Best of the Week - 8/13/12

Quote of the Week: You can kiss my decision as it’s walking out the door. (Rayna, Nashville)

Song of the Week: If I Didn't Know Better – Sam Palladio & Clare Bowen (Nashville)

Scene of the Week:


Big News of the Week: The Vice Presidential Debate: Or so I am told this happened because I fell asleep when both debaters started to sound like the adults in a Peanuts special. It is really silly to have the Vice Presidential candidate to debate anyway. As John McCain famously said, the only job of the Vice President is to check up on the health of the President every day. But I am told that one person used the world murlocky while another lied a bunch. Yep I did not miss much.

Preview Picture of the Week:


Free Download of the Week: Live Sampler (Recorded at the Filmore) – Punch Brothers (Noise Trade)

Deal of the Week: Up to 55% on TV and Movies Blu Rays - The Walking Dead, Halloween, Piranna 3DD, Alien Anthology

New Album Release of the Week: Red - Taylor Swift

New DVD Release of the Week: Mad Men: Season Five

Video of the Week: One debate that I did enjoy this week was the one between Kid Rock and Sean Penn. Seriously, there are very few things more entertaining that hear two white dudes argue over who is less racist.


Next Week Pick of the Week: Suburgatory, Wednesday at 9:30: Easily the biggest surprise of last season was how funny Suburgatory was. It was barely on my radar before the season started and turned out being the best new show on network television last season. It finally returns this week and even gets the cushy post-Modern Family timeslot. I am sure Dalia will still be scarier than anything you will see on the premiere of The Walking Dead later next week.

Around the Tubes - 10/12/12

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 Pretty Little Liars, Kiss, The Hero, Get Out Alive, Last Break, King of the Nerds, Empty Orchestra, Marcus Goldhaber, The Rolling Stones, Gummibär: The Yummy Gummy Search For Santa, The Mentalist, LT: The Life and Times, The Cup, and The Christmas Pageant.

- The Pretty Little Liars Halloween special does not air until Tuesday October 23, but you can check out an exclusive clip below.




- Just in time for Halloween, Kiss unleashed their Monster this week, their twentieth studio album which features the lead single Hell or Hallelujah which recently hit the active rock chart, their first song to do so in fourteen years.

- A couple weeks ago, I mentioned the new reality competition The Hero starring The Rock, for those interested in applying, open calls are starting this weekend in Los Angeles. Head over to TNT.com for other city and dates.

- For those missing Man vs. Wild, you will soon get some more Bear Grylls in your life because NBC just green-lighted Get Out Alive (working title) a new, larger-than-life and extreme adventure reality-competition series headlined by world-renowned adventurer Bear Grylls.

- Derek and Liam go head-to-head in this first episode of Last Break, the second-chance challenge series that can be found exclusively on golfchannel.com.

The Big Break

- King of the Nerds, the new competition show for TBS, does premiere until January, but you can take a look at the first promo below:

- New music alert! Empty Orchestra released their new album One More Time, All Together Now... for fans of Band of Horses.

- The Rolling Stones have a new Greatest Hits package out this fall and with it there will be a new song Doom and Gloom which is now on iTunes and marks the first time Mick, Keith, Charlie, and Ronnie have been in the studio together for seven years.

- YouTube sensation Gummibär is making his film debut later this year and you can watch the trailer to The Yummy Gummy Search for Santa below and click the link to preorder the DVD over at Amazon.



- To understand the driving force behind Patrick Jane, the title character in the hit drama The Mentalist, one need look no further than the brutal murderer who has plagued his nightmares since the series' first episode. On Monday, Oct. 22, TNT is going to take viewers on a journey through those nightmares with The Mentalist: The Hunt for Red John, an all-day marathon of episodes centering on the serial killer whose long line of victims includes Jane's own family starting at noon.

- LT: The Life and Times, a feature length documentary film chronicling the spectacular on-field Hall of Fame NFL career of Lawrence Taylor, as well as his tumultuous off-field life, comes to SHOWTIME® in early 2013. The documentary will be the first-ever in-depth look focusing on Taylor’s life with never-before-heard stories from Taylor, his family, his former teammates and coaches on his playing days with the Giants, his infamous off-field activities and the troubling times that have plagued him throughout his life.

- Coming out on DVD next week: The Cup starring Brendan Gleeson (Albert Nobbs) and Stephen Curry (Rogue). Also out Tuesday is The Christmas Pageant starring Melissa Gilbert and Robert Mailhouse.

It Wasn't Done for a Man to Reject a Woman who Freely Gave Herself

Really, what else is there to do on a hot summer days in Manhattan than to hook up with people? That is essentially the plot 30 Beats where ten extremely attractive New Yorkers get it on with each other one by one. No, this is not five vignettes of the characters pairing off. Instead the movie starts with two characters hooking up, and then one of them leaves to find a new person to spend special time with and so on until we meet all ten people in the film.

The cast has some familiar faces including Justin Kirk (Weeds), Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies), Jennifer Tilly (Bride of Chucky), and Paz de la Huerta (Boardwalk Empire). But do not expect to see much of any of them because no one gets more than ten minutes of screen time in the whole movie. Which also means it is hard to invest in any of the characters because by the time you start to care about them, they are already done with their part. I even thought they may pop up Lost style in other people stories, but that rarely happens during the film.

For a movie about ten people having sex with each other, you would think it would veer into Skinamax territory, but surprisingly every time two characters start to get down to business, the screen fades to black, and picture does not come back until some post- coitus time. Do not worry, the film is not completely void of skin, you will get to see plenty of beautiful French actress Vahina Giocante, and for the ladies, you will get to see Kirk getting into a bathtub.

30 Beats is the thinking (wo)man’s softcore porn movie, but without the actual sex being shown. Sure you take out the sex and most people will not care, but if you are into arty films about the human psyche, you may enjoy the film. For those that have seen it already and are thinking about adding it to your collection, be warned the only bonus feature on the DVD is the theatrical trailer, so you will not be getting anything new out of it.


Full Disclosure Notice: This DVD was given to me by BH Impact to review.

Previewing Chicago Fire

There was a time when Rescue Me was my favorite show on television; this of course was early on before Denis Leary’s ego went out of control. So it is hard to watch Chicago Fire and not compare it to that previous firemen show. There are similarities, like how a fireman goes down on duty in the first episode, and differences, instead of Probie, the new guy is call the clunkier Candidate. The most notable difference is that the characters on Chicago Fire are significantly less interesting. There are no hot heads like Tommy, idiots like White Shaun, really, most of the characters are just pretty boys like Franco. If the show had not cast one brunette and one blonde I probably would not be able to tell the two leads apart.

Another big difference is that firehouse on Chicago Fire has an in-house Rescue Squad and EMS team, just do not ask me the difference between the Rescue Squad and the normal firefighters because I have not figured it out myself other than the Rescue Squad members seem to be slightly more egotistical. The EMS team seems to be included only to up the female quotient. But the problem is whenever I see them on screen I cannot help but thinking the previous one and done Trauma a couple seasons ago was much better. And it was odd that they made one of the lone females on the show a lesbian (the usually absurdly hot, but needs to go back to being a brunette Lauren German) which eliminates any chance of any inter-department hanky-panky.

On the bright side the always awesome Eamonn Walker (Oz) plays the chief and is his usually epic self. I really wish they would spend more time on him than the bland pretty boys. The show was also able to wrangle a local celebrity to make a cameo in the premiere. But do not get excited sports fan, it is not Mike Ditka, Michael Jordan, or even the big head of Sammy Sosa, but a local politician. If there is a reason to watch future episodes of Chicago Fire it would be my sources tell me that at some point Shiri Appleby will be showing up as German’s ex-girlfriend. Okay, maybe making German a lesbian was not the worst idea in the world.

Chicago Fire airs Wednesdays at 10:00 on NBC. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Chicago Fire on iTunes where you can currently download the Pilot for free.

Previewing Nashville

Sadly some people wrote off Friday Night Lights thinking it was a show a about football, a game they just did not care for. But the show was not about football, it was family and a small town whose population just happened to gather together every Friday night to watch the town high school play football. In fact the football scenes were the least interesting part of the show. I do not bring this up in relation to the new show Nashville because Connie Britton played the great Tami Taylor on the show. I bring it up because I fear people not bother to tune into Nashville simply just because they do not like country music or even music that can described as alt-country, punk but more cerebral.

But much like Friday Night Lights is about people, some of which just happen to play football, Nashville is about the people of the town, some of which just happen to play country music. Britton plays the reigning Queen of Country on the downside of her career, think Reba Reba McEntire who has to watch a less talented Hayden Panettiere (Remember the Titans), a evil(er) version of Carrie Underwood, get more and more attention from their record label who thinks the two should co-headline a tour. Of course Hayden wants Connie’s producer, band leader and guitarist and will do whatever she can to get them.

