The Medusa Fora

firehazard wrote:

O'Blivion wrote:I thought Mick did a bang-up job hosting SNL. He sounds GREAT these days.

Shame he's such a big old Tory now.

I've been caught up with a load of Scandinavian noir recently, with The Killing and The Bridge. Daughter says I should watch Game of Thrones next, which does sound like jolly fun.

Borgen is pretty great too - a sort of Danish The West Wing with a bit more political bite (though sadly lacking Alison Janney!)

Frances wrote:

philipchevron wrote: (for Harvey)

He's quite lucky not to have seen Stewart's turn in Harvey. If that's actually true. But you can imagine Stewart in that role never having seen it. Like Bugs Bunny or something. My older sister used to watch that movie a lot, along with The Long, Long Trailer. Random

I wouldn't pay to see that play apart from his appearance and Carol Kane. Wonder who gets the role after he goes back to work? Denzel, Sean Hayes, Shalhoub!

Have you heard that Brooke Shields and Richard Chamberlain are both in Exorcist at the Geffen?
Well, that's certainly something.

My impression is that it really is a limited run that will die the moment Parsons goes back to being Sheldon. Charming though it is, it's not actually a great play but the combination of Parsons' natural genius and his marquee name is bound to keep the Studio 54 lights flickering brightly throughout the summer. The producers will not want to risk throwing that windfall away by taking a gamble on an extension.

I confess I'm excited about seeing him live - it's so seldom a comical force of nature comes along like that. Did you know he's forty? There goes another overnight success story in the Show Biz.

philipchevron wrote:Borgen is pretty great too - a sort of Danish The West Wing with a bit more political bite (though sadly lacking Alison Janney!)

Yes, I've been thinking I should give Borgen a go. Though I did find the national political bits in Forbrydelsen II a tad confusing at times.

philipchevron wrote:
My impression is that it really is a limited run that will die the moment Parsons goes back to being Sheldon. Charming though it is, it's not actually a great play but the combination of Parsons' natural genius and his marquee name is bound to keep the Studio 54 lights flickering brightly throughout the summer. The producers will not want to risk throwing that windfall away by taking a gamble on an extension.

I confess I'm excited about seeing him live - it's so seldom a comical force of nature comes along like that. Did you know he's forty? There goes another overnight success story in the Show Biz.

That's cool.
He certainly makes it a play that everybody would like to see.
Which is saying something, I mean... Harvey?

Stewart was forty-two in the film.
But he seemed like it.
Parsons reads thirtysomething to me.
Good for him.

Metcalf would've been 17 when she had that baby.

philipchevron wrote:...it's so seldom a comical force of nature comes along like that.

I was just looking at Nimoy stuff on youtube and came across this clip of Parsons on the show that perfectly sews the aspy side to the geek. Sheldon wants to respond to a gift from Penny with one of precisely the same value.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K02O02NqndE&feature=related

I haven't seen all that many episodes, but this one I have. I've never even heard his character say Bazinga!

I don't feel the same way Sheldon does about Nimoy, but have a niece who does. I knew damn well at Comic-Con to stand my ass in line over the course of two days to get her a promotional Spock foam finger. They kept running out of wibbles and what not. I also knew not to settle for any lame red one.

The same niece is a huge Monk fan and smiled like crazy when I got her a personalized picture of Tony Shalhoub via the show. He rocks.

Frances wrote:

philipchevron wrote:...it's so seldom a comical force of nature comes along like that.

I was just looking at Nimoy stuff on youtube and came across this clip of Parsons on the show that perfectly sews the aspy side to the geek. Sheldon wants to respond to a gift from Penny with one of precisely the same value.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K02O02NqndE&feature=related

"I possess the DNA of Leonard Nimoy!!??"

It's a wonderful episode. The McGuffin is that Sheldon has bought Penny's gift in a variety of sizes so that he can reciprocate with one of comparable value and return all the others to the store. On one of the commentary tracks on the DVD extras, some of the cast members reveal that everyone knew The Hug was such a big deal for Sheldon that most of them were in tears when Parsons did it.

