The Hot Blog

Nikki Finke will be in and out of the office for the next 3 days so paparazzi get ready and be on the look out.

Just got an e-mail from Netflix announcing a price increase for Blu-Ray access: from $1 a month to $5. Still worth it, but pretty significant.

"Just got an e-mail from Netflix announcing a price increase for Blu-Ray access: from $1 a month to $5. Still worth it, but pretty significant."

A 400% uptick? Somebody sure got anxious in a hurry over there. Doesn't seem to help Blu-Ray gain more ground as a format much either.

Yeah, I don't get enough Blu-rays to make it worth that price increase. I'm just going to drop it from my account.

Remember when I said how glad I was I didn't follow the sheep at SXSW over to the 20-minute Bruno preview? Well, this is what I saw instead:
http://movingpictureblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-women-in-trouble.html

sounds saucy! (i bet not david bordwell will be drooling at the prospect of seeing the on-screen antics of that particular lovely lady)

Hey Leydon is Adrienne Palicki the chick who plays the bad girl on Friday Night Lights?

I think it is; That chick is CHARMING. So is Minka Kelly, who plays the head cheerleader.

I gave up on that show around season two, but there's a lot of awesome chicks AND good actors on it who SHOULD be getting more film work.

Which is why I keep wondering if the cast actively HATES that it keeps getting renewed, since NO ONE WATCHES it, they stick it on some second tier cable network, and they have to be away from Hollywood so much of the year?

In fact, ever since Duchovny or Dawson's Creek, I've ALWAYS wondered that, if actors hate being stranded out in the heartland where they can't make meetings and auditions on the regular.

"Hey Leydon is Adrienne Palicki the chick who plays the bad girl on Friday Night Lights?"

Er, yep.

Anyone else watch TMZ tonight?

(Crickets)

Anyway, most awesome shit I've seen on there in ages: In between all the usual Tom Brady, Giselle, Efron, Hilton, Shawn Johnson (WHO? WHY????) coverage....

Tonight they got footage of, of all fucking people, Ed Lauter, still looking exactly as he did in 1974, holding court at some parking meter and bagging on the cameraman for not knowing state capitals.

The fuck? No idea either, but that was AWESOME.

HARVEY LEVIN, if you read the Hot Blog, I demand MORE ED LAUTER COVERAGE.

If you could work in Burt Young and James Gammon while you're at it, I'd be triply grateful.

HEY did anyone just watch EMMA ROBERTS on FALLON?

A) FALLON = INSTANTLY the best show in late night, better than Dave, Conan and Jay combined.

B) EMMA ROBERTS = CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARMING.

ERIC'S DAUGHTER could be THE NEW K-STEW if she playz those cards right and keeps being CHARMING.

Okay, no one can be K-STEW, but E-ROB could come close.

Lex - you trying to emphasize "charming" to sound like the Mexican-playing-a-Turk in From Russia With Love?

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090329_636430.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_companies

I was working off the assumption that WB had full access to the ADM money. If they don't...no wonder some people were so hot about Watchmen.

That's fucking hilarious, Martin S.

Here's to you Pedro!

Lex, if you have the great good fortune to be on a hit TV series and not blow it all on coke and hookers, you can spend the rest of your life doing the shows you want, not because you have to pay the rent. Actors would sell their souls for that kind of security, especially when it means being able to go home and have dinner with the family. (Shows filmed elsewhere can be an exception, but if you know you're going to be there a while, the family can move there with you.)

Cadavra: That's certainly the impression I've gleaned over the years from interviewing actors who either landed roles in hit TV shows, or actively sought a TV series role. In some cases, it's simply a matter of deciding that, damn, my kids are young, I want to see them grow up, so I should get a regular gig that'll allow me to spend more time at home. That's almost verbatim what Jamie Lee Curtis told me years ago when she landed a sitcom.

That's understandable for veteran actors or journeymen actors who like that kind of schedule. It also helps if their show's a hit.

The point I was making about the stars of, say, Friday Night Lights, Smallville, Supernatural, etc., is they're mostly young actors just getting started. And while I'm sure most of them are just happy for the gig, you have to wonder if they wouldn't rather be in L.A. where they could be auditioning for movie roles, instead of stranded in Texas or Vancouver for whole months of the year. Especially since their shows aren't particularly huge hits.

Even something big like "Lost," yeah it's a great hit show and a sweet gig, but gotta figure at least some of them might feel they're missing out on plum roles by being in Hawaii for half the year.

Anyone else watching Glenn Beck on Fox these days?

What a showman.

That guy is AWESOME and HILARIOUS and way better on Fox than he was on CNN; I'm addicted to it now... I get to catch the first half hour of the repeat at 11pm then segue right into TMZ = Perfect Television.

GLENN BECK FOR PRESIDENT in 2010.

Er, make that 2012. Since 2010 isn't an election year.

It just SEEMS like The Boring Man has been in office for two years already.

Lex I catch Beck from time to time. A relative is a big fan and watches Beck's show daily. I agree that he is pretty damn hilarious, though also completely insane. He said something about FEMA setting up camps to imprison people who disagree with Obama. He is apocalyptic and seems to get crazier on a daily basis. However the more nuts he gets the higher his ratings are.