But Nashville is not just about music, there is Powers Booth (Tombstone) plating Britton’s father , who doesn’t like the hillbilly music, but does like controlling the politics in Music City and does not mind playing dirty. This includes handpicking Britton’s husband, who lost most of his money in the economic downturn, to run against one of Connie’s good friend. Not surprisingly she does not like her husband under the wing of her estranged father that leads to a great confrontation in the first episode.

But much like the football was the least interesting part of Friday Night Lights, the new music on Nashville just is not good (full disclosure notice: I have never been much of a fan of traditional country music). Hayden is presented as a pop music crossover in the vein of Taylor Swift, but her songs in the first episode are the same bland country music that Connie sings. The background music, by Eli Young Band and Miranda Lambert is much better country music. The only “new” song on Nashville that is any good is an unreleased song by The Civil Wars. If we are lucky, the music will improve throughout the season, T-Bone Burnett, the guy who brought back the folk rock trend of the past decade by producing the O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack, serves as the music executive producer with songs written by Elvis Costello, John Paul White of the Civil Wars and Hillary Lindsey who has written some of Carrie Underwood’s biggest hits.

But as I mentioned in the intro, the show is much more about the people. And these people like to get around and have some deep dark secrets. Just in the premiere they set up a couple of love triangles (and other polygons), bed hopping, drug use, plenty of nepotism, paternity questions, backstabbing, and Hayden show how she got so big with such minimal talent (hint, it is not just the auto-tune). Really the only thing missing is some hair pulling (you gotta save something for the rest of the season). By the end of the year Nashville may just overtake Dallas as the juiciest city in the world.

Nashville airs Wednesdays at 10:00 on ABC. You can steams recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Nashville on iTunes where you can currently download the Pilot for free.

Previewing Secret Access Week

They call it the Secret Service for a reason. Even though we are all familiar with the dudes in suits, sunglasses, and earpieces that surround the president, there are also members of the Secret Service that we never see; the counter assault team that walk among us or out of sight of everyone making sure no one is successful at harming the president of the United States of America. Tonight the National Geographic Channel takes a look at these brave men who are willing to take a bullet to preserve the nation with Secret Service Files: Protecting the President to kick off its Secret Access Week.

The special tonight looks at a couple specific instances with both President Bush’s and Clinton like when George Sr. found himself in the middle of a Panamanian riot, or when Clinton was surrounded by over two million mourning Moroccans as he and many other world leader walked in a two mile procession to bury the Moroccan president that quickly got out of hand. I was most surprised with the tale of a Georgian (of the country not the state) threw a live grenade and W. at a rally in Georgia (also the country). You would think that would have been bigger news her, but mercifully it did not go off. The series interviews secret service members who were part of each event, as well as President Clinton, explaining how they got out of these sticky situations.

Secret Access continues Tuesday with Top Secret where cameras go inside Plant 42. If you have not heard of it, you are not alone as it goes inside America’s “black world” of off the record projects, some that are so confidential some are said to not exists which include futuristic aircrafts, stealth weapons, and propulsion systems. Then Wednesday you are going to go Inside Cocaine Submarines, the latest way Colombian drug lords get their products stateside under the watchful eye of the DEA.

The on Thursday National Geographic will take you inside America’s Money Vault. Nope, not Fort Knox, actually one fourth of the world’s gold supply is underground in New York City. It is a place where it takes three people to open one door making it impossible for an employee to walk out with a gold brick. Closing out the week on Friday is American Mansion: Secrets of the Rockefeller Estate. All specials start at 8:00.

57 Channels and Only This Is On - 10/7/12

Once Upon a Time: Of course “The writers of Lost” had to start off season two with a non sequitur. But I could have sworn we learned just who Desmond was by the end of the episode. We will have to wait at least a week to figure out just who the dude from Terriers is. I originally thought he was Henry’s father but after the whole sequence I am just assuming he is another Pinocchio type fairy tale character who somehow found his way to the real world. In another Lostian bit of storytelling, even though everyone remembers everyone else, somehow no one knows who Dr. Whale is. I did pick up on the big twist early, as soon as Philip said they had bigger problems than Maleficent, I knew they were still in storybook land. And I am sure I am not the only one who wondered why Sleeping Beauty did not even try kissing Philip in hopes of regaining his soul. Seriously, that is how he just woke you up from a year’s slumber.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Once Upon a Time on iTunes.

Revenge: In the least shocking reveal ever, Victoria did not die in the plane crash. What was surprising is that she is working the white haired dude (though I did not really buy her story that the FBI had her hiding away, how did they know to get her off the plane?). I actually assumed that was her plane at the beginning of the episode but with the “three months earlier” I am not sure. Does this mean there will be another plane crash around Labor Day? I am just glad they did not tease someone’s death like they did thing the first season premiere so they will not be tempted again to go, surprise Daniel is not dead after all! again.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Revenge on iTunes.

