Showing posts with label Judd Apatow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judd Apatow. Show all posts

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Best of the Week vol. XII


Quote of the Week: It’s probably not the best idea to give the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech to a trained assassin wielding a knife. (Casey - Chuck)

Song of the Week: Rocket Man (I Think it's Gonna Be a Long Long Time) – Elton John (My Name Is Earl)

Big News of the Week: I Got Nothing: You know it is a slow week when the most headlines go to the spat between Rush Limbaugh and the White House as they battle to see who can look dumber. I could talk about the World Baseball Classic starting, but like much of the world I just don’t care unless they figure out a way to incorporate fantasy leagues. Or that Jimmy Fallon started his tenure as Late Night host, but dude just isn’t entertaining. Or I can rant on how Daylight Saving should be abolished again (see Daylight Fading). At least it hit 60 this week so I didn’t need to stay inside and find something to occupy my time.

Gratuitous Token Hot Chick Picture of the Week:

Yvonne Stahovski all tied up


Coalition Links of the Week:
Buzz had a blast moderating the Chuck panel at WonderCon in San Francisco — check out her recap of the proceedings! (BuzzSugar)

Vance has his dukes claws up and is ready to totally defend The Bachelor's Jason Mesnick for dumping that harpy Melissa and getting back with Molly. Maybe it's a guy thing (and sees nothing wrong with it), but Vance is totally ready to take this outside. (Tapeworthy)

This week, Jace took another look back at the New Romantics era by taking second look at BBC America's Ashes to Ashes. (Televisionary)

Dan may have misgivings about musical comedy as a genre -- but even he is excited about the idea of Victor Garber and Kristin Chenoweth on the new show Glee. (TiFaux)

Matt's hidden camera inside the bedroom of Jennifer Love Hewitt proves she isn't actually knocked up - so there must be a little Ghost Whisperer in Melinda Gordan's future. (TV Fanatic)

Special relationship or not, we Brits get to see Lost a week or so later than our cousins across the Pond. And so, better late than never, Ben tries to make sense of The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. (TV Spy)

Don't miss any of March Sweep's big TV events with our downloadable and printable March TV 2009 Calendar. (The TV Addict)

Free Download of the Week: Oscar Wilde – Company of Thieves; I mentioned this earlier this week when I highlighted the music video, so here is a reminder to pick up the song.

Deal of the Week: Superheroes DVD Sale: DVDs up to 57% Off (Iron Man, Hellboy, Justice League)

Video of the Week: It seems like every funny movie made in the last four years has Judd Apatow’s name on it but those or mostly producing titled and has only also had directing and writing credits for 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Number three is Funny People which actually looks to ironically be enough the least funny, if not by design (it is about a stand up comic who is dieing). But hey, it has Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan so it should be entertaining.

Funny People Trailer


Next Week Pick of the Week: Castle, Monday at 10:00 on ABC: I am not entirely sure how to gage this show. It looks entertaining but the concept seems like it would have made for a better movie plot than an episodic television show. I guess the good thing about that is I doubt the show will be around for a second season.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Would You Like to Pick Out the Outfit You Want to Break Up with Me In


Forgetting Sarah Marshall on iTunes

It seems the only way a comedy can become a hit these days is to have the name Judd Apatow. The guy who perfected the lovable loser in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. And the guy is building up a family tree that rivals that of Bill Walsh has in the NFL. And to help them out, Apatow slaps on the “produced by” tag for himself so their movie gets an extra boost, the latest is from Jason Segal, who worked for Apatow in Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Knocked Up and has now written Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Segal doesn’t steer to far from Apatow territory with the lead, which he cast himself as, is yet another lovable loser who has taken to eating Fruit Loops out of an oversized bowl while watching Project Runway in sweatpants. And that is what is happening when he is dating television star Sarah Marshall, for who he does the music for (the movie is almost worth the price of admission for her television partner and be sure to stay for the credits for her second special co-star) so things only gets worse when she dumps him for known player Aldous Snow, lead singer for Infant Sorrow.

Also an Apatow trait is the numerous cameos and their plenty of them here including hilarious turns from Apatow regulars Paul Rudd (Knocked Up), Jonah Hill (The 40 Year Old Virgin), and Bill Hader (Superbad) as well as new comer into the fold Jack McBray (Mariah Carey Touch My Body video) who gets some of the best lines in the movie. They even brought in some native Hawaiians for some memorable characters.

It is nice to see Kristen Bell in something good not named Veronica Mars (there is a not so subtle dig at Bell’s Pulse in the movie) the only problem, despite being the title character; hers is the most poorly written in the film. In fact writing for woman is apparently not Segal’s strong suit because Mila Kunis (American Psycho II: All American Girl) as the potential rebound girl isn’t much better. But with a lesser actress, Sarah could have turned into your token cold hearted ex but in Bell’s hand there are times you will find yourself rooting for her to land the good guy in the end.

Oh and did I mention there are puppets? Seriously. Go see this movie or at the very least wait for the DVD for hopefully an extended version of the puppet scene.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall gets a Terror Alert Level: High [ORANGE] on my Terror Alert Scale.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Musings From the Back 9 vol. XIII


- Yesterday after writing about the Hall and Oates Christmas album, I thought I’d hunt down the Jingle Bell Rock video to see if it was cheesy as I remember (it was, click the link to see for yourself) but on the sidebar I noticed another video that caught my eye: Do They Know its Christmas - Band Aid 20. How did this get released in 2004 and I’m just finding it now? And the video is disturbing on so many levels. There is the cringeworth guitar solo from the dude from The Darkness, who has already fallen into obscurity. The weird Thom York sighting. I think I could name more people in the orginal than this one. And most importantly, how could Bono ruin the most iconic line ever, one that he created? But this begs the question, where’s an updated version of USA for Africa? Can we start on that right away so we can have something ready for the twenty-fifth anniversary in 2010?



