.

- nyanko

The Company

Here is the movie that Netflix told me I saw:

In this drama from Robert Altman, a young dancer (Neve Campbell) is focused on becoming a principal dancer with her ballet company, but finds it progressively more difficult to stick to the demanding schedule that's required. As the pressure mounts, she grows more preoccupied with other interests and with her boyfriend (James Franco), who vies for her time.

Here is the movie I saw:

Neve Campbell dances. She hooks up with a guy. More dancing. Intermittent scenes with other dancers where the dialog is hard to hear, but doesn't seem important. More dancing. Non-ballet scenes. More dancing. Neve wears a balloon on her head. She hurts her shoulder. The end.

---

The dancing was beautiful, and the choreographer character was pretty hilarious, along with the costumes in the last ballet (there are monkeys), but I imagine that the person who had to write that blurb had to think pretty long and hard just to come up with that. Or maybe the scenes with the pressure mounting, the preoccupation with other interests and her boyfriend, and the difficulty sticking to the demanding schedule all ended up on the cutting room floor.

- nyanko

TV news

One of my other favorite tv news sites is tvtattle.com, which has links to lots of articles that talk about TV. I have no idea how this person gathers their links; I would assume that other people email article links to this person, but either way, it covers a wide variety of media outlets. The funny thing is that I read about this site in InStyle magazine, when it was mentioned by some actress - I can't remember who, but someone like Tiffani Thiessen ... Heh.

- nyanko

How Netflix sends your movies

This Fast Company article touches on how the DVDs are handled in order to send you your next disc. No shelves or sorting/storing discs. They just scan the bar code on the disc label and the computer tells the employee what to do with the disc.

I found this article browsing a recently edit blog on blogspot; a person has an entire blog dedicated to Netflix (the link seems to be broken right now - maybe it will be up later...). I'm obsessed with my Netflix, but not that obsessed... I think.

- nyanko

Desperate Housewives

Most of us who are fans of Alias have heard the news about its schedule next season. In its timeslot for the first part of the season, ABC will instead run Desperate Housewives, a decidedly unappealing title, but I figured it deserved a look.

I just saw the pilot, and I must say that although I'm a little intrigued, I'm definitely not sold. It primarily tells the story of 4 women in anonymous American suburbia, our very neighbors could be like this, I suppose. It hails the return of Marcia Cross (most recently seen on Everwood), Teri Hatcher, and one of the women from Sportsnight. The show is entirely narrated from an omniscient third-person who also happens to be one of the wives who commits suicide in the opening scene. The rest of the pilot was basically spent on setting up the women in their niches.

Teri is the divorcee whose husband cheated on her and left her with a clever teenage daughter, Marcia is the perfect housewife whose family can't stand it, Dana from Sportsnight is a high-powered careerwoman who gave it up for kids who are absolutely out of control, and then there's the ex-model who married for money and is now cheating on her husband amidst their loveless marriage (not sure what she's been in). Basically, nobody is happy, but everyone thinks everybody else is. Hmm.

Oh, and then there are the two presumably season-long storyarcs which are good for cliffhangers. The narrator has some sort of secret, as does her family (husband and son). And a bachelor who just moved in also appears to be harboring some intrigue.

My main gripe is that there is very little funny. Without the funny, I usually expect some action/suspense (Alias). This show provides neither, though the 'secrets' of the neighborhood do provide a little of the suspense, it's really not enough to keep me watching just to find out what those secrets are.

But hey, I was willing to give Tru Calling two tries, so why not this one, especially since we know that the ReplayTV will have that timeslot open.

- totoro

Fox's year-round programming

The new summer programming that debuted this summer has been pretty horrendous and depressing. For example: Summerland (great shades of Young Americans, the Dawson's Creek spinoff that had Kate Bosworth; not good although I watch it - which is really not a meter of anything), the North Shore (blatant Las Vegas rip-off, but much, much worse), Method & Red (I've heard it's weak), & Quintuplets (Mr. Boyfriend swears by the comic genius of Andy Richter, which I do believe, but I hear the show is still um, finding its legs).

I don't think these new shows are getting very good ratings, and I'm worried that Fox and all the other networks will decide to throw in the towel on year-round programming, which is in fact a good idea, but one that they didn't execute well on this year. There's no evidence that summer programming will always bust, as proved by Survivor, last summer's debut of the O.C., and the various original cable programming (The Shield, Monk, the Dead Zone, Nip/Tuck, etc.). I'm dying for some decent TV, but the networks are being terribly tight-fisted about giving me what I want. In the next two weeks, I think I have perhaps six hours that TiVo will be recording for me. But that does leave me time to read some of the books that have been getting dusty on my bookshelf.

