Best of the Week: 1/18/14

Quote of the Week: Unless Hitler has risen from the grave, and is in my whorehouse, go away right now, Messer! (Dewie Crowe, Justified)

Song of the Week: The Man Comes Around – Johnny Cash (The Blacklist)

Scene of the Week:


Big News of the Week: Veronica Mars Coming Back to the Small Screen: Shortly after the success of Kickstarter, creator Rob Thomas talked about he was looking ways to reboot the television series. This seemed plausible because unlike when the show went off the air, there are more cable channels getting into the scripted game not to mention nontraditional channels like Netflix. Except there was one huge obstacle: Kristen Bell is already under contract with House of Lies and cannot star in two shows simultaneously. You really cannot have a Veronica Mars reboot when the titular character only shows up about as often as Alison Brie on Mad Man.

So if you want to bring back the show to the small screen without the main character there is really only one way to do it. And The CW, the network that canceled the show seven years ago so they could put Farmer Takes a Wife on the air, announced earlier this week that they were going to make a Veronica Mars spin-off for their internet division CW Seed (whatever that is). It did not take very long to theorize who would star in the spin-off (I was hoping would take his web series success of Burning Love and bring it to a Vinnie Van Lowe show; maybe in a case that forces him to team up with Keith Mars again) when Rob Thomas announced that the show would star Ryan Hansen as himself as he tries to put together a Dick Casablancas series. Awesome. So basically it will just be a longer version of the hilarious Kickstarter video with probably even more cameos. No word on whether this will hit the internets before or after the movie on March 15 but I hope that The CW actually picks up the Dick Casablancas show. It cannot possibly be worse that what it currently on their network. Seriously, my sources telling me coming later this month is a show starring Julie Taylor as Juliet to an alien Romeo.

Preview Picture of the Week:

“Your Body Is a Battleground” Switched at Birth, Monday at 8:00 on ABC Family

Free Download of the Week: Country Greats (Google Play): Even if you are not a fan of the genre, you should at least give a listen to Will Hoge and Ashley Monroe. There is also a free Sheryl Crow song from her recent country turn. And also Kenny Fracking Rogers.

Deal of the Week: Cash Albums for $5: Earlier this week Amazon ran an advertisement of, “If you give us $5 we'll give you Cash back.” When I clicked on the link, it ended up being a bunch of Johnnty Cash albums. It only took me a couple seconds to get the joke.

New Album Release of the Week: The U.S. Albums - The Beatles

New DVD Release of the Week: It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray/DVD)

Video of the Week: I am a little late to this, but if you are like me and have not watched wrestling in years, I have a treat for you: the return of Jake “The Snake” Roberts. And of course wherever Jake goes, Damien is there too. The best part is the other guy was so excited that he could not help but smiled while getting accosted with a snake. Sadly it looks like this was a one night only affair. Even sadder was the news that Mae Young passed away this week. She continued to pop up on screen even in her nineties, wrestling in nine straight decades, a feat that will doubtfully ever be matched let alone beaten. The sight of Mae “giving birth” to Mark Henry’s “baby” will forever be etched on my mind.


Next Week Pick of the Week: King of the Nerds, Thursdays at 10:00 on TBS: The first season of King of the Nerds was just plain fun and now the show is back with ten more geeks fighting to sit upon the Throne of Games. Look for a full preview of the premiere on Thursday.

Around the Tubes: 1/17/14

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 Showtime premiere dates, House of Cards, True Detective, Grammy Prediction Special, Outside, The Saturday Evening Post, Opposite Worlds, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge, You Oughta Know, and Fish Bowl.

- For those that plan their television watching schedules in advance, Showtime announced the premiere date for their spring programming. Nurse Jackie will return for its sixth season Sunday April 13 at 9:00 followed by the seventh and final season of Californication at 9:30. Then at 10:00, new docu-series Years of Living Dangerously follows a star-studded roster of major film, television and renowned journalists traveling the globe, tackling an enormous range of subjects on the hot button topic of climate change. The correspondents are Jessica Alba, Mark Bittman, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, America Ferrera, Harrison Ford, Thomas Friedman, Michael C. Hall, Chris Hayes, Olivia Munn, Dr. M. Sanjayan, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ian Somerhalder and Lesley Stahl. New series Penny Dreadful will take over that 10:00 timeslot starting May 11. Showtime also released a first look at Penny Dreadful which you can gander at below:


- Showtime is also planning well past spring ordering two new shows two series. The Affair, a one-hour drama series starring Golden Globe® nominees Dominic West (The Wire) and Ruth Wilson (Luther), as well as Emmy® nominee Maura Tierney (ER) and SAG Award® nominee Joshua Jackson (Fringe), received a ten-episode series order. Happyish, a comedy starring Academy Award® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Kathryn Hahn (Revolutionary Road) and Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) also received a 10-episode order.

- Netflix will be airdropping the entire second season of House of Cards on their sit February 14. Check out the trailer below:


- For those hooked on HBO’s True Detective after just one episode, here is a look at episode two to tide you over until Sunday.


