You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2007.
TV Guide is reporting that NBC is going to spin off The Office into a new series. Apparently several new characters will be introduced this season, and those characters will be the core of the new series. NBC is looking for a big name star to lead the show.
So, is this a good idea? Honestly I don’t know. On one hand, the current show is among the best on TV. It’s consistently funny and inventive. However I’m not convinced they can replicate that. What do y’all think?
Singer and actor Robert Goulet died today at age 73. Goulet was best known to older folks as the star of Camelot on stage and from his appearances on Ed Sullivan. My grandmother loved him.
But since this site isn’t for my grandmother, here’s Will Ferrell’s take on Robert Goulet singing modern rap classics:
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“We don’t make mistakes here, we just have happy accidents. We want happy, happy paintings. If you want sad things, watch the news. Everything is possible here. This is your little universe.”
These are the immortal words of Bob Ross, the ultra-mellow painter whose happy little trees and puffy little clouds actually made PBS fun to watch. Bob died in 1995, but if he was alive today would have been his 65th birthday. Many people retire at 65, but something tells me Bob would have kept on painting, and kept on encouraging others to do the same.
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Most bands from The Motor City tend to be greasy rock bands (Iggy Pop, The White Stripes) or slick soul outfits (Motown). But imagine if the Rolling Stones had made Exile On Main Street
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I love watching Gordon Ramsay on TV. I get some kind of sadistic pleasure watching him rip into aspiring chefs on Hell’s Kitchen, and I like seeing his less ferocious side on both the British and American versions of Kitchen Nightmares. But I really don’t see how a video game adaptation of Hell’s Kitchen could possibly be entertaining.
Canadian video game developer Ludia is out to prove me wrong however, as they’ve announced they’re developing games based on the show for platforms ranging from PCs to mobile phones.
How’s this going to work? You somehow use a keyboard to try and cook, and if you fail Gordon calls you a wanker? Hmm. On second thought that could be entertaining…
Here’s the official trailer for the upcoming season of 24:
Based on the trailer we seem to know:
Is it just me or is this a little underwhelming? We’ll have to wait until January 13th to find out if they can improve on last season.
There’s a new trailer out for I am Legend, the big screen adaptation of Richard Matheson’s post-apocalyptic novel
I am Legend hits theaters December 14th and has the potential to be very, very cool or very, very bad.
Ewwwwwww. Doesn’t anyone think about these things? I can see how some bad titles may slip through. But Cooking with Pooh?
Robot Chicken put together a great spoof of 300. Playing on the fact that the movie isn’t historically accurate, the twisted minds of RC gave another historical tale the same treatment. So watch as George Washington, John Hancock, and the rest of the founding fathers kick some serious British ass!
Rachel Ries is from South Dakota. That’s pretty far geographically, and about as far as possible culturally, from Atlanta. Yet Rachel manages to put together a very compelling cover of “Elevators”, by the ATL’s finest, Outkast.
Visit Rachel on MySpace or on her Official Site
Sparse arrangements, haunting melodies, and lyrics full of symbolism are the calling card of José González, a Swedish troubadour whose sparkling original and inventive covers are taking Europe and the whole world by storm. His sound is a result of growing up in Sweden with an Argentinian father, soaking up the influences of Brazilian, Cuban, American, and Scandinavian artists.
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Who knew that underneath that gruff exterior Darth Vader was really a hard-core blues harp player?
An example of how bleeping profanity can actually be funnier than letting it go…
You may remember Peter, Bjorn, and John’s “Young Folks” as the mental super glue I posted in an old Sunday Music Spotlight. Well here’s a bluegrass cover by Dawn Landes. As much as I like the original, this might just be better…
Radiohead’s In Rainbows has reportedly “sold” approximately 1.2 million copies for an average of between $5 and $8. This proves that innovative marketing, new sales methods, and people’s desire to feel cool can make even a craptacular album sell a shit ton of copies.
In case you haven’t heard, Radiohead decided to say “Fuck You” to record companies and release In Rainbows themselves. And they let their customers set the price they wanted to pay. Down to and including “Free”. I wholeheartedly applaud their balls in releasing it this way, and I couldn’t be happier that it has worked so well for them.
On the other hand, I’ve listened to the album, and it baffles me that people think it’s good. To me it sounds like the musical equivalent of one of those pieces of “modern art” that involves randomly throwing paint on a canvas. Part of me is convinced that people only say they like it because they think everyone else likes it. Kind of like the emperor having no clothes. Can’t we all just admit that it’s shit, have a big group hug, and move on?
Rob at Cockeyed.com is building a fantastic Halloween costume. He’s going to be Dwight Schrute from The Office. Well, kind of. He’s going to be Dwight’s bobblehead. Genius.
Check out all his pictures of the construction and watch the progress
via BoingBoing
Boy do I love a good cover song. The fine folks over at My Old Kentucky Blog do a periodic feature called MKOB Covers Project, where they pick a classic song and highlight the best (and worst) covers of it. The latest entry is “Always on My Mind”, originally recorded by Brenda Lee (I always assumed it was Willie Nelson…guess I learned something today). One of the covers they highlight is Iron & Wine with Calexico, from an NPR recording of a live show. Kick. Ass.
Iron And Wine W Calexico - Always On My Mind
When you’re done listening, head on over to MKOB to check out the other covers, including The Pet Shop Boys version, which is miles away from Willie.
Three Chinese dudes who have too much time on their hands have paid homage to Michael Bay’s uber-craptacular film adaptation of Transformers by building a full-sized Citroen Transformer. It doesn’t actually transform or anything, and it cost $8,000 to build. So really it’s just a statue. Bo-ring! Call me when it transforms…
And boy o’ boy does it sound good. Idolator has a preview with an excerpt, and let’s just say it manages to get porn stars, groupies, drinking, and doing cocaine on a toilet into one little passage. This thing is going to be epic.
It doesn’t come out for a couple of weeks, but you can pre-order it at Amazon
Bruce Springsteen’s tour hit Ottawa last night. Ottawa is in Canada. Arcade Fire is from Canada. So, of course, Arcade Fire joined Bruce and The E Street Band on stage to perform their song “Keep the Car Running”. One of the fans in this video says it best: “Holy Shit!”
From quiet reminiscences of bus rides to raucous tales of corporate America, Brooklyn’s Bishop Allen brings an air of authenticity to everything they create. With an astounding 14 releases in the last four years they’ve proven to be one of the most prolific acts in music today.
Bishop Allen is primarily two dudes, Justin Rice and Christian Rudder, who are joined in the studio and on stage by a rotating cast of characters to fill out the band. They formed the band in the early 2000’s, taking the name from the street they lived on after college (Bishop Allen Drive in Cambridge, MA). They recorded their first album Charm School
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Let’s see, we’ve got Russel Crowe and Denzel Washington, directed by Ridley Scott, produced by Brian Grazer. One word: Awesome. It comes out November 2nd.
I’m not sure whether this clip condemns beauty pageants or justifies their existence. Contestant Stacy Hