December 2010
19 posts
Comedy nerds everywhere cheered when Comedy Central announced it was bringing Futurama back to the tube. But after a series of hit-and-miss DVD movies (that also aired on Comedy Central) and talk of recasting the show’s lead voice actors (luckily, that never happened), fans started feeling nervous about the relaunch of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s sharp, bitter and hilarious ode to the future.
Read the rest and enter to win Volume 5 of Futurama on DVD @ TV Squad.
Back in 2005, I wrote a feature for The Brownsville Herald listing my favorite modern Christmasy movies of the past 20 years. Here’s the list. Merry X-mas! …
(Movies are listed in alphabetical order.)
Bad Santa (2003)
Billy Bob Thornton collapses perfectly into the role of a down-and-out safe cracker posing as a mall Santa who drinks, pukes and fornicates on the job.
His selfish and destructive behavior is criticized by an irate dwarf (Tony Cox) and softened by his relationship with a beautiful bartender (Lauren Graham) and a sad sack tween (Bret Kelly) who find his crudity charming.
Director Terry Zwigoff skillfully balances scenes of shock-worthy vulgarity and absurdity with tender moments in this hilarious new classic. Bernie Mac and John Ritter (in his last big-screen role) are also at their scene-stealing best.
The transformation is complete: The SciFi Channel, for better or worse, is now officially Syfy.
The cable network canceled ‘Stargate Universe,’ its last remaining space-set sci-fi drama yesterday. Luckily, Syfy isn’t shelving the remaining 10 episodes of ‘SGU’s’ current season; those will hit the air as scheduled starting next spring. But the cancellation still stings — hard — for fans of the show, fans of the long-running ‘Stargate’ franchise, and fans of science fiction TV.
Read the rest @ TV Squad
TV Squad posted my column about the week’s new TV on DVD releases today. The column also includes info on the new TV shows available for streaming on Netflix, so double yay!
Releases to look out for include the final season of 24 on DVD, The IT Crowd’s fourth season on DVD, and Dollhouse season 2 streaming on Netflix.
Hawkman! You were quite possibly the silliest looking superhero on Smallville, but I still thought you were, as Miley Cyrus might say, pretty cool.
I was sad to see you go on last night’s episode, but I take comfort in the fact that you’ll be with your beloved Shiara once again … even though you’re destined to lose her and die all over again in an endless cycle of pain and suffering. (Man, it sucks to be you, Hawkman.)
Anyway … TV Squad just posted my review of this week’s Smallville ep, ‘Icarus.’ Enjoy!
Tonight’s special stop-motion Christmas episode of Community, ‘Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,’ made me laugh, cry and want to sing along with the cast. Yeah, you read that right — an animated episode of a TV sitcom made me cry. (I’m a big softy, I know!)
The tears came in the last act when Abed, frozen inside of a block of imaginary ice, needed help coping with a personal Christmas tragedy. Thankfully, the entire study group came together to feed into his incredibly elaborate delusion by making up a sweet sweet song on the spot. It brought him out of his slump and vanquished the evil Christmas warlock forever! Yay!
Janeane Garofalo is the coolest. Seriously. She’s bright, hilarious and — best of all — she’s honest. And she’s not afraid to speak her mind about all the crazy sh*t that’s going on in the world right now.
Sadly, her outspoken nature sometimes gets her into trouble — meaning that she doesn’t get as many acting gigs as she used to, and some people (mostly Tea Party people) like to boo her on stage and send her death threats. Bummer, right?
Like most nerds who had nothing better to do than watch TV on Friday nights back in 2009, I fell in love with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. (Want proof? Lookie here and here.) The short-lived series brought heart, soul and bold experimentation back to the Terminator franchise after the guilty pleasure-disaster that was Terminator 3. Sadly, the show was canceled after two seasons, and the godawful Terminator Salvation arrived to annihilate all the work TSCC had done to repair the franchise’s good name.
But today I’m happy to report that writer Zack Whedon (Joss’ brother) has given me a reason to revisit Sarah Connor’s doomed reality once again with The Terminator: 1984, a new limited comic book series from Dark Horse.