- As the world readies for the biggest night in music, The Recording Academy®’s GRAMMY® Awards, AXS TV is giving fans a precursor for what to expect, gathering a prestigious panel of experts to predict winners of the most prestigious categories. Hosted by AXS TV’s Ryan Stout, Grammy Prediction Special is a one-hour LIVE program that features expert opinion from renowned music critic Bob Lefsetz, music newsmaker DJ Skee, and research entrepreneur John Dick of CivicScience. Grammy Prediction Special airs Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 8:00 with rebroadcasts throughout the week.

- Meet Julia Mancuso, the greatest athlete in the history of the U.S. Women’s Olympic Ski Team. A three-time medalist, Julia will be one of the most-watched athletes this upcoming Winter Olympics, which air on NBC starting February 6. With Lindsey Vonn out, the Sochi lights will shine bright on Julia, who graces the cover of Outside magazine’s February 2014 issue, now on newsstands. Check out the cover below:

- One of the most highly anticipated flights touched down 50 years ago this February and The Saturday Evening Post reports in its latest cover story that America has never been the same. With the arrival of Pan Am Flight 101 at New York’s Idlewild Airport (which is today known as JFK), the Beatles landed to the roar of an adoring teenage audience and their parents’ consternation.

- Syfy this week revealed 12 of the players who, in two opposing teams, will compete head-to-head in the fast-paced, intense weekly challenges on Opposite Worlds. The final two players will be decided by a viewer vote on Syfy.com. Adding to the drama on Opposite Worlds is a glass wall dividing the house into the two environments, allowing the teams to watch, envy and dread each other's every move. Viewers can contribute to the chatter about Opposite Worlds – and affect each weekly challenge - by following the handle @syfyoppworlds and using the hashtag #oppositeworlds on Twitter.

- In other Syfy news, they have announced their ten hopeful creature designers who have come to Los Angeles with an incredible shared dream: to land a job working in Jim Henson’s Creature Shop™. The new reality competition series, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge, premieres Tuesday, March 25 at 10:00 following an all-new episode of Syfy’s acclaimed Face Off. The eight-episode series provides a fascinating window into the imaginative and wildly creative environment of world-class creature design, fabrication and mechanization. To find out more about the cast, see bios, photo galleries and video, visit syfy.com/creatureshop.

- In a first-time endeavor, VH1 has put together some of its esteemed alumni from its You Oughta Know franchise on a compilation CD, VH1 You Oughta Know Volume 1, which will be available exclusively at Whole Foods Market stores nationwide in early January 2014.

- From the award-winning team that launched the careers of The Dog Whisperer and The Incredible Dr. Pol, Nat Geo WILD is proud to announce the latest face of the network — “Goldie.” New to the Hollywood scene, this up-and-coming “actor,” who also happens to be a goldfish, snagged the leading role in Fish Bowl, the highly anticipated four-hour reality special premiering Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 2, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Previewing APB with Troy Dunn and Cold Justice

Troy Dunn has made a living locating hard to find people after helping his mother find her biological family. Now he is doing it with television cameras in tow. With new show APB with Tony Dunn, he will be using his expertise and experience to find a new group of people. In tomorrow’s premiere Troy and his team helps siblings find their older brother who was given up for adoption by then teen parents. The also try to find a drunk driver for a daughter of a man he killed sixteen years ago when she was just six years old. The show is heartwarming and manages to keep the exploitation that a show of its ilk tends to revel in to a minimum.

Later this season Troy and his team tried to track down the young couple who risked their lives to pull her from the burning car crash that killed her mother and 5-year-old niece, a sister the state took from her mother twenty-seven years ago, and the team works against the clock to grant a woman's dying wish to find the daughter she gave birth to in secret fifty-one years ago.

APB with Troy Dunn airs Friday at 9:00 on TNT.

Preceding APB with Troy Dunn is another season of Cold Justice. Though the second season premiere was not available to watch prior to the date, I have seen next week’s episode. The first eleven episodes, there have been two confessions, five indictments and one felon sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. And next week Yolanda McClary and Kelly Siegler investigate a murder, and possible rape that dates back almost a decade but local law enforcement could not afford a DNA test that could have ID’d the suspect.

Cold Justice airs Fridays at 8:00 on TNT.

C'mon We Got to Keep the Fire Burning

Considering it was a Bruce Springsteen concert staple throughout the 00’s, it is a bit surprising that American Skin (41 Shots) never got an official studio recording until now. High Hopes is not truly a rarities album but more of a hodgepodge of rarities, covers, and reimaginings of older songs in Bruce’s catalog all recorded on his most recent tour, the first time Springsteen ever recorded an album on the road.

American Skin (41 Shots) is the most notable inclusion since it dates all the way back to 2000. The song is about the police shooting death of an unarmed twenty-three year old Guinea resident Amadou Diallo who was shot forty-one times by four plain clothed officers while reaching into his pocket, pulling out what turned out to be a wallet. Like it live counterpoint, the new version of the song is slow simmering but starts to soar with a Tom Morello solo in the middle of the song taking it to heights the older versions of the song never reached.

Morello of Rage Against the Machine, who was subbing in for Steven Van Zandt who was off filming Lillehammer during the most recent tour, contributes to eight of the twelve tracks. This includes an updated version of Ghost of Tom Joad which appeared on Rage’s covers album. The new version splits the difference between the folksy original and the high octane of the Rage version which sees the two singers trading verses.

