Best of the Week - 4/28/12

Quote of the Week: Is January Jones a robot? (Chloe, Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23)

Song of the Week: I Just Wasn't Made For These Times – The Beach Boys (Mad Men)

Scene of the Week:



Big News of the Week: NFL Draft: For us Browns fan, the NFL Draft is our Super Bowl because we really do not have much else to look forward to and after this draft, it may still be the case that we do not have much to look forward next season. I did not really like moving up one spot to get Trent Richardson. I did not think he was worth the extra picks because I think the Vikings were just throwing up a smoke screen to get extra picks. And even if they did, the Browns have so many holes, Matt Kalil or Justin Blackman would have been worth picks at number four.

But even worse with all those hole was taking a quarterback with third round talent in the first round when the reason the current QB looked so bad was because his starting RB for most of the season was on someone else’s practice squad, their best WR was a 3 at best for any other team and the group led the league in drops, the TE had concussion problems, and half of the offensive line was essentially a revolving door. Brandon Weeden may be more talented than Colt McCoy; he will not have much more success with just an upgrade at RB and no round one talent to throw to or block for him. Ugg, what a horrible start to 2012. Wake me up in time for the 2013 draft when we have to take Matt Barkley with the number one overall pick..

Preview Picture of the Week:




Free Download of the Week: Lost Without You – Rhett Miller (Rolling Stone)

New Album Release of the Week: Little Broken Hearts - Norah Jones

New DVD Release of the Week: Clueless [Blu-ray]

Video of the Week: The new ABC Family sitcom Baby Daddy launches Wednesday, June 20 at 8:30 and they have just released its first promo. Check it out below:

Baby Daddy Promo


Next Week Pick of the Week: Suburgatory, Wednesday at 8:30 on ABC: Forget all the pretentious people who try to tell you Parks and Recreation is the funniest show on network television (aren’t these the same people that told you it was an unfunny version of The Office when it came on; why did they bother to continue watching), Suburgatory has the most laughs per minute you can find on free television. Bonus points for having Alicia Silverstone for the reminder of the season as Geoge’s girlfriend and Noah’s baby mama (can you still be a baby mama through surrogacy). Also Dalia Royce remains the most frightening thing on television, dead, alive, or undead.

Around the Tubes - 4/17/12

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on Veep, James Cameron: Voyage to the Bottom of the Earth, The Lying Game, Major Crimes, Men at Work, Murfie, Conan, Being Mary Jane, Genesis Awards, and Dave Matthews.

- For those that watched the series premiere of Veep and were left wanting more, here is a deleted scene from the episode. And be sure to check out the latest episode this Sunday at 10:00 on HBO.



- Did you not get enough James Cameron with the recent 100th anniversary of the Titanic? Well you are in luck because this Sunday Nation Geographic Channel will air James Cameron: Voyage to the Bottom of the Earth premiering airing at 9:00. The special will chronicle his historic one-man dive last month to the Mariana Trench’s Challenger Deep, the Ocean’s deepest point.

- Fans of The Lying Game will be happy to learn that you will get to see where Sutton and her mom are going to go with their master plan that was revealed in the finale because ABC Family announced that they have greenlit a second season that will start filming this summer and will hit your television screens this winter.

- Also going into production is the first season of Major Crimes which started filming this week. Look for The Closer spin-off in August.

- One more show going into production this week was Men at Work, the new TBS sitcom and Stacy Keibler, J.K. Simmons, and Kathy Najimy have all signed up as guest stars. The show premieres May 24.

- Want “Music 4 Life”? Murfie.com is doing just that (or one free album perv week for the rest of your life). Just “Like” Murfie on Facebook and sign up for a free account to enter. If you share the sweepstakes on Facebook you can get three more entries.

- Heads up Chicago, Conan O’Brien will be in town for the TBS Just for Laughs Chicago Comedy Festival June 11-14 where he will be filming Conan. Head over to teamcoco.com to enter an online lottery for seats to one of the four shows.

- Remember a couple weeks ago when I told you about Gabrielle Union being cast in an upcoming BET show Being Mary Jane and you thought to yourself, “yeah she’s attractive but why should I watch?” Well here is a reason to watch: John Fracking Shaft. Yes Richard Roundtree has joined the cast along with Omari Hardwick (For Colored Girls,The A-Team), Tika Sumpter(Gossip Girl, One Life To Live, The Game), BJ Britt (Vampire Diaries), Lisa Vidal (Star Trek).

