It’s Not Hard — Sucky Movies Equal Sucky Returns

By Mike Sadowski | Published: September 1, 2010 | 0 Comments

Time for our reminders of the week:

The monthly PopRox chat is set for Friday at noon. Yesterday I asked for suggestions on a name for this monthly activity and got a great suggestion from ace Pocono Record designer Andrea Higgins: “The PopRox Nooner.” Good luck to anyone trying to beat that out. Friday at noon we’ll be here with a live chat, taking all your pop culture questions. So get them ready, or feel free to e-mail me with a question in advance.

Today (and a sliver of tomorrow) is your last chance to win Garlic Fest tickets. Check out the rules and entry instructions.

My bookmarks have just about filled up over the last week, so I wanted to clear some of them out. If some of this news looks a little old, that’s because it is. I just found it interesting and got caught up with some other things. Long-winded but pointed Rescue Me “season finale” talk is at the bottom in case you want to avoid it or go right there: 

see this? this is not what a summer movie looks like. don't be fooled.

see this? this is not what a summer movie looks like. don't be fooled.

Spin is hysterical to me. When contemplating why summer movie revenue was down, the first thing Hollywood people mention is that there were only 18 weekends this year instead of 19. Then they go to the World Cup. Then it’s global war- … err, climate change. Then it’s the moon’s gravitational pull multiplied by the planet spinning off its axis by a hair. The last thing people finally come down to is the easy fact that the movies sucked. Even in crappy summer movie seasons, people can always point to about three movies they got really excited for and were really glad to see. What would be those three movies this year? Inception and … Toy Story 3? Iron Man 2? Not that I’ve heard or seen. There just weren’t good movies this summer. The “less weekends” argument kills me because since Hollywood counts Labor Day weekend, then these last three weekends are on the summer books. So apparently we’re counting Going the Distance, The Switch, Vampires Suck and Takers, four movies January would be embarrassed to have? If you’re going to complain about the amount of weekends, then you have to give us something in these last three weeks that remotely resembles a summer movie. This summer movie season should be considered 15 weeks, nothing more.

Looks like Tracy Jordan is going to have to wait another year to start his EGOT quest. It’s tough to tell these days where Tracy Jordan starts and Tracy Morgan ends, but since neither of them won an Emmy on Sunday, there are still only nine people who have gone all EGOT on us. Don’t forgive yourself if you don’t know most of these people, and don’t count Whoopi Goldberg until she wins an actual Emmy. Daytime Emmy’s shouldn’t count, no matter what she says.

So far, I’m enjoying the Kids in the Hall Death Comes to Town thing and meant to post this completely compelling interview with Kevin McDonald a couple weeks ago. The thing got terrible reviews when it played in Canada and some pretty scathing reviews here, and I just don’t get it. I consider myself a pretty detached, objective person, even when it comes to things and people — like Kids in the Hall — that shaped my definition of funny. Maybe because I read all the crappy reviews I went into it expecting zilch. I expected less than that, actually, because I was actually dreading watching it for fear another piece of my childhood would be obliterated and stored next to the ashes of Phantom Menace and Crystal Skull. So far, halfway through its run on IFC, I’ve found it pretty funny. I’m not going to rush out and buy it on DVD, but I don’t even own a season of Arrested Development, The Office or 30 Rock on DVD and those are three of the funniest shows of the last decade. Admittedly, it’s nowhere near the level of the original sketch shows, but after the fiasco that was Brain Candy, I certainly didn’t expect it to be. Those days are gone, and they’re never coming back. But what they’re giving us now in the lovely town of Shuckton — a possible fantasy football team name, you’re welcome -- is pretty funny and completely within the realm of the Kids in the Hall humor brand. And because I’ve been quoting it in my head lately for no reason whatsoever …

Looking for the “how to” of how to leave a TV show? First there’s Steve Carell. He’s made like five or six hits, but stayed on his TV show until he was totally clear he would have a successful movie career. Now he’s set for about 10 years without The Office. Then there is Will Forte, who has decided to leave Saturday Night Live just three months after the worst-performing wide release of the summer movie schedule, MacGruber. Kids gather round and take notes, because that’s how you don’t do it. Not surprisingly, his IMDB page is pretty light in the future projects category.

you're goin' down!!!

you're goin' down!!!

There are few people in Hollywood cooler than Bruce Campbell. He’s a legit cult figure who didn’t seem to get discovered until his buddy Sam Raimi got discovered too. Even now, he’s not exactly “discovered,” because a whole generation is only seeing his as Sam Axe on Burn Notice or “that guy who keeps showing up in Spider-Man.” However you know him, the guy just exudes cool. And if you are just discovering him now, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to see the Evil Dead series.

It’s becoming clear that the Tonight Show debacle is close to the best thing that’s even happened to Conan O’Brien. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be 7 trillion Tweets this morning about the new name of his TBS late-night show that is … BIG DRUM ROLL! … “Conan.” The worst part is TBS probably came up with this after hours and days and weeks of meetings and this was probably the first idea they came up with. Then they went around trying to get more input from every pale Irish person in the business, only to finally settle on “Conan.” This is why I need to be a Hollywood executive, so that I can sit in on entirely frivilous meetings like this and laugh my keyster off at the real big wigs who finally sign off on the first idea that came around after likely spending millions of dollars in market research.

Just in case you were worried about the life-altering consequences if America’s Got Talent wouldn’t come back for another season, come down from that ledge. It will be back next year. And the country rejoices!

i'll be back. i shouldn't, but i will.

i'll be back. i shouldn't, but i will.

Let’s get this out of the way off the bat — I’ll be watching Rescue Me when it returns next year. Keep that in mind over the next couple hundred words when I rip the show a new butthole because of its insulting “season finale.” Get used to those quotes too -- because this wasn’t a “season finale.” In my life, I’ve probably watched 500 or more shows, kept close tabs on 200 of them and been a die-hard fan of about 70 or 80. Incidentally, Rescue Me falls in the last category. So I’ve watched enough TV to know how shows are structured, how they work, and how their seasons should run. When something is off, I know it. And something was off with last night’s Rescue Me “season finale” — because it obviously was not supposed to be the season finale. It was supposed to be next season’s premiere, and last week’s episode — you know, the one with the actual cliffhanger — was supposed to be the season finale. Between the show’s time lapse — two months between the last two episodes of this season? C’mon! — the tone of the episode compared with other Rescue Me finales and premieres and the overall feel of the show, this obviously was not how the show was supposed to be scheduled. Trolling through some quick reviews, I can’t believe no one has picked up on this other than me. Something happened with the schedule somewhere that screwed up the works and gave us this inferior product. That’s insulting to TV junkies like me who keep track of stuff like this, and because you’re reading this, people like you too. My theory: The show usually takes a one-week break during its summer run over 4th of July week. That didn’t happen this year, and the FX people said “Oh crap, we have an extra week where we need a new episode.” FX had the luxury of Rescue Me already having filmed its final season over this spring and summer, so the show is basically finished. I’m sure if it wanted to, FX could just run the final season right now. But it decided just to take the season premiere episode and run it as the season finale — and the fans paid the price with a lackluster product. Off the top of my head, I can think of two other times this happened recently:

at least he admitted it

at least he admitted it

--When Scrubs left  NBC in 2008 and before it moved to ABC, NBC had one last episode to burn off after what obviously was supposed to be the series finale a week earlier. So it ran for an extra week and gave us some ill-conceived fairy tale episode and left fans with a big, fat, WTF look on their faces. Then Zach Braff came out a day later and said what we all knew anyway, that this wasn’t supposed to be the finale, but NBC wanted an extra week. In other words, it was so egregiously deceitful and insulting the star of the show had to admit the mistake and basically say, “Please don’t hate us forever, we took it up the tailpipe from NBC.”

--On the short-lived Three Rivers last season, the first episode that aired was not the first episode. It couldn’t have been. The pilot episode actually aired the second week in the run of the show, establishing a wealth of continuity issues that made me think, “CBS doesn’t give a rat’s butt about this show, so why should I?” And I stopped watching. So did America, and it was canned a couple weeks later. It was never admitted, but no one cared enough to raise a ruckus.