I have a friend who has lived beyond his means since the day he turned 18 (he's now in his 50s). He's also a batshit-crazy wingnut. The other day he was ranting about how Obama was going to take his "last dime." I said, "Oh, really? You're making over $250,000 a year now?" He replied that that was bullshit and everyone knows Democrats habitually raise taxes on poor people. I just changed the subject and wondered to myself how someone can have lived in such an ass-backward world of delusion for so long.

The answer is because their bizarre worldviews are reinforced by energetic morons like Glenn Beck.

I'm not even focussing on Fox News when I say that more than half of the stuff on TV labelled as 'news' really is not news in the actual sense of the word - information about current events designed to inform people. It's all stuff designed to shock, titillate, enrage, pander to...pretty much the opposite of what news should be. And our constant need to be entertained also causes borderline-intelligent people like Lex to say things strictly for the purposes of being 'outrageous' himself.

OMG I'm 15 minutes into BECK and I AM FUCKING CRACKING UP. This dude is the FUNNIEST THING I'VE SEEN SINCE LAST TIME I SAW DANE COOK AT THE LAUGH FACTORY.

PURE GENIUS. GLENN BECK RULES.

Lex, what kind of reaction are you really expecting from the above comment?

Well, kind of what Stella's Boy said above-- kind of a mix of shock and awe.

It is undeniably hypnotic television, whether one enjoys it ironically or buys into his bug-eyed paranoia wholesale.

The guy is great in the same way Morton Downey was great, or Bill Maher is great, or O'Reilly... Just a consumate SHOWMAN wherever your political beliefs lie.

Long as I'm bringing that up, and because Bill-O was just on Dave, and I AM an O'Reilly fan:

Is there anything more impotent and disingenuous than O'Reilly's threat to "boycott" Sean Penn movies?

Yes, we all know what a sacrifice it would be for noted cineaste and Hollywood fan BILL O'REILLY to not see the next 21 Grams or Sweet and Lowdown or Milk in the theater.

Yeah, sure, his fanbase, some of them, might take the lead, but it's mostly preaching to the choir of the Breitbart/Dirty Harry/Nicol D level of anti-Hollywood idiots who actually think there's some stated AGENDA to offend the heartland and discredit America.

If there are two dozen O'Reilly viewers who would see a SEAN PENN MOVIE (OOH, THE HORROR) anyway, I'd be surprised.

In other words, this shit is like me boycotting Margaret Cho.

Fine, but if you actually care about the future progress of America, or humanity...Glenn Beck is destroying both of those. And so is O'Reilly. Being a fan of either of them is like being a fan of feces.

How are either of them "destroying America and humanity" any more than, say, Jon Stewart?

Note, I do not remotely think JS is doing any such thing; I'm just curious why it's DESTROYING HUMANITY when someone on the opposite side of your personal, political spectrum is voicing their right to opinion?

Also, have you actually watched much O'Reilly, or are you just going by the prominent liberal misperception (ie, the perception of people who have never watched his show)? He's actually a lot more libertarian and arbitrary than Beck or Limbaugh, doesn't entirely tow the right-wing political line and seems a lot more fair than most people give credit for. I don't agree with him all the time, or even much of the time, either, but to write him off with such disdain can't seem like much more than an easy and underesearched cheap shot.

O'REILLY FUCKING RULES.

Lex, I'm not going to argue politics with your persona B as long as your persona A is stirring shit up for the sake of stirring shit up.

Stewart is a comedian, is clear about that fact, and still is more truthfull than O'Reilly. O'Reilly pretends he's a legitimate journalist, and spouts bullshit half the time.

Seems clear to me who is the more harmful.

Lex, I don't watch O'Reilly often, but I don't buy that he is a libertarian. Beck makes the same claim. I think they would like to believe that's true and say it so often because repeating it might make it true. It would support their belief that they are somehow independent. But from what I've seen of their shows, nothing could be further from the truth. They are right-wingers to the core. Beck seems to only have guests on who agree with everything he says, which makes for really boring television. O'Reilly has guests who disagree with him but he never lets them speak, which makes for equally boring television. However, unless they are drastically different when I'm not watching, neither one of them is close to being truly libertarian.

Lex: This is just for you. Because, you know, when even Joe Scarborough can't help guffawing at a Rightie...

Er, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBjDADBh_EE

Colbert's response is also hilarious.

Joe,

Thanks for the link; Hilarious... Scarborough's laugh is infectious.

Beck = Genius. I'm not a strict right-winger, mostly apolitical, but he's fast becoming appointment television. I'm sure the act will get old faster than Downey, Limbaugh, or Cramer combined, but the fevered pitch, the buged eyes, the goofy voices, the terrible jokes -- one cannot turn away because you don't want to miss what he'll do next.

He was just OK on CNN, but this new shtick is positively INSPIRED.

"Beck = Genius."

I don't think this word means what you seem to think it means.

Ed Schultz gets a show on MSNBC? Sweet.

He's good, but Stephanie Miller should've gotten the gig.

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