"Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Trailer 

 

Opening Scene

 

Closing Scene

Transmedia Storytelling Article

For those who are interested, here is a link to Henry Jenkins' "Transmedia Storytelling" article he penned for MIT Technology Review. 

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/401760/transmedia-storytelling/

"YMCA" as performed by the Lord of the Rings characters

Whoever edited this video must have had a lot of time on their hands!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVx6_5J7Ymw

More Br Ba

Since the focus seems to be on Breaking Bad, I though that I would toss this out for everyone. Breaking Bad just feels right in so many ways - maybe it is due to the five-act structure.

The West Wing: NBC's Cavalcade of Stars

I am reviewing Janet McCabe's book on The West Wing for my final paper, as well as finishing watching the final episodes of the series on Netflix. Even before Sorkin and others left the show, it has been remarkable to see who has appeared over the years in regular or guest appearances, beyond the ensemble cast of Bradley Whitford, Dule Hill, John Spencer, Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, Rob Lowe, Janel Moloney, Joshua Malina, and Martin Sheen.

Some of the Hollywood heavyweights and welterweights I have spotted:
Stockard Channing
Elisabeth Moss
Mary-Louise Parker
Gary Cole
Marlee Matlin

Lily Tomlin
John Goodman
James Cromwell
Adam Arkin
Alan Alda
Jimmy Smits
Kristen Chenoweth
Glenn Close
Matthew Perry
Christian Slater
Timothy Busfield
Milo O'Shea
William Fichtner
Teri Polo
Oliver Platt
Mary Kay Place
Clark Gregg
Mark Harmon
Connie Britton
Terry O'Quinn
Ed O'Neill
Ted McGinley
Hal Holbrook
James Brolin
Taye Diggs
Edward James Olmos
Jane Lynch

O.K., so maybe I had to consult IMDb to confirm/learn the names of "What's his face?". Playing "Name That Actor" can become maddening while watching the show itself. My point is that there is so much triangulation happening of really smart, savvy actors with other movies and television programs on The West Wing. This show must have been quite a draw for actors working a decade ago in Tinsel Town. A corollary can be found with Grey's Anatomy. When the curtain slides back on the patient du jour in the exam room, the audience never knows which famous or vaguely familiar face will appear (replete with makeup to look like they have a goiter protruding from their necks). Speaking of Grey's, Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens, Jr.), the chief of surgery, shows up on The West Wing as the mayor of Washington, D.C., arguing for school vouchers--as a Democrat.

Who said the variety show with the parade of famous faces is over in this era of television? Seeing multiple Oscar nominees and winners on the list, I have to think of Amy Poehler's joke as host of the Golden Globes Award Show (along with Tina Fey):

"Only at the Golden Globes do the beautiful people of film rub shoulders with the rat-faced people of television."

Apparently she is not a fan of The West Wing, where it happens weekly.

Best to Worst 'Trek' Films According to Fans

Fans polled at (I think?) the country's biggest Trek con vote Kahn #1, Into Darkness #13, and Galaxy Quest #7...

Can't argue much with the top 7, though I'd shuffle them around just a bit. IGN's full coverage here.

"Breaking Bad's" "Star Trek" Scene Animated

Read all about how the scene came about here (on Vulture).

"'Breaking Bad' Returns to Its Biggest Ratings Ever"

Read it on Vulture.

Who's laughing now?: The use of laugh tracks on broadcast television last season

Laugh tracks have their fair share of critics. They're often derided as outdated, obnoxious and even insulting to the audience's intelligence. Yet it's hard to argue that they're a relic of the past when the highest rated comedy this past season, The Big Bang Theory, heavily features one. Given these conflicting sentiments, I thought it would be interesting to examine the use of laugh tracks on television last season.

Before I get to the laugh track breakdown, I'd like to make a few clarifications about the data I used. First of all, I only examined live action comedies on the big five U.S. broadcast networks. Second, the shows used are from the past 2012-2013 TV season (including mid-season shows that aired at least one episode), not from the upcoming 2013-2014 season. Finally, by using the term "laugh track" I'm referring to both canned and audience laughter.

Here's a chart demonstrating the split between comedies with laugh tracks and those without them.

Next, here's a separate graph for each network's breakdown of comedies.

Here you can see the number of each type of comedy each network has.

This is a representation of how the 11 shows with laugh tracks add up by network.

Finally, here's the list complete list of comedies used for data.

Some Observations: 

• With 11 laugh track shows and 23 non-laugh track shows, just under a third of the comedies had laugh tracks. If anything, I'd probably have expected a slightly higher number of laugh tracks. I'd just assumed that several of the shows I haven't watched, such as Animal Practice or The Family Tools, had them.

• CBS is known for its use of laugh tracks, but I hadn't realized that all of their comedies last season used them.

• In fact, both FOX and CBS are in the extremes when it comes to laugh tracks. CBS used a laugh track in all of its comedies, and FOX didn't use one in any of theirs. NBC and ABC are more mixed, leaning towards no laugh tracks.

• I was surprised to see that The CW had no comedies, either with or without a laugh track, on its line up. 
  
  
  
  

Lost Jerry Lewis film resurfaces

Apparently rare footage of Jerry Lewis' unreleased film The Day the Clown Cried has surfaced on YouTube. Considering that Lewis has publicly stated his utter disdain for the film on numerous occasions and has vowed to never let it see the light of day, the clip will most likely be taken down, so you might want to check it out now while it's available! The footage and article can be viewed at http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/watch-long-lost-footage-jerry-lewis-infamous-day-170821965.html  .

Zen Pencils on Roger Ebert

For those of you unaware, Zen Pencils is a website that takes famous quotes, poems, and blurbs and creates a story around them in the form of a comic. I recently came across this one and have been meaning to share it. Enjoy.
Zen Pencils on Ebert

After the show is the after-show — TV networks look to capi­tal­ize on biggest hits--Washington Post.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/after-the-show-is-the-after-show--tv-networks-look-to-capitalize-on-biggest-hits/2013/08/08/bf5b5674-febe-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html

Below is a snippet from this article.  Social media strikes again!!--Margaret

“‘Breaking Bad’ has been blowing up in terms of social media for the last couple of seasons, and as we roll to the last date, we had a goal to make it as big of an event as possible,” said Joel Stillerman, AMC’s executive vice president of original programming, production and digital content, who added that the half-hour show will follow a similar format to “Talking Dead.” “This seemed like a great way to do it.”

After all, when people watch a TV show, “they don’t want to go and watch anything else — they want to talk to their friends and the social media world about what just happened,” said Michael Davies, whose Embassy Row productions is behind both AMC companion shows, as well as “Shark After Dark.”

Happy Birthday, Erwin Schrodinger!

Google's doodle today celebrates Schrodinger and his cat. Many happy returns on his 126th birthday....

Sunday silliness from my Despair.com daily calendar:

"It's up to us to produce better-quality movies."---Lloyd Kaufman, Producer of Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.

For more wonderful demotivational sayings, go to Despair.com!

Lost Orson Welles Film Discovered

Courtesy of © A.M.P.A.S.

It has been reported that a long-lost but now recovered Orson Welles film has been discovered in a warehouse in Italy.  The movie, Too Much Johnson, was Welles' last film he directed just before Citizen Kane. The film is now nearly completely restored for viewing.  For the full story go here.

Lower Your Expectations

Earlier this evening our family headed to the Carmike Cinemas to catch a flick since both of our kids happen to be staying with us (a rarity). Tomorrow we move our daughter back to school. She just realized she will be a junior in college (actually a second-semester junior), so the future angst has kicked in. Our son was called about a job interview in Ohio on Tuesday, so it seemed like tonight was our last chance to catch a movie together.

Admittedly, at the end of her first full week of teaching, my wife was more keen on the popcorn than my choice of movie. I had glanced at a review, but only knew Rob Corddry was in the picture, an actor whose name I knew but I couldn't recall why. I also saw Maya Rudolph's name, so off we went.

The film, The Way, Way Back, was a delight. I had no idea who shared top billing in the film. Allison Janney is terrific, channeling her inner Kathie Lee Gifford. Steve Carrell plays against type. Annasophia Robb is understated (for once). Toni Collette (The United States of Tara) shows the vulnerability and codependency of failed relationships. The main character, a gawky fourteen-year-old boy named Duncan (Liam James, who just turned 17), undergoes a transformation--but one still fraught with nuance. He doesn't become an entirely different personality, as in many a teen movie.  He is inherently believable. The greatest cameo is by the actor Jim Rash (the obnoxious dean on Community) as a loser named Lewis who mans the Lost and Found booth. He is quirky without being over the top (for once).

The outstanding performance is by Sam Rockwell as Owen, a washed-up entrepreneur running the kind of 1980s-era trashy water park that kids hang out at in places I have grown up. His banter is witty. In many ways, he transforms scenes into screwball comedy, delivering bits at breakneck speed. We laughed out loud at him several times. His character is endearing as well. In many ways, he was a male Lorelei Gilmore in this role.

O.K., now that I have talked up the film, you won't go into the movie with zero expectations as I did, but I hope you'll still see it. The overall vibe is affirming and honest. And, surprisingly, we all left smiling. As my previous posts have proven, it is rare for us to find a movie we all can enjoy. Maybe we should lower our expectations more often.

The Era of the TV Anti-Hero

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2013/08/09/lead-dnt-breaking-bad-mad-men-anti-hero.cnn#/video/bestoftv/2013/08/09/lead-dnt-breaking-bad-mad-men-anti-hero.cnn I saw this video today on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper. Why do we root for the bad guy? Please copy and past if you would like to view.

The Shot Not Heard Round the Galaxy Far, Far Away

Y’all can keep your twin suns. This is the greatest shot in all of Star Wars.

For the longest time, I didn’t realize that the entirety of The Empire Strikes Back builds up to this single moment, nor did I respect the sophistication with which the characters were handled in this sequence. Naturally, this silent two-shot gets drowned out by Harrison Ford’s ad-libbed “I know” and Vader’s iconic “I am your father,” but it shouldn’t, and here’s why…

For those who don’t recall, this is the part in Empire just before Han Solo is frozen in “carbonite.” His sidekick, Chewie, voices his displeasure by violently throwing a couple of storm troopers to their deaths, and if Han hadn’t calmed him down, he probably would have done a lot more damage. Chewie’s rebellious act is, of course, ultimately futile – two of the galaxy’s most lethal, cold-blooded killers stand a mere ten feet away. Yet as Boba Fett raises his blaster, Darth Vader prevents him from shooting.

WTF!? If l33t speak had been around “a long time ago,” that’s what Fett might’ve said in response to Vader’s action. Even through the mask, his double take clearly expresses puzzlement. Why has Darth Vader – a man we’ve watched kill hundreds of his own men through both wanton disregard for their safety and outright execution – saved some random wookie’s life?

Leia’s the only other one to notice in Empire’s second greatest shot…

The whole sequence is a remarkably subtle example of the power of montage. Because I’m in a Breaking Bad mood, we kind of see a similar thing (but in reverse) with Walter White and the lily of the valley. A few simple juxtapositions completely alter the nature of these characters we thought we knew. Suddenly, up is down and right is left. It’s hard to imagine any of the other arts coming close to this kind of effect.

I’m curious to know who had the greater influence on this shot sequence: George Lucas or director Irvin Kershner. In either case, here’s hoping it survives Lucas’s revisionist tendencies.

Check it out in action for yourself.

Speaking of Must See TV

This article popped up today and got me thinking: Would FRIENDS have been as big a success if this had happened? Here's the link (Can't get it to link correctly. Sorry): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/friends-jennifer-aniston-replaced-as-rachel_n_3733395.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl16%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D356149

I had no idea Netflix had so much power.

I found this to be really interesting. Netflix has some pretty specific categories sometimes, so I suppose clicking that you love documentaries is tempting if the last few things you watched were National Lampoon direct-to-video movies and E! network shows. (Neither of those apply to my Netflix account, but I will confess that the last thing I watched online was Pretty Little Liars. I'm not even a little bit ashamed.)

I also feel a little dumb for not realizing that they knew we all shared passwords. Whoops.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/netflix-knows-youve-been-lying-about-all-those-for,101336/

The Sopranos...on Pax?

This popped into my head a week or so ago, but I only now had the time to hunt the clip down. For those of us that remember, PAX was a network that specialized in family friendly programing. I remember when I was younger seeing a bit on the MadTV called "Sopranos on PAX" I managed to find the clip. My favorite part is at the end when the announcer asks us to join them next week from 9:00-9:03. Enjoy!

Today we travel back in time to 1951, the year that "I Love Lucy" debuted! http://huff.to/16x6XKC ‪#‎tbt‬ ‪#‎ThrowbackThursday‬

A true classic!--Margaret

The textbook definition of a cinematic BOMB

Disney's The Lone Ranger cost approximately $200 million to make yet only raked in about $170 million at the box office. This turkey will end up costing the company around $160-190 million in earnings. OUCH! I bet the Disney brass is hoping and praying Star Wars: Episode 7 bails them out of their funk. 

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/lone-ranger-cost-disney-160-190m-q4-earnings-108876

beyond melded titles: writers playing a tough game (?)

I am quite disappointed that I have not seen all of these. Intertextuality at its finest? It is definitely beyond capturing a movie poster mise en scene - or at least in my semi-worthless opinion.

What Does My DVD Library Say About Me?

Josh's presentation this evening, wherein he showed his Netflix account and what he claims is his son's interest in Mr. Bean :-), got me thinking....

If I were to examine the DVDs in our collection, how well do they represent me? What compels me to purchase a movie and rewatch it? What circles of fandom have I inadvertently joined by liking certain films enough to own them and view them again and again?

In our family, we call certain flicks "comfort movies," the cinematic equivalent of comfort foods like macaroni & cheese, that we are drawn to when we are sick or feeling blue.

To that end, here is a partial list of some of our favorites. Judge away!

Napoleon Dynamite
Walk the Line
School of Rock
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Little Women
Pride & Prejudice
Dan in Real Life
The Devil Wears Prada
Sweet Home Alabama
You've Got Mail
Mean Girls
Juno
Music and Lyrics
Twister
Two Weeks' Notice
27 Dresses
Saving Private Ryan
A Beautiful Mind
Date Night
It's A Wonderful Life
White Christmas

Clearly I live with women who like a good rom com. These are just a few of our DVDs, since even in this silly exercise I am self-censoring to keep from mentioning some of the more embarrassing picks (both Happy Feet movies, National Treasure, and various Madea movies). If anyone is good at psychoanalysis from reviewing one's movie choices, I'm all ears. (Except you, Tom! LOL.)

For David Tennant fans....

BBC America’s ‘Broadchurch’: A strikingly good, strikingly sad mystery drama

By Hank Stuever, Published: August 6  (Washington Post)

If he’s lucky, there are two or three times a year when the television critic’s job is just too easy. For example: You should do everything you can to watch the exceptionally striking British miniseries “Broadchurch,” which was a big hit over there earlier this year and makes its debut here on BBC America on Wednesday night. It’s among the best detective shows — and perhaps even among the best dramas — in several years. It will break your heart and keep you guessing all the way through.
It’s tempting now to hit send and call it a day.
That’s because “Broadchurch” is one of those shows that seems, at first, nearly immune to prolonged conversations about its theme or intent. It also hides its tiny shortcomings rather well. The only real question it triggers for its viewers happens to be an eternal favorite: Whodunit? (I promise not to tell. The Internet, however, clearly made no such promise, so surf cautiously.)
Set on England’s Dorset County coast, “Broadchurch” is the name of a fictional, working-class town where everyone knows everyone else. Early on a summer morning, the body of an 11-year-old boy is discovered on the beach below the town’s steep cliffs.
Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) has just returned from a vacation with her family to find that the promotion she was hoping for — to detective inspector — has been given to an outsider, Alec Hardy (David Tennant), who considers the job a penitential demotion for his bungled work on a high-profile murder case a year earlier.
Having gotten off to the worst start imaginable in a matter of minutes, the two detectives respond to the report of the dead body. A horrified Miller recognizes the boy — Danny Latimer, the son of her neighbors and closest friends, Mark and Beth Latimer.
Beth Latimer (Jodie Whittaker) is already frantically searching for her son, who didn’t report for his paper route or his soccer game. When beach traffic is blocked off, she sprints past the yellow tape and is intercepted by Miller, but too late: She recognizes her son’s shoes peeking out from under the tarp and collapses in screams of agony.
A word about that: I’m just proximate enough to the grief of friends and loved ones who have lost a child — to murder, car wrecks, disease — that I often wonder how they’re able to watch television, rife as it is with make-believe stories of parents finding out that their child has died, often in the worst way. The degree to which the writers or the performers harness this unshakable sorrow, which makes “Broadchurch” so instantly gripping, is also hard to take. Flipping through the TV grid, which most of us do as a way to escape our thoughts, must be exceptionally challenging in grieving households.
Or maybe I don’t know the first thing about processing loss. Maybe for some there is catharsis in something as well made but as deeply morose as “Broadchurch.”
What I do know is that “Broadchurch” is notably preoccupied with how such a death would shroud an entire community. Once it’s established that Danny did not leap from the cliffs — that his body was placed on the beach by a hasty killer hoping to eliminate evidence — “Broadchurch” remains most true to the narrative of a town losing its innocence.
As Miller and Hardy, actors Colman and Tennant give achingly memorable performances as at-sorts detectives in pursuit of a suspect. Miller has to learn to trust no one, including her close friends, including even Danny’s father (Andrew Buchan), who initially gives a false alibi; the socially awkward Hardy has to learn the delicate mechanics of small-town life.
For several episodes, “Broadchurch” stylishly revels in the tropes of the murder-mystery genre: Was it the priest? Was is the plumber’s assistant? Was it the old man who runs the newsstand? (He is, after all, played by David Bradley, who also plays Lord Walder Frey, the duplicitous host of “Game of Thrones’s” infamous Red Wedding.) Was it the creepy lady from the trailer park? Was it Danny’s best friend?
You will find yourself ruling suspects out one by one. For once in my life, I picked out the killer a little more than midway through — but I’m not sure if that’s a flaw in “Broadchurch’s” cleverness or if all those mediocre American procedurals I’ve force-watched have finally sunk in. If you’re not drawn to trying to solve the mystery yourself, it’s easy to instead luxuriate in the terrific ensemble performances, the hypnotic soundtrack (by Olafur Arnalds) and the various subplots.
One of these side stories, however, turns out to be “Broadchurch’s” weak spot, wherein the editor and reporter of the local paper struggle to keep ahead of the big-city media circus drawn to the sensational investigation. The ensuing hand-wringing over journalism ethics occasionally feels as shopworn as lead type.
“Broadchurch” nevertheless fulfills its contract; unlike other high-end crime dramas, the mystery does get solved, as sadly as it began. In fact, “Broadchurch” ends so precisely and completely that I was somewhat baffled to learn that a second season is in the works.
Not only that, we must now make way for the American copycat: At the Television Critics Association’s press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., last week, Fox announced that it has reached a deal to produce its own version of “Broadchurch” next year.
Experience tells us that this is an exercise in artistic and creative futility, another example of a network conceit held over from the days when Americans rarely got to see the original versions of European shows. Fox was very excited about its “Broadchurch” news, but you could sense a roomful of TV critics (myself included) all swiftly and simultaneously tweeting: Why bother? It surely can’t get much better than it already is.

Broadchurch
(one hour) eight-week series begins Wednesday at 10 p.m. on BBC America.

Meta (to the Max) Conan

Oh, GOP, why not party like 30 years ago.

I doubt that the GOP would have wanted something like this 30 years ago. I understand that everyone has his or her own version of reality that is influenced by TV -insert Fox News snark here- but really? We should have had Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and others removed from our screens. I liked the that sheriff and that barabarian so I will vote for them. If Teddy Kennedy was running for office in the 1990s, should we have made sure that no stories on TV portrayed him or his family?

Should Television Blur the Lines Between Fact and Fiction?

As my post earlier this week should indicate, I am a fan of Discovery Channel's Shark Week. Sure it recycles a lot of the same show year after year, but its still fascinating to learn and be reminded of what's out there in the ocean.

But this year, I (and many others) had out excitement deflated thanks to what Discovery decided to air as its first new program of Shark Week: a "documentary" about Megalodon. Now, if you aren't aware, Megalodon is a prehistoric giant shark, so I thought "Cool, they're going to do a show similar to documentaries that use paleontologists and research to help recreate the Megalodon and show us how it lived, what it hunted and maybe how it became extinct." No. That's not what I got.

What I did get was a piece of fiction that tried to pretend like it was real about how Megalodon was still alive. It was obvious at first that this was not real from the beginning - featuring "found" footage of a ship going down after an apparent shark attack. I could have stopped there, but I didn't. I wanted the Discovery Channel to redeem itself, but it never did. It just got worse, with bad CGI and even worse photoshopped pictures from a whale bitten in half to an apparent secret Nazi picture of a giant shark swimming along side a U-Boat.

But if I knew it was fake right away, why am I so mad?

Because frankly, I think this is irresponsible.

I understand that the "mockumentary" is a genre, but they never try and pretend they are presenting facts. They are fiction being presented in a similar style. This was fiction trying to pretend it was fact. If that wasn't the goal, why did the disclaimer (which came at the end, not the beginning) show fly by so quickly it was just a flash of tiny white text in the bottom of the screen?

I am not the only one mad at this. Just google megalodon and the only results you get are essays and reviews about how mad people are about this. People are mad for being duped. People are mad that Shark Week was tainted with speculative fiction. And most of all, people are mad that Shark Week, which often serves to inform people that sharks are not man-eaters and should be respected, not feared, aired a two hour special that was based in fear and not facts. This "documentary" had the feeling of a bad horror film - that someone was going to get eaten at some point. That isn't what Shark Week is about.

This certainly isn't the first time this has happened, and its a growning trend as networks like Discovery Channel and History Channel look for ways to gain bigger audiences. Look back a couple months at the flack Animal Planet got for airing a similar fake documentaries about mermaids. Didn't Discovery Channel realize something similar would happen?

I guess I just wonder about what the responsibility of these networks is when it comes to airing these types of shows. I guess I wonder if my anger and disappointment is validated.

For other discussions of the Megalodon special, see these links (not to mention a ton more I did not link):

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/08/06/discovery-channel-defends-it-decision-to-air-dramatized-megalodon/

http://gawker.com/shark-week-opens-with-fake-megalodon-documentary-1028053485

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/08/05/shark-week-megalodon-fake-discovery-channel/

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/08/shark-week-fans-deserve-better-what-discovery-feeding-them/68028/

How To Deal With a Movie Talker (from Laughing Squid)

Supporting Binge Watching--Google Chromecast

So about a week ago, my wonderful techie husband bought a new gadget for the TV from Google.  It turned out to be Google Chromecast, and it is fabulous!  For the first time ever I can watch Neflix streaming in true 1080p quality with flawlessly smooth streaming.  This small device, which looks like a thumb drive, works by connecting to a HDMI port and accessing a wireless network to broadcast television.  Once the device is connected to a TV and a wireless network, a Netflix account can be accessed from a smartphone or tablet, working like a remote control.

The device seems revolutionary.  It allows a user to transport their account to anywhere there is TV with an HDMI port and a wireless network.  Other similar devices include Roku 3 and Apple TV.  Google's Chromecast sells for the affordable price of $35.

For a more detailed review check out The Seattle Times.

In Honor of Shark Week.

I always like a link that features some photoshop to make a cute little visual joke. So, courtesy of The Soup, I enjoyed their piece on their top five movies better with sharks (found here). Just for fun, can anyone think of any others?

I know everybody is aware of this, but I wanted to post it anyway because I'm a huge Peter Capaldi fan.  He played a trans in Prime Suspect 3; his "Vera" was so touching!  I think Capaldi is a fine choice for the next Doctor Who.--Margaret

Peter Capaldi Is The New Doctor, Beginning With 'Doctor Who' Season 8

Posted: 08/04/2013 2:29 pm EDT  |  Updated: 08/05/2013 5:51 am EDT

Peter Capaldi was announced as the new Doctor during a "Doctor Who" special on BBC America and BBC One on Sunday.

"Being asked to play the Doctor is an amazing privilege," Capaldi said. "Like the Doctor himself I find myself in a state of utter terror and delight."

Capaldi's other credits include "The Thick Of It," "The Hour," "In The Loop" and "Torchwood." The actor has also appeared on "Doctor Who" before in the 2008 episode "The Fires of Pompeii" as Caecilius.

Host Zoe Ball unveiled Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor in his first ever interview in front of a live studio audience. The half-hour show included Doctors old and new, including current Doctor Matt Smith, and "Doctor Who's" lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat.

“It's an incendiary combination: one of the most talented actors of his generation is about to play the best part on television," Moffat said. "Peter Capaldi is in the TARDIS!"

Take a look at the first official "Doctor Who" photo of Capaldi below:

Capaldi replaces Smith, who played the Doctor since 2010. He announced his departure in 2013 and released the following statement: "Thank you so very much for supporting my incarnation of the Time Lord, number Eleven, who I might add is not done yet, I'm back for the 50th anniversary and the Christmas special! It's been an honor to play this part, to follow the legacy of brilliant actors, and helm the TARDIS for a spell with 'the ginger, the nose and the impossible one'. But when ya gotta go, ya gotta go and Trenzalore calls. Thank you guys."

Jenna Coleman, who joined "Doctor Who" in Season 7 as the Doctor's companion Clara, will remain with the series for Season 8. After Capaldi was announced as the new Doctor, Coleman released the following statement: "I'm so excited Peter Capaldi is the man taking on the challenge of becoming the Twelfth Doctor. With Steven's writing and his talent I know we'll be making an amazing show with an incredible incarnation of No. 12. I can't wait to start this new adventure!"

Before the official announcement, many speculated that it was time for a woman to star in "Doctor Who." Oscar winner Helen Mirren said she won't play the Doctor, but it's time there was a woman in the role. "I’m not going to be the first female 'Doctor Who.' No, no, no. Absolutely not, I absolutely wouldn’t contemplate that ... but I do think it’s well over-time to have a female 'Doctor Who' ... I think a gay, black female 'Doctor Who' would be best of all,” Mirren told Daybreak.

"Doctor Who" returns for its 50th anniversary special on Saturday, November 23 on BBC America.

Jonathan Gray's New Book

Read about it on his blog here.

Dr. Jaegerlove; or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 'Pacific Rim'

A common topic of conversation this summer has centered around how big blockbusters depict sequences of mass destruction. While Man of Steel and Star Trek: Into Darkness seemed comfortable sacrificing the heroism of their main characters in order to hit Hollywood’s collapsed building quota, Pacific Rim refreshingly portrays the Jaegers and their pilots as protectors first and foremost.  They’re not always able to prevent the monstrous Kaiju from reaching populated cities like Sydney and Hong Kong, but their first orders are always to engage the creatures miles off the coast if they can.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, yes indeed, that is a giant robot using a Chinese oil tanker to bludgeon a kaiju. All of Hong Kong’s citizens had fled to fallout shelters, so I’m guessing the ship was empty when they picked it up…? In any case, when I saw this 1000-foot robot dragging an oil tanker toward a million-ton monster, I felt a visceral pleasure that I can only equate to watching my favorite underdog football team make a Super Bowl run.

Fresh off watching Into Darkness, I can’t help wondering why I didn’t feel the same way when Spock beat the snot out of Khan. I love Spock and I was trying my hardest to invest all of the character’s history and motivations into his dogged pursuit of Khan, but it just fell flat. I think it’s got to have something to do with a sense of heroic purpose.

In Pacific Rim, the jaegers were built to do one very specific thing – hit kaiju really hard. Symbolically, though, they’re more than just battering rams, and in this respect Del Toro seems to be more agile with his symbols than Snyder and Abrams were. The jaegers represent the collective effort and desperation of the human race. As such, when they hit kaiju with metal fists, shipping containers, and chain swords, they’re striking with the hopes, fears, and future of mankind behind them. It makes very little logical sense that the jaegers look like us; with the resources put into one robot, we could probably have built three or four massive guns that would have done the job just as well. But it’s important that they look like us. They are us abstracted to a techno-sublime level. The jaegers might be inefficient, illogical representations of machismo, but isn’t that what inefficient, illogical humanity would produce in a situation like this?

So should I be worried by my response to Pacific Rim? Its unabashed macho-positivism makes me shake my head, but I think it also provides me with some insight on a couple other personal interests. Beowulf, for instance, had to have been composed to do the same kind of thing to its Anglo-Saxon audience. Similarly, an NFL football team can be viewed as a sort of jaeger built for one very specific competitive purpose. Pacific Rim taps into that vein and pumps it full of sour-skittle paste. And I can’t wait for my next hit.

Death and Walter White (_Breaking Bad_)

Linda Holmes, pop culture blogger for NPR ("MonkeySee"), over the weekend posted a thoughtful reflection on how the television series Breaking Bad has handled violence differently than other series, causing viewers to consider the morality of the deaths and the cumulative effect on the main characters' ethics (and ours). This is a beautifully written piece that gives away no spoilers for the final eight episodes (provided you are up-to-date on the 4.5 seasons that have aired and are on Netflix).

Check out the article at:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/08/03/208599847/death-and-walter-white

If Woody Allen directed “Wolverine”

Read more at Salon.

BBC One Releases Sherlock Series 3 Teaser

Ronald D. Moore Does Romance

It's no secret that I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, and I've never seen Battlestar Galactica beyond what I've been shown in various classes. So I don't come across articles about Ron Moore all  that much, but I got one in my inbox this morning and was surprised to see that his work is about to swing in my direction.

There's been a big buzz on the women's pop culture blogs about the upcoming adaptation of a classic historical romance series by Diana Gabaldon called Outlander. Starz is taking the project on, and when it was in early talks, there wasn't a showrunner attached--at least not one they were making public. Sometime between my reading the original article and Comic-Con, Ron Moore took on the project, and he's made headlines by promising that both he and Starz aren't interested in changing the books to suit their own visions.

So far, people seem to be cautiously excited about the series. Moore seems like a straightforward guy, so I'm trusting him on this. I can say one thing for sure, though--if he changes things, he'll have a screaming mob of romance readers to deal with! (For these people, it would be blasphemy, like having Gatsby live happily ever after with Daisy. I'm not exaggerating even slightly.)

Ron Moore on Outlander

Is Sci-Fi Television Endangered?

I came across this short article that highlights the steep decline in science fiction television programs this season. Star Trek producer/writer Roberto Orci claims that TV is turning to fantasy in lieu of sci-fi because the latter genre has earned tepid box office revenues in the past year. Although I'm still holding out hope for S.H.I.E.L.D. (That still counts as sci-fi, right?), I think it's been some time since we've had a really solid sci-fi television show. Fringe is the last really quality sci-fi drama I can think of, but Falling Skies has been a hit-and-miss for me. And don't get me started on NBC's Revolution. Anyway, more can be read here:
http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/tca-sleepy-hollowstar-trek-producer-roberto-orci-fantasy-displacing-sci-fi-107656

"A Billion Options in the Cloud yet Nothing to Watch"

Niche marketing came home to roost last night at our place after our family returned from stuffing ourselves at Chuy's Restaurant.

Our two (nearly) grown children, ages 20 and almost 23, are both at "home," that is, staying with us in our formerly "empty nest" (a crowded two-bedroom apartment that neither has really called home, since we moved to Tennessee as our daughter started her freshman year in college at Lee University). Our son lives where we moved from in Ohio, so we have our two "Clevelanders" (OH and TN, both in Eastern Time Zone) with us for the next week.

