Saturday fun: of "Red Tails" and the Gods of Westeros

I've only read the first book in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of fantasy novels, and though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I've decided to stop so that I can be surprised by what unfolds in season two and beyond of HBO's glorious "Game of Thrones."

Why not read the books and just see how the show differs? Well, because, and I certainly don't mean this as a criticism, but very rarely have I seen a show or movie that stuck so closely to its source material. When you're starting with something this good, there's really no reason to monkey with it too much, and if anything "Game of Thrones" proves it's sometimes perfectly OK to go exactly by the book.

And, not surprisingly since the show seemed to go up in the ratings with each episode, HBO co-President Richard Plepler said this week that, “We told [author George R.R. Martin] we’d go as long as he keeps writing” those books, of which there are now five (including this year's "A Dance of Dragons.")

So, I tell you all this to tell you that the photo above is of the statues of the Gods of Westeros from the filming of season two of "Game of Thrones," but I, like probably many of you, we'll have to tune in to find out exactly what role they'll play in the series, and can't wait to find out.

And after that today, the main event is the first trailer for "Red Tails" from director Anthony Hemingway and Lucasfilm. My first thought upon watching it was how in the world has it taken so long for there to be an epic feature film about the Tuskegee Airmen? (There was, of course, "The Tuskegee Airmen" from 1995, but that was just a HBO movie ... albeit a pretty good one.)

So, will this be the grand treatment these heroes deserve? Well, not surprisingly, it looks fantastic. The cast, featuring Terrence Howard and Bryan Cranston, among others, is solid. The major question is if Hemingway, who up until now has only directed a long string of TV shows (though having honed his skills David Simon's "The Wire" and now "Treme," he's certainly learning from a master) is able to pull this all off.

And along with releasing this trailer, Lucasfilm has also announced just when we'll find out how all this turned out: Jan. 20. Enjoy the trailer, and if you're looking for some good summertime movie entertainment, ignore what a solid majority of critics have said and take a chance on "Cowboys and Aliens." Peace out.

Bawdy "Bridesmaids" and the power of momentum

Though I didn't read the article because it's behind a Variety pay wall and, well, I'm cheap, this headline is what caught my eye this morning: ' "Bridesmaids" beats "Thor" at midweek box office.'

Having seen the movie and pretty much loved it, I'm not terribly surprised, but it's great news all the same. Fueling the fire is word of mouth among women and - by natural progression - the dudes they're convincing that it's nothing to be scared of.

It indeed isn't, but the movie is kind of a bait and switch, though one that still manages to entertain throughout and won't leave anyone feeling cheated. If you go in having watched the commercials and clips and are expecting a raunch fest fitting of the house of Apatow, you won't be disappointed. About halfway in, however, it switches gears seamlessly into more of an observational comedy about growing up and still keeping the friends you had when you were younger and care-free.

There's no way, of course, that it will beat "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" this week, but it should come close to matching the $25 million or so it made in week one, and that would be a real accomplishment. Heck, given the rather scathing "Pirates" reviews and the fact that No.3 was just so bloody awful, I think I just might go see "Bridesmaids" again this week if I go to the movies at all.

And though Kristen Wiig is the big star at the center of it all, Melissa McCarthy steals every scene she's allowed to be in, and word has come this week that she's teamed up with "Bridesmaids" co-writer (with Wiig) Annie Mumolo to pitch a new comedy to paramount for McCarthy to star in, and here's the premise:

“When your husband is ill and his doctors are out of ideas, piling in the minivan with your pals to steal the Stanley Cup is one way to go.”

Sounds funny already to me, and I've loved watching McCarthy ever since "Gilmore Girls" (though I still can't bring myself to watch her CBS sitcom about fat people), so definitely bring it on.

Mumolo herself, it's just been announced, has signed a blind series development deal with ABC Studios. No idea yet on what she might come up with, but it will be produced by Tagline, the company behind USA's "Psych," and if she hatches anything nearly as funny as that mindlessly but often gloriously entertaining show, it should be great.

And with all this momentum surrounding "Bridesmaids," what of the inevitable sequel? Director Paul Feig says it's already been discussed. Here's what he had to say about it to Vulture:

"I mean, it depends how we do in the next couple weeks, but I know there's definitely ... it's already been brought up. You just want to make sure that you do it as well as you did the first one and try to make it better, even."

Something to look forward to, but in the meantime, if you're having any doubts, don't: "Bridesmaids" is a first-rate comedy for anyone who likes to laugh. 'Nuff said.

And after spending more time on that than I had planned, I'm running short of it, but there is one other bit of news that caught my eye this morning, and it's great for "Treme" fans (like me, for sure).

If you've been watching the rather somber-so-far season two, one of the definite highlights has been Antoine Batiste's (Wendell Pierce) drive to form his own band. As he proved with a suitably soulful rendition of Al Green "Love and Happiness" on Sunday's show, the man has the musical chops, and he's just signed on for a movie that will let him show them off even more.

"The Wire" vet has just signed on to play B.B. King in the biopic "B.B. King and I." Michael Zanetis co-wrote the screenplay based on his experience as a drummer who met King at a 1980 concert and struck up a lifelong friendship. Making this even better, Patrick Fugit of "Almost Famous" fame will play a fictionalized character based on Zanetis. Michael Schroder is on board to direct this, with shooting set to begin in September (most likely around the third season of "Treme" that's just been announced, bully!). Definitely keep an eye on this one, because Pierce is just a natural fit, and deserves to be a much bigger star.

And though I should probably offer a musical clip of Pierce in action to segue into the clips, I couldn't really find one, so here instead is my favorite version of the far-too-oft-covered "Hallelujah" (yes, I think it's better than Jeff Buckley's). I had the honor and pleasure of seeing John Boutte perform this in the same club, D.B.A. on New Orleans' Frenchmen Street, and it was amazing. Best of all in this clip is how he hushes the raucous Saturday night crowd almost instantly. Enjoy, and then stick around for a preview of the upcoming season of "True Blood."



Though I've enjoyed "True Blood" so far, as a fan of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, it can be frustrating to see the rather extreme liberties they've taken with the source material. I'm all for original thinking, but the books are very funny and fairly great as is, and "Game of Thrones" has proven so far that you can certainly go by the book and still come up something thrilling. Anyways, this clip seems to imply that with the new season that begins at 9 p.m. June 26 on HBO, they'll at least partly be telling the story of how Eric lost his mind to a powerful coven of witches and became Sookie's house guest, my favorite story line from the novels. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

Witches vs. Vampires

What's ahead on season two of terrific "Treme"?

I suppose it's somehow appropriate that as I write this, there are storm sirens going off here in Macon. Nothing serious right here, as far as I can tell, but not the greatest thing to wake up to on a Saturday morning.

Much more pleasant are thoughts about David Simon's "Treme," which is surely to be overshadowed by the premiere of HBO's "Game of Thrones" tomorrow night (my DVR is ready), but makes its season 2 premiere seven days later.

If you missed out on season one, you're apparently far from alone. Not surprisingly, given how slow the show can unfold, it was just as slow to catch on with viewers (I don't have the numbers in front of me, but they definitely weren't great.) But the same was true with Simon's "The Wire," and well, hopefully we all know how great that turned out to be.

No other show that I can think of debuted with such an immediate and thoroughly organic sense of time and place, and then let its stories unfold at a rhythm perfectly suited to the city it chronicles. And those stories, a mix of horror and hope in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, can be thoroughly engrossing if you give them the time to suck you in.

