Sunday, April 03, 2011

57 Channels and Only This Is On - 4/3/11


The Event: It should go without saying, but I hope the president was smart enough to put GPS trackers on the buses, but since he has made some dumb decisions in the past (okay, let’s be honest, the writers are the one’s making the dumb mistakes) I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download The Event on iTunes.

Castle: Alexis’s goodie-goodie act is starting to wear thin. Se seriously lied to her father so she could go back to the store where her friends stole stuff without him find out? C’mon. She doesn’t have to go Lindsay Lohan, but it is time to ditch the Mother Teresa act. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes.

Parenthood: Who would have guessed that Cappie would actually look more shaggy post-graduation? Maybe he should realize the best job he could get in underground for a reason. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Parenthood on iTunes.

Lights Out: Every episode since it happened I keep going back to the one that ended with Barry K. Word and Hal Brennen and wondering what exactly was discussed during that meeting. Have they been conspiring this whole time or was that a throw away scene and I am reading too much into it. With one episode left, hopefully all will be revealed. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Lights Out on iTunes.

Survivor: Redemption Island: I was thinking the other day, when an Immunity Idol is played, the person with the second most votes is the one that goes home. But what if the only two people who get votes both play an Idol? Usually when there is a tie, the people who got votes are not allowed to vote in the revote. So would they have a revote for the two people that were voted for whose Idols are no longer valid or do they revote and they cannot vote for the two that played the Idol. This is really all I could think of this week because the actual episode was a bore. Hopefully it picks up next week with the merge and we get to see if my Idol conundrum plays out which could happen because people will be gunning for Boston Rob, but the other tribe knows that Ralph has one, and he knows they know he have one which makes for an interesting chess match. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.

Survivor on iTunes


Justified: Wow, that is the second time we have seen Raylan get severely beaten, sure two on one could be expected, but I thought he could have taken a dimwit with one good hand. But I was disappointed we did not make it to the Bennett Whoop-Di-Do. I remember looking at the clock while they were still at papa’s house and thinking, crap, they are not going to make it this week. I wonder what her master plan is, and what Boyd plans to do about it. But I thought earlier this season it was eluded to that Arlo was the one that had to do with Dicky’s limp, not the story Raylan gave this week about the baseball game. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

The Big Bang Theory: I am surprised Penny’s one episode addition to World of Warcraft, which to this day is one of the better ones in the series run, was never brought up. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Best of the Week - 4/2/11


Quote of the Week: Far as I'm concerned, y'all deserve each other. (Raylan, Justified)

Song of the Week: Graveyard – Lucy Schwartz (Parenthood)

Big News of the Week: To the Cloud: If you bought any free music from AmazonMP3 this week you noticed something different, the music did not actually download to your computer. This is because Amazon unveiled its Cloud service this week and any music you buy on Amazon MP3 will be saved on the Cloud for free. You can upload an additional 5 gigs worth of storage to the Cloud for free. Of course that barely puts a dent into my over 50 gigs of music. But if you buy a full MP3 album from their store, you can be updated to their 20 gig plan for free for a year from the date you buy the album. In honor of this promotion, Amazon MP3 has deeply discounted albums from Kanye West, Coldplay (which were the top two spots on my list of The 100 Greatest Albums of the 00’s), Norah Jones, Beastie Boys, and more for $3.99 or less. Considering you need an Android to play the music mobilely (which I do not have, or any smartphone for that matter) and my oversized library of music, I do not see myself using the Cloud until it is unlimited for free. And wouldn’t be surprised between Amazon, Google, Apple or Microsoft, one if not more of the companies will do so at some point.



Free Download of the Week: Life On A Chain (2011 Remaster) – Pete Yorn (Amazon MP3: Get the song that ranked in at #83 on my list of The 1000 Greatest Songs of the 00’s for the low, low price of free.

Deal of the Week: 100 Albums for $5 Each: This month you can get albums from Boyz II Men, Alicia Keys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Raphael Saadiq, all of which can cound to your free 20 gig Cloud upgrade..