Since some of the rarities date back a decade and a half, two fallen members of the E Street Band make a couple of appearances to the album. You can hear Clarence Clemons’ saxophone on Harry’s Place while Danny Federici plays organ on The wall. While both can be heard on Down in the Hole which sonically recalls I’m on Fire but lyrically would have sounded out of place on The Rising. Like most rarities album, High Hopes is mostly for completist as most of the songs, despite being good, were probably left off the albums they were written for because they were just not good enough to be included then.

Song to Download – The Ghost of Tom Joad

High Hopes gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

2014 Winter Music Preview

Today actually sees the first albums released in 2014 by artists you recognize. Though like many first quarters before it, there really is no marquee releases scheduled yet unless you are extremely excited for a Bruce Springsteen rarities album or been waiting for a Toni Braxton / Babyface joint album since he wrote Breathe Again for her (and I doubt anyone will be Beyonceing their album in the next three months). But before you fear that 2014 is going to be as bad as 2013 I term of music, there is a lengthy list of albums to get excited for in the TBA section but we will probably will not hear anything from them until Spring and maybe not until late summer. Click the album title to pre-order on Amazon and the artists name to be taken to their iTunes page.

January 14
High Hopes – Bruce Springsteen
Give The People What They Want – Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Fading West - Switchfoot
Songs From The Movie - Mary Chapin Carpenter
The River & The Thread - Rosanne Cash
Projection Room – Sleepy Kitty
Crystal Method – The Crystal Method

January 21
Mind Over Matter – Young the Giant
Warpaint - Warpaint
Is there Anybody Out There? – A Great Big World
Revelation - Los Lonely Boys
The Wishing Forest – Hilary Capps

January 28
Croz – David Crosby
B-Sides - The Gaslight Anthem
Too True – Dum Dum Girls
Broken Hearts & Stolen Money - Gangstagrass

February 4
After the Disco – Broken Bells
Love, Marriage & Divorce – Toni Braxton & Babyface
I’m a Fire – David Nail

February 11
Acoustic at the Ryman – Band of Horses
Time Moves On – Maggie McClure
I Was Going To Be An Astronaut – Greg Laswell

February 18
Lions – William Fitzsimmons
Somewhere Else – Lydia Loveless
Full Frequency – Sean Paul

February 25
Helios – The Fray
St. Vincent – St. Vincent
Blank Project – Neneh Cherry

March 4
English Oceans – Drive-By Truckers
By Request – Charlotte Sometimes

March 11
Stereolithic - 311

March 18
Supermodel - Foster the People
TBD - Lindsey Pavao

March 25
Out Among The Stars – Johnny Cash (lost album from the early eighties)
Teeth Dreams – The Hold Steady

April 1
Himalayan – Band of Skulls
Roses and Revolutions – Roses & Revolutions

April 15
Wastland – Needtobreathe

April 22
Pop Psychology - Neon Trees

April 28
Food - Kelis

TBD
Morning Phase – Beck
Girl Power – Cee Lo Green
Nobody Smiling - Common
The Last Zulu – Q-Tip
A Better Tomorrow – Wu-Tang Clan
Tetsuo and Youth – Lupe Fiasco
E.L.E.2 (Extinction Level Event 2) – Busta Rhymes
9 – Eddie Murphy
Quack – Duck Sauce
Adele
The Black Keys
Brian Wilson
Clipse
Colbie Caillat
Coldplay
Damon Albarn
Dan Wilson
Death Cab for Cutie
Ed Sheeran
Foo Fighters
Frank Ocean
Fun.
Grimes
Jack White
John Mellencamp
Kanye West
Lily Allen
Miguel
Nas
Pharrell Williams
Roger Waters
Sleeper Agent
Shakira
Stevie Wonder
Taylor Swift
Tom Morello
U2

And let me end with the obligatory this may be the quarter when Dr. Dre finally drops Detox.

Previewing Brain Games and Duck Quacks Don't Echo

Brain Games is one of those shows that is sneaky entertaining. Like a video your science teacher puts on when he is too lazy to teach that day or does not trust a substitute to get anything done and you find yourself in class actually entertained and learning new things. The new season starts off tonight with back to back episodes, the first of which deals with color and how we perceive and process colors. That is followed by an episode dealing with the laws of attraction where you learn, of course, that attraction, relationships, and love-at-first sight feelings are all in your head.

One of next week’s episode hits a little close to home, after an episode on trust, the second episode of the night is a “battle of the ages” to find out one and for all when is better, a better more agile brain, or an aged, but experiences one. And you can find out of your brain is acting as old as it should. This is also so home for those like me who are slowly getting to the, where did I leave my keys, phase of life Also this season is an episode on stress.

Brain Games airs Mondays at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel. You can download Brain Games on iTunes.