Now Rescue Me gets lumped into that category, whether it likes it or not. It shouldn’t like it. Denis Leary should be so p!ssed off he comes out and issues an apology to all the fans who knew something was effed up from the beginning. He should just push all the blame on FX and say, “This isn’t our fault, and we’re sorry for thinking our fans wouldn’t notice.” What are they going to do, not air the final season it already paid for? Just a terrible end to a very sub-par season. “FINALE” GRADE: D-. SEASON GRADE: C.

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Rescue Me from Boredom

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 31, 2010 | 0 Comments

Two reminders, the same two reminders we’ll have all week:

Reminder 1: The season finale of Rescue Me is tonight.

Just kidding.

The actual reminder is that we’re doing another PopRox live chat Friday at noon. We’ve had fun with these so far, so we’re going to keep doing them as long as it stays fun on the first Friday of every month at noon. I’d call it “Lunch with PopRox” if I didn’t hate that title so much, so maybe that can be one of the topics on Friday — coming up with a name for the monthly chats. Friday. Noon. Be there. Umm, please?

Reminder 2: We’ve got five pair of tickets for the Garlic Festival this weekend to give away. Read the rules in yesterday’s post, but you can enter through e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. We’ve already got a ton of entries, the deadline is Thursday to enter.

On to the links:

on the drink, off the drink ... i'm done caring

on the drink, off the drink ... i'm done caring

Here is the place to talk about tonight’s Rescue Me finale. It’s been kind of a blah season, almost like the Pirates playing out the string and the fans showing up because they’ve got nothing better to do and hope something cool might happen like Jose Tabata hitting for the cycle. That’s me and Rescue Me this year. After about 15 minutes of last week’s episode, I was ready to toss my TV out the window. With shows I’m not invested in, I can just turn the channel. But for a show like Rescue Me that I’ve spent six years watching and more often than not has delivered fantastic television, you have to just grin and bear it and hope something for some kind of payoff. The cliffhanger of last week’s episode — the fates of not one but two firefighters up in the air — isn’t really enough. Especially when it was as predictable as Lou and Damien being the ones we don’t know about. The clip for tonight’s show (”We just a guy on our crew, a young guy” and Sheila bawling as only Sheila can) makes it too obvious, so I’m going with neither one of them is dead, the episode opens with a hospital vigil, but all ends up well in the world. Even if it is Damien dying, how much do we care? All that will do is send Tommy back to the bottle for a 10th time, and that’s been played out like Sega. As boring as Rescue Me has been this year, it’s just not that easy to dump a show you’ve watched for so long when you know there is only one season left. So here’s hoping Andrew McCutchen hits four home runs tonight.

Not many surprises at the Emmys on Sunday, but that’s kinda been par for the course lately. Mad Men wins, Modern Family wins in its freshman year, and the categories that had the most chance to result in a surprise (comedy actress, drama actress) are the ones that did. It’s incredible that there was much more attention given to the Emmys when the nominations came out and people — including me — thought they finally got some of those nominees right instead of just honoring the same old, same old. Turns out, they saved that for the awards.

And because it was so completely uninteresting, there’s only conceivable thing to make it better: Split it into two shows and make it twice as long and boring! Sometimes you hear these things and you have look slowly peer over your shoulder to make sure you’re not being Punk’d. Apparently a slight two-year climb in the ratings is as good a reason as any to start tinkering with the format.

You know what else hurt 30 Rock’s chances to keep its Emmy streak alive? A crappy season. at least by its standards. Modern Family may not have been funnier than 30 Rock this year, but it just seemed fresher than the same 30 Rock gags like Tina Fey calling herself fat, Kenneth making a comment about how backwoods his childhood was or Tracy being weird. It was completely uneven, and didn’t deserve to win. So maybe that had something to do with it too. And as much as I think Modern Family is just a little over-hyped, I did like the little video thing they did about how to improve the show. George Clooney is just a funny, funny guy. There’s gotta be a Tiger Woods-type scandal in his closet, right?

ummmmm ... yeah

ummmmm ... yeah

Two weeks ago in Mad Men, the Honda people made a joke in Japanese about how they can’t believe Joan doesn’t just fall over because of the size of her breasts. Ba ha ha, we all had a good laugh. Then we saw Christina Hendricks on the Emmys and … how does she not fall over? It’s been four years of Mad Men now, she’s been nominated for an Emmy, she’s one of the best parts of the best show on TV and she’s apparently been forced to dress like a hooker to get some attention. How come she hasn’t broken out? What does she have to do, start showing up naked to these things? She apparently has some things coming up, but what the heck took so long?

What a weird list of celebrities these guys targeted. Start at the top, and you can understand wanting to rip off Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom and Paris Hilton. Those are OK. Then we start getting down the line with Audrina Patridge and Rachel Bilson. Even those are understandable to a certain extent. But Brian Austin Green? BAG himself? The only reason anyone should be looking to break into his house is if they knew exactly where the master copy to his boy band rapping from Growing Pains was (no video evidence, but scroll down to #50 on his filmography). Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to break into BAG’s house, feast your eyes on this and decide if you think this guy has anything valuable to steal:

The thought of one of my favorite directors taking over on one of my favorite comic book characters is pretty much awesomeness personified. Who knows if it will ever work out — but it’s great to think that it might.

Just in case you’re wondering why there are so many reboots already of comic book franchises that are only a decade old or less in movie years, perhaps a list of available “hot” titles might be a good indication of why. The extent of this knowledge likely will be a conversation in a couple years where someone says, “Elfquest? What the eff is that?” and you can say, “I have no friggin’ clue. It’s a comic book, and I heard a couple years ago someone might make it into a movie someday.” And that will end the conversation and the kick-off of a disappointing $15 million opening weekend. So next time we decide to lament the lack of new comic book characters coming to the big screen, take a look at what’s left. It’s pretty ugly.

Got some vacation time coming up you need to use and don’t know what to do with it? Here you go! I would like to live vicariously through the people with money, no kids and the ability to pick up and head to LA for a week to be part of this Back to the Future 25th anniversary celebration. Maybe down the road they’ll have a Teen Wolf 25th anniversary party too where Coach Bobby Finstock will be the guest of honor. Then I’d have to start thinking about ways I could blow off my regular life for a week to there.

And because there is some kind of rule where every entertainment blog must mention Dancing with the Stars’ new cast, here you go. Must. Shower. Now. But before I do, I’ll mention the only one compelling to me on this list is Rick Fox, because I grew up watching him at North Carolina and because he made my favorite UNC buzzer-beater ever. Just remember this when you’re seeing him dancing the cha-cha in the fall:

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Contest Time!

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 30, 2010 | 0 Comments

Before we get to the contest, this programming note: The next PopRox live chat is Friday at noon. Between the Emmys, the new TV season, fall movies and whatever else might be on your mind, there should be plenty to talk about. So come armed with some good questions and we’ll hang out for a while Friday afternoon to kick start your holiday weekend.

Now, the contest. We’re going to do this quick, but Iv’e got five pairs of tickets to the Garlic Fest at Shawnee this weekend to give away. They’re one-day passes to the fest, not the full weekend, either Saturday or Sunday.

Just e-mail me with your name, age, residence and daytime contact info and you’re entered. I’ll pull winners Thursday. If you e-mail me today (Monday) you’re going to get an out of office reply, don’t worry, I’ll get your entry tomorrow.

The usual PopRox contest rules apply:

–One entry per person, per e-mail address.

–If you message PopRox on Facebook or Twitter as your entry, it counts twice. The last couple times, 80 percent of the entries have come through e-mail, but 40 percent of the winners have come through Facebook or Twitter. Just a suggestion.

–Deadline to enter is Thursday at 10 a.m. I’ll be drawing shortly thereafter.

–You have to be able to come down to the Pocono Record to get them sometime between Thursday or Friday.

–You can’t have won anything from the Pocono Record within the last three months.

–Please know that you can go if you enter. I don’t want to deal with calling someone only to hear them say, “Oh, I forgot my sister’s friend’s cousin’s wedding is that day!” Believe me, it’s happened.

No major blog post today, we’ll handle the Emmys tomorrow.

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Emmy Predictions

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 27, 2010 | 0 Comments

When the Emmy nominations came out in July, it was glorious. For the first time in … ever? … the Emmy people seemed to get things right honoring the best TV has to offer.