New Album Release of the Week: Blood Pressures - The Kills

New DVD Release of the Week: Friday Night Lights: The Fifth Season

Video of the Week: Comedy Central is launching a new show this Wedensday at 10:30 called Workaholics featuring recent college graduate roommates who spend their days scheming together to avoid doing any real work and their nights looking for good times. Check out a preview of the show below:

WorkaholicsApril 6, 2011 at 10:30/9:30c
Preview - Countdown to Vaginatown
www.comedycentral.com
JokesThe Comedy AwardsThe Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump


Next Week Pick of the Week: Expedition Week, All Week starting at 8:00 on the National Geographic Channel: For a full rundown, check out my preview of Expedition Week, and here is a bonus preview from Wedensday’s Ben Franklin’s Pirate Fleet:



Friday, April 01, 2011

What Came First, the Music or the Misery?

High Fidelity

If you are lucky, about once a decade a movie comes out that as if the filmmakers are saying, “Hey Scooter McGavin, this one is for you.” That was the case for High Fidelity, a borderlined obsessive compulsive who cases a little too much about music who seems to mess it up with every girlfriend. High Fidelity, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, was a romantic comedy where you were not quite sure if the romance was with the women of the film or the music.

High Fidelity follows John Cusack as he tries to convince himself that his latest failed relationship does not crack his top five most memorable break ups which leads him back to these ex girlfriends to see why exactly things went wrong. (Fun Fact: Justified’s Ava Crowder cracked the top five.) It also does not help that his latest, and possibly greatest, break up it currently shacked up with the hippie version of Tim Robbins.

High Fidelity also marked the breakout role for Jack Black who catapulted from bit player to headliner after the movie. This was well deserved because he stole every scene he was in through the movie as the bombastic employ of Cusack and was the perfect yin to Todd Louiso soft spoken yang. Black even got to show off his singing chops much to everyone’s surprise after every spent the whole movie blowing of his musical ambitions.

But the real scene stealers were the music. You knew from the trailer when Black broke out Walking On Sunshine, this was going to be a special movie and even includes a cameo from Bruce Springsteen. One segment that hit close to home was when a reporter asks Cusack his top five favorite song and he spend the rest of the movie (and a few bonus scenes) editing his choices. This went all the way to the end of the music where I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever) remains one of the greatest credit choices of all time. High Fidelity showed, it does not matter how simple a song is, it is how you interpret it.



Thursday, March 31, 2011

Around the Tubes - 3/31/11


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 Friday Night Lights, His Way, Canadian Blast sampler, The New Yorker, Falling Skies, and Mob Wives.

- NBC has sent along their first bit of videos hyping the last season of Friday Night Lights including talks with Adrianne Palicki (Tyra Collette), Aimee Teegarden (Julie Taylor), Madison Burge (Becky Sproles), Matt Lauria (Luke Cafferty), Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins), and Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen) about the new season. Below is the cast talking about their favorite moments of the series. Friday Night Light returns April 15 at 8:00.

FNL Cast on Final Season


- You may not recognize the name Jerry Weintraub, as a concert promoter he worked with Frank Sinatra and Led Zeppelin and brought such films like Karate Kid and Diner. Now HBO is looking back on his five decade career this Monday at 9:00 with His Way directed by Oscar nominee Douglas McGrath and features everyone from George Clooney to George H.W. Bush. Below is a trailer.



- For those that could not make it to South by Southwest this year, you can still sample songs from the best acts from Canada that trekked all the way down to Austin this year with this Canadian Blast sampler featuring tracks from Chromeo, Hollerado, The Sheepdogs, Hey Rosetta!, Said The Whale, Mother Mother, PS I Love You; 65 songs in all.

- If you subscribe to Time Warner Cable, you may want to head over to The New Yorker who has a detailed explanation of your bill. Also from the April 4 issue, Nancy Franklin watches the 8-part The Kennedy’s mini-series so you don’t have to.

- With just two and a half months until the premiere, TNT has released its second trailer to their new Steven Spielberg produced Falling Skies which sheds more light on the alien invasion show including the ominous diolouge, “all they wanted were the kids” and even better look at the four legged invaders and their mechsuits.



- Gamblers are the unspoken big losers of a potential NFL lockout and for those fearing not being able to bet of football next fall Bookmakers.com can now let you bet on whether the lockout will end before September 1, 2011 (-112 for both yes and no).

- Can’t get enough television shows with (House)Wives in the title? Well you are in luck, Mob Wives Sunday April 17 at 8:00 on Video Hits 1.