Scrolling through Netflix, we struggled to find anything on which all four of us could agree. My wife loves the mystery and intrigue of a Bourne-style movie. My daughter is the rom-com softie/30 Rock fanatic. To be ornery, she was suggesting the Thomas Kinkade/Hallmark Channel collaboration The Christmas Lodge. Our son is known to like the saltier fare, so he kept saying, "I liked Orange is the New Black, but you guys might be offended by some of it."

They turned to me, naturally, because I am enrolled in this class. After pooh-poohing some of my choices, we landed on Freaks and Geeks, which none of us had ever seen. The pilot drags in pacing, but it held our attention sufficiently, since both my wife and I were in junior high in 1980 and remember Homecoming dances that lame. The character who held our attention most effectively was Sam (John Francis Daly), since we watch Bones and know him as Dr. Sweets. So many twinges in his young persona are developed later in his acting.

Still this title did not receive four stars. When Portlandia came on afterward (a fave for my daughter and me), Sally (my wife) got up to take her shower for the evening. She finds the show inane. I had to keep explaining to my short-attention-span son Philip that everytime Carrie and Fred change their hairstyles, they are different characters (i.e. "It's like SNL but with a much smaller cast playing all the parts.") When Abby (our daughter) chose The Office (again), it was time to head to bed.

The age of gathering as a family to watch the TV set in the corner--even with no picture--is officially dead.

Hollywood helped Hitler before World War II?

Interesting article I found today. It alleges that certain members of the Hollywood brass cooperated and compromised with Der Führer during the 1930s  in order to protect the movie business. The article can be read at the link posted below.



http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-hollywood-helped-hitler-595684

Violence and Over Seas Marketability in TV

I found this very interesting article about the state of violence in American television written by Andy Greenwald. It's a fun dissection of violence within media, but it also raises an important point about the intercultural appeal of television. Here's a quick excerpt:
" [Building a show around a crime, rather than a criminal, appeals to a broader range of viewers and] appeals to a more international audience. The original Killing was a smash hit around the world before being imported by AMC. Now our draggy, domestic version has done relatively well outside the U.S. as well."

Link: TV's Violence Problem

VCR's Past is Guiding Television's Future, from NY Times

[copy/paste URL for the entire story]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/business/media/vcrs-past-is-guiding-televisions-future.html?ref=television&_r=0

"It is a truism of all businesses, especially media, that once the consumer decides how things are going to go, it is only a matter of time before disruption occurs in fundamental ways. Just ask the record companies. And for now, the disrupters not only have the consumer on their side, but the law as well."

Waxing Eloquent on Long-Form TV in the Age of the Sound Bite

Linda Holmes, the pop culture blogger for NPR, found an interesting moment in the television critics press tour that aligns with the discussions we are having in class.

"During the panel for Showtime's Masters Of Sex, an upcoming series about the human sexuality research partnership of Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson, the entire cast was asked, 'Tell me in your own words how you interpret your characters.' Star Michael Sheen, who plays Masters opposite Lizzy Caplan as Johnson, was invited to go first.

"He went on to suggest that the question struck him as perhaps simplistic. He gave the following explanation of the golden age of television, the importance of character depth, and the blessings of nuance:

One of the great things about why I think TV is going through a golden age at the moment is because, in a sort of multi-episodic format now, with also cable channels like Showtime being at the absolute forefront today and saying, 'Off you go. Any subject matter is open to you,' you can take risks. You've got amazing people working on it, and you've got 12 hours, roughly, per season, to be able to tell a story. You can get to the complexity of a novel almost, you know. It's very, very multilayered and complex, and so you can start to treat people and characters with the complexity that they deserve, that we all deserve.

The problem is that, in this modern age and the way we talk about this kind of stuff and the situations like this, everyone wants to reduce people to, kind of, bite size, easily understood chunks. And why I think people are responding so much to television at the moment is that it refuses to do that. It totally flips that over so that people are revealed the being the complex, interesting people that they are and that we can have more and more compassion and understanding and feel more connected to people. So it becomes, then, very difficult to say, "Well, my character is," and then I trot out three lines about it.

"Bravo, right? Impressive!

"'But ... can you do three lines about it?' the reporter persisted.

"What I cannot do justice to is the tone of Sheen's voice as he went on to say, 'William Masters was an OB/GYN surgeon who was a fertility expert and a man who liked a lot of control in his life, and in our show, we see him struggle with trying to hold onto that sense of control when confronted by a woman who awakens something authentic within him.'"

What occurs to me after reading this testy exchange is that we may be experiencing a renaissance in television, but our coverage of this medium still resorts too frequently to the give-me-a-snippet-for TV-Guide treatment this reporter was awaiting.  Maybe Ron Moore's podcasts on each BSG episode and blogs like this one help to elevate the conversation beyond the sound bite.