There was no Boston Legal to laugh at, no Mentalist to scratch our heads over, no Entourage to make us think the voters just woke up in Doc Brown’s DeLorean in 2004. Just the best actors, actresses and TV shows vying for the prizes.

he's got some good ideas, at least

he's got some good ideas, at least

What make it even more impressive is that with more shows every year from HBO, Showtime, USA, FX, TNT and whomever, there are twice the amount of shows in contention than there were 20 years ago. So every year from now on in — as long as they keep getting the nominations right — will be the hardest year to pick Emmy winners.

That’s what I’m here for!

Before we start, we need some changes to the Emmys:

Change 1: The rotating network thing is a joke. It gives the impression that no one cares about it, so they just shift the show to a different network every year. Make people fight over this show!

Change 2: Jimmy Fallon has it right-- make this thing more interactive with the viewers. TV will survive by being interactive. The reality TV craze has made everyone think they can be part of any show, so just go a step further and let people be part of the show.

Change 3: Get rid of “OUTSTANDING” for the category distinction. Does anyone even use that anymore? It’s a funny word that when used in a sitcom, always seems to get a laugh. That makes it a stupid word, like “Walla Walla.” I always think of the Wings episode where Brian was forced to go out with the scary lady cop and she kept saying, “Outstanding” as her affirmative answer to everything. And don’t change it to “superb” because then I’ll just think of Beautiful Girls.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY

Should win: Glee. It may come as a surprise to people who don’t watch — and even some people who do — that this was the funniest TV of last year. I’ve been laughing just as hard randomly rewatching episodes this summer. Maybe harder. I distinctly remember five or six lines from last season’s TV shows that I quote in everyday conversation, and Glee had four of them.

Will win: Modern Family. In the British Open golf tournament, it’s tradition for the master engraver to etch the winner’s name on the trophy while the tournament is still going on. If that was taking place at the Emmys, they might as well have started the engraving in October. I’m still not sure what makes it better than The Office, but people seem to fall over themselves heaping copious amounts of praise on this show. They started that in May of 2009 when it was the only show ABC chose to show a completed pilot for, and hasn’t stopped yet.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA

Should win: Mad Men. I’m pretty sure I’ve stated its case enough in the last few years, but The Gypsy and the Hobo episode of last October — when Betty confronted Don about his lies — was far and away the best hour of TV I saw last year, and from what I heard, that was the episode they submitted for consideration.

Will win: Emmy history is littered with seminal shows honored in their final year on TV. In a year when we lost three of the most fan-devoted shows of the last 10 years — 24 and Law and Order — it’s the one that’s nominated in this category, Lost, that’s going to win. Even if Emmy voters don’t get the whole thing.

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR, DRAMA

Will win: The shows I watched, no one was better than Jon Hamm in Mad Men last year. And it’s not even close.

sure, hon, you were ... outstanding!

sure, hon, you were ... outstanding!

Should win: Michael C. Hall. It’s tough to overstate how much is put on his shoulders. There isn’t another credible actor on this show. NOT ONE! Dexter is in 80 percent of the scenes, and when he’s not in it, you’re just waiting around for him to come back like your viewing life depends on it. Why do you think they keep bringing in big-time stars — Jimmy Smits, John Lithgow — to spar with him for a year? Because if they didn’t, the show would suck. The conversations in the Hall household must be incredible at the end of the day:

Jennifer Carpenter, Hall’s real-life wife, who plays his sister Deb on the show: So how do you think I did today, Mike? I think I nailed that scene when I dropped 50 F-bombs for no reason!

Hall (pretending he’s watching TV and didn’t hear her): Hmm? Oh, yeah. You … uh, you killed it! Get it? Killed it? Because Dexter’s a serial killer? That’s funny. Can we talk about this later, I’m watching (finally actually looks at the TV) … Two and a Half Men?!?!?! (Changes channel like the remote is on fire.)

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS, DRAMA

they need to win some something, right?

they need to win some something, right?

Will win: Julianna Margulies. When you pick up the paper on Monday … oh, who am I kidding, when you log on to tvguide.com or whatever, the headline will be something along the lines of “Emmy Rookies Shine!”

Should win: Connie Britton. We haven’t seen female acting like this on TV in … I can’t remember when. It was scary how good she was and even scarier that it’s her first nomination in four seasons.

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR, COMEDY

Should win: If this year was the rebirth of TV comedy, then why am I so bored with these nominees? Is it a bad year, or are we just tired of these guys in these roles getting nominations, with 21 between Alec Baldwin (4), Steve Carell (5), Larry David (4) and Tony Shaloub (8). Jim Parsons is funny as Sheldon on Big Bang Theory, but I just don’t find the show as funny as everyone else does. Plus, he’s turning into the next generation of Urkel, being overused because of fan love. So why not just throw it to Matthew Morrison, who probably did the best job of the year anyway. The episode that he found out about Terri faking the pregnancy is about as good a display of TV acting you’re going to see.

Will win: Larry David, because there’s got to be a surprise somewhere.

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS, COMEDY

give it to her

give it to her

Should win: Amy Poehler. Steve Carell isn’t the funniest thing about The Office, and Poehler isn’t the funniest thing about Parks and Recreation. But that doesn’t mean they might not be the most worthy in their categories for what they bring to the show. Parks and Recreation was the biggest surprise of last year, improving more than I thought was even possible. When a show improves that much, the credit rightfully goes to the captain of the ship, not Aziz Ansari shoveling coal into the boiler.

Will win: Toni Collette. Ladies and gentleman, allow me to introduce you to the Tony Shaloub of the ’10s. Actor playing a borderline comedic role with a psychological disability. As long as Showtime keeps this on, she’s probably going to keep winning.

Best of the rest, who will win:

SUPPORTING ACTOR, COMEDY: Ty Burrell, Modern Family.

SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA: Martin Short, Damages.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, COMEDY: Jane Lynch, Glee.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA: Christina Hendricks, Mad Men.

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Your Fall Viewing Guide

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 25, 2010 | 0 Comments

We’ll be in TV overload for a couple weeks here. There isn’t a good movie coming out for more than a month and with the Emmys coming Sunday (picking the winners in Friday’s blog) and a new TV season on the way, there’s gonna be plenty of TV to cover.

For now, it’s the fall viewing calendar, a quick look at what I’ll be watching -- or at least planning to watch — when the new fall season starts in about a month. Strap in, this is a long one because I didn’t feel like breaking it up into two parts.

These are just my first impressions from what I’ve seen in trailers or commercials or what I’ve read. I plan on giving just about every new show a shot, which is how I found the joys of The Middle and Vampire Diaries last year even though I had no plans to watch them more than once:

MONDAY

New shows: Mike and Molly and Hawaii Five-O (CBS), Lonestar (Fox), The Event and Chase (NBC).

Watching live: 8 p.m.: Chuck (NBC); 9 p.m.: Lonestar; 10 p.m.: Hawaii Five-O, but only because I never got into Castle from the start. And actually, Chuck is a take-it-or-leave-it thing for me at the point too. I’m not very excited about Mondays at all, leaving me free to check in on Raw, which actually is getting pretty good. John Cena is finally turning into the Rock-type mic guy the WWE has been dying for. And I’m digging the Nexus story for some reason.

this is ... a blog. the event is ... a new show

this is ... a blog. the event is ... a new show

DVR, OnDemand, online: The Event. This would win the 9 p.m. slot for me, but Fox doesn’t have any OnDemand options, my preferredchoice of watching something. NBC and CBS are pretty good though, so I’m OK with watching Lonestar live and waiting a day to see The Event. At least for now.

New show passing on: Chase, because it’s a Jerry Bruckheimer show and he’s el diablo. He should paint his face like Puddy. Plus, the show looks like stir-fried poop. Mike and Molly is another show from Chuck Lorre, who somehow became the Czar of TV Sitcoms and no one even bothered to ask him if anything he does is funny. Well, I’ll give you the answer — it’s not.