And here, courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter, is a taste of what's ahead on the new season, followed by a preview video from HBO with, of course, some simply sensational music.

Per THR, season two jumps ahead more than a year after Katrina, a time when "crime is up, help is slow, tourism is way down and outsiders with money are pouring in to profit from the reconstruction." Though there's apparently mention of the savior (Drew Brees) that would finally deliver the city gridiron glory, that's in the future.

Here's what's ahead for key characters, per THR, with the very best news of all being that the great Kim Dickens will give up on the Big Apple and return to New Orleans for season two (AND, PLEASE NOTE, IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SEASON ONE, BUT WANT TO, THERE'S A RATHER GINORMOUS SPOILER IN PARAGRAPH ONE, SO YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THAT ONE!)

As Season 2 kicks off, we find Toni (Melissa Leo) still trying to fight the good fight but still hurt by the suicide of her husband, Creighton (John Goodman). Daughter Sofia (India Ennenga, now a full-time cast member) has seemingly absorbed her dead father’s rage and despair over the state of New Orleans, and that puts additional pressure on Toni.

Antoine (Wendell Pierce) has designs on starting his own band; Albert (Clarke Peters) is dumped out of the bar he revamped when the owner returns; Albert’s son Delmond (Rob Brown) begins to feel the allure of New Orleans again when his fellow New Yorkers disparage the culture; and Janette (Kim Dickens) also tires of the Big Apple as she works under a demanding but talented chef (Anthony Bourdain has been added to the writing staff, so the kitchen banter and attention to detail is exceptional).

Meanwhile, DJ Davis (Steve Zahn) is still pissing off his bosses at the radio station, still railing against the dying of the culture, but at least he’s got a blossoming relationship with Annie Tee (the lovely and talented Lucia Micarelli). Sonny (Michiel Huisman), noted screw-up and Annie’s ex, takes one step forward and two back, as expected. Lt. Colson (David Morse, who also gets upped to full-time cast member) continues to deal with the police department’s handling of crime in the city. And a newcomer from Dallas, Nelson Hidalgo (Jon Seda), adds to the political intrigue and race to reshape New Orleans.

Sounds like exactly more of the same to me, so I can only say bring it on. Keep an eye out for this beginning April 24 at 10 p.m., following "Game of Thrones." And, as promised, I'll leave you with this brief season two preview of sorts featuring a slammin' brass band. Peace out.

Season 2 Preview

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose: TV's best drama returns tonight

Actually, there's one thing out there today that, if not better, is at least odder, and that's good enough for me.

Having grown up around the Chesapeake Bay, I'm well aware that it's unfortunately full of all kinds of poisonous things that live there and kill the oysters and fish, largely from the chicken s$#% that rolls off the farms and into the waterway. It's still a stretch that these toxins would make the leap and start killing human beings on a large scale, but in the realm of horror movies, I suppose anything's possible.

It seems that Barry Levinson, a Baltimorean who, back in the day, made one truly great movie about Charm City ("Diner") and several more fairly good ones ("Tin Men" and "Avalon" among them), has returned to Maryland and made a horror movie titled "The Bay." The flick will apparently be a found footage kind of thing about an isopod parasite that is unleashed from the bay and carries a horrific, untreatable disease.

Laugh if you want to, but much more than just about any other kind of horror story you might be able to cook up, that truly terrifies me, so I'll be there to see this, probably with my eyes covered at several points.

But the main event here today is the return of TV's best drama (yes, better than "Mad Men" and anything else you can name in my book) to NBC tonight for what will be its fifth and final season. And from what I've heard from folks who are lucky enough to have DirecTV and have seen this already, the show really goes out on top.

If you've never seen the show, you've really missed out on a true original: A prime-time TV series that takes a fairly hard look at life in modern middle America, but still manages to be extremely addictive. And transitioning from season three to season four with a cast of new kids mixed in with the regulars, the show somehow got even better, largely due to the addition of Michael B. Jordan (yes, really, with the B added I suppose to remove any confusion) as Vince. He's an actor I've loved watching grow up, first as the truly doomed Wallace on "The Wire" and now both on "Friday Night Lights" and also as Alex on the almost-as-good "Parenthood" (and man has that show piled on the drama lately!)

Like many great shows, "Friday Night Lights" will get most of its recognition after it leaves the air. Although Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton have rightly been nominated for best acting Emmys, if this final season is as good as I'm expecting, a posthumous Best Dramatic Series nod should be coming too.

But back to the present. Not to spoil too much, but here's a bit of what you'll see on tonight's premiere, courtesy of AICN, followed by a preview from NBC, and then stick around for two more trailers that caught my eye this morning.

• The East Dillon Lions, with only two wins last season, are to take on the state champions this week in something called The Whataburger Kickoff Classic.
• Both Julie Taylor and Landry Clarke are now high-school grads and spend most of their components of the episode saying goodbye.
• Landry’s band performs a final concert, and they sound great.



OK, now on to the trailers, starting with easily the most literal title since "Snakes on a Plane," "Cowboys & Aliens." With a title like that, you'd better deliver exactly what's promised, and as you'll see from this first theatrical trailer, it does. And thankfully, it looks like Jon Favreau's movie starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde will be just as much fun as it should be when it drops July 29. Enjoy.



And finally today, a clip that's really just perfect for a Friday morning. I had never heard of "Casa de mi Padre" until this morning, but judging from this trailer, it should be a real hoot. As you'll see, Will Ferrell (funny in any language) somehow stars in this spoof of telenovelas that also features the "Y Tu Mama Tambien" duo of Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal, and even Pedro too. Keep an eye out for this some time later this year, enjoy the trailer, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. And if you haven't yet, please go see "Hanna," because it really is the best theater movie I've managed to see so far this year. Peace out.

A trip to "Cedar Rapids"

I was genuinely excited when the midstate got its third and fourth first-run theaters with the Houston Lakes Stadium Cinemas 10 in Warner Robins and the Edge 14 replacing the former Regal Rivergate 14 here in Macon. After all, more theaters means more movies, right?

It really hasn't worked out that way too often yet, but now at the Galleria Mall Stadium Cinemas 15 in Centerville (or at least if it lasts more than one week), we've got in "Cedar Rapids" a low-key but genuinely likable comedy worth checking out before it disappears.

Director Miguel Arteta's fish-out-of-water comedy stars Ed Helms of "The Office" as a small-town Iowa insurance salesman who gets his big break when he gets to attend the big annual conference in the titular "Cedar Rapids" (what happened to the guy he replaces is something I won't go into in this column that also appears in a family newspaper - let's just say its one of the many ways that Arteta mixes in some raunch in this generally and genuinely otherwise sweet tale.)

From the outset, Arteta and screenwriter Phil Johnston, a native Iowan, both embrace the oddity of the American Midwest and at the same time poke fun at it consistently, starting with the thrill that Helms' Tim Lippe gets from simply going through airport security. Once he reaches the "big city," Helms does what he does best on "The Office," mainly react to others. And "Cedar Rapids" is full of funny folks for him to bounce off of, starting with John C. Reilly's Dean Ziegler, who steals every inch of screen he's given.

He's so natural a comedian now that it's easy to forget Reilly was once a fairly serious character actor, even garnering an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of "Mr. Cellophane" in "Chicago." Since then, however, he's buddied up with one Will Ferrell, and has adopted many of Ferrell's best comedy touches and combined them his own hangdog appeal. He gets his best character yet here in Dean Ziegler, the ultimate buffoon-with-a-big-heart, and as much as he'll make you cringe (stick around through the closing credits for another joke so tasteless there is, again, no way it can be repeated here), he also makes you cheer as he and Helms make a mismatched buddy team of sorts.

