Category Archives: TV

Jan 13 2013
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Actual Celebrities, Awards, Ersatz Celebrities, Movies, TV

Golden Globes: Passing Notes

Jennifer Lawrence might have won the night for saying, “I beat Meryl!” (Which is what we totally thought when she won.)

Stallone and the Governator actually were funny in their bit. (Though not Wiig and Farrell funny. But seriously.)

Anne Hathaway continues to be huggable.

How is Claire Danes four-for-four in Golden Globe Awards? And “My So-Called Life” to “Homeland” is quite a career arc.

Sasha Baron Cohen: Not funny, but funnier than the Russell Brand reboot of SBC.

Still, though, I love that there’s drinking at the Golden Globes. And Poehler canoodling and drinking with Clooney just there was genius.

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Jan 11 2013
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Actual Celebrities, Awards, Media, Morning Talk Shows, Movies, TV

One More Reason to Love Anne Hathaway

So, on the heels of Anne Hathaway’s classy, brilliant, PR-approved and/or triumph against the men-being-pigs patriarchy (depending on whether you subscribe to both, one, or none of these POVs, but they’re both worth knowing about …

… and the whole having to endure the awfulness of paparazzi taking upskirt photos of her and then posting them with the intention of going viral …

… comes the revelation, in yesterday’s New York Times, that Anne Hathaway is something of a Macklemore and Ryan Lewis fan.

In between fielding a flurry of media calls regarding yesterday’s many Oscar nominations for Les Miserables, Hathaway revealed that she was delightedly singing the “This is f-ing awesome” hook from the rapper/producer’s “Thrift Shop.” (Which would, in a just world, be up for an Oscar next month for best music video. Why isn’t this a category by now?)

Hathaway and co-star Hugh Jackman also expressed regrets that director Tom Hooper wasn’t nominated for best director. But that’s the trick with the Oscars — ten nominated for best picture, only five nominated for best director. It’s bound to happen, especially in the types of films where the subtleties and artistic nuances of directing might be more immediately evident.

Jan 06 2013
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Commercials, Food, Sports, TV

The Death of Art (As Mourned By the Ravens)

Ray Lewis is too angry to mourn the Death of Art, though his jersey’s doing it for him. (Photo credit: USA Today)

You might note, in the Indianapolis Colts-Baltimore Ravens playoff game happening right now, that the Baltimore players are wearing black patches on their upper left pectorals that simply say “Art.” I’d like to think that this is some Dieter-esque proclamation that “Art is dead,” but the Art being mourned is Art Modell, the Ravens’ owner, who passed away in September. Modell, of course, is best known from moving the Cleveland Browns franchise to Baltimore, winning the eternal enmity of everyone in, near, or with any smidge of loyalty to Cleveland. The city was eventually issued a replacement expansion franchise, reviving the Browns’ brand, but the former Browns (with a black-and-purple color scheme and a mascot taken from an Egdar Allan Poe work) have had more football success than the newer, not-necessarily-improved Browns.

(Note: Just something to think about when you’re seeing the KFC Game Day Bucket Go Boom commercial once again, and are Stockholm Syndrome-style convincing yourself you like it.)

Jan 04 2013
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Disasters, Ersatz Celebrities, Schadenfreude, Spectacle, TV

And That’s Why KDOC Can’t Have Nice Things: A Live New Year’s Eve Broadcast Gone Horribly Wrong

TV history, being made. (Photo credit: Mediaite.)

At one time, L.A. independent TV station KDOC was owned by a group of investors who included Pat Boone. Its history is full of randomness, and its current lineup of shows includes “We the People with Gloria Allred,” “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” “Married … with Children,” “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” and “South Park.” For this most recent New Year’s Eve, they decided to do a live broadcast, starring a random assortment of entertainers from the 1990s, with a production crew seemingly angling for new levels of amateurism.

The YouTube clip below is simply why the Internet had to be invented. The five-plus minutes below, as reported by Mediate, tweeted by Patton Oswalt, and lovingly circulated by fans of steaming hot spectacle, attempts to compress the awfulness of this broadcast into a single lowlight reel. (NSFW, unless you have headphones.)

(Update: YouTube video has been pulled, but the Mediaite link above should still be working.)

