"Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood."
By Seth Freilich | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (34)
Not that I’ve been on top of the TV news reporting as much as I would like to be in the best of circumstances, but I’ve been completely on the QT thanks the drunken debauchery that was South by Southwest. So let’s play some catch-up.
Looks like Henry Rollins is set to do a six episode stint on the second season of “Sons of Anarchy.” Seems like a pretty good fit, although we don’t know anything about Rollins’ role at this point aside from the fact that he’ll be a new antagonist to the SAMCRO biker gang. While the first season of “Sons” started off a little slow, it managed to develop into a bit of must-watch TV for me, so I can’t wait for the second season, which should air sometime this fall. And if the show’s looking for any additional cast members in addition to Mr. Rollins, I know some newly-tatt’ed Pajibans who could flash some ink for ya.
Meanwhile, it looks like crazy-ass crazy man and former funny guy Chevy Chase (god damnit, when am I going to write-up the Underappreciated Gems review of Spies Like Us?) is hoping to get back on TV courtesy of a new NBC sitcom. “Community” stars the very funny Joel McHale (host of “The Soup”) as a lawyer who has to go back to school when he finds out his degree isn’t entirely legit. Chase, apparently, will play a fellow student, and while the role isn’t permanent yet, it sounds like the network is leaning that way. Can Chevy Chase bring the funny anymore? I say yes. I believe Chevy Chase can bring the funny and he will come roaring back to his “SNL” and early-80’s popularity. Of course, I’m only saying that because crazy scares me, and I’m a-feared that Chase might actually show up on my doorstep to berate me if I said what I really thought (hint: it rhymes with “Bevy Base is a bunny as a two-doller brack bore who can’t afford her BAIDS bedication”).
Anyone still watching “Dollhouse?” It still sucks ass, right? Yup. Well this week is the sixth episode and, for those paying close attention, this and the next episode are, according to Joss Whedon, the ones where things really start to click. He recently told TV Guide that they “represent a much stronger vision of what I consider the show to be” and that they’re “pretty intense.” Ok, Joss. I’ll give you two more hours to prove yourself. But if the magic doesn’t happen in these next two episodes, consider me done.
You know what else is on this Friday? Mother fucking series finale of “Battlestar Galactica.” Bring it. I suspect that that by 8 p.m., I’ll be a very sad little boy. “Seth,” you’re asking, “doesn’t the show end at 11 p.m.” Correct, but I’m in LA and will be watching SciFi’s East Coast feed, so I get the show early, my time.
See how that sentence made sense. What if, instead, it read: …watching SyFy’s East Coast Feed…. You’d think I was still drunk or hungover form Austin, right? Well, you’d be correct. But as of mid-July, that’s going to be the network’s new moniker because SciFi has decided to challenge the title to the dumbest network name change (when Court TV became TruTV). The network’s press release claims that changing to this phonetically identical name “broadens perceptions and embraces a wider and more diverse range of imagination-based entertainment including fantasy, paranormal, reality, mystery, action and adventure, as well as science fiction.” Um, no it doesn’t. It just looks stupid. Although it is worth more on the Scrabble board, so you’ve got that going for you.
Finally, the best TV news of the last week is that David Chase (creator of “The Sopranos”) is returning to HBO to develop “A Ribbon of Dreams,” a miniseries “about the invention of cinema and subsequent grown of the Hollywood film industry.” Chase is going to write and exec-produce the miniseries, which will be set, at least initially, in 1913:
The miniseries will follow the two main characters as they begin as employees of D.W. Griffith, and then cross career paths with John Ford, John Wayne, Raoul Walsh, Bette Davis, Billy Wilder and others who gave shape to Hollywood as it grew from the age of rough-hewn silent Westerns, to the golden era of talkies and the studio system, to the auteur movement, to television, and finally to the present day. A RIBBON OF DREAMS takes its name from Orson Welles’ description, “A film is a ribbon of dreams.”
Sold.
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Comments
Posted by: Jay at March 18, 2009 9:48 AM
god damnit, when am I going to write-up the Underappreciated Gems review of Spies Like Us?
Yeah, when are you? Not to mention "underappreciated theme songs" plus my introdution to "Soul Finger".