- The Oscars for Animals is coming to Animal Planet May 5 at 4:00 when their air The Humane Society of the United States 26th Genesis Awards. If you miss it there will be an encore presentation May 6 at 8:00 and will be hosted by Carrie Ann Inaba and Uggie from The Artist.

- And just because, Dave Matthews premiering a new song Mercy on The Late Show:

Who’s Jealous of Who?

In the past decade, Jack White has played in three very distinctively different bands. First there was the blues based garage band The White Stripes with a very strict rule of only recording songs the two could play live (meaning rarely more than two instruments per song) and were so strict they even kept their clothing limited to red, black, and white. Then came The Raconteurs a power-pop rock band. The last band he formed was the creepy alternative rock group The Dead Weather with Jack on drums. Then last year White announced he was not going to form any more bands, oh yeah, and he announced his first big band The White Stripes was essentially dead.

So what is next for the guy who recorded ten albums with three bands over the span of twelve years who does not want to start anymore bands? A solo album naturally. And with three distinctly sounding bands what exactly does a Jack White solo album sound like? Well it sound a lot like what The White Stripes may have sounded like had they not put restrictions on their recording and brought more musicians and singers into the studio with them.

Blunderbuss is right out of the blues rock playbook but right away in the opening track Missing Pieces you hear organs that would have never fit into a White Stripes album. Those missing his breakout band will want to go straight to Sixteen Saltines, a riff heavy song reminiscent of some of the former band’s most famous.

But further into the album, the less and less it starts sounding like a White Stripes album and other Jack White influences. He goes down to the delta and recruits a sultry R&B singer to duet with on Love Interruption. And all the time he has spent in Nashville shows through with a few fiddles and mandolins while the Little Willie Brown cover I’m Shakin’ sounds like it could have been recorded in Sun Studios. here is a heavy classical piano into on Hypocritical Kiss which is a bit jarring coming from the guy. There is actually a lot of piano in the second half of the album. Then the album ends with White’s weirdest musical trip yet Take Me With You When You Go, which starts out as swinging sixties song that kicks into a frantic high gear in the second half.

Even though it is more diverse, Blunderbuss is similar to a White Stripes album in that although the songs are really good, they start to wear on you if you listen to the album straight through and Blunderbuss is much better heard on shuffle in the middle of the rest of your music library.

Song to Download – Sixteen Saltines

Blunderbuss gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

Previewing Locked Up Abroad 6.x

If there is one thing I have learned from watching Locked Up Abroad, do not, under any circumstance, accept an all expense paid trip to another country because you are being used as a drug mule. For the new season of Locked Up Abroad we learn three new rules for those dumb enough to voluntarily become drug mules: rule number one is never body pack. The second rule is never body pack. Do I even need to tell you what the third rule is? Guess what the guy in the next week’s episode does. If you said body pack his drugs, give yourself a pat on the back.

But for tonight’s season premiere, it is yet another one of the people who thought they were getting a nice vacation for free. Erik Aude was a struggling actor (he was credited as Musclehead in Dude, Where's My Car?) working as a personal trainer when a buddy at his gym had a way of making extra money importing leather that would save the sender some sort of tax had he shipped it regularly. And wouldn’t you know it; the suitcase with the leather samples was lined with opium. Oops.

Sure Locked Up Abroad has done the unwilling drug mule before, and by estimate accounts it makes up fifty percent of the episodes, but this episode is notable for two reason. This is the first time that I am aware of where the subject actually plays himself in the dramatization parts, keep in mind this guy brags to a customs agents that he was also in 7th Heaven and Bounce, which if I am not mistake was a horrible Ben Affleck movie. It is also worth watching because it is the funniest episode ever in the history of Locked Up Abroad because the guy clearly exaggerates his story. Yeah the guy if buff and played a guy named Musclehead once, but I have a hard time believing he went all Jason Statham and single handily took down an entire prison of Pakistanis. But it is entertaining to watch. And why wait until tonight, watch that scene below and tell me if you think it happened the way Erik says it did or he did it just to boost his demo reel.

Locked Up Abroad: From Hollywood to Hell


Also this season on Locked Up Abroad there is the previously mentioned body packer (another reason not to do drugs, the more common way of smuggling drugs involves passing balloons full of it through your digestive system, so think of where that comes out of the next time you contact your dealer) who somehow has a bunch of near misses before finally gets busted. We will also meet a smuggler who gets busted in Argentina who swims across to Brazil to escape.

Locked Up Abroad airs Wednesdays at 10:00 on National Geographic Channel. You can also download Locked Up Abroad on iTunes.

It Started with a Whisper and That Was When I Kissed Her

It is a shame that Neon Trees did not form fifteen years ago because they are making the catchiest pop-rock music since bands like Smash Mouth ruled the radio and MTV with McG directed videos. Their ultra catchy Animal found its way onto pop radio and had anyone who heard it singing along but the time the second chorus came around but they were a band that no one really talked about because the acts that surrounded them were bigger than life personas than actual musicians.

The band is back with their sophomore album Picture Show with a just as catchy lead single Everybody Talks which may not be as easy to sing along with as Animal was but it should get your head bobbing whenever it comes on the radio. If Moving in the Dark is not slated to be the second single, it should. The song sounds like a Brit Pop band trying to create an anthem out of the early Bruce Springsteen catalogue and as weird as it sound, somehow succeeds. Mad Love shows that the band can even pull off a sweet synch-pop song.

Unfortunately much like albums by those pop-rock bands of the late nineties, once you get past those three or so obvious singles the rest of the album becomes less and less memorable or sticks out for the wrong reasons. The bridge of Hooray for Hollywood just consists of the lead singing listing a bunch of famous people that died because of their drug use and ends with him weirdly saying, “Amy, Whitney” back and forth way too many time. But when they hit stride, you will not find anything catchier. Maybe they can even inspire a Fastball comeback.

Song to Download – Moving In the Dark

Picture Show gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

I Want My Music Television - 4/23/12

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.

Share My Love – R. Kelly



I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is R. Kelly has a new video out. The bad news is that is not a new chapter of Trapped in the Closet. C’mon Kells, if you what to share your love, there is no greater love than new chapters of Trapped in the Closet. I guess I do like this song though, but it is still no Trapped in the Closet.


The Rifle's Spiral - The Shins



http://youtu.be/jyqWjl7GkCE
I do not know if Tim Burton directed the latest video from The Shins but I get a serious Corpse Bride vibe from it.


Warrior – Mark Foster, Kimbra and A-Trak



Every year Converse convenes three random musicians and has them record a song for them and somehow these songs manage to always sound awesome. This year’s track features Mark Foster (the dude from Foster the People), Kimbra (the chick from the Goyte song) and A-Trak (that random DJ you’ve never hear of). Best part of this musical series is thay you can download the song for free without even having to buy any shoes, head over to journeys.com to do just that.


Easy Way Out - Gotye



Speaking of Gotye, since no one has tired of Somebody That I Used to Know quite yet, his latest video has gone virtually unnoticed. The new song may not be as catchy, but the music video did manage to be freakier.

57 Channels and Only This Is On - 4/22/12

Mad Men: How disappointing that Trudy Campbell did not do the Zoo Be Zoo dance at her dinner party. On the bright side, I finally got to see someone beat the crap out of her husband which I have waited to happen since the first season.
You can download Mad Men on iTunes.

The Voice: If I were Mark Burnett, my mantra for The Voice would be “Don’t be American Idol.” Idol is a painfully bad amateur karaoke contest and The Voice has pretty much done everything right in two season (sure I can knick pick some of the coach’s decision *cough*Erin Martin*cough*) even the phrasing they use is better than Idol. Contestants are eliminated on Idol. Singers on The Voice “win” battles. Then in the Live Shows there are America’s “Saves” and Coach “Saves”, very positive words. But The Voice had an epic fail this week by introducing Instant Elimination. “Elimination”: a very negative word. If anything should be eliminated it is the Instant Eliminations next season.