Coming on right after Brain Games is new series Duck Quacks Don’t Echo. Take a moment to try and think what this show could possibly be about. Well it turns out a perfect fit with Brain Games as a show that will “test out the most outrageous facts you have never heard.” Yes, the title is one of them even though they do not test it out in the first episode. Sort of Mythbusters for myths you never knew existed. But unlike Mythbusters, this is a competition of sorts where three comedians, Michael Ian Black, Tom Papa, and Seth Herzog challenge each other to test obscure theories with the audience voting on the best one. Tonight includes testing theories on toilet water can travel up to six feet when flushed (start measuring how far away your toothbrush is to your toilet now), build a hovercraft out of household items, and eat six saltines in under minute without water. Like Black’s other new show, the concept may be silly, but it is the host who make the show worth watching every week.

Duck Quacks Don’t Echo airs Mondays at 9:30 on the National Geographic Channel.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: 1/12/14

Revenge: I really have amnesia storylines with a fiery passion. Well at least it looks like Emily got her memory back by the end of the episode.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Revenge on iTunes.

Castle: I probably say this every time this is brought up, but did we always know Ryan actually had a first name and that name is Kevin? Seriously future writers, if you are going to predominately use a character’s last name, do not make it something that can be confused as their first name.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: We finally learned what happened to Agent Coulsen in “Tahiti” and… some machine ticked his brain for days after he died. Alrighty. I guess the question now is why is Coulsen so important that Director Fury would go to such lengths to revive him because I doubt he simply needed a Euchre partner.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on iTunes.

Pretty Little Liars: After years of predicting that Allison was not as dead as the show would have us believe since episode, I was vindicated during the last finale when she finally showed her face. And then quickly disappeared as the Liars instead of trying to find her again spent their time trying to figure out who is in her casket (I would say the better question would be who got everyone to believe it was Allison and how did they do it; but then again none of these girls are Veronica Mars even if Spencer was able to get Radley shut down). And even though his spin-off started weeks ago, Caleb finally came back to town to break up with Hanna. Though I wonder how fast he will crawl back to her once his new show is canceled. I really do not see it going on much longer.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Pretty Little Liars on iTunes.

Justified: What a nice touching tribute to author Leonard Elmore, whose short inspired the show, at the start of the show. I do not remember any show that took that much time to pay tribute to someone tied to that show aside a title card (and even those usually come at the end of the episodes). But the best tribute is to take his vision and turn it into the best show on television which Justified continued to be with a stellar premiere. Raylan was again on point, and nicely bookended the episode shooting inflatable objects. Another strength of the show is the stupidity of its criminals and Dewey Crowe may be the dumbest of them all. Even though he was in only two scenes, both were instant Justified classics. The first took us down memory lane as a lawyer reminded us of every run in Dewey had with the Marshall Service, and the second ending in Raylan shooting his first inflatable object of the episode. Then you had Wynn Duffy’s eyebrows getting promoted to series regular and Dave Foley showing up as one of “The Canadians.” All the greatness was not even ruined by the appearance of Michael Rappaport.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

The Big Bang Theory: Apparently I was not the only one thinking about the living situation if Penny and Leonard got married (it is really disturbing how much I have the same thoughts as Sheldon). And Sheldon’s forced vacation with Penny was much more entertaining than the one he spent with Amy a couple seasons ago. The whole episode could have been the two practicing yoga and I would not have minded.
You can stream recent episodes on cbs.com. You can also download The Big Bang Theory on iTunes.

Community: It is odd with a serial butt crack abuser running around on an episode with Ben Folds, the nineties band the bandit was a fan of with was Dave Matthews Band. Even more shocking was the writers did not use the plotline as an excuse to have Annie bend over. And now that I think of it, if the story is ever revisited, I have a feeling Annie’s Boob will end up being the culprit.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Community on iTunes.

Helix: I still have not gotten around to watching Battlestar Galactica so I have no expectations going into the show because of what the guy previously created and my main take away from the show was… the young CDC member is quite attractive. I really do have much else to say about the show so far.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Helix on iTunes.

Best of the Week: 1/11/13

Quote of the Week: Hey Raylan, can I get you a (expletive deleted) or something? (Wade Messer, Justified)

Song of the Week: Ants Marching – Dave Matthews Band (Community)

Scene of the Week:


Big News of the Week: Polar Vortex: At the beginning of the year there was Winter Storm Hercules and I sat there watching the Weather Channel thinking, come on, you just making stuff up now because people like naming hurricanes. If you really want to scare me, give it some weird scientific name. Then came the Polar Vortex. Like El Nino before it, ish got real. And by real, I mean real cold. And if -15, the lowest I saw here, was not bad enough, the wind chill at the time was -32. And of by tomorrow it is supposed to be 50 and raining. Mmm, I am beginning to think these climate change people are on to something.

Preview Picture of the Week:

"Drowning Girl" Switched at Birth, Monday at 8:00 on ABC Family

Free Download of the Week: Reflections – MisterWives (iTunes): For years, record labels have been holding the vast majority of their marquee albums until the fourth quarter to get those Christmas dollars so the first half of the year is usually left over hits from the previous year’s releases, new artists (Lorde dropped her Love Club EP in early March last year), or older acts who finally breakthrough with little competition (like Robin Thicke and Daft Punk). This week new band MisterWives released a very eighties inspired dance EP. Will they be the 2014 version of Lorde? But maybe Reflections could be a less annoying 2014 alternative to I Love It.