Most on the line: Alex O’Loughlin. Somehow this guy has managed to rope in crazy-loyal fans and an entire network, even though he’s been in two shows for CBS, and neither of them have made it through a season. Hawaii Five-O has got to be his last chance, right? Umm, right? It’s probably the most-hyped show of the year and it’s being given the best real estate of any new show on the CBS schedule. The network even sent proven ratings winner CSI: Miami into a death spot of Sunday at 10. If 5-O show fails this time, what’s next for him? Replacing Drew Carey on Price is Right? A Carson Daly-type late show after Craig Ferguson? How ’bout these three words: “Next Katie Couric.”

Biggest battle: The whole night is a tough spot, but especially for the new shows. Lonestar and The Event are two of about four new shows getting any kind of buzz this year, and they have to face off against each other? That doesn’t make sense.

TUESDAY

New shows: No Ordinary Family and Detroit 1-8-7 (ABC), Raising Hope and Running Wilde (Fox). 

Watching live: 8 p.m.: Glee (Fox); 9/9:30 p.m.: Raising Hope/Running Wilde. 10 p.m.: Detroit 1-8-7, 11 p.m. Sons of Anarchy rebroadcast (FX). Let it be said that I have little-to-no expectations for Raising Hope. I’m only watching it because I do hold out hope for Running Wilde and need something to watch at 9 p.m. But it is from Greg Garcia (My Name is Earl), so maybe I’ll be surprised.

DVR, OnDemand or online: The Good Wife is the ultimate “if I have time” show. I like it, I think it’s pretty good, I find all of the characters and actors likable, but because of its procedural nature, I feel like I can watch once a month and not miss a beat. I did that about three times last year, and I didn’t miss a thing.

New show passing on: I can see Detroit 1-8-7 getting kicked to the curb pretty quickly. I don’t have any current viewing real estate for No Ordinary Family.

please, please, please don't go south on us

please, please, please don't go south on us

Most on the line: Glee. If you didn’t know any better, you’d see all the media attention Glee’s been basking in and think it was the highest-rated show of last year. But it was 33rd in total viewers. Surely then, it must have been the highest-rated show among the coveted 18-49 demo, right? Try 15th, behind overlooked money-makers like The Office (11th) and The Bachelor (14th). So why is Glee being treated like royalty, asked to anchor a night with Fox’s first concerted effort at non-animated comedy in years? Against a juggernaut like NCIS, no less? Everything about Glee this year screams letdown.

Biggest battle: 9 p.m. Dancing with the Stars and Biggest Loser results shows are tough enough, but NCIS: Los Angeles and Fox’s comedies make it even tougher. It’s almost impossible to see those comedies making it past Thanksgiving with that kind of competition unless they’re the funniest things anyone has ever seen.

WEDNESDAY

New shows: Better with You and The Whole Truth (ABC), The Defenders (CBS), Hellcats (CW), Undercovers and Law and Order: Los Angeles, heretofore known as LOLA (NBC).

the hecks were better than anyone gave them credit for

the hecks were better than anyone gave them credit for

Watching live: ABC’s comedy lineup of The Middle, Better with You, Modern Family and Cougar Town from 8-10. Better with You is much like Raising Hope — I had nothing else to watch at that time, so I’ll give it a look-see. 10 p.m.: Nothing.

DVR, OnDemand or online: Lie to Me when it comes back in November. Hellcats until something better comes on. Undercovers because a JJ Abrams-produced show is worth a try.

New shows passing on: The Whole Truth. Bruckheimer alert! Bruckheimer alert! The Defenders stars Jerry O’Connell and Jim Belushi. Maybe you should go back and re-read that sentence if you’re still wondering why I’m passing. LOLA because I could care less about another Law and Order. It was funny a couple years ago to make a joke about all the different Law and Order shows, now it’s just sad to think someone was lazy enough to say, “Umm, sure, yeah, let’s just make another one to plug this gaping hole in our lineup. Did we do one in LA yet?”

Most on the line: ABC, which couldn’t stop smelling its own farts after all the pats on the back it got for getting a comedy night back on the schedule. They were well-deserved — Modern Family and The Middle were two of the five best new network shows of last year. But look at the total viewer ratings for last year and that lineup didn’t really fare that well. It even had meh numbers in the 18-49 demo. You can only hide behind Emmy nominations and that new show smell for so long before the network wants results. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the 2009-10 best new shows were: 1. Glee 2. Vampire Diaries 3. Community 4. (tie) The Middle and Modern Family 6. Men of a Certain Age 7. The Good Wife. With this year’s lineup, I’ll be surprised if I’m even watching three of this season’s new shows by January.

Biggest battle: It won’t come until the spring when Glee moves to Wednesdays at 9 and goes up against Modern Family and Cougar Town. Until then, the three 10 p.m. shows all are new, which is half intriguing, half weird and half stupid. Cue the Caddyshack 2 line.

THURSDAY

New shows: My Generation (ABC), Bleep My Dad Says (CBS), Nikita (CW), Outsourced (NBC).

maybe the funniest show on tv

maybe the funniest show on tv

Watching live: 8 p.m.: Vampire Diaries (CW); 9 p.m.: Fringe (Fox); 10 p.m.: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX), and possibly 10:30 p.m.: The League (FX), just to see if anyone involved with the show has figured out what it’s actually like to be in a fantasy football league. Probably not.

DVR, OnDemand or online: NBC’s Thursday night lineup, including Outsourced. If I was straight ranking them, the comedy lineup would be what I watch live, but NBC’s superior OnDemand programming means I can check it out another day. I’ll give Nikita the soon-to-be-patented “CW Two-Week Try” before the other network shows come back.

New show passing on: My Generation because there isn’t enough time in the day, though I may try to check it out online. Breakfast Club meets Reunion doesn’t do it for me though. With all the negative buzz around Outsourced, I’d normally skip out on that but the NBC Thursday comedy lineup has earned my respect. There was a day when I thought I’d be skipping Parks and Rec and Community, too, but now they’re probably the funniest shows of the lineup. #*%& My Dad Says, because it looks like I’d want to shove rusty thumbtacks under my fingernails if I watched more than five minutes. 

there are worse ways to get attention for a new show

there are worse ways to get attention for a new show

Most on the line: CBS. For years, it had Thursdays wrapped up. Then CSI started to show its wrinkles, The Metalistwasn’t the ginormous hit CBS thought it was and Survivor was disappointing enough to get moved from the only home its known for 10 years. So it took the one up-and-coming, youthful show it has with Big Bang Theory, took it out of its comfortable Monday night spot and is asking it not just to save Thursday nights, but also lead people in to #%&! My Dad Says and make them stay there. That’s like … well, I can’t even count how many variables that is, but it’s a lot. CW is taking a big chance giving Nikita the post-Vampire Diaries spot when Supernatural already had a decent niche audience. For them, at least.

Biggest battle: 9 p.m., it’s the biggest, most important battle of any TV year. Grey’s Anatomy, CSI and The Office are all their networks’ signature scripted shows. Nikita is one of two new shows on The CW and bumped the popular Supernatural from this slot. Fringe is a cult-ish show that Fox seems happy with in that spot. With TV audiences already wildly fractured, it’s a wonder how any of these shows can get the big ratings they do.

FRIDAY

New shows: Body of Proof (ABC), Blue Bloods (CBS), School Pride and Outlaw (NBC).

Watching live: 8 p.m. Human Target; 9 p.m. The Good Guys. I think. I like both of these shows and thanked Fox for putting them on a day and time where I don’t have anything else to watch — but for some reason, now I feel like I won’t be watching them. I have no idea why.

DVR, OnDemand or online: Nothing.

New shows passing on: All of them. The selection reminds of Warren trying to beg evil witch Willow for his life on the sixth season finale of Buffy when she just said “Bored now” and magically ripped the skin from his body. That’s the choices here. Bored now.

Most on the line: No one really takes Friday night TV very seriously, so there aren’t any expectations here. Although networks sure seem to be taking Fridays much more seriously than they did three or four years ago.

will it be jimmy smits ...

will it be jimmy smits ...

... or tom selleck winning the 10 p.m. friday battle?

... or tom selleck winning the 10 p.m. friday battle?

Biggest battle: Thursdays are one thing, there are enough people watching that a couple different shows can get ratings. Friday is like Highlander — there can be only one. Blue Bloods and Outlaw, even with their likeable, veteran TV stars, can’t both survive at 10 p.m.