Sure Blake Shelton went the easy and obvious root by chopping off Jordis who did not receive America’s vote last round and gave another mediocre performance. Christina Aguilera had a much tougher decision because he save last time, Ashley De La Rosa gave the strongest performance of the night. With that said, I still thought going into the elimination that Jesse Campbell was the most safe, Ashley still would have been a safe pick to go, Lindsey Pavao has been the front runner on the team but gave a very bland performance, and I thought Chris Mann was most likely to go after a painful performance and a string of boring performance. But Christina booting Jesse is the most shocking moment in two seasons of The Voice. Christina just cannot win, prior to the elimination she had the moment of the night when she and a couple male strippers serenaded Blake with Hillbilly Bone and no one is talking about that because of the elimination.

Almost as disappointing as Jesse’s elimination was Lindsey’s performance. I was ready to pronounce her the winner after her amazing performance of Say Aah and her performances of Heart Shape Box and Somebody That I Used to Know were weirdly awesome, but Part of Me just did not work. What’s worse is when she announced she was going to perform Rihanna I thought to myself, “wow, this should be interesting, I can’t wait to hear what she does with this medley (assuming her medley was not an actually medley like Moses Stones) but when she changed it to Katy Perry, my first thought was, “Ugg.” (I pretty much had the same reaction when Naia Kete went from doing a reggae version of Turning Tables to a straight version of the song; seriously, someone needs to take away his Adele album before we are stuck hearing Jermaine Paul’s version of Rumour Has It).

As shocking as it was, Jesse being shown the door was not even the most surprising moment of the week as I was much more shocked when Carson announced Chris Mann was saved by America, looking at Christina’s feigned clapping and Adam’s blank face after the reveal, I was not the only one that did not see this coming. If Christina thinks Tony Lucca is one-dimensional, what does she think of Chris? Is there such a thing as a fourth of a dimension? The guy is a bore and his version of Viva la Vida was painfully bad and was the only time this season I considered muting the television that did not involve Erin Martin. What is worse is that he was the least selling contestant from his team on iTunes. There is a significant flaw in the voting system of The Voice when the worst selling artist can get voted through especially when it is at the expense of the person who sold the most (who was Ashley this week). I suggested this last season and I am going to again, they should give equal weight to each voting method: 33% for online voting, 33% for phone calls, and 33% for iTunes sale. That way the people who use their hard earned money to support their favorite contestants are not drowned out by the fanatics that create hundreds fake accounts to stuff the ballot for less deserving contestants like Chris.



You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can download music from this week in the widget at right.

How I Met Your Mother: Nothing depressed me this week more than realizing I am Ted when it comes to living without a roommate.
You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com. You can also download How I Met Your Mother on iTunes.

2 Broke Girls: Someone should have told Max that yes the government takes taxes right out of her paycheck, but if she filed her tax returns she makes so little she would probably get almost all of that back.

Castle: If there is not a Slaughter spin-off on ABC’s schedule next season I am going to be severely disappointed. At the very least he better show up in at least five episodes next season (and one more this season). I worried a little that we did not see him again because when Beckett took over the case I thought they were going to have it that Slaughter set the whole thing up and murdered Glitch.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes.

Survivor: One World: Ever since the introduction of the auction into the game I have wondered why no one goes, I would rather pocket the $500 dollar because I am certainly not spending that kind of money on a bowl of peanut butter and Tarzan finally put his money to practical use. Until he changed his mind. As befuddling is when people who clearly on the bottom of their alliances are content to get max sixth (unless you can win immunity that round) place instead of a guaranteed fifth place and a possibility of a win. But on the bright side, we are almost guaranteed to have more Kat, who cannot grasp the concept of an auction at $20 increments or what the “B” in BLT stands for, in our lives, at least to the final four, and that is fine by me.
You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



Suburgatory: Oh Alicia Silverstone, where have you been these last lonely fifteen years. Can we just go ahead and add her to the cast already?
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Suburgatory on iTunes.

Revenge: It is about time Vicky’s former life caught up to her, unfortunately Emily did not stick around to see it. And just what was Emily doing making a spare key from the thug that sent a “message” to Daniel in pison?
You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Revenge on iTunes.

Community: After this episode, I am beginning to understand Chevy Chase’s voice mail rants. But then again, who can complain too much when there are double Annie Edision’s involved.
You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Community on iTunes.