The main ensemble is rounded out by Anne Heche, funnier than she's been in years as a married woman on the prowl, and Isaiah Whitlock Jr., who played sleazy pol Clay Davis on "The Wire" and gets plenty of mileage here out of subverting the expectations for his character by channeling one of that show's other most beloved (and extremely violent) characters. Very good in supporting roles are the always-welcome Stephen Root as Lippe's boss and mentor, and Alia Shawkat of "Arrested Development" as a hooker who bonds with Lippe as she works the convention crowd.

In all, the movie could use a little more edge, never really reaching the satiric level of the best movies of Alexander Payne, who is one of the producers of "Cedar Rapids." But it does have a real heart and humanity that's sorely missing in most of what passes for comedy nowadays, and like the best of Arteta's movies ("The Good Girl," "Chuck & Buck" and "Youth in Revolt"), it's packed with genuine characters that he embraces even as he ridicules them.

And for that, plus plenty of low-key laughs, it's well worth the 20-minute-or-so drive down the road for Maconites to check out "Cedar Rapids" in Centerville while you still can.

David Simon on America's most unnecessary war

You often hear the phrase "life imitates art" or vice versa, but rarely do we get a case of art actually being life, as we did for four great and one not-so-great seasons of "The Wire."

Which makes the arrest of Felicia "Snoop" Pearson all the more depressing. For anyone who doesn't know, she played a female hitman of sorts for drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield, and like many of the stars of that show, was never far too removed from the world that "The Wire" portrayed. At age 14, she was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of another young girl, and ending up serving 6.5 years in prison.

Since then, things had certainly seemed to turn around with her appearance on "The Wire." She's also written a memoir, "Grace After Midnight," and having read it, I can tell you she tells her troubling story very well.

But yesterday, it all came undone, or at least regressed quite a bit with this Baltimore Sun headline forwarded to me in the morning: "More than 60 people, including 'Snoop' of 'The Wire,' arrested in drug raids."

If you haven't, you can read all about it here, but there's a much larger picture here, of a city and its people in crisis. That Snoop hasn't been able to escape this bottomless spiral is only the biggest headline-grabber about a truly sad situation in a city I love and will be visiting with mi hermano in August (for a couple or Orioles games, of course).

Here's what David Simon, much more eloquently than me, had to say about it all when contacted by Slate, and then stick around for something much more fun with a trio of Friday morning videos.

First of all, Felicia's entitled to the presumption of innocence. And I would note that a previous, but recent drug arrest that targeted her was later found to be unwarranted and the charges were dropped. Nonetheless, I'm certainly sad at the news today. This young lady has, from her earliest moments, had one of the hardest lives imaginable. And whatever good fortune came from her role in The Wire seems, in retrospect, limited to that project. She worked hard as an actor and was entirely professional, but the entertainment industry as a whole does not offer a great many roles for those who can portray people from the other America. There are, in fact, relatively few stories told about the other America.

Beyond that, I am waiting to see whether the charges against Felicia relate to heroin or marijuana. Obviously, the former would be, to my mind, a far more serious matter. And further, I am waiting to see if the charges or statement of facts offered by the government reflect any involvement with acts of violence, which would of course be of much greater concern.

In an essay published two years ago in Time magazine, the writers of The Wire made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass, that in places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled that the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners, a legal campaign to imprison our most vulnerable and damaged citizens is little more than amoral. And we said then that if asked to serve on any jury considering a non-violent drug offense, we would move to nullify that jury's verdict and vote to acquit. Regardless of the defendant, I still believe such a course of action would be just in any case in which drug offenses—absent proof of violent acts—are alleged.

Both our Constitution and our common law guarantee that we will be judged by our peers. But in truth, there are now two Americas, politically and economically distinct. I, for one, do not qualify as a peer to Felicia Pearson. The opportunities and experiences of her life do not correspond in any way with my own, and her America is different from my own. I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter.
Very true all that, but way too heavy for a Friday morning, right? So, on to some fun clips. Until now, I haven't been able to get terribly excited about JJ Abrams upcoming alien flick "Super 8," but this first full trailer really does effectively change everything. In revealing that the incident was recorded by kids making monster movies on their super 8 camera, and seeing Coach Taylor of "Friday Night Lights" back in action, it has convinced me that this could be something really pretty great when it comes out June 8. Enjoy the trailer.



Next up, although very few people are apparently watching, FX is doing some truly entertaining things on television. I'm a devoted fan of "Sons of Anarchy," and though it lasted only one short season, "Terriers" was a fun little show, too. On the air now, I'm really getting into season two of "Justified," and the boxing drama "Lights Out" just keeps getting better and better with each episode. And now, to complement it's darkly funny "Louie" with Louie CK, the network is adding another truly odd-looking comedy this June, "Wilfred," starring Elijah Wood. As you'll see from the trailer, it's based on an Australian show about a lonely, introverted dude who becomes friends with his neighbor's dog, who just happens to be able to talk to him. Looks like very fun stuff, so enjoy this preview, and keep an eye out for the show.



And finally, truly saving the best for last, College Humor has definitely hit the mark with this mashup of Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," easily one of my favorite animated movies of the last 10 years or so, and the video game "Star Fox." It's just wicked fun that needs no further explanation from me, so enjoy, and have a great weekend. (I'll be spending mine with mi hermano going to see two concerts by the Baseball Project .. huzzah!) Peace out.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

A first look at the first cop show I'm going to watch in many years

I'm not sure why, but I just haven't found a cop TV show I've enjoyed in a very long time, essentially since the end of "The Wire."

My friend and fellow cubicle slave Randy Waters tells me "Southland" is worth catching up with, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Coming soon from AMC, however, is one I'm going to take a chance on, and not just because it comes from the network that brought us "Mad Men" and "The Walking Dead."

So, what makes "The Killing" intriguing to me? Well, first and mostly, it's because the 13-episode series will focus on one investigation, the titular event. Based on the Danish television series "Forbrydelsen" and created by "Cold Case" showrunner Veena Sud, it revolves around the murder of a young girl in Seattle and the police investigation involving many possible suspects. The show will have its two-hour premiere on Sunday, April 3, because, I guess, like HBO before it, AMC always likes to premiere new shows on Sundays.

To be clear, I'm certainly not expecting anything as compelling as "Twin Peaks" or any of TV's best cop shows, but its been a long time since we've even had a decent police serial, so here's hoping this turns out to be good. Enjoy the trailer, and then stick around for a short dose of "Jackass"-ery just perfect for a Wednesday morning.



With "Jackass 3D" on DVD this week, here's one of the DVD bonus clips just to remind you that, most likely, your day really isn't that bad. It's Jason "Wee Man" Acuna trying to jump a ravine on his very small bike, and knowing he's a very willing victim of these shenanigans, just enjoy it, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

DVD pick of the week: "Night Catches Us"

After watching writer/director Tanya Hamilton's "Night Catches Us" for the second time, I had to go and double check that it really is her feature film directing debut. It indeed is, and as such, its a bold and often powerful vision from an exciting new voice in the world of movies.

And it certainly doesn't hurt that in Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington she has two of the best young actors - black, white or anything else - working in movies today to tell at once a both intimate and ambitious story about the Black Panther movement and, more importantly, how its successes and failures impacted the individuals left in the wake of its peak.