SATURDAY

Nothing on. Someday, someone will be brave enough to put a new show on Saturdays, but it won’t be anytime soon. Maybe when there is nuclear winter and we can’t come out of our houses. 

SUNDAY

New shows: None yet (midseason shows coming).

Watching live: 8 p.m.: Simpsons; 8:30 p.m.: The Cleveland Show; 9 p.m.: Family Guy; 9:30: nothing; 10 p.m. Mad Men (AMC) until its season finale in October. Then Brothers and Sisters (ABC). IF I had HBO, I’d be undoubtedly be watching Boardwalk Empire.

DVR, OnDemand or online: Brothers and Sisters (ABC) until Mad Men is over. Or until I finally dump the show for good, I’m fine either way.

Most on the line: ABC. There are some long-in-the-tooth shows here, all of which have seen better days. The lifespan on the Extreme Makeover-Desperate Housewives-Brothers and Sisters power trio has to be running out pretty soon.

Biggest battle: 9 p.m. has football (NBC), Family Guy, Undercover Boss (CBS) and Housewives. It’s hard to believe all of them can keep surviving and thriving. the surprise hit of Boss may be the most vulnerable.

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Learning About Movies, Mad Men and the Emmys

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 23, 2010 | 0 Comments

Even though the movies blew, there was a lot to be learned this weekend at the box office, stuff we and every Hollywood studio should already have known, but apparently needed convincing:

gotta give action to get action

gotta give action to get action

--Buddy Ackerman would be proud, because “male macho bullsh!t” wins out again. Sylvester Stallone took a cheesy idea, one that could easily have gone straight to DVD, and turned it into a back-to-back #1 movie of the weekend. That just shouldn’t happen, but when you’re opening the second weekend against the weakest crop of summer releases in years, you certainly stand a chance. Perfect marketing by everyone involved with the movie for arranging a perfect opening date. That’s how it’s done. Same for Vampires Suck, which in my own minor research over the weekend, found that people actually did want to see. Astounding.

--How it’s not done? Piranha 3-D. From about the end of July to mid-August, we were fed trailers and TV spots of blood, gore and sheer horror, getting a certain audience of people all riled up for the show. But for about the last week, things changed and we were told — mainly by the stars themselves — about how “fun” and “campy” the movie was, which turned on an entirely different audience (like me) far too late and made that initial horror audience — the one that owns the regular and Blu-ray versions of the entire Final Destination franchise -- tune out. So of the two potential audiences, one knew about it too late, the other knew about it and decided it wasn’t for them.

who said that? was that my career? where are you, career?

who said that? was that my career? where are you, career?

--Jennifer Aniston’s career should be pretty close to over. She was given a reprieve with Marley and Me, but it’s been a good, long while since she’s done anything that made a cultural dent. No, Bounty Hunter doesn’t count. Don’t think she doesn’t see the end in sight either, since she’s now up for stunt guest casting. She tells her good friend courtney Cox to shove it up her butt if The Switch made $30 million last weekend. The failure of The Switch also opens the door for Jason Bateman to get shut out from any other big projects until he makes the Arrested Development movie and then takes over as the next boss of Dunder Mifflin.

--No one wanted a Nanny McPhee sequel. I kinda thought was a given, but apparently not. People especially don’t want it in the summer.

Instant Mad Men classic last night (spoilers coming if you haven’t seen it yet, just scroll down and away from this … do it now, please). Top 10 of its four seasons, easy. Last week’s TV was a clinic on how to and not to do “awkward” with two very different results. Louie on FX did it wrong, trying to turn awkward into laughs, a nearly impossible thing to do with characters we barely know. You’ve got to be more invested in the characters before you care whether they can get themselves out of such a weird situation. Louie failed miserably and pushed me to the point of breaking up with the show. Then there is Mad Men, which doesn’t have a stranglehold on the whole awkward situation market, but it’s definitely selling more than everyone else. Mad Men started its run by shocking us into making us remember a time that now seems completely foreign. It was easy at first, almost comical, to see the wardrobes, watch businessmen drinking for most of the day and see the way women were treated in the workplace. Now it seems like those moments were only there to weed out the people who couldn’t take the sight of a pregnant woman smoking. It was a test of our boundaries. “If you were turned off by that, don’t bother sticking around for season 4. That’s when we’re going to start with our real heavy artillery.” Leftover WWII anti-Japanese sentiment, 10-year-olds that can’t deal with a divorce and start masturbating in public — it’s almost like the Mad Men writers have been watching the door of the party, looking at who’s left in the room, taking one last look around and whispering, “Are they gone?” before finally letting loose this year. It’s shocking, awkward and exciting all at the same time, and we should be shows like this are on the air.

i'm still having trouble coming to grips with the fact that this is the same lady from happy gilmore. they're like 2 different people.

i'm still having trouble coming to grips with the fact that this is the same lady from happy gilmore. they're like 2 different people.

Nothing Mad Men is doing this season counts for this year’s Emmys airing on Sunday, the season nominated for best drama is from last year. If the lesser-known creative arts Emmys are any indication, they show could be in store for another best drama win, and Modern Family could be a winner for best comedy after its freshman year. The shows won best casting in their categories, which is kinda like saying, “You guys did the best job at putting together the best people,” which to me is kinda like saying, “You’re the best.” I have no statistical proof to back this up — it just seems like it would be true. If I was betting on this, I’d be putting down money on Mad Men and Modern Family — they already were the favorites before the casting wins.

Still say there is no way they can get X-Men done for June. At least now there is a start date, a cast and apparently a script since Bryan Singer has an idea of what he wants to do and is able to spill some details. Not quite sure how they can do a First Class movie without Cyclops and Jean Grey since, you know, they were the first members of the first class in the comic, but who am I to quibble. And apparently they don’t mind jumping on anyone else’s plotline, since Wolverine gave its own off-the-comic version of how Professor X assembled the first mutants including Cyclops and Emma Frost. Maybe there will be a disclaimer at the start of the movie — “Forget everything we said in Wolverine. We didn’t mean it. Our bad. This is our mulligan, only believe this movie from here on in …”

The Social Network is a movie about how Facebook started, based on the book of the same name that Facebook owners already said they hated. The movie has an incendiary director in David Fincher and a rebel-rousing writer in Aaron Sorkin. Guess which side Facebook came out on the movie? Why bother even feeding into the publicity of the movie? People sat around WAITING for the Facebook people to come out and blast this movie. It was probably even a condition of the initial movie pitch, “You’re going to make it so ridiculously fictional that Facebook will come out against it, right? … Oh sure, sure, you just wait!” So of course, Facebook plays along and blasts it, like a dog on a leash being led into the bushes to squat. For smart people at Harvard who are multi-billionaires, the Facebook people aren’t very smart. And because I just can’t get enough of this trailer …

In complete and utter seriousness, DO NOT read this story if you are depressed in any way today. If you are, it will only drag you down even further into that deep, dark place where you don’t what will be coming next. You couldn’t know what’s coming next. There. Now I can’t be held responsible for anyone that emails me to say, “I started crying, broke up with my boyfriend, packed up and moved out of the reaches of modern society because of that link.” You’ve been warned.

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The Weekend Awaits

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 20, 2010 | 0 Comments

First notice — we’re two weeks away from another PopRox chat. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

Today’s links:

yay! nanny mcphee is back! yay! I've been counting the days! is that sarcastic enough for everyone? good.

yay! nanny mcphee is back! yay! I've been counting the days! is that sarcastic enough for everyone? good.

This is always the most depressing box office week of the year, when studios trot out its trailer trash hoping to get some kind of return on the fact that it’s still summer, even though the movies look like they should have come out in mid-January. This weekend is distinctly niche, with a kids’ movie (Nanny McPhee), an African-American movie (Lottery Ticket), a cheesy horror movie (Piranha 3-D), a chick flick (The Switch) and a quote-unquote comedy (Vampires Suck, which registered all of a 3 on Rotten Tomatoes). So after more than three solid months of getting the best movie studios have to offer, this is what we’re stuck with now. Awesome. We’ve got six weeks of this lined up before the Oscar contenders start releasing.