The cast of players include Jamie Kennedy (who has not aged particularly well, nor has he surpassed his career apex of Malibu’s Most Wanted), Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (who overseason their performance with all kinds of words you’re not allowed to say on TV), Shannon Elizabeth (Shannon Elizabeth!), Macy Gray (who is barely coherent in her attempts to guide the audience through the final ten minutes of the year), a woman in the audience who reads the teleprompter along with co-host Stu Stone, two delightfully saucy women who are inexplicably pulled up on stage to detail their resolutions for 2013 (“Get rid of all my haters”), and some dude who offers a 12-letter-bomb to punctuate his response to Stone’s innocent-yet-leading-to-trouble inquiry, “What’s your name?”

From the highlight reel’s initial burst of brilliance (in which Kennedy doesn’t know they’re on air and F-bombs his way through the confusion) to its glorious finale (a fight breaks out on stage behind the hosts attempting to say farewell, which Kennedy matter-of-factly notes with a mix of defeat, bewilderment, and acute awareness that this is about to become viral on the Internet), it’s a cornucopia of incompetence and faulty judgement. You’ll laugh. You’ll cringe. You’ll speculate on the employment future of everyone involved with the KDOC New Year’s Eve special.

Jan 03 2013
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Ersatz Celebrities, Music, Reality TV, Spectacle, TV

The Royal Baby (Well, At Least, America’s Royal Baby)

Screen shot 2013-01-03 at 8.22.40 AM

Who’s excited about the Kimye baby? The Kardashians! And their producers! Graphic credit: New York Daily News

You’ve heard, by now, that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are having a baby. Kim is 12 weeks along, which means, with a gestation period of around 40 weeks, that we’ll only be inundated with updates about this storyline for another 28 weeks. Then there will be a birth around mid-summer, and then there will be a paparazzi scramble for first baby photos which may or may not involve dressing up like hospital staff, and it’s going to be such a beautiful celebration of the miracle of life.

Clearly, Kanye’s found the love he talked about not getting enough of in 2011’s “Monster” — as he noted in 2012’s “Clique,” “My girl a superstar all from a home movie,” which is, well, a rather doting, boyfriendy, euphemistic version of how Kim first entered public consciousness.

Given that Kanye is documenting the relationship in real-time as well as in his music — he delivered the “she’s having my baby” news during a New Year’s Eve performance of “Runaway” in Atlantic City, after all — 2013 should bring us some awesome stream-of-conscious, Kanye-talking-about-whatever’s-front-and-center-in-Kanye’s-mind rapping about 3 a.m. bottle feedings and diaper changes. (Question: Does Gucci make diapers?)

But, unfortunately for Kanye, Kim Kardashian brings with her the rest of the Kardashian Klan and the camera crew (kamera krew?) that is surgically attached to it, which might be a little too much spotlight for Mr. Hard to Be Humble When You’re Stuntin’ On a Jumbotron.

E! (of course, E!) has announced that it will be filming throughout the pregnancy. Us Weekly reports:

“Kim and Kanye are an incredibly dynamic couple, and their baby news is just so exciting,” network president Suzanne Kolb tells The Hollywood Reporter in a statement. “Like so many Kardashian fans, we love it when this close-knit family gets even bigger.”

(A Hollywood Reporter source hints that their infant will appear on camera, saying that the network “will continue to cover all aspects of Kim’s life as it always has.”)

And this New York Daily News article does an outstanding job of capturing the Kardashian Klan’s subtle, understated, taking-to-Twitter joy about the whole thing. (Special points to Kendall Jenner for trying to get Kimye to happen. Nothing will ever beat Brangelina as a celebrity couple name. Though it turns out Kimye is, upon a quick Googling, gaining a bit of traction. THIS CANNOT STAND.)

Also, Glamour’s already attempting to name the baby. (Limiting themselves to K names, of course.)

In-utero Twitter account? Side-by-side baby bump comparison photos of Kim and Kate Middleton as the royal pregnancies progress? Gossip mags clamoring to be the first to announce the gender once it becomes possible to do so? Look for this to reach new levels of amazing in the coming 28 (again, that’s 28) weeks.

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Jan 02 2013
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Ersatz Celebrities, Food, Reality TV, TV

Hold Me; I’m Scared: Hulk Hogan, and Restaurant, Together.

Hulk and guest, at Hogan’s Beach Grand Opening, which was also a Masquerade Ball-themed New Year’s Eve party. (Of course it was.) (Photo credit: Eater.)

If you ever find yourself in Tampa, and find yourself craving dining options dreamt up by one of the most iconic pro wrestlers of our age, and you want to top off that experience by riding a mechanical shark, this is now a possibility for you.