Homeland: Even though it was the best show on television last year, I was a bit wary about it going into the second season. How do you credibly get Carrie back on the show? Where does Brody go after trying, and failing to kill the vice president? After one episode I am still a little wary, but the first episode back was still highly entertaining especially the few glimpses of Crazy Carrie (yeah, just give Claire Danes the 2013 Emmy now; she already has it locked up after an episode) coming out like the smile on her face after kicking that dude in the groin. She seemed to like it a bit too much. But as David Estes stated very clearly, this is not her getting her job back (I do have a feeling by the end of the season Carrie will have a job but Estes will not, which we may have Brody and his safe cracking skills to thank for). I still am not sure where Brody goes from here. Apparently he is straddling the line between American and Nasir’s puppet. But I think what is clear; Dana is poised for a breakout season this year. I have the over / under for when she converts to Islam at four episodes.

The Voice: I found the Tuesday show more interesting because you can go ahead and pencil anyone they showcased into the Live Rounds. It was not surprising that they shows four chair turners like Cassadee Pope, Brian Keith, Adriana Louise, and Trevin Hunte (well he should have turned around all four chairs). There was also Melanie Martinez who probably gave the most interesting but some of the other inclusions were a bit surprising. I figured if they were going to show a token country singer on Team Blake they would have went with Liz Davis over Gracia Harrison. It very surprising they went with the Harry Potter meets Justin Beiber MacKenzie Bourg over Cee-Lo’s lone four chair win Avery Wilson. But the one that made me scratch my head the most was the inclusion season two castoff Dez Duron who prior to the special I doubt would make it out of the Battle Round let alone make it to the Live Shows (although the promo showed that Dez would be battling Montage Contestant Paulina; on the other hand Montage Contestant Ashley De La Rosa beat bland heartthrob Jonathas last season). But I really fear that Dez will be this season James Massone, a mediocre singer who gets by on his hair more than his voice.

As for the real show, there was a bigger onslaught bland teen which chicks. What make things worse is that four of them got on a team but French teacher Kameron Corvet, who gave an interesting performance of Crazy did not. And he was the closest contestant this season that fit into the show’s penchant for letting older dark skin singers win the show (which maybe is why he did not get picked). But on the bright side Rudy Parris did get through even though I think that he may be secretly Horatio Sanz dressed up in his Ozzy Osbourne costume.


You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download songs from The Voice with the widget at right.

Castle: Holy Jodi Lyn O’Keefe! Where has she been hiding all these years? Actually has she done anything since the seminal secretly hot ugly chick movie She's All That? And no, Lifetime Movies do not count. It is weird that she and Rachel Leigh Cooke popped back up in the same year. Maybe Jodi can get a guest spot on Perception next season.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes.

Parenthood: Ugg, I had Becky Spoles in my Which Friday Night Lights Alum Will Show Up on Parenthood Next office pool.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Parenthood on iTunes.

Sons of Anarchy: I never really understood why the Sons got out of the porn business. Sure it may not be as lucrative as gun running but you are less likely to get shot at (or your skull bashed in while in jail), and there should be plenty of money in it. I guess gun running makes for better television especially on basic cable.
You can download Sons of Anarchy on iTunes.

Survivor: Philippines: You have to feel bad for Angie Lawson because she was forced to participate in an Immunity Challenge that involved diving down into water while having two sizable floatation devises attached to her body. It was amazing that she actually made it this far. But on the bright side she was able to climb stairs without any problem. Seriously, how did Russell pass a physical if his heart gave out last time he played and still cannot climb a foot out of the ocean? Wow, their tribe really is pretty pathetic. Maybe historically bad.
You can stream recent episodes over at CBS.com. You can also download Survivor: Philippines on iTunes.

The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons: Finally Trishelle gets some screen time. It is about time they paid some respect to a Real World legend.
You can download The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons on iTunes.

Last Resort: Considering the show is based on conspiracies, I have to wonder if Marcus’s son is really dead, and if he is, was it really “friendly” fire that killed him? It is suspicious that he died right before Marcus was supposed to carry out a dubious order.
You can stream recent episodes on Last Resort on iTunes.

The Big Bang Theory: In the latest installment of I am pretty sure the writers of the show are spying on me, I also believe if a marriage ends in divorce I should receive my wedding gift back and I am certainly not going to buy you another gift if you get remarried.
You can stream recent episodes over at CBS.com. You can also download The Big Bang Theory on iTunes.