Looks like NBC is going back to the drawing board of its Rockford files reboot, an idea too valuable and easy to just let slip away. Now Sawyer from Lost is going to be the one taking over the Jim Rockford role, one I don’t think anyone can fill from James Garner. NBC already shot a pilot with a different cast that was supposed to be on this fall’s schedule, but it was so unwatchable the network decided to start from scratch. With some of the junkyard fodder NBC has put on TV in the last few years, if they thought Rockford Files was unwatchable, it must have sucked out loud. Or it just learned its lesson from airing other unwatchable reboots like Knight Rider and Bionic Woman. Nah, we’ll just say it was unwatchable. It’s tough to believe anyone in TV has learned anything, especially with a crop of new shows this season that look about as original as a photo copy.

she keeps it together for two months. tops.

she keeps it together for two months. tops.

Second choice? Who cares! Mariah Carey doesn’t, apparently. She’s looking better to be the next American Idol judge instead of J-Lo. The clock keeps getting turned back on these judges and the peak of their popularity. J-Lo (1999) and Carey (1995) aren’t exactly spring chickens anymore. When the Carey negotiations break down, Janet Jackson gets the next call, then Madonna, then … who? Belinda Carlisle? Donna Summer? Diana Ross? It’s just as satisfying as I hoped it would be to watch this show destroy itself.

Somewhere, Samuel L. Jackson is shedding a tear of venom because Snakes on a Plane didn’t make one list of the cheesiest movies of all time. It’s tough to argue with anything on this list, but SoaP was probably the only movie designed, named and filmed as a completely cheesy movie that no one was supposed to take seriously for a second. This might be just a list of cheesy sci-fi movies, but it doesn’t matter. Piranha 3-D surely isn’t sci-fi. And if it is, it’s about the loosest definition of sci-fi ever. You could make a list of cheesy Shakespearean -based movies, and SoaP needs to be mentioned. It’s kind of a rule of life.

Those of us looking to stay on top of Oscar nominations love stuff like this, a pretty comprehensive list of what the best actress category could look like come January. At this point, I’ve seen all of one of the movies with a possible nominee, Greta Gerwig in Greenberg. That’s my own fault, they’ve all been at the Pocono Community Theater. So it’s not like all of us didn’t have a chance to see these performances. We should probably all start catching up before Oscar season heats up and we can’t find the time to see everything we want to.

The interesting part of this Spider-Man news isn’t the list of actresses being courted to play Spider-Man’s love interest. It isn’t that the girlfriend won’t be Mary Jane Watson, either. The part that opened my eyes the most is the movie’s budget, $80 million. That’s the catering bill these days on a movie set! Spider-Man 4 ended because the $150 million or so budget Sam Raimi wanted was shot down by Sony, so it was always going to be less than that. But $80 million? For an effects-laden, 3-D movie? I have no idea how much more 3-D costs, but it’s gotta be a good chunk of change. I’d say 3-D done right has got to be about one-quarter of a movie’s budget, so the movie probably costs $60 million and the 3-D effects cost $20 million. Scott Pilgrim cost $60 million. Are we putting Spider-Man on the same level as Scott Pilgrim? An $80 million budget seems like a pittance for a July 4 movie. A buddy of mine tried to talk me out of the reboot a couple weeks ago when I said I was squarely on board with it. That budget number is the first thing that’s started to scare me away.

i know, i'm just as surprised as you are that i could live without espn

i know, i'm just as surprised as you are that i could live without espn

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m starting to think I can comfortably live my life without ESPN. Maybe not, I’d probably go into some convalescent seizure as soon as it would be swiped from my cable box, but I definitely find myself watching it less and less as the hours, minutes and seconds get gobbled away by life. SportsCenter is pretty useless unless I’m at the gym on the treadmill, my ADD kicks in constantly when I try to watch a non-Sixers NBA game and I end up watching a Seinfeld rerun and I don’t think I watched a non-Eagles Monday Night Football game at all last year. If I did, it certainly wouldn’t kill me if I lost it. Seeing as there are separate networks for baseball, football and NBA — not to mention the Internet and Philly sports -- ESPN isn’t as much of a need in my life as it was 10 years ago. I used to get the shakes if I went to bed without watching SportsCenter and would arrange my Sunday Mass schedule around NFL Game Day and NFL Primetime. I don’t think I watched either of those shows at home for more than a half-hour total last year. I’ve got to imagine I’m not the only person who feels this way, so if Disney wants to roll the dice and play hardball with Time Warner, be my guest. If people get ESPN taken away from them, they’re going to learn it isn’t as big a deal as they think it is. Hopefully Time Warner wins and other cable companies will stop paying outrageous fees for cable channels.

You know, this isn’t the first time Burn Notice has sucked me in for a finale after I spent the whole summer considering taking the show to dinner at Pomodora’s. But last night’s episode was really good-- just like the pre-finale episode over the winter — and I’m legitimately psyched for the finale. Stupid Burn Notice. Always sucking me in.

OK, Sept. 9 just got a lot more interesting …

My only problem is that Nina Dobrev’s acting as Elena was the one thing that brought the show down last year. She’s like Sheila on Rescue Me — when she comes into the scene, you groan because you’re preparing for all the life to be sucked out of the episode. She’s a human bathroom break. So now she’s going to be playing two roles? Not a good sign.

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The Advent of Poconos 3-D

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 18, 2010 | 0 Comments

The Poconos has 3-D!

Well, not yet, not til Friday, when the Poconos Movieplex unveils its new 3-D screen for the release of Piranha 3-D. And not that it matters to me since I have yet to even consider seeing a 3-D movie, but not having one feels like we’ve been living in some barren Arctic outpost. There are local businesses that spend millions of dollars a year trying to convince the world that the Poconos isn’t some backwards, podunk rest stop on the way to New York City and just past East Jabib. But when you’re obviously a year or two behind the rest of the world in the most important cinematic technology and trend of the last decade, why would you even bother?

Regional infrastructure improvement isn’t exclusive to necessities like roads and bridges — it extends to quality of life issues too. If you were looking to launch a tech start-up around here because of reasonable tax breaks and because it’s a great place to raise a family, then you discovered there is no 3-D theater, would you think twice? Of course you would! To a society that just saw Avatar about 20 times per person, not having a 3-D theater is only slightly less of a joke than if there were no wifi hook-ups at any coffee shop in the Monroe County.

So better late than never. I’ll have a story in tomorrow’s paper about it.

Today’s links: 

see, how it works is, wolverine makes a lot of money, and they still don't give me a start date!

see, how it works is, wolverine makes a lot of money, and they still don't give me a start date!

With all the comic book franchises announcing release dates years in advance — Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America, Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman — it’s easy to forget there’s a comic movie franchise out there that opened to $85 million and made almost $375 million around the world last summer. Those are big enough numbers to ensure a fast-track sequel release date for any action franchise — but apparently not for Wolverine, which still doesn’t have a release date, a filming schedule or a cast. With the summer Fox had (no major hits, busts like A-Team, Knight and Day and Marmaduke) you would expect the studio wants to revisit its sure things as soon as possible instead of wait more than a year to get a movie going. Now, Hugh Jackman dropped out of a movie to get in shape with an eye toward getting back into the Wolverine role for an early 2011 shooting date, which presumably would put it in line for a 2012 release date. The summer of 2012 is filling up pretty quickly — Avengers, Star Trek, Spider-Man and Batman already have the biggest weekends mapped out — so maybe Wolverine will be heading to a Valentine’s Day or Easter weekend release in the spring. Or maybe it could even get chucked back into the 2012 Christmas season. I’ve been pushing for more comic book movies in the Christmas movie season, so I’d be all for that. There just isn’t enough summer real estate left for all the comic book movies. Right, Scott Pilgrim?

Poop, I can’t embed this because there’s some naughty language with some F-bombs. But I swear, this Funny or Die video almost makes me want to go out and see Piranha 3-D. Almost. It’s good to know no one is taking themselves seriously on this one, and that they’re all pretty much saying they were in it for the paycheck. Jerry O’Connell calling himself a “Hollywood treasure” thanks to movies like Kangaroo Jack is pretty funny right off the bat before they even mention the movie. And at some point, I’m just going to start watching Adam Scott read the newspaper in the hopes he’ll say something funny. That’s a pretty exclusive club for me of about 10 people I’d give that privilege to. Too bad they couldn’t get Elizabeth Shue or Ving Rhames to join in the merriment though. But if the movie is anything like this video -- a horror with twinges of comedy — then the trailer sure doesn’t show it. If it does have some comedy in it, they’re marketing this movie like crap and should be taking a more Snakes on a Plane attitude toward it. If it bombs, you’ll be reading that exact story on Monday.