Hamilton's movie opens with the pledge of allegiance read over images from the black power movement and ending with a question mark. Though it lacks subtlety, as her story does at points throughout, its an effective way to introduce a movie that asks big questions about the movement's effectiveness.

After that we find Anthony Mackie's Marcus Washington returning to Philadelphia in 1976 for the funeral of his father. The prodigal son gets a less than warm welcome from his brother Bostic (Tariq Trotter), who has joined the Nation of Islam, and this is the first sign among many that for Marcus, it's very hard to go home again.

From the outset of "Night Catches Us", we get a strong, effective and most importantly natural sense of time and place, accomplished not with the cartoonish attire that mars far too many portrayals of the era, but instead with the overall mood (or perhaps what Jimmy Carter famously called malaise), and with a big assist from the Roots (do they ever stop working?) in providing a funky soundtrack that pulses throughout the movie. And it helps that, having visited Philadelphia myself last year, I can report that some of the neighborhoods there do indeed look like they were frozen in time more than 30 years ago.

As Marcus reacquaints himself with his old surroundings, we slowly find out more about the world and the woman, Kerry Washington's Patricia Wilson, he left behind. In the past that shaped them and clearly still in many ways haunts them, Marcus and Patricia were soldiers in the Black Panther Party, along with Patricia's late husband, Neil, who goes unseen except in photographs but clearly hovers over everything that unfolds in "Night Catches Us". Patricia is now a lawyer raising her 9-year-old daughter Iris and 19-year-old cousin Jimmy, who is by far the more immature of the two dependents, and often much of the neighborhood, opening her home to any of the kids who need a hot meal.

Marcus also bumps up against more of his old Black Panther running mates, and that's when we find out more about his story, and why it's so hard to return. As we meet Duane "DoRight" Miller (played by Jamie Hector, aka Marlo Stanfield on "The Wire", and more on similarities with that great show later), we find out that Marcus is suspected of snitching to the feds in the case that led to Neil's death. And the truth about what did and didn't happen in that story shapes the most compelling portion of Hamilton's often complicated tale, and allows Mackie and Washington to truly shine.

Against the wishes of the older man she's involved with, Patricia offers Marcus a room in her home, and as they slowly become closer, the secrets and lies of their past also come simmering to the surface. "Night Catches Us" is at its best as they dance around the truth of their past as Iris, curious about what happened to her father, asks more and more questions. Even as Patricia claims "we don't talk about the past," she clearly clings to her idealized vision of it. Washington and Mackie let the percolating passion play out in glances that say much more than Hamilton's occasionally heavy-handed script, and its just a delight to watch the two of them on screen together.

Marcus and Patricia try to live in a world that is gray rather than starkly black and white, where, much like on David Simon's "The Wire". right and wrong collide so strongly they are often almost indistinguishable. It's when Hamilton steps out of this cocoon, however, to ask bigger questions about the often contradictory goals of the black power movement, that her story falls apart a bit in the third act.

Unlike with "The Wire", the white cops in "Night Catches Us" are one-dimensional composites that too often veer into caricatures. This robs much of the power from Jimmy's story, which asks one of Hamilton's most important questions: What is left behind after, rightly or not, so much anger is stirred up?

That Hamilton falls a bit short of answering this pales next to what she has accomplished, however, in diving into a period of American history that has too often simply been (for lack of a better word) whitewashed and telling the compelling story of two people caught up in it. She also assembles and utilizes the best largely black ensemble cast I've seen (also keep an eye out for another "The Wire" vet, Wendell Pierce, aka Bunk, as a detective who keeps hounding Marcus) since Darnell Martin's very entertaining "Cadillac Records". Check "Night Catches Us" out now on DVD, and definitely keep an eye out for what Tanya Hamilton, having dealt deftly with a complicated episode of America's past, now does with her own future.

For Thursday, a little animation extravaganza

With a title like that, where else to start than with the return of "Beavis and Butthead" to MTV?

Mike Judge mentioned some time ago that he had been monkeying around with his old friends and had come up with material for 30 new episodes or so, but until now, there hadn't been any word that anyone had picked them up. This week, however, MTV indeed announced at its upfronts that the dastardly duo will be returning to the network, perhaps as early as this summer.

No matter how old I actually get (and it is fairly old), I don't ever think I'll ever really be too old for a few minutes with these guys, so here goes .... a classic, the guys watching Radiohead's "Creep," and then stick around for more animated goodies, and finally the trailer for one of the movies I'm most looking forward to for 2011.



To keep the funny going, and much funnier than "The Simpsons" has been in many years (though perhaps they've undergone some kind of renaissance of funny I've missed, because I haven't watched an entire episode for years now), the folks at College Humor were kind enough to take the best of McBain - easily one of the show's funniest characters - and edit it into one little four-minute-or-so movie. As that, it really works, and it's a hoot. Enjoy.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Next, even though this is clearly extremely old, I'm a sucker for anything Maurice Sendak, and Nell Minow was kind enough to point out to me that, along with listening to Carole King's great "Really Rosie" soundtrack, which I do whenever work gets to be even more of a bore than usual, you can watch segments of the 1975 TV special individually on YouTube. Even if these were designed to be instructional songs for 5-year-olds, they're simply fantastic at any time for anyone, evidenced by this clip of "Chicken Soup With Rice." Priceless.



I can't say I have extremely high hopes for "Rango," the animated Western of sorts starring one Johnny Depp and coming out March 4, but I've been wrong at least once before, and probably already today (but it is early), so here's hoping. What I do know is that I like Los Lobos quite a bit (mi hermano gave me a live recording which I think is called "Chuy's Garage" - if it were possible to burn a hole in a digital file, I would have done so with that by now for sure), and they've recorded this fairly nifty theme song for the movie. Enjoy, and then stick around finally for the nonanimated trailer for a flick that I think is really gonna sneak up on people and be a charmer.

Los Lobos - Rango Theme Song by antirecords

Thomas McCarthy, when he isn't acting on "The Wire" or in movies like, yes, really, "2012," is easily one of my favorite directors. "The Visitor" and the "The Station Agent" are both sublimely entertaining little movies, and he's got two upcoming projects that should be well worth checking out. He directed at least the first episode of HBO's upcoming series "Game of Thrones," and, well, I can't say anything really about that except watch it! But he's also got a movie coming out March 18 called "Win Win," and it's one of those that looks just tailormade for me. As you'll see from the trailer below courtesy of The Playlist, it stars Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan in a sort of "The Blind Side" in the world of high school wrestling. I'm probably not selling it very well, but watch for yourself and I think you'll agree this is one to look out for. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.


Win Win
Uploaded by ThePlaylist. - Watch feature films and entire TV shows.

Gervais and Merchant bringing their "Idiot" to American TV soon ... bully

Actually, the best thing I could find this morning is the above photo, which is from director Thomas McCarthy's "Win/Win," which is due probably fairly soon in certain corners of the world and is definitely playing next year's Sundance Film Festival.

As you see, the flick stars Paul Giamatti (never a wrong first step) as a struggling attorney who volunteers as a high school wrestling coach and takes on the guardianship of an elderly client in an attempt to save his practice. When the client's teenage grandson runs away from home and turn up at his grandfather's door, Giamatti's coach eventually discovers he has some wrasslin' skills and, well, I suppose something similar to "The Blind Side" will unfold.