- The Mitchell Report came out today (click on it view it in its entirety in a PDF file) and conspicuously ran against the Democratic Iowa debate which was announced much earlier than the report. Someone apparently didn’t want the new coverage to be as big with the news channels carrying the debate instead. The report itself was pretty anticlimactic because the names came from two people and previous court cases and nothing will come out of it because Mitchell himself said none of the players should be punished. They should be punished in that none should be allowed in the Baseball Hall of Fame and sports writer who votes for any of them should be fired by their newspaper or magazine. And what is really odd, and somewhat telling, was that Miguel Tejada, who was on the list, goy traded just yesterday as well as Eric Gangé got $10 Million from the Brewers a couple days ago which goes to show how much owners and general managers cared about the report knowing there was going to be a good chance both would be on it.

- Also announced today were next year’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and disturbingly Madonna got in on her first try and no Beastie Boys. Also making the list are John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen, The Ventures, and the Dave Clark Five. I’ll have more on them when the ceremony goes down I think in March.

- With no end in sight to the writer’s strike, there will be very little scripted shows at the start of next year, but one of them will be Kyle XY and I have a press release for its return. Also I may be getting my hands on another Kyle XY prize package, though the contest most likely will not start until sometime in the New Year. But that is something to look out for in 2008. Here’s the press release:

THE TRUTH IS REVEALED!

THE MYSTERY CONTINUES ON ABC FAMILY’S
HIT ORIGINAL SERIES ‘KYLE XY’ WITH TEN ALL NEW EPISODES BEGINNING JANUARY 14TH


Kyle looks towards the future while the Tragers finally learn his secrets in the first of ten all new episodes of ABC Family’s original hit series KYLE XY set to premiere on Monday, January 14 (8:00 – 9:00 PM ET/PT). Matt Dallas (“Wannabe”), Marguerite MacIntyre (“The Days”), Bruce Thomas (“Legally Blonde”), April Matson (“Quintuplets”), Jean-Luc Bilodeau (“Ill Fated”), Chris Olivero (“24”), Kirsten Prout (“Elektra”) and new comer Jaimie Alexander (“Rest Stop”) all star in the hit drama.

After his journey with Jessi ends, Kyle returns home and is ready to tell the Trager family the whole truth. With every sordid detail out on the table he wonders if they will be so willing to take him back. Once they hear everything the Tragers only support him more and rally around Kyle to take on Madacorp. With a plan in hand, the family heads to the company picnic to help Kyle take down the corporation’s secret machine.

Meanwhile, torn between her instructions from Madacorp and growing affection for Kyle, Jessi was last seen leaping from a cliff into a raging river…but was it a fatal leap? And if she lived, will she help Kyle, or is she more dangerous than ever?


- Another interesting e-mail I got recently was from an anonymous source about a scene from the upcoming Judd Apatow flick Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story that was recently leaked to the internet, but not in its entirety. Well here is that full scene. Check it out while you can before the powers that be remove it (and if it doesn’t get removed I guess we know who “leaked” it in the first place)



- Just in time for Christmas, the price for Veronica Mars 3.x dropped below $30 and I’m sure you can find someone who would enjoy finding that underneath their Christmas tree in two weeks (i.e. me) and the first two seasons are still dirt cheap (see below for ads):



Sunday, October 14, 2007

If Any of Us Get Laid Tonight, it's Because of Eric Bana in Munich


Knocked Up

Aw alcohol, the great equalizer. This is the reason why I tend to volunteer to be the designator driver, not because I enjoy driving drunken people around but because I would much rather be the mistake than make the mistake. Off course the free Coke’s are a nice bonus. And this mistake in lies the premise for Knocked Up. Although in a twist, it is the boy who is playing the role of coyote ugly.

The movie is the next in a string of hit movies by Judd Apatow and in true Apatow style the film is full of actors he has previously worked with on like the prematurely canceled shows Freaks and Geeks (Seth Rogan, Jason Segal, Martin Starr, and James Franco in a cameo), and Undeclared (Jay Baruchel, Seth Rogan) as well as his break out hit as writer, director, producer, The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Jonah Hill, Lesie Mann, Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell in a cameo).

Rogan, in his fourth outing with Apatow, is promoted to leading man this time around as he wins the DNA lottery when he impregnates Katherine Heigl (My Father the Hero). Well at least they want you tom think this is a coup for Rogan, but as Token Hot Chicks go, Heigl is up there in the overrated category, along with Megan Fox in recent memory. But much like a Chicago Bears quarterback, she isn’t there to win the game just not to lose it which she does for the most part (she have more that a few deer caught in the headlight look as some of them ad-lib which you can find in some of the deleted/extended scenes).

Instead Apatow regulars handle the brunt of the comedy load. Hill, Rogan and Rudd are on fire throughout the movie, which is pretty much the Dances with Wolves of comedies with a two plus hour running time (not to mention an extra hour of those deleted and extended scenes and three hours of features), but thanks to those three it rarely seems that long. Rogan and Rudd don’t have an exchange as funny as their improve “You know how I know you’re gay” routine from The 40 Year Old Virgin but Hill comes close as he explains why Brokeback Mountain is a horrible movie in a deleted scene while Heigl looks on with a why did I sign up for this movie look on her face.

Knocked Up gets a Terror Alert Level: High [ORANGE] on my Terror Alert Scale.