Also, Elisabeth Rohm, the ADA on Law & Order had decided to leave the show after 13 episodes next season. She was the main reason I stopped watching L & O, so perhaps now is the time to go back to watching! Now if only Sam Waterson could tone down the brow-beating... But sadly, no more Jerry Orbach - he was a fixture in my L & O universe, so it will be very odd to watch the show without him. I wonder if Jesse Martin has negotiated in his contract to get the quippy one-liners that always lead right into the opening credits...

Coming soon on DVD

There's a whole bunch of TV shows coming out on DVD soon that I'm really excited about like: Arrested Development (late summer - no release date set), Sex & the City Season 6 Part 2 (fall), Everwood Season 1 (Sept), Wonderfalls (Dec?), Undeclared (soon).

Here's the source of all this great information. My little Netflix queue is loaded up with lots of exciting stuff, of course, the bad thing is that each tv show tends to add between 2 and 5 discs to my queue... Sadly, I think I am going to rent the Alias discs just to hear the commentary after reading some posts on the TWOP forum talking about how funny the commentary is. I may have to watch that when my roommates aren't around though... Sigh.

The Fame Audit

I have to put in a plug for one of my favorite websites. If only I could be this funny and mean. A goal to aspire to, really. Unfortunately, I think I need to have a bigger sleep debt before I can be this mean, and I think my meanness has gotten rusty since I finished college and no longer had weirdos in my classes or underclassmen to openly mock (for example, emails to dorm mailing lists saying "Has anyone seen my keys? They had a Stanford lanyard and a bottle opener on them!").

Anyway, Fametracker is a hilarious website that, among other things, does Fame Audits on celebrities. The latest one is on Jason Bateman, from the sublimely funny show Arrested Development. (When Arrested Development comes out on DVD, I'm buying it so I can watch it and Armageddon when I'm really blue.) Anyhoo, a snippet from Jason Bateman's Fame Audit:

"You know, we liked Kirk Cameron as much as anyone back in the day. We weren't, like, huge Kirk Cameron fans or anything, but we thought he was cute and huggable in that teen-idol kind of way. And we admit we assumed we'd seen the last of him -- forever. We never -- never -- expected that Kirk Cameron would come back in such a huge way. Kirk Cameron! After all these years! Suddenly, he's starring -- nay, anchoring -- the funniest sitcom on television. And wait! There's Kirk Cameron with a hilarious bit part in Dodgeball, nearly stealing the movie! Kirk Cameron! Who knew?

Okay, we admit the above paragraph sounds a bit ridiculous. But it sounds no more ridiculous if you substitute the name "Jason Bateman" for "Kirk Cameron." And if you do that, the paragraph has the added strange quality of being absolutely true."

Other funny audits: Johnny Depp or Ben Affleck.

- nyanko

the office, series 2

The second season was so painful, I actually had to stop watching after three episodes and take a break. I think I spent almost half the show covering my eyes and moaning pathetically. As one of my co-workers said, "I mean you knew when the staff from that other office showed up in Slough and there was a woman in a wheelchair, that it was going to get uncomfortable." It was exponentially more painful than the first season, but somehow still manages to be extremely funny. However, thank goodness that was the last season ever because if a third season came out, I would be horribly torn between not watching to avoid the pain and desparately wanting to see it. So, watch it if you dare.

- nyanko

oh tivo, cover your eyes!

Is it bad to be slightly horrified by the dreck that your roommates program the TiVo for? My roommates tend to program lots of stuff onto the shared TiVo, and some of it makes our viewing habits look somewhat smarter/better than my actual tv watching habits (The Daily Show, Meet the Press, the George Stephanopoulos show), but some of the stuff is just, oh.... Like For Love or Money, ER (sorry ER fans, but I just can't take the melodrama), the Practice, Ally McBeal (the later seasons of the last two seem most cringe-worthy), Reba (!)... and I've seen my roommates watching 7th Heaven and Full House. Poor TiVo! And even though the viewing statistics are anonymous and aggregated, it's really a crime to put Tivo through that. Sometimes I look at the Now Playing List and just have to shake my head in sorrow.

Maybe I need separate TiVos - one for the stuff that I'm embarrassed to be taping, and one for the stuff that I would admit to watching, so at least one would have a pristine profile.

- nyanko

How many is too many?

How many movies on a Netflix queue is too many? I think I currently have 124 movies in my queue (after hovering for a long time at 90), which means that I could watch 3 movies per week for the next 10 months or so, without running out of movies. And that's without adding any new movies to the queue, like the first season of Everwood, or the last half season of Sex and the City. Boyfriend says that he has more on his queue, but is that supposed to make me feel inferior (you should have more!), better (at least I'm not as much of a loser) or normal (everyone else has at least that many)? At what point has your Netflix queue completely spiraled out of control? When you have two years worth of movies? I guess I'll go with that definition since I'm dangerously close to one year worth of movies as is...

P.S. Netflix is definitely hitting the mainstream - in Esquire magazine they now have a article/sidebar every month where they ask some celebrity/personality "What's in your Netflix queue?" Sort of like what's on your iPod, etc.

-nyanko

The Ocho

In a previous post of mine, I mentioned Zoolander, which I consider to be one of the best comedies of recent times. "best" as in so funny I start convulsing when I even think about some parts of it.

The reason I mention this is because the leading box office movie of this past weekend was, in fact, Dodgeball. Featuring Ben Stiller of course. And his character is remarkably reminiscent of Derek Zoolander in many ways. Dodgeball is probably not as good as Zoolander, but it's still extremely entertaining, and from thenceforth I have had a Pavlovian response wherein I start chuckling any time someone says "the ocho".

You can read any number of reviews concerning Dodgeball elsewhere, but the bottom line is the plot is silly, and some of the acting is not the best (Vince Vaughn, Mr. "you're money" is a notable example), but there are so many other aspects that make it worth your time, assuming you have a sense of humor.

It's almost worth watching for the cameos alone.

Go see it. Or rent/netflix it when it comes out on DVD.

One more thing: I have 3 words to say regarding Summerland, as my comment on nyanko's post below.
Kill. Me. Now.

- totoro

a Mandy Moore-athon

I apologize, I think Mandy Moore's name is really a curse, because it's way too easy to create horrible puns on her last name. For instance, on the Chasing Liberty DVD, one of the extras was 'Moore' on [something I can't remember - probably her character]. But anyway, I have unfortunately been on a Mandy Moore movie kick - which has led to some unpleasantness and some not so horrible mediocrity.

Chasing Liberty - So. Not. Good. I had such high hopes for this movie - it looked like a fun, fluffy teenybopper European adventure movie. And it was so much pain. The writing! The plot! It was completely embarrassing that my roommates saw that I was watching it. And of course, I never learn, because I have very high hopes for this upcoming Katie Holmes movie, First Daughter, with exactly the same premise.

How to Deal - Also starring Alison Janney. Really, not so bad. Granted, this might just be relative to Chasing Liberty, but I found this movie to be interesting, with characters that weren't too annoying, and a generally entertaining plot overall. So, not a rousing endorsement, but also not a frantic "Escape while you still can" warning.

So, onward to 'All I Want' - starring Mandy (of course), Elijah (Frodo!) and Franka Potente.

-nyanko

new summer shows

The dearth of new tv programming during the summer is giving me the chance to actually clean off the TiVo backlog (too much travel in the past few months has forced me to keep about 20 hours of saved shows for the past two and a half months - scary) and to catch up on shows that I don't really have time to watch when other shows are on.

I finally got around to watching Summerland and the North Shore, two of the new summer offerings. And my take is that Summerland is not good, but my standards somehow do not require 'good.' (Really, a horrifying thing to realize about yourself.) It's crappy, but enjoyable summer fluff - and does not have the huge cringe-inducing moments like say, Tru Calling (see below), at least not yet. The adult characters on the show are reasonably interesting/entertaining, so I'll keep watching.

The North Shore, on the other hand, is just a retread of Las Vegas, but with less attractive actors. And the occasional, half-hearted Hawaiian accent. I'll watch this week's episode to see Amanda Righetti (Hailey from the O.C.), but the Season Pass is already revoked. Is it bad to hope for a show's demise so that a good character goes back to another show? (Of course, I almost wish the Gilmore Girls spinoff succeeded so we could stop seeing Jess, but I supposed we would have been subjected to crossover events ...)

I also watched two episodes of Tru Calling, and although I like Eliza Dushku (Faith!), they were so painful that I just revoked the season pass. Sigh. I didn't get to see any of the Jason Preistley episodes, but I just can't take it anymore.

-nyanko

Look away! Look away!

Is this serious? This document has descriptions of upcoming ABC Family movies, including one starring Gary Cole, as a former music star, and another one involving a woman who suddenly becomes a mob boss. Sweet! And uh, in case you're confused, Gary Cole was in Office Space, Gary Coleman just ran for governor. No, I didn't get those two mixed up. But the thought of either of them in this movie is hilarious.

-nyanko