Except for in McCarthy's hands it will almost certainly be something much better than that. McCarthy, also an actor who starred on the final season of "The Wire" and also somehow in "2012" (hey, a man's gotta eat, right?), has so far directed the simply sublime "The Visitor" and before that the almost as good "The Station Agent" (and, according to his IMDB biography, at least the pilot episode of HBO's upcoming "Game of Thrones" series, too ... bully.)

So the man knows what he's doing, and he's got the always enjoyable Amy Ryan and Jeffrey Tambor on board for "Win/Win" too, so this is definitely one to keep an eye out for.

And in great news that will benefit American TV viewers much sooner, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are bringing the worldly adventures of their comic foil, Karl Pilkington, to something called The Science Station, with the debut tentatively set for Jan. 21.

Now, I'm really not that much of a Luddite, though I still don't own a cell phone, and probably never will. I read just about every science article I come across in the New York Times, but until this morning, I really had no idea there was something called the Science Channel, but thankfully I do indeed get it.

So I'll be able to tune for the six-part series "An Idiot Abroad," and certainly will. But what in the world is it?

Well, if you've ever tuned in for one of Gervais and Merchant's podcasts (and if you haven't, certainly check one out), you know that Pilkington is the frequent subject of their abuse as, well, more than a bit of an idiot. It can get pretty brutal at times, but mostly its just very, very funny.

And along with his great "Monkey News," one of Pilkington's most common lines of thought is that he fears anything that isn't familiar, and particularly anything not British. So what do Gervais and Merchant do? Send him around the world, of course, and in particular to several of its wonders, including Chichen Itza in Mexico, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, the Giza Pyramid Complex in Egypt, the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu in Peru, Petra in Jordan and the Taj Mahal in India, and film the whole thing.

I haven't seen any of what came of all this beyond the trailer below, but I'm betting on very funny, and will definitely be tuning in to find out. And with that rather short report, I have to get ready for what is always about a 10-hour Monday work day. Enjoy the trailer, and have a perfectly nonirritating Monday. Peace out.

Christopher Nolan: 2D's caped crusader?

When reading the big news about Christopher Nolan's third Batman movie, I got the distinct impression that he could have walked into Warner Bros. and told them he was going to make it an animated musical called "The Dark Knight Prances," and they would have simply said "OK."

After all, when your movie makes almost as much as "Titanic," I suppose you have at least a bit of pull. And thankfully, Nolan is choosing to use this as a force for good, and hopefully putting the final nail in using 3D for anything beyond children's movies.

Along with the title, "The Dark Knight Rises," the only other thing that Nolan revealed about the 2012 flick this week was that when asked, he indeed told Warner exactly where they could stick their 3D. Beyond this being simply great news, it also just makes perfect sense, since Nolan already uses a unique technology for his cameras, and therefore has no need for such useless gimmicks.

That's all he's really revealed so far, except for that the Riddler won't be the big bad this time around, but on both of those counts I'd say so far he's off to a great start.

In other actual movie news today, Wendell Pierce, aka Bunk from "The Wire" and Antoine Batiste on "Treme," has somehow landed a part in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn." I have no idea what part he will play, and even less about what's going on in the "Twilight" movies, but I just had to laugh at that.

And before we move on to something even sillier involving Mad Man Roger Sterling, there's also a good bit of news about a movie that will come out in at least some corners of the world very soon, and it sounds like a potentially great one.

Who doesn't like a good kung fu movie? Well, I do, so "Bruce Lee, My Brother" sounds tailor made for me. Drawn from the memories of Lee's siblings, the $4.6 million Chinese production will take a look at his life growing up in Hong Kong. Someone named Aarif Lee, no relation to the kung fu master, will play the young Mr. Lee when this comes out Nov. 27, so keep an eye out for it if you can find it.


After I stopped laughing at the idea of Roger Sterling's memoirs actually being published, I had to think to myself, yeah, I'll probably buy that. After all, when you're feeling down, what could possibly be a better pick-up than some words of wisdom from "Mad Men"'s best character?

The book, to be called "Sterling's Gold," will hit bookstores in November. And though John Slattery's picture will appear on the cover, the book itself springs completely from the mind of "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner.

So, what will you get if, like me, you spring for this bit of silliness? Here's a sampling from the preface:

The book consists of “a few things overheard, a few things to live by, and hell, a few things I’ve apparently said and had repeated to me the morning after a party when I called to make amends."

Instead of a straight forward memoir, it will instead be a collection Sterling's "witticisms," divided into chapters with very basic names such as “On Clients”, “Things to Say to Creatives”, “On the Art of Seduction… and What to Say to Close the Deal”, and “On Some Memorable Colleagues.”

And just in case you doubt that Roger Sterling can be an inspirational figure, here are some examples of his accumulated pearls of wisdom:

You want to be on some people’s minds. Some people’s you don’t.

The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them.

Being with a client is like being in a marriage. Sometimes you get into it for the wrong reasons and eventually they hit you in the face.

Don’t you love the chase? Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Those are the stakes. But when it does work out — it’s like having that first cigarette. Your head gets all dizzy, your heart pounds, your knees go weak. Remember that? Old business is just old business.

When a man gets to a point in his life when his name’s on the building, he can get an unnatural sense of entitlement.

Remember, when God closes a door, he opens a dress.

I certainly don't think I can add anything wiser than that, so with that, I'll just wrap it up and wish everyone, with the help of Roger Sterling, a perfectly bearable Thursday. Peace out.

DVD picks of the week: All hail Hal Holbrook and Helen Mirren

Looking at that headline, it's probably as much as anything a reflection that I myself am getting pretty friggin' old, but - by a pretty wide margin - the best two things on DVD this week are a movie starring an 84-year-old man and the complete run of a sublime TV series starring a 65-year-old woman (though on the younger side of the scale, I'm watching vol. 3 of the UK teen series "Skins" streaming on Netflix too, and that's a real treat.)

First up comes "That Evening Sun," a genuine Southern drama that has been around for quite a while. I first missed the chance to see it at the 2009 Atlanta Film Festival 365, but luckily managed to catch it in its rather meager theatrical run (it apparently has made a paltry $281,000 or so at the box office) last spring. The flick also played the Macon Film Festival this year, and is extremely worth catching now on DVD.

The few who have seen this already will know it's a rare starring turn by Hal Holbrook, the kind of treasure that should be savored while it lasts. Holbrook is probably my favorite performer, if I were forced to pick only one, and here he plays Abner Meecham, an aging Tennesseean who bolts the nursing home to try and reclaim the family homestead that his son has sold out from underneath him.

It's really a role Holbrook was made to play, full of anger, pride and, best of all, a dark humor. Returning to the farm, he finds it now inhabited by two of my other favorite Southern actors, Ray McKinnon and Maconite Carrie Preston (aka Arlene on "True Blood"), along with their daughter, played by ingenue Mia Wasikowska.

What ensues is a war of wills that can at times be hard to watch because, as each holds his ground, they each become less and less likable, but that gives the drama based on a short story by William Gay and directed by Scott Teems a natural feel.

Music by Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers makes this all go down even sweeter, so if you wanna take a chance this weekend on a movie that so far hasn't even managed to make a blip on the radar screen, trust me and give "That Evening Sun" a try.

Today's second pick comes with a disclosure: Acorn Media was kind enough to send me the complete "Prime Suspect" to review on DVD, but that doesn't change at all just how great the UK police procedural starring Helen Mirren was and still is.