Unsung documentaries on David Ruffin and Billy Preston

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ssy1-hrxY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EcaZKfrDR0&feature=related

Fringe (Season Three, Fox)

I gave up on Fringe after the second season. Though it undercut its nerdiness well with a rather good comic touch, its saga of an FBI "fringe science" squad exploring parallel universes somehow seemed to have played itself out. But something drew me belatedly back. Which is good, because otherwise I would have missed the classic THE FIREFLY episode (309) in which Christopher Lloyd plays Walter's favourite rock god, Roscoe Joyce, from the 1970s band Violet Sedan Chair, or see Michael Cerveris return as The Observer in the same episode. Or the extraordinary part-animated LYSERGIC AND DIETHYLAMIDE episode (319) in which Leonard Nimoy (well, his voice and his animated features) guests as Walter's former physicist partner Willam Bell. Naturally, Walter and "Belly" celebrate their unexpected reunion with an acid trip, one in which Lance Reddick as Phillip Broyles unwittingly joins, all the more welcome because Reddick is otherwise giving exactly the same performance as he gave as Cedric Daniels in The Wire.

But I think what keeps me there are the nicely nuanced performances Anna Torv, John Noble and Jasika Nicole give as both their characters in our universe and in the alternative universe [where, among other things, the Twin Towers are still standing]. Small but significant things change their appearance subtly but their characters are completely different too from the inside out, a fact that plays right through the third season when Peter (Joshua Jackson) appears to have fallen in love with the wrong Olivia (Torv) when he crossed back into the other universe. Ooops!

Despite appearances, in the End of Days episodes with which Season Three concludes, there has been a Season Four and already a Season Five is lined up. Better go watch 'em, I suppose.

philipchevron wrote:Fringe (Season Three, Fox)
...Despite appearances, in the End of Days episodes with which Season Three concludes, there has been a Season Four and already a Season Five is lined up. Better go watch 'em, I suppose.

This is one of my favorite shows, but I struggled a bit with season 4; in the early part of the season they need to resolve what happened to Peter at the end of Season 3 and the way they approach it is interesting but changes some things I had been comfortable with. The latter half of the season seemed to have a different feel to it than the show has always had. That said, it was all worth it; so I would recommend continuing. There are some really interesting episodes and some revelations and new questions built in.

A VH1 reality piece on Ol' Dirty Bastard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvpwQMSw6AU&feature=related

After watching this, I was reading that Michael K. Williams will play Mr. Jones in the upcoming film Dirty White Boy.
One VH1 dude writes a screenplay about another VH1 dude attaching himself to ODB in his latter days. Alrighty.

I'd really like to see Mr. Williams play Russell Jones in a straightforward biopic, less focus on the intern/manager.
That would be a-maz-ing.

DWB is directed by the guy who did the 99 Problems video, which was gorgeous.

Been tuned into season two of "Falling Skies", the Spielberg foray into TV and alien invasion scenario of the end of the world as we know it.....
http://www.fallingskies.com/
A little slow at times in season one, so far so good as season 2 kicks off....

I gave up on Fringe as well after season 3. Some of the episodes left me feeling like I had just wasted an hour I'd never get back.

Richard II (BBC "The Hollow Crown" series)

Ben Whishaw as an effete wacko jacko, complete with pet monkey? Patrick Stewart marinating in the juices of the "this sceptr'd isle" speech? Rory Kinnear having better luck atop a horse than his old Dad did? Yes, all this and more: it can only be Rupert Goold's new take on DICK 2. Fortunately, the play and the verse speaking all survived beautifully.

philipchevron wrote:Richard II (BBC "The Hollow Crown" series)

Ben Whishaw as an effete wacko jacko, complete with pet monkey? Patrick Stewart marinating in the juices of the "this sceptr'd isle" speech? Rory Kinnear having better luck atop a horse than his old Dad did? Yes, all this and more: it can only be Rupert Goold's new take on DICK 2. Fortunately, the play and the verse speaking all survived beautifully.

Yes, it was fun. Though a member of this household fell asleep in front of the tv, and woke up to find, in her words, "...a couple of heads rolling around on the ground. What happened there then?"

firehazard wrote:

philipchevron wrote:Richard II (BBC "The Hollow Crown" series)

Ben Whishaw as an effete wacko jacko, complete with pet monkey? Patrick Stewart marinating in the juices of the "this sceptr'd isle" speech? Rory Kinnear having better luck atop a horse than his old Dad did? Yes, all this and more: it can only be Rupert Goold's new take on DICK 2. Fortunately, the play and the verse speaking all survived beautifully.

Yes, it was fun. Though a member of this household fell asleep in front of the tv, and woke up to find, in her words, "...a couple of heads rolling around on the ground. What happened there then?"

Yes, the great thing about TV acting is that, as it's just one performance and you don't need the actors ever again, the actors become disposable and can be decapitated without troubling the budget too much. More prosaically, major advances in the plausibility of head modelling technology have resulted in a glut of bodyless actors in both theatre and electronic media recently.