New Album Release of the Week: High Hopes - Bruce Springsteen

New DVD Release of the Week: Fruitvale Station

Video of the Week: Last weekend was the first weekend where I could just sit back, relax, and not worry that it would be ruined by a Brandon Weeden sighting. It looks like I will not have to worry about actually learning how to spell the Browns coach’s name because he got fired last week. But cheer up Browns fans, it looks like our next couch will come straight out of New England. No, Patriots Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniel has already pulled out of the running; nope the next coach of the Cleveland Browns is Denis Leary! Or at least he is the coach of the Browns in the upcoming Draft Day movie. Yep, twenty-five years after Major League, yet another Cleveland sports team is so bad, they need to be saved by Hollywood. As Bill Simmons would say: God hates Cleveland.


Next Week Pick of the Week: Suburgatory, Wednesday at 8:30 on ABC: Two seasons ago, Suburgatory was not just my favorite new comedy of the season, it was my favorite comedy period. It went through some rough patches during its sophomore outing because they started focusing more on the adults when the children are the main attraction on the show. The season ended with Tess moving in with her mother, but I am guessing that will not last long because her mom got cast on another show this season. And do not ask me why the show did not return with ABC’s Wednesday comedy lineup last week. Instead there was a double dose of Super Fun Night which is inexplicably still on the air (though I understand why the network would want to burn that show of as soon as possible but its replacement is not scheduled to debut until late February).

Around the Tubes: 1/10/14

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 Helix, Lost Girl, Being Human, Bitten, Chozen, The Hot Housewives of Orlando, Or, Quality Balls - The David Steinberg Story, The Pete Holmes Show, Tom Green Live, The Friars Club, and Off The Grid.

- Watch the first 15 minutes of Syfy's new outbreak thriller Helix. Go On Demand now, then tune in this tonight at 10:00 to check out the full episode. Or maybe the teaser below will be enough to get you to tune in.


Syfy is also all new on Monday. The primetime sizzle begins January 13 at 8:00 with the Season 4 premiere of Lost Girl, starring Anna Silk as a Succubus, a powerful female entity in folklore who feeds off sexual energy. At 9:00, television’s hottest roommates (Sam Witwer, Sam Huntington, Meaghan Rath and Kristen Hager) confront their haunting pasts in the fourth season return of the hit series Being Human. Rounding out the evening at 10PM is the series premiere of the smouldering, emotionally charged drama Bitten, which stars Laura Vandervoort as a sultry and intelligent female werewolf – the only one in the world – who reluctantly returns to her secretive Pack of powerful male werewolves to help track down the serial killer that threatens to reveal the Pack’s true supernatural nature.

- FX unveils its new animated comedy Chozen Monday at 10:30 after a brand new season of Archer, check out a preview below. For those that cannot wait, you can watch the premiere in its entirety using the FXNOW app on Xbox One.


- Paramount Digital Entertainment announced today a new series premiering on Hulu called The Hotwives of Orlando, starring Casey Wilson, Angela Kinsey, Kristen Schaal, Tymberlee Hill, Danielle Schneider and Andrea Savage as the Hotwives along with special performances by Kate Walsh, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Joey McIntyre, Stephen Tobolowsky, Paul Scheer and many more. The series, coming exclusively to Hulu and Hulu Plus in 2014, is produced by Emmy© Award-winning producers Jonathan Stern and Paul Scheer, and Paramount Digital Entertainment, the studio behind the Emmy© nominated Burning Love.

- Or may win the award for the least googleable band name ever, but if you are looking for a “super indie pop girl” check out her video for Tell Me Why below:


- Quality Balls - The David Steinberg Story will make its U.S. debut exclusively on SHOWTIME on Monday, February 3 at 9:30PM ET/PT. The documentary follows the life and trailblazing career of legendary comedian David Steinberg from his upbringing in Winnipeg, Canada, to his start in comedy at Second City and his record number of appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (second only to Bob Hope), to his work behind the camera as a director on hit shows such as Seinfeld, Mad About You, Weeds, Curb Your Enthusiasm and many more. Viewers will get an inside look at his life as he deals with some of the more controversial moments from his career including the Biblical “sermons” he performed on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which eventually led to the show’s cancellation, and his jokes about Nixon, resulting in being on Nixon’s enemy list.

- TBS has renewed its new late-night series The Pete Holmes Show, which enjoyed a seven week run at the end of 2013. TBS has ordered an additional 13 weeks of the series starring popular comedian Pete Holmes and produced by Conaco LLC, the company behind the late-night hit Conan. New episodes of The Pete Holmes Show are set to launch Feb. 24 and will air Monday-Thursday nights at midnight (ET/PT), following Conan

- The interviewer will become the interviewee next week, as Emmy® Award-winning journalist, news anchor and host of AXS TV’S The Big Interview Dan Rather will be the guest AXS TV’S Tom Green Live. Host Tom Green will deliver a one-of-a-kind, hour-long interview with Rather, live on Thursday, Jan. 16 at 9:00 on AXS TV.