Though the stories contained in the seven, three-hour-or-so installments are as gritty - and often more so - than anything you'll find on the best of American police procedurals, it's the performance of Helen Mirren at its core that make these so entertaining.

The humanly flawed cop has been played out way past the point of cliche many times, and very well by Dennis Franz on "NYPD Blue" and Dominic West on "The Wire," but Mirren plays it so naturally that it trumps the pattern completely.

Watching how her life's foibles (among other things, her Jane Tennyson battles the bottle as much as she does her inability to have anything approaching a full personal life outside of the police beat) intertwine with the often frustrating and sickening cases she pursues make this the most well-rounded police series I've encountered on TV. It's indeed on a level with David Simon's "The Wire," and anyone who's been here before knows that from me that's the highest form of praise.

These have been available individually on DVD for years now, but I believe Acorn's collection is the first time they've all been collected in one set. They would make a fine gift for anyone who enjoys great TV, or if you're so inclined, perhaps for yourself.

And with that, I have to go now to the job that pays me in something besides promotional DVDS. Peace out.

What's more fun, Jane Lynch voguing or hot chicks doing "On the Waterfont"? You decide

In the only thing even approaching news you'll find here this morning, it seems that HBO has already renewed David Simon's "Treme" for a second season after only one episode, and bully to that.

The premiere drew 1.4 million viewers in its combined airings, pretty far from sensational, but still better than the 890,000 or so viewers that the five season premieres of "The Wire" averaged (what in the world does everyone else watch on TV?)

Even so, this isn't much of a surprise. HBO has shown tremendous loyalty to Simon through the years, and if you watched the premiere of "Treme," he does indeed have something magical working here. I will say, though, that the premiere certainly moved at a leisurely pace as it introduced the large roster of characters. It was, however, great to see Kermit Ruffins on TV, and my favorite character so far has to be Kim Dickens' restaurateur, but Melissa Leo and John Goodman (man, does he just keep getting bigger and bigger?) will certainly have a lot to work with too.

And in a smidgen more of HBO news before we get to a trio of videos that are guaranteed to brighten up even the dreariest of Wednesdays, it seems that Diane Keaton has just signed on to play a character based on Nikki Finke for a new half-hour comedy titled "Tilda." And if you don't know who Nikki Finke is, congratulations, because that's probably a sign that you - unlike me - have better things to do with your lives than read her drivel on Deadline Hollyood Daily. She's a movie writer of sorts, but mostly just the most annoying kind of gadfly, and certainly a fun role for Keaton to play with.

OK, after that today it's all about funny videos. If you didn't watch the return of "Glee" last night, well, everyone makes mistakes, but it's not about judgment around here. If you did, you'll probably agree it was pretty great, but the musical numbers were the most underwhelming part. That shouldn't be a problem next seek with the "The Power of Madonna" episode. If you stuck around until the end last night, you got Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) doing Madonna's "Vogue," and when it comes to comedy, it just doesn't get much funnier than this. Enjoy.



Thanks to a heads up from Nell Minow, I now subscribe to Roger Ebert's slightly more than monthly newsletter, and I can recommend it to anyone who loves movies. He mostly posts videos that people send him, but they're also almost always very entertaining, as is the case here. Subscriptions cost just $4.99 a year, and without further ado, here indeed are hot chicks doing "On the Waterfront." Enjoy.



And finally today, the sound on this isn't great, but this handheld spy clip from the opening night of Conan O'Brien's "Prohibited From Being Funny" tour shows just how much of a misnomer that is. The opening video introduction is at least watchable, and is vintage CoCo, but unfortunately, once he takes the stage the audio just becomes atrocious. Still worth watching, however, especially now that we now O'Brien will be returning to late night this fall every Monday-Thursday on TBS. Enjoy the clip, and have a perfectly bearable Wednesday. Peace out.

Just about the best news animation fans could possibly hope for

Actually, before we get into any of that goodness today, there's some very dark news about the world of TV, which directly impacts the show I was most amped about for the entire coming year (which is, when you think about it, just about the least important thing about this.)

David Mills, who worked closely with David Simon and like Simon was a former newspaper reporter (Mills for the Washington Post and Simon for the Baltimore Sun), died Tuesday night of an aneurysm on the set of "Treme," the post-Katrina New Orleans series he was developing with Simon for HBO (set to debut two Sundays from now, assuming this news doesn't change that.)

Once he crossed over into TV, Mills, like Simon, had a big hand in creating some of the best TV shows of the last 20 years or so. And I'm very far from exaggerating here. He wrote episodes of "The Wire," "Homicide: Life on the Street, "ER" and "NYPD Blue," and also served as a producer for "ER" and "NYPD Blue." His greatest accomplishment, however, was probably serving as executive producer and co-writer along with Simon and Ed Burns for the simply stunning HBO miniseries "The Corner," easily the most depressing thing to come out of Baltimore besides the Orioles, but still very worth watching (and which netted him two Emmys.)

And saddest of all is that he played a key role in "Treme" at the time of his death, serving as executive producer and having already written two episodes. I'm still planning to re-up on HBO in time for the premiere of this and long enough to watch "True Blood" season 3, but this is just a sad day all around indeed. Rest in peace, Mr. Mills.

You can read a much better obituary for the man written by his fellow "Treme" creators here.

OK, enough sad stuff, because for fans of great animation, there's news out there that is nothing short of incredible. Stop-motion master Henry Selick made my favorite animated movie of 2009 in "Coraline" (followed closely by "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.") Shortly after that, however, he was left immediately unemployed after the animation house he toiled for, Laika, closed up shop.

Now, however, that's all changed, and in the best possible way. Selick has just signed a long-term deal to create more stop-motion movies for Disney/Pixar. There's no word yet on exactly what he has in mind first, but I'm betting that anything that springs from his very active mind will be nothing short of amazing.

Remember that it was Selick not, as many people mistakenly think, Tim Burton, who directed "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and he also made the even better Roald Dahl adaptation "James and the Giant Peach" (if you missed that, as many people did, rent it immediately.) And beyond giving him work to do, this welcome move hopefully shows that, despite Pixar's current fixation with 3-D, it and Disney will keep being committed to making all kinds of animated movies.

And finally today, I just got around to examining the lineup for the 2010 edition of the Atlanta Film Festival 365 (for which I'm somehow a member of the press), and it looks great. The Atlanta fest is really homegrown, featuring a lot of regional fare and, this year, a focus on civil rights and music documentaries. I'm incredibly psyched that included in the latter category will be the closing night movie, "The Secret to a Happy Ending," a doco about my favorite rock band by far, the Drive-By Truckers (followed, apparently, by most of the band playing for a party that I WILL get in to.)

But the festival has narrative features too, of course, and I think the one I'm most looking forward to is "The Good Heart." It stars two of my favorite actors in Brian Cox and Paul Dano. Cox plays the owner of a New York dive bar who is slowly drinking and smoking himself to death until he meets Dano's character, a young homeless man who he takes under his wing. I don't know much more than that, but it's enough to get me rather amped for this. Here's the first clip I know of for the movie. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

A "Prime Suspect" remake? Terminate with extreme prejudice!

It's probably good for my fairly under control blood pressure that as I'm first hearing about this idiocy, it also comes with word that NBC has - for now at least - shelved this monstrosity, and for the best possible reason.

Yes, the network whose last big brilliant idea was putting Jay Leno in prime time five nights a week (how'd that work out, guys?) was actually considering a remake of the sublime BBC police procedural "Prime Suspect."