With all the talk about how Scott Pilgrim may have been marketed incorrectly, and the potential for that in Piranha 3-D, maybe the lesson is not to tell people a movie is one thing when it’s really another. I had this discussion with my college friends at a wedding this weekend — a wedding whose readings were movie scenes, btw, so we’re pretty serious about our movies — and we just couldn’t seem to figure out why studios would do it. It’s a blatant attempt to trick the paying viewer. Bait and switch is still against the law, right? The most recent abuse of this — from what I’m told — is the Michael Douglas indie Solitary Man. From the reviews I’ve read, it’s a serious, heartfelt drama exploring growing old and parental relationships. There’s even Oscar talk for Michael Douglas. But when you watch the trailer …

… it looks like Wonder Boys 2. That’s not fair, it’s deceptive. If you know you got swindled by Best Buy, you wouldn’t go back into Best Buy again, and you’d probably at least look into calling the cops on them. Yet movie studios get away with producing trailers that don’t look anything like the actual movie all the time. The Adventureland trailer is the most recent perpetrator I can remember. Punch Drunk Love was another, but at least I knew Punch Drunk Love wasn’t a toilet-humor Adam Sandler comedy. Adventureland’s trailer makes it look like Superbad: Summer Jobs Edition when it’s really the most poignant, real look at a group of people at a summer job since Caddyshack. Maybe we can get a bunch of people to start the first Trailer Approval Commission to make sure the trailers match the movie. Can we do that? Who do we call? We can put out a weekly e-newsletter not giving away the movie, but simply offering a yay or nay as to whether the trailer matches the overall feel of the movie. Can I get paid to do that?

Speaking of Doulgas, some people will go to amazing lengths to get out of a press tour for a sequel to an Oscar-winning role. Too far? Probably too far.

And as long are geeks are speaking out about the failure of Scott Pilgrim, here’s a way to placate them — give them (OK, us) a stable of geek movie quotes to use in any real-life situation. I hate to say it, but I accidentally used the Han Solo-Leia “I know” line from Empire without even realizing it. Suffice it to say, it didn’t go over very well.

have a high old time, make a sequel

have a high old time, make a sequel

If there is public outcry for a Salt sequel, I haven’t heard it. But hey, why not? Sequels are hard enough to get done as it is. It seems like everyone involved wants to do it, and that’s half the battle, so knock yourself out and make a sequel. Throw in a villain chasing her down named Miranda Pepper and call it Salt and Pepper. This thing writes itself!

Looks like I wasn’t missing anything with the premieres of a couple new comedies last night. No way I would give up Rescue Me for the premiere of Big Lake. Feel free to debate this in the comments or something. Hey, as long as it doesn’t preclude Chris Parnell from his work as Dr. Spaceman, they can keep this on forever. Despite the reviews, I will be checking out Death Comes to Town on Friday. I owe it to my childhood and to the Kids in the Hall for helping define comedy to me for a good 10 years.

harry osbourne? meh. cheesy porn mustache? sign me up!

harry osbourne? meh. cheesy porn mustache? sign me up!

There are few directors more trustworthy than Danny Boyle. He’s directed eight major movies and exactly one of them (A Life Less Ordinary) straight sucked. Even The Beach was OK. But on the flipside, five of his eight movies — Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, Millions, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire — are nothing short of completely brilliant. So when he starts talking about making a movie about a guy who has to amputate his own arm during a mountain climbing accident, eff it, I’m down. James Franco continues to redeem himself for being a total tool in all three Spider-Mans. Pineapples Express, Milk, his guest spot on 30 Rock, the guy’s been on a roll. Three years ago I wouldn’t have trusted him as far as I can throw him to pull off something like this, now I’m cautiously optimistic.

That was a Homer Simpson reference from this week’s repeat, so it’s a good spot for some Simpsons news. I’ll read just about anything Simpsons related, and I’m glad I decided on this one. For this year’s season premiere, Jemaine and Bret from Flight of the Conchords will be guest-starring and singing some original music. That’s like an all-star game of smart comedy.

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The Summer That Was

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 16, 2010 | 0 Comments

The good news about the box office for the weekend is that all three of the new releases were non-sequels, one of the few times that’s happened this summer. The bad news is that there’s probably already an Expendables 2 script being written right now, the other two were book adaptations and Scott Pilgrim laid its claim to the summer’s biggest bust. That’s probably more weighted in the bad than the good column, no?

lottery ticket won't be turning around the summer box office

lottery ticket won't be turning around the summer box office

The other part of the bad news is that it’s the end of the summer blockbuster movie season, unless you think Lottery Ticket is a potential $250 million keeper. I tend to fall on the side of “no.”

That leaves us to reflect on the summer movie season that was, a mish-mashed hodgepodge of flicks we probably won’t be talking about in 10 years and may not even remember:

BEST TREND: We’re starting to say no to Canned Hollywood. Movies like Sex and the City 2, MacGruber, the A-Team, Marmaduke, Cats and Dogs 2, Step Up 3D and Killers, movies that seemed to make no effort whatsoever to leave their mark on the cinema world and instead were conceived out of some money-making nightmare, all thankfully performed far below expectations. Inception, Dinner for Schmucks, The Kids Are All Right (gross is four times its budget), Get Him to the Greek, Salt, at least somewhat original movies that seemed to have some thought behind them, were successful. Keep this up, America, and we may end up getting a better product from Hollywood.

BIGGEST SURPRISE: Family movies are back. The summer is supposed to be all about flexing those testosterone-fed muscles, but just about every success story of the summer — aside from the ill-conceived Marmaduke — was a family movie. Toy Story 3 is now the biggest animated movie of all time, Shrek made $677 million worldwide, and Karate Kid is the seventh-biggest hit of the summer and Despicable Me came out of nowhere to push past $200 million. Even the worst reviewed movie of the summer, The Last Airbender, opened to $40 million. It’s a good time to have kids right now, even if you have to sit through a Karate Kid. OTHERS: Knight and Day bombs, Karate Kid kills, people actually know what The Last Airbender is, Expendables is a hit.

not even this outfit could keep jonah hex from bombing

not even this outfit could keep jonah hex from bombing

BIGGEST BOMB: Every summer has to have one — at least one. I’m sticking with my pick at the start of the summer, Jonah Hex, which has made all of $10 million and didn’t even get an international release. That’s pretty impressive. OTHERS: Scott Pilgrim, Cats and Dogs 2 and Sorcerer’s Apprentice aren’t that far behind.

BIGGEST WINNER #1: Christopher Nolan. Despite directing and co-writing one of the biggest movies of all time with Dark Knight, he still had to answer to the silent charge, “Yeah, well he still hasn’t opened a non-Batman movie.” Insomnia and The Illusionist didn’t exactly set the world on fire. But now that Inception became the talk of the summer and he doesn’t have another movie on his slate until Batman 3 (7?), he can pitch a script called Flying Feces and Warner Brothers will give him $200 million to make it.

BIGGEST WINNER #1a: Steve Carell. The only person that had a July comparable to Nolan was Carell. Just months after he announced he’s leaving The Office at the end of its seventh season, he needed both of his summer movies to be hits to make sure he wasn’t making the wrong decision by walking away from the NBC paycheck. He had the sixth-biggest opening of the summer with Despicable Me, then went out and opened Dinner for Schmucks ahead of expectations. Now, people will be looking to get into the Steve Carell business. OTHERS: Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Angelina Jolie.