- The Friars Club this week announced that comedian Jeff Garlin will take the helm as Roastmaster at this year’s Friars Club Roast honoring Boomer Esiason. The former NFL quarterback and NFL MVP Boomer Esiason will take his turn in the hot seat at the next Friars Club Roast on Thursday, January 30, 2014, at a luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, just in time for NYC to host the Super Bowl. Garlin, star and executive producer of HBO’s award winning “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and star of ABC’s new hit comedy The Goldbergs, will lead a dais of A-list celebrities who are coming together to skewer their friend and colleague, Esiason.

- What happens when the mainstream media is owned by the corporations and isn't diligently investigating or reporting the news? Tune in online on January 27th, 2014to find out. Jesse Ventura and Ora.TV are presenting Off The Grid - a daily political news show available online. “News should be free - free meaning cost - and free of bias," stated Jesse Ventura, the 38th governor of Minnesota. "I will present stories you need to hear, the news that affects us all - globally, nationally, and locally - that you won't hear anywhere else."

Previewing House of Lies: Season Three

Season two of House of Lies was all about Marty maneuvering so he could start his own firm and bringing his pod along with him. Except by the time the season ended, Doug decided to stay behind at Galweather Stone, feeling betrayed, Clyde jumped ship to work under Monica at Kinsley Johnson. Jennie was already to make the move, but after she professed her love for Marty, he blew her off and their last interaction was Jennie telling Marty she never wants to talk to him again. So it was up in the air just where she would end up.

So at the start of season three, Marty’s former pod resides at three different agencies (no, Jennie does not end up a fourth unknown firm). None of the four main characters seem that happy in their new surrounding or old jobs with new co-workers. Clyde really did not think through jumping ship to work with Monica or just did not believe she could be as crazy as Marty makes her out to be, but he, and the audience, quickly sees just how evil she is in her natural habitat.

Since the four former pod members are now in three different pod, there are plenty of new faces on the show (for those that need the math done for them, that is seven new pod-mates not including Monica), the females of which are much more interesting (though most of the guys seem to be intentionally dull). The one in Clyde’s pod may be as crazy as Monica but in a different way. The newly married Doug may hilariously be overselling his new pod member’s unattractiveness. And the new girl at Marty’s firm just ranks very high on the likeability scale.

There are some familiar faces outside the new pods. Daniel Stern (who has to get nice royalty checks this time of the year after all the December airings of A Christmas Story and Home Alone), Drew Carey’s cross-dressing brother pops up as a new rival to Jennie who also has a run in with former (and future) co-star Ryan Hansen in a scene that doubtful be reenacted by Dick and Ronnie in the upcoming Veronica Mars movie. Ryan even gets in a discussion about pitchers and catchers that he had during Veronica Mars. And if that is enough Veronica Mars for you, there is a very obscure reference to the show in the season premiere where Don Cheadle has a conversion that Ronnie had word for word back in the season two premiere of Veronica Mars. It seems like the writers of House of Lies re-watched Kristen’s previous series to get ready for the movie. Whatever the reason, House of Lies, after a rough first two seasons, seems to be hitting its stride in the start of the third.

House of Lies airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime. For those that cannot wait four days until the premiere, you can watch the season three premiere below to she just where Jennie ends up and if you can catch the Veronica Mars reference. House of Lies will be followed by the third season of Episodes of which you can watch the premiere of here.

Previewing Shameless: Season Four

When we last saw the Gallagher family of Shameless, Frank did the first unselfish thing in his life when he took the fall for his son who robbed his foster family. Oh yeah and her learned if he continues to drink alcohol, he will die. Also Lip was the first in the family to graduate, Ian enlisted, and Fiona actually landed a stable job and broke up with Jimmy. The last we saw of Jimmy was sailing, presumably, off to his death. But as I always say, no one is truly dead on television until we see a body (and even then I can still be suspicious). Oh yeah, and Kev knocked up his mother-in-law at the request of Veronica.

The new season starts off how it always seems to do, with Frank not been seen since the end of the previous season (it is mentioned that Fiona has been on the job for three months, so about that much time has passed). But it does not take much time for Frank to find himself back at the Gallagher doorstep somehow even worse than we left him when he learned that drinking alcohol is eroding his throat and any more will kill him (in true Shameless tradition, he does find other ways to get alcohol into his bloodstream other than through the throat; and it is not pretty; you have been warned).

Not that Fiona cares that much if Frank lives or dies because thanks to her new job; she is now creeping up on the poverty line. This will undoubtedly not be a smooth transition. Most which will probably come thanks to her new relationship with her boss who definitely comes from a different family (as in one that can afford Bears season tickets; while Carl shows what people in their tax bracket think of Jay Cutler’s new contract with an eye catching t-shirt).

While Frank makes it back to casa de Gallagher, two members of the clan do not set foot in the house, at least in the first couple episodes. Ian is still MIA after enlisting while Lip is adjusting to being a small fish in a big pond after cakewalking menial Chicago public schools both inside the classroom and out. Kev also thinks he is on his way above the poverty line too after the owner of the bar dies and leaves it to him, but there turns out to be a complication or three when it comes to the pregnancy he caused. And it would not be Shameless without a major bombshell and the end of episode has a pretty big one (hint: the last line spoken is the episode’s title: My Eldest Daughter).