And I can certainly understand the temptation. For sheer intensity matched with characters you actually care about, only "The Wire" and - at its best - "NYPD Blue" have even come close to matching "Prime Suspect" on this side of the pond, and almost all of the credit for that has to go Dame Helen Mirren.

Of all the characters of the last 20 years or so, on big screen or small, very few have been taken over as completely as Helen Mirren dived directly into the role of Jane Tennyson and made it entirely her own. And it's apparently their belated realization of just how impossible it would be to replace her that finally led NBC to abandon this madness.

Unable to find the right actress for this, NBC has now shelved it until at least June, and here's hoping forever. If I had to name one actress who could pull this off, the only name that even comes to mind is Anjelica Huston, but as great as she is, I can't even see that working, if God forbid she'd even be interested.

And if you've somehow never seen "Prime Suspect," I can't recommend it highly enough. If you want to get started, the beginning would be best, but if you only want to watch one, No. 3, with David Thewlis and Ciaran Hinds in a truly tawdry tale about child murder and serious police corruption, is the best of all in my book.

Here's hoping that this NBC "idea" gets aborted for good, and from now on today it's all about a trio of clips that at least managed to catch my eye this morning.

First up comes a clip from the upcoming flick "Date Night" featuring Tina Fey, Steve Carell and, in this clip, a shirtless Marky Mark. Even though NBC's current king and queen of comedy would seem to make a dream team on the big screen, I somehow just can't get all that excited about this. I just get the sinking feeling it's gonna lack any of the truly manic appeal of "After Hours" in chronicling a supposedly "wild" night in NYC. Anyways, enjoy the clip.

Next up comes a TV spot for something I'm much more excited about, "The Runaways." On paper, the idea of Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning playing rockers Joan Jett and Cherie Currie just sounds dreadful, but the buzz about this out of Sundance was mostly positive, and it really does seem music video director Floria Sigismondi has come up with something that will rock when this finally comes out March 19. Enjoy.



And finally today comes a surprise that made me genuinely laugh out loud. I've never found Jimmy Kimmel all that funny at all, but Tracy Morgan can really do no wrong in my book (yes, I'm really gonna go see "Cop Out" just to see how funny he can manage to be in it, even though the reviews are dreadful.) In this clip I have to assume appeared on Kimmel's show sometime this week (after my school-night bed time, of course), he and Morgan make a rap video, and it's absolutely as silly as you might imagine. Here's hoping that Kimmel's turn as Lil' Jim puts the final nail in autotune. Enjoy, and have a perfectly bearable Thursday. Peace out.

An "Arrested Development" reunion - of sorts? Bring it on!

Just a quick report today fueled by a large cup of Jittery Joe's java, because I'm soon off to see "Shutter Island" and then go to see Jack McBrayer host a screening of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" as part of the Macon Film Festival (crap film, but should still be fun night.)

Before all that fun, however, there are a couple of bits of intriguing news out there this morning.

Though the "Arrested Development" reunion diehard fans most want to see would have to be the tremendously long-gestating movie, any project that reunites creator Mitch Hurwitz with Will Arnett - a k a Gob Bluth, of course - on TV in the meantime has to be good news.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hurwitz and "Arrested Development" co-executive producer Jim Vallely are close to signing a deal to create a single-camera, half-hour series for Lionsgate TV to be aired on Fox, with Arnett to be the main star. The show, in what sounds rather suspiciously (but welcomely) like the further adventures of Gob Bluth, would be about a "rich Beverly Hill jackass" who falls in love with a charitable tree-hugging woman who can't stand his lifestyle. Come to think of it, it sounds an awful lot like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" too, but either way, it should be just insanely funny.

Hurwitz and Arnett have reunited on TV once before since the end of "Arrested Development," but calling their very-short-lived animated series "Sit Down, Shut Up" a disaster would be far too courteous. Here's hoping this new project comes together and works out a lot better, but doesn't keep Hurwitz and Vallely away from that "Arrested Development" flick for too long.

There's other news this morning about Thomas McCarthy, who, if I were ever to get around to listing my 10 favorite directors (actually, sounds like fun), would definitely make the roster somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Along with starring as that seriously unscrupulous reporter on the final season of "The Wire" (reminder, David Simon's New Orleans series "Treme" premieres on HBO on April 11!), McCarthy has directed two perfectly sublime indie flicks, "The Station Agent" and the even-better "The Visitor." And now comes great word about the cast for the new project he's developing for Fox Searchlight.

Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan (double huzzah!) have joined the cast of "Win Win," which McCarthy is writing and directing as a semiautobiographical tale about a teen runaway who is taken in by a suburban New Jersey couple and joins the local high school's wrestling team (McCarthy wasn't the runaway, but rather one of his teammates.)

If that sounds suspiciously like a white, suburban "Blind Side," so what? I'd have to assume Giamatti will play the wrestling coach and Ryan the mother who takes the kid in, and with McCarthy guiding this it all sounds great to me. Shooting is set to start in the Garden State in April.

And by the way, did you know McCarthy is an Oscar nominee, for his contribution to the screenplay of "Up"? Congrats!

All I have after that today is a slew of clips from "Cop Out," courtesy of Collider.com. I'm still not convinced that Kevin Smith's hired hand flick is gonna be any good, but it should provide the ultimate confirmation that Tracy Morgan really can be funny in anything. Enjoy, and if you're headed to the big Macon Film Festival event tonight with Jack McBrayer at the Cox Capitol Theatre, I'll see you there. Peace out.

Tuesday tidbits, a visit from Wallace & Gromit, and why today should be a national holiday

Actually, let's start with the latter, because this is indeed a day so glorious that I should get the day off: After tonight, Jay Leno will no longer be polluting the airwaves at an hour when I'm still awake.

I suppose it's rude to kick a man when he's down, but what he and NBC tried to do to prime time was so atrocious, there's really nothing else to do but celebrate its demise. And though I realize he comes out of it as kind of a winner, since he gets to return to the wounded and almost dead duck that is "The Tonight Show," at least it will be at an hour by which I'm almost always fast asleep.

And though Time magazine actually hailed him as "the future of television" on a serious cover (and I have yet to see any apology for that), this Entertainment Weekly cover sums up the situation much more accurately (and is much, much funnier too), so I'll just let that speak for itself. Enjoy, and even though you surely have to work today, take some solace from the fact that today is V-JL Day (Victory over Jay Leno, of course, and I can take credit for that bit of silliness.)

And what I have after that today is news about three directors I like to varying degrees, in order of just how much I like them, and two videos, one the promised "Wallace & Gromit" bit and the other some madness about Colin Farrell and a mermaid (yes, really.)

First up is Thom McCarthy, who is easily one of my favorite directors working today. He's also an actor, and you may recognize him from his work on "The Wire" and various movies (including somehow, if I'm not mistaken, "2012"!)

As for the movies he's directed himself, there are two that I know of, and I love them both. "The Station Agent" is a sublime little movie, but even better is "The Visitor," easily one of my favorite movies of 2007 and featuring a well-deserved, Oscar-nominated turn by Richard Jenkins (who will somehow now be appearing in the thoroughly unnecessary American remake of "Let the Right One In" - Ack!) If you've never seen this one, I highly recommend it, because you'll find few better stories about immigration in America and the human face of it we so often strive to simply ignore.

And now it seems McCarthy is amping up to direct again, though this time with something completely different and much lighter.