BIGGEST LOSER #1: Jerry Bruckheimer, and it gives me great joy and pleasure to announce that. Prince of Persia ($90 million domestic gross, $200 million budget) and Sorcerer’s Apprentice ($60 million against $150 million budget) were two of the biggest disappointments of the summer, and he was behind both of them. That’s not even counting his TV failures of the last year in The Forgotten and Miami Medical. The questions are out there whether he’s lost his touch — but then Pirates of the Caribbean will open to $120 million next summer and they’ll stop.

not how the shrek people wanted to end

not how the shrek people wanted to end

BIGGEST LOSER #2: Jake Gyllenhaal. Quick! When was his last movie that made more than $100 million. Thinking … thinking … how about 2004 with the forgetable The Day After Tomorrow? Prince of Persia was his carefully crafted breakout action role, the one that was supposed to propel him to into the land of $20 million paychecks. For whatever reason, it didn’t, and right or wrong, the blame falls on Maggie’s brother. Can we call him that now? His recent career is littered with box office disappointments like Zodiac and Rendition. Perhaps he’s just an indie guy who’s born for roles like Donnie Darko and Brokeback instead of blockbusters. Fine by me. OTHERS: Shrek 4, which will end up only the third-highest-grossing animated movie of the summer, Russell Crowe, Nicolas Cage, Fox (which put out Marmaduke, Knight and Day and A-Team).

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Belushi, Britney, J-Lo and Kayne. That Should Be Enough for One Day.

By Mike Sadowski | Published: August 13, 2010 | 0 Comments

Because I went all Office on everyone Wednesday, let’s hit the links and play catch-up:

that's a pretty belushi look

that's a pretty belushi look

As if Artie Lange wasn’t depressed enough about his drug habit and how it forced him to leave The Howard Stern Show, now comes the news that the part he’s been dying to play his entire career — his hero, John Belushi — likely will start casting soon. If the suicide watch had been called off on good behavior, make sure it gets reinstated now. Instead, the role is being talked about for other usual suspects of funny fat guys — Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, blah blah blah. Don’t they already have enough parts? It’s the two other names mentioned in the article I find the most interesting, Ethan Suplee and Tyler Labine. Those two are probably ready to dropkick Seth Rogen across the Pacific so that they don’t have to lose any more parts to him on the “funny fat guy casting call,” and they both deserve a shot at a big part. Labine is probably more primed for it than Suplee, he’s actually been working steady lately. Suplee hasn’t been doing much lately, especially when you compare it to his prolific string in the early 2000s. The Belushi train may have passed him by.

We’re now in the 24th season of The Real World on TMV, which means there have been about 170 cast members come in and out of our lives. We’re all got our favorites for different reasons, Ruthie for her alcohol-induced goodness, Puck for his craziness, Trishelle for her slutiness — we can go on all day and fight over who was the best castmate. I’m not about to advocate for one cast member or another. But I will say I’m pretty happy with my long-time choice for favorite Real World cast member, Sean from Real World: Boston back in 1997. He’s the one guy in the history of the show that I think is actually like me. So of 170 cast members, I’ve found one person that I can actually relate to — a normal, down-to-earth guy who loved to get drunk and create shenanigans. I even forgave him when he took a girl I dated a little back to the Real World apartment. Too bad I can’t vote in Wisconsin. Plus, now I’m depressed that I was able to sum myself up so easily. Let’s move on.

As much as I was dealing with Friday Night Lights hangover and openly wondering whether I could stand another year of the emotional turmoil the show puts its fans through, just one week later I’m already considering switching to DirecTVto watch the fifth and final season, which we now know is starting Oct. 27. I actually like the NBC FNL season in the summer, it clears out a lot of stuff from my DVR so that I can turn my attention to it, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to avoid the spoilers this year.

if you see this again in a year or two, that means good things for tim riggins

if you see this again in a year or two, that means good things for tim riggins

Maybe by the time the NBC watchers get to see it, they’ll have a better idea of where the career of Taylor Kitsch is headed. The man formerly known as Tim Rigginsis starting his post-FNL career with one of the biggest gambles of the 2012 summer movie season, Battleship. If he’s getting more roles by then, or if Marvel decides to make a Gambit movie, then it means they’ve seen the dailies from Battleship and like them. If not, the movie and Kitsch could be in some serious trouble.

If there is ever a reason to read all the news on the AV Club, the blurb about J-Lo already getting ousted from American Idol is it. Normally, I’d advocate for full-scale avoidance of anything American Idol to the point where you should convince yourself you’ll be covered in painful, grotesque boils if you click on anything AI related. But when it comes from AV Club in the form of a sarcastic attack on the hilarity that is known as the life of J-Lo, then it’s worth a click and 30 seconds to read lines like, “the baffling failure of her trendsetting artificial insemination romantic comedy The Back-Up Plan.” That makes reading about American Idol all worth it.

Alas, the AV Club has also finished up its summer reviews of season 4 of NewsRadio. It might be a little too complimentary at times, to read the explanations you would think the gang at one of the most underrated shows of all time invented not only comedy, but the laugh itself. But it takes seriously the incredible work the show did for five years, lost in a time where its snide, hidden brand of humor was met with almost complete apathy, but would be thoroughly embraced today in the time of Office and 30 Rock. It was the older brother of Scrubs, and the father of Modern Family. If you’re a fan of the show — and if you’re not, I highly suggest starting at season 2 and plowing through the show’s run — it’s a marvel to go back and re-watch these shows strictly through the reviews. Bravo, Donna Bowman. Bravo.

this could be a disaster waiting to happen

this could be a disaster waiting to happen

Is Glee getting a little too big for itself? It’s bad enough that it’s lining up guest stars like a less-famous version of The Simpsons, but now it’s taking a huge risk in inviting the walking catastrophe known as Britney Spears into the mix. By the end of the year, the show definitely started going in the direction of focusing on one person’s music per episode with Madonna and Lady Gaga shows. It was a ratings stunt that apparently worked, so they’re sticking with the format. But it was the best of both worlds — the show got to use the popular, catchy music that easily lent to the show’s over-the-top feel and didn’t have to deal with the artists themselves. Glee let its cast be the stars and didn’t rely on bringing in the Gaga sideshow to shoe-horn in a plot for her. Now it’s decided to walk the dangerous road of breaking down that wall to bring in Britney. Glee is one of the five best shows on TV. But something has me really, really worried about the second season.

Off the top of my head, there are about a half-dozen people who don’t seem to be welcome at the MTV Video Music Awards anymore because of their behavior. The guy from Rage Against the Machine who sat on top of a piece of the stage. Eddie Murphy and his F-bomb hosting gig. Andrew Dice Clay and his f-bomb stand-up act. David Lee Roth breaking up Van Halen backstage. None of them were as heinously disrespectful and self-grandstanding as the clearly insane Kanye West was last year, and he’s been invited back without any  repercussions. Fantastic. Yet another reason to ignore the VMAs this year. We could probably fill a book with reasons at this point.

The next time I see a 25th anniversary article about a seminal movie from 1985 that helped shape my childhood and really began my passion for movies, I’m probably going to just instantly start growing gray hairs. It’s inevitable. In today’s edition, it’s trying to figure out which is a better geek movie, Real Genius or Weird Science. Since Real Genius is one of the 10 best comedies ever made, there shouldn’t be a question in just about any contest it’s forced to endure, but Moviefone went ahead and played it out anyway. Even though the article doesn’t highlight the movie’s best lines …

… and doesn’t take into account the overlooked soundtrack …

… Real Genius still comes out on top. And it should. All hail the students of Pacific Tech as we wonder if they still hold the Madame Curie look-a-like contest.

We want our actors to be honest. We want them to tell us stuff about what they’re working on, why we should be excited about it and how they feel about the business they work in. And we’re even a little disappointed when they go too far and come off aloof and bullying instead of genuinely happy about their lavish lives (I ripped Bill Murray a couple weeks ago for going a little too far). There has to be a happy medium somewhere — and it looks like Thomas Lennon has found it. He’s remarkably open with his career work, gives us a good idea of what he’s working on, why it’s important, and where it’s going next. Why is it so hard for people to do this?

Let the Kids in the Hall promo tour begin! In advance of the Death Comes to Town premiere on IFC next week-- equally exciting and worrisomeafter the Canadian audience pretty much hated it — the best comedy troupe of the last 30 years is hitting the road to promote it. It started with Jimmy Fallon last night, and I’m sure they’ll be coming to other shows. It could be the last time we see them in any kind of limelight, so soak it all in now. The warning for this interview — these guys look ridiculously old. It’s very, very depressing. They’ve aged 40 years in 10 and look like they got the idea for Death Comes to Town because one too many people told them they look like death warmed over.

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