Shameless airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime. If you cannot wait five days or want to give it a shot to see if it is worth ordering Showtime, you can actually watch the albeit censored version of the premiere below:

Feed Your iPod LXXX: The Woodpile

I first discover Frightened Rabbit with their song Swim Until You Can’t See Land, a sweet ode to diving into the unknown. Sure, there are times I get the Scottish band confused with the American rock band White Rabbits (it certainly does not help that the latter band's second album is entitled It's Frightening). Frightened Rabbit released its first major label album early last year and though its first single The Woodpile got heavy play in my library last year, I do not think I mentioned it until the video popped up on my list of The 50 Best Music Videos of 2013. The song would go on to be lucky number thirteen on my list of The 100 Best Songs of 2013. It may not have been a big hit; the song does deserve to be noticed. It is an epic song that sounds like Coldplay sifted through a heavy Scottish filter that would not sound out of place on mid-nineties Alternative radio stations. For those that saw my Best Songs of the year list and now want to listen to it, I have created a Spotify playlist which you can listen below under the YouTube video of The Woodpile (do not ask me why only half the songs show up in the embed, I checked on my tablet and all 100 songs are in the playlist when you open up Spotify).

The Woodpile – Frightened Rabbit

The 14 Events That Will Make 2014 Awesome

2014 may be less than a week old, but in no way means it is too early to do a Best of 2014. Here are fourteen events that will hopefully keep us entertained over the next twelve months.

14. Detox – Dr. Dre: Let’s start off the list as I always do by suggesting this may very well be the year we get to hear Detox. Hey, maybe Dre will launch it with his Beats Music Service which is supposedly going live sometime this month as a rival to Spotify (YouTube’s music service is also due this month). But where Spotify is made by software engineers, Dre has teamed up with Trent Resnor and legendary record executive Jimmy Iovine. Though it will not be in use until a still unspecified date earily in 2014, grab your Beats Music username now.

13. The End of How I Met Your Mother: Okay, the show has not been great for a while (I would argue the show started going downhill right after Victoria left for Paris) and the last season has been as I expected considering it takes place over one weekend (and that is not very), but it is an end of an era when the show comes to a close after nine seasons this spring. Well that is until it is replaced with the rumored How I Met Your Father next fall.

12. Frank Miller on Screen: For the very small niche of Frank Miller fans who hate reading, 2014 will be a good year for them because two of his graphic novels will once again be given the big screen treatment. First up in March is 300: Rise of an Empire, a prequel to the original focusing on those evil Persians. Then in August Sin City a Dame to Kill For will get its long delayed release bringing back Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, and Josh Hartnett in four segment, two straight from the Frank Miller graphic novel and two original stories for the film.


11. World Cup: Real football fans rejoice, it is World Cup time and it is back in the Western Hemisphere for the first time in twenty year. Sure Brazil and soccer has been in the headlines recently because of referee beheadings, but that is juts minor considering the controversies surrounding the other major sporting event this year. There should be less refereeing complaining this time around because this will be the first World Cup with goal line technology. Also new this year: vanishing spray for referees to mark the ten year mark which disappears a minute after application. Oh technology, what will they think of next. The World Cup kicks off June 12 on ABC and ESPN, while America starts off June 16 against Ghana who has beaten the USA at the last two World Cups.

10. The Strain: I have been on a vampire moratorium since the series finale of Angel but it may be time to lift that because of The Strain. The show was created by Guillermo de Toro who knows a thing or two about creepy storytelling, just check out Pan’s Labyrinth for proof. Just like The Walking Dead, The Strain is based on a graphic novel but hopefully del Toro can avoid the pitfalls Frank Darabount did when he tried to adapt The Walking Dead. We do not have any footage of the series just yet (there is a viral marketing video featuring rats) but expect the show to debut sometime in July on FX.

9. Penny Dreadful: If that is not enough supernatural being for you, or fears that even basic cable will not be able to go there, there is Penny Dreadful which was picked up by Showtime. The show will weave together the origins of literary horror characters, such as Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein's monster, Dorian Gray, and Count Dracula, as they grapple with their monstrous alienation in Victorian London. And the cast boasts Josh Hartnett, Eva Green, and Billie Piper while the show is executively produced by Sam Mendes director of the Daniel Craig era James Bond films. No premiere date other than “spring” but I am guessing it will be the week after the Shameless season finale, so sometime in early April.


8. Live Television: Whenever something is successful, expect more of it. Yeah The Sound of Music Live! Go panned, but it went head to head with ratings champ The Big Bang Theory. So expect more scripted live events this year. I was hoping NBC would do a live adaptation of A Christmas Carol but the network has already tasked the producers behind The Sound of Music revival to do another musical. The next beloved music would probably be West Side Story. Is Selena Gomez as Maria too obvious? Sure the internet will probably like that casting as much a Carrie Underwood but at least Selena can act (though she does not have as good a voice as Carrie). Then for Tony, let me suggest Jason Street. Then much like The Sound of Music Live! Fill out the rest of the cast with actual Broadway veterans. Well, and have Neil Patrick Harris and Bill Hader make a cameo as Lieutenant Schrank and Officer Krupke. Granted if I ran NBC (or any other network getting into the Live television game), I would throw all the money in my coffers at Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling to star in a live adaptation of Guys and Dolls in the rolls of Sister Sarah Brown and Sky Masterson.

7. More Marvel Movies: Marvel is going to dominate the movie theaters this year with sequels to Captain America (April 4), Spider-Man (May 2), and an X-Men (May 23) movie that bridges the 00’s trilogy and the most recent prequel. Oh yeah, and the studio is also launching a new property Guardians of the Galaxy (August 1) which features a gun toting raccoon and a talking tree. Meanwhile over at DC, there are no movies on the docket for this year, but…

6. DC on TV:.. by this time next year there could be as many as five DC comics based shows on television. Right now there is only Arrow on The CW based on Green Arrow but the show is developing a spin-off based on The Flash. And apparently The CW is beginning to realize that only targeting teen girls is a bad strategy because they have yet another funny book adaptation in development with Hourman, a pharmaceutical analyst who discovers that the visions that have plagued him since childhood are actually glimpses of tragic events occurring one hour in the future. Now if only the network would hire real actors instead of Ambrocrombie models and became a superhero only network (aside from a Veronica Mars reboot of course), it may become watchable. Meanwhile over on Fox they have already picked up Gotham to series based on James Gordon in a pre-Batman city (granted the last Batman-less Batman show Birds of Prey did not do very well). Then over at NBC, they are developing a show based on Constantine comic (last seen come to life in the Keanu Reeves movie). And this does not even include the long gestating Wonder Woman television show that almost made it to air a couple seasons ago on NBC and has long been in development as a origin story for The CW but never made it to the Pilot phase at the network.

5. New Music from U2: It seems like there has been a rumored U2 album coming soon ever since the release No Line on the Horizon was released back in 2009. Though those albums never materialized, the band wrapped up recording of their latest with Danger Mouse (who will have his album with Broken Bells out this year, and if you believe TMZ ambush interviews will be re-teaming with Cee-Lo Green for a new album in the new year) producing just prior to the holidays. And where Beyonce just airdropped her latest album out of nowhere, rumor has it U2 will go the completely opposite direction and will make their announcement for a new album during a Super Bowl commercial. Unless of course that commercial announces you can get the album starting at the end of the commercial on iTunes which may be the only way anyone could ever out-Beyoncé Beyoncé.

4. Untitled Cameron Crowe Project: Not much is known about the next Cameron Crowe (writer / director of Singles and Jerry McGuire) project but all I need to know is that it reunites Zombieland costars Emma Stone and Bill Murray. Throw in Rachel McAdams (who is due for a career resurgence) and you have a movie that you cannot miss.

3. Interstellar: Another movie shrouded in mystery. It supposedly has something to do with wormholes, but the recent teaser which was basically just Matthew McConaughey driving a beat up truck down a dirt road like he was in a country music video. But the movie comes from Christopher Nolan who messed with everyone’s heads on Inception and had fanboys everywhere geeking out with his Batman trilogy. Go ahead and mark November 7 on your calender now.


2. Winter Olympics: Curling enthusiast rejoice because the sport is coming back to television when the Olympic hit Sochi, Russia starting February 7. Sure no one watches any of these sports when not played under the Olympic flag besides hockey (though now that NBC has its own sports network, I do not see why they do not start airing curling league games). Still I will watch all that I am able to be it biathlon (Skiing! Shooting! All in one silly event) or luge. Sure there are some political aspects that could put a damper on the games be it Chechen terrorists or that Johnny Weir could be arrested right off the plane and shipped to Siberia just for being who he is.

1. Veronica Mars: Almost ten years after it debuted on television, Veronica Mars will hit the big screen March 14 with Neptune’s finest returning for a class reunion with all the major castmembers returning along with fan favorites like Vinnie Van Lowe, Amanda Sinclair, and Leo D’Amato making an appearance. Oh year, and the official trailer hit the internets recently, take a gander below.

The 25 Best Movies of 2013

Before I get into my favorite movies of the year, I want to wish melancholy happy trails to Blockbuster who finally went under this year (sure the name lives on but like Napster before it, Blockbuster as we knew it is dead). It was basically my main source of movies for the past decade and with it gone, this may be my last Best Movies list for a while because I do not care for steaming movies. With Blockbuster dead, I have only seen one movie in the past month and really have not missed them because good Hollywood movies seem to be far and few in between anyway. So without further ado, here are the 25 movies I saw this year (not necessarily ones released over the past twelve months) that I did not absolutely hate.

1. This Is the End

2. Zero Dark Thirty

3. Pitch Perfect

4. Iron Man 3

5. Silver Linings Playbook

6. Django Unchained

7. Looper

8. Skyfall

9. The Watch

10. This Is 40

11. The Great Gatsby

12. Evil Dead

13. Spring Breakers

14. Moonrise Kingdom

15. Man of Steel

16. Snitch

17. Side Effects

18. Oz the Great and Powerful

19. Olympus Has Fallen

20. Premium Rush

21. The Man with the Iron Fists

22. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

23. Flight

24. Argo

25. The Lockout