In a tale apparently drawn directly from his own experiences, and in what sounds slightly like a white version of "The Blind Side," McCarthy is now working on a "light-hearted comedy" called "Win Win," which will be "about how a rough-and-tumble runaway changes the lives of a suburban New Jersey family and turns around the luck of a high school wrestling team," according to the always reliable The Playlist. The runaway wasn't McCarthy, but instead one of his childhood friends.

That certainly sounds like it has the potential for mawkishness, but I have full faith in McCarthy, and as someone who at least tried to wrestle in high school, the subject itself intrigues me. Paul Giamatti is apparently on board, presumably as the wrestling coach (perfect), and he and McCarthy are now out scouting unknown actors for the lead role, with an early March start to filming in New York and New Jersey. I can't imagine too many aspiring high school wrestlers read this, but if so, now is your big shot, I guess.

When I saw this next bit about the return of Peter Bogdanovich, I had to visit the IMDB to see when he had last a) made a feature film and b) made one that I've seen. The answers are: a) in 2001, which something called "Cat's Meow" and b) in 1973 and '74 with, respectively, "Paper Moon" and "Daisy Miller."

Even so, when you add to those "The Last Picture Show" and the perfectly silly "Targets," I think you can certainly list Bogdanovich as a great American director, so news of his potential return to the big screen is worth noting.

According to Variety, he's writing and directing an adaption of Kurt Andersen's novel "Turn of the Century," which I can't say I've read. Set in February 2000, it apparently focuses on a Manhattan power couple and their three private school kids. As details go, that sounds pretty far from exciting, but I'm betting Bogdanovich will turn this into something worth watching when filming starts in New York in spring 2011 (though with actual filming that far away, I suppose I should say "if" it starts.)

And finally, in something that's coming together very quickly, it seems that Steven Soderbergh is moving forward with "Contagion," a deadly virus outbreak thriller which is already somehow set to star Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard, even though so far at least there is no studio attached.

When Soderbergh is genuinely engaged and having fun, I do too, which was certainly the case with "The Informant" this year. And if I can digress just a bit, I didn't see "Invictus," but no matter how good Damon may have been in that, there's no way he shouldn't have been nominated instead for his amazing role in "The Informant" at this year's Oscars instead.

Here's hoping "Contagion" turns into a fun ride rather than the star-studded disaster it certainly could very easily become.

OK, it's probably time to start wrapping this up, but there's also a bit of very good casting news out there too. Danny Boyle's next movie, "127 Hours," is already set to star James Franco as Aron Ralston, a mountaineer who was forced to amputate his own arm in order to escape entrapment under a fallen boulder. And now it seems that Amber Tamblyn, who presumably can no longer talk directly with God, has joined the flick as his girlfriend, with the relationship apparently played out in a series of flashbacks in his mind.

I'm not sure how far along this is, but I love me some Danny Boyle, so this is one certainly worth keeping your eyes on.

And now, for the real ending, does anyone remember "The Secret of Roan Inish"? I love that John Sayles movie about selkies, mysterious Irish creatures of myth that can turn from seals into humans. Well, it seems Neil Jordan did too, and now he's made "Ondine," which stars Colin Farrell as an alcoholic Irish fisherman whose life is turned around when he encounters what he thinks is a mermaid (the simply stunningly beautiful Alicja Bachleda, his actual wife.) What will hopefully be a magical fairy tale of sorts has been picked up by Magnolia Pictures, and with Farrell in it, I suppose it might even play wide enough to reach my little corner of the world when it drops June 4 in the U.S. Enjoy the trailer.




And finally, as promised at the outset, there is indeed a visit from Wallace & Gromit today, thanks to a heads up from my fellow cubicle slave Randy Waters. Nick Park is nominated for an Oscar this year in the short film category for "Wallace & Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death," and I'm certainly rooting for him. But here today, all we get is a little snippet of the duo in action, with poor Gromit of course subjected to another of Wallace's disastrous inventions, the "Turbo Diner." Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. Peace out.

Take a bite: Three glimpses of "True Blood" season two

I love it when a rumor turns into truth, but even more when that truth turns out to be even better than believed, as is the rather amazing case with "Futurama."

Collider reported earlier this week that Comedy Central was in negotiation for 13 new episodes of the fantasticly entertaining animated show, but it turns out that was half the deal. The network has apparently ordered 26 new episodes, so far, to run over two seasons.

"Futurama" creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen are already working on stories for the next season, set to premiere in mid-2010 with all the original voice cast returning.

Now I like "Family Guy" enough and I love "Scrubs," but seeing as there haven't been any new episodes of "Futurama" since 2003, I'd have to say this is the most remarkable story yet of a tv show getting resuscitated, and in honor of Bender, I'll just say "bite my shiny metal ass" and bring it on!

And this summer, two of my current favorites are returning, and I have to say, the more I hear about "Mad Men" show runner Matthew Weiner, the more I admire just how much he's an ornery sort. AMC apparently wanted to add two minutes of commercial time to the brilliant show about ad men, but Weiner balked and the network understandably gave in rather quickly, so the show will run until 11:02 or so when it returns at 10 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16. And to answer the first question that popped into my mind, AMC assures viewers that DVRs will indeed record all 62 minutes.

But here today it's supposed to be all about Charlayne Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels and how they've morphed into "True Blood," which returns this Sunday and is the only show in several years good enough to get me to re-up on HBO for three months (but I'll surely be back again when "The Wire" creator David Simon's New Orleans show "Treme" hits next year.)

I like stories about vampires ("Let the Right One In" has lingered as my favorite movie of all of 2008) and especially funny ones, so I'm ashamed of how long it took me to come on board with Harris' trashy-in-all-the-best-ways novels. They're certainly far from high art, but for airplane reads there are few series I can recommend higher. I've read two-and-a-half of them so far, and I have to say Harris' mix of horror, humor, romance and Southern flavor, while perhaps not unique, is extremely addictive.

So, what's gonna happen in season two? I have no way of knowing everything, of course, but from what I know happens in the second Sookie Stackhouse novel, "Living Dead in Dallas," and with the help of these three clips courtesy of HitFix, I can give you at least a taste.

Though you certainly won't hear who it is from me, season two opens with the murder of one of the show's most colorful minor characters. Along with looking into that, in an unrelated case, Sookie (Anna Paquin, whose certainly all growed up) is called to Dallas to investigate an anti-vampire church/cult that has kidnapped the brother of Dallas' vampire sheriff (yes, really.)

One big and mostly good way the show differs from the novels is that it builds up minor characters that Harris largely ignored and gives them new life, the best example being Tara Thornton, played for great comic effect by Rutina Wesley. In this first clip, we find Tara still staying at the home of her rescuer Maryann ("Battlestar Galactica" 's Michelle Forbes), who I can tell you plays a big part in the early parts of "Living Dead in Dallas," and here meets Tara's mother (Adina Porter.)



Another character who gets a lot more play in "True Blood" than in print is Sookie's brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten.) He pretty much disappears after the first novel, "Dead Until Dark," but on TV, "True Blood" mastermind Alan Ball has him become involved with the anti-vampire sect, as you can see from the clip below.



And, of course, Sookie is called in to investigate the Dallas case, or more accurately ordered to by the local vampire sheriff, Eric, played by Alexander Skarsgard. In this final clip, Eric explains his order to Sookie's vampire paramour Bill (Stephen Moyer), who understandably isn't terribly pleased about it.



Anyways, that's probably way too much to write about one TV show, but it's summer and, well, there's not much else on at all. And for anyone who cares about this kind of thing, apparently Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer are now a couple in real life, too. Peace out.