LOOSE ENDS
Afternoon Links: Check Out the Long-Lost Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Spin-off Game of Thrones
By Tess Lynch atAnother show gets ninety-fived: It's Game of Thrones' turn to don the vintage shirt.
Another show gets ninety-fived: It's Game of Thrones' turn to don the vintage shirt.
This is the full text of an article that was posted by E! Online today. It was accompanied by a picture of Taylor Swift making her way out of a vehicle. (Interpretive annotations are my own.)
Taylor Swift was spotted in Los Angeles on Wednesday as she made her way out of a vehicle. [Tell me more!]Casually dressed [in a transparent effort to spite her tormentors], the country cutie stepped out on the same day [coincidence!?!?!?!?] that Tina Fey told a photographer to “go f--k yourself" [So not casual of her!] when asked about Swift's remark that she and Amy Poehler are destined for Hades. [Do you like how relevant these details are to Taylor getting out of that car?]
On Sunday night, the Screen Actors Guild gathered its members at L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium for its annual celebration of their shared craft, a delightful ceremony free of the annoying focus-pulling that plagues awards shows that insist on handing out statuettes to the unwashed masses who scratch out a living on the wrong side of the camera. Unfortunately, not every SAG Awards nominee gets to take home the coveted Actor, the highest honor thespians can receive from their brothers- and sisters-in-arms; for every five stars receiving the validation of a nomination, four will find themselves confronted with the challenge of making gritted teeth seem like a smile, and white-hot jealousy like warm magnanimity as the cameras mercilessly probe their reactions for any sign of disappointment. And so here we are, the morning after the Saggies (they don't call them the Saggies, but they should), to relive last night's victories through the faces of the defeated. When you're this good at your job, you can make misery look a lot like triumph. Well, most of the time.
"I'm just the underdog who finally got the girl"
— One Direction
After seven years, several serious-ish boyfriends, and countless offscreen episodes of TGS, Liz Lemon is a married woman. Last week's 30 Rock saw Liz making it legal with handsome slacker boyfriend Criss Chros (James Marsden). Liz eschewed her original plan to elope in sweats at City Hall in favor of a more formal event, replete with Tony Bennett and a Princess Leia bridal gown. You'll have to forgive me for replicating the famous Lemon eye-roll when I learned that Liz had secret white-wedding fantasies concealed under all her anti-romance bluster. It was somewhat trying to watch Liz realize that her tireless hatred of the culturally enforced marriage-industrial complex was a defensive reaction to her true heart's deepest wish, which just happened to be a ceremony like the ones on Bravo's Wedding Bitches. I found myself rooting for witness Dennis Duffy (Dean Winters) to pound on some glass and break up the wedding, The Graduate–style.
Sometimes, an idea seems to make so much sense that you can't really say anything other than yes, that makes so much sense. For example: NBC announced yesterday that power duo Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the twin rocks of its Thursday-night comedy lineup, will host the network's broadcast of this January's Golden Globes. The two crushed it together for two years on "Weekend Update," then got back together in 2008 to crush it in Baby Mama. Now they're both crushing it independently, on 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, while getting back together on various award-show stages to crush it from time to time.
Every week in this space, Grantland’s Andy Greenwald will run down the happenings and mishappenings in NBC’s Thursday comedy night done mostly right. (Note: The order reflects newsworthiness, not quality. Although occasionally the two just might overlap.)
As if powered by a Pawnee-esque serving of Dwight’s vomitous blue energy drink, the momentum of last week’s final-season premiere carried through last night’s cold open. The quick degradation of the chore wheel into a much more exciting fun wheel (cue Erin sound effect) was everything that was and is still delightful about The Office: a gaggle of brightly drawn, warmly familiar characters elevating the mundane into absurdist glee. (Who would mind scrubbing the toilets if a tiny piece of circular cardboard commands it?)
Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds: "With its 300-year-old moss-draped oak trees and stately, columned mansion, the Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, is a favorite venue for couples tying the knot. But it wasn't just the charming post-and-rail fences and lush lawns that appealed to the couple saying 'I do' there September 9th."
Was it the historic slave quarters then? Boone Hall's website seriously boasts about the "eight original slave cabins" and the road in front of the plantation property is quaintly named "Slave Street." I personally find the whole idea of getting married at a Southern plantation totally tacky and repulsive on a soul level, but hey, I'm not Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
Well, this one hurts. People reports that Amy Poehler and Will Arnett — two hilarious, attractive, and, above all, normal-seeming people — have split up after nine years of marriage. What?! Nooooo, etc.
This Means War
Tracy Flick, Captain Kirk, and Bane make up the points of a love triangle in this broad action-comedy from director McG. Fill up on heavy artillery, CGI schlock, and neck-swiveling double takes while Chelsea Handler salts the rim with her patented zingers about being slutty and drunk. I'll probably watch this eventually, but it should be said that I would watch a movie of Tom Hardy's beard growing for two hours (This Means Fur).
Every week in this space, Grantland pop culture correspondent Andy Greenwald will run down the happenings and mishappenings in NBC’s Thursday comedy night done mostly right. (Note: The order reflects newsworthiness, not quality. Although occasionally the two just might overlap.)
“Lucky” was everything that’s good about Parks and Recreation — warm humor, subtle character beats, sly satire — which, unfortunately, are very often the same things that keep people from realizing the show’s greatness. Sure, it’s hard to maintain a finely tuned joke machine like 30 Rock or a creaky, but still seaworthy, ocean liner like The Office. But to my mind, what Parks is doing is even more difficult: consistently making us laugh while still drawing us in. The jokes on Parks are always inclusive, the pace gentle instead of manic. It’s a show deeply informed by a love of traditional sitcoms like Cheers, where the goal was to make viewers feel welcome, not necessarily dazzled.
James Gandolfini's Attaboy Productions is adapting the French-Canadian comedy Taxi-22 as a potential starring role for Gandolfini, with Hung writer-producer Brett C. Leonard is writing the screenplay. The show, which would revolve around a politically incorrect New York City cab driver with some life struggles, has seen two previous writers, Kenneth Lonergan and Dave Flebotte, attempt scripts. If Leonard’s version isn’t up to snuff either, the folks at Attaboy are planning on printing out a transcript from a particularly juicy episode of Taxicab Confessions, scratching out the title, and hoping Gandolfini doesn’t notice. Grade: B+ [Deadline]
You know an awards show is in trouble when Rob Lowe appears and you find yourself wishing he brought Snow White with him. Last night’s 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards were, by turns, mawkish, desperate, cringe-inducing, and dull — and that was before the gang from Entourage heroically reunited after an absence of only one week. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment things tipped into catastrophe during Fox’s broadcast. Was it the decision to emulate the worst of the Oscars via cheesy, context-free montages reminding us just what, exactly, comedy is? (Note to producers: It’s not Nurse Jackie.) Or was it the subdivision of the show by category, thus guaranteeing a final third devoted to America’s enduring love affair with miniseries about British class discomfort? Perhaps it was the audibly flop-sweating voice-over announcer whose job it was to drop joke bombs like “his favorite Marx brother is Richard” while winners approached the podium, thus treating the show’s only unscripted moments like the allies treated Dresden? Or maybe it was an “In Memorium” segment so classless and tone-deaf it managed to forever ruin both “In Memorium” segments and death? Or was it the sad, craven sight of random television B+-listers shackled together in sock-hop burlesque and forced to perform a cappella intros as the Emmytones? You know what? Yep. It was that.