New Year’s Eve allowed us to not only collectively say good-bye to an eventful year, but to say hello to Hogan’s Beach, an eating, drinking, and mechanical-shark-riding emporium building on the Hulk Hogan brand. (A brand resting on the not-at-all-shaky foundation of a pro wrestling career followed by a look-at-my-family reality show.)

Hulk boasted to the Tampa Bay Times, “It’s going to be Jimmy Buffett’s [Margaritaville] times 10; Hooters times 10.” While this brings up the potential horror of a TV commercial featuring Hulk bellowing, “Whatcha gonna do when overly-fried appetizers and servers with 36-Double-Ds run wild on you,” the vision for the restaurant’s food is not entirely awful. (Though this TV commercial does feature an in-form Hulk talking “party” and forwarding “30 years of bodyslamming opponents in the ring” as a prelude to being a successful restauranteur.)

The article notes that Culinary Institute of America-pedigreed chef Robert Uzzillia, hired as food and beverage director for the hotel and restaurant, created a trio of menus for Hogan’s Beach: “a 30-item sushi bar, a second indoor menu of upscale steaks and seafood, and a third, more casual menu for the patio of Frenchy’s-style Florida favorites.”

Still, though, there are volleyball courts, tiki huts, fire pits, and the aforementioned mechanical shark, leading to chuckling speculation about the Hogan’s Beach dining experience.

The Huffington Post, in its coverage of the announcement, sought to expand the wider circulation of the pejorative term “breastaurant,” which I am all for (and hence am dutifully doing my part).

Other local sources in the know, including the Broward Palm Beach New Times and Eater, couldn’t quite surpress their giggles in detailing the restaurant’s offerings; Eater noted that the Twittersphere contributed wrestling-and-food puns of the “Leg Drop Soup” and “Whatcha Gonna Stew” variety. The Internets have not yet revealed a menu or even a Yelp review, but please God, make “Whatcha Gonna Stew” happen in my lifetime.

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Jan 01 2013
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Lyrics (and/or Lyrical Analysis), Music, Spectacle, TV

Jake Owen, Meet America (Via the Orange Bowl Halftime Show)

Jake Owen, flexing at the Orange Bowl. (Photo Credit: Getty Images, by way of Roadrunner.)

By the way: There are 35 bowls in the college football landscape, and January 1 is no longer the most important day of bowl season — the better bowls continue into the next week. The big bowls don’t even consistently fall on the same days anymore, for reasons that will be boring and not germane to this. What is germane to this: This year, we have the Orange Bowl as the final game of New Year’s Day, which means the super-long halftime show (once astutely mocked by the Simpsons, once inadvertently mocked by Ashlee Simpson’s performance) is returned to its rightful place of entertaining families numb from the day-long football marathon.

But, because ESPN is airing the Orange Bowl, it’s no longer quite the horriblawesome convergence of art and sport that it tried to be during its bygone-era airings on NBC, including a magic show gone awry, the Disney Electrical Parade inside a stadium (where it was never meant to be), and the most uncomfortable ZZ Top may have ever been.

Well, at least it’s no longer that for TV viewers. I’m sure that people inside the stadium were exposed to the full onslaught of pointless backing dancers and superfluous laser displayes. But those of us in TV land only saw three minutes of Jake Owen — one of those performances which look potentially parodic, but dishearteningly reveals itself to be real via the sort of earnest delivery that says, “We’re making art here — it might be bad art, but it’s art.”

America got to witness “Barefoot Blue Jean Night,” which, according to this article, confirms that the chorus forwards the sentiment, “Never gonna grow up! Never gonna slow down!” — with verses that detail hanging out and drinking beers by the fire, to which Owen added Orange Bowl-specific lyrics about hanging out about the Orange Bowl.

(Sample, non-Orange Bowl referencing lyrics: “Blue eyes and auburn hair/Sittin’ lookin’ pretty by the fire in a lawn chair/New to town, and new to me/Her ruby red lips was sippin’ on sweet tea.” Lyrical analysis: Jake Owen admires women at parties with the limited vocabulary of many of his fans. Auburn hair is fairly exacting, though, so points for that.)

Though I’d rather see wind-blown magic or crotch-centric performances from the likes of The Boss and The Purple One’s Super Bowl extravaganzas when I’m witnessing halftime entertainment, it’s nice to see that there’s some level of pomp in the Orange Bowl shows — Owen did plenty of good-looking country-singer flexing to augment what the drill team armada in front of the stage was doing. (And a quick note on his band: Banjo player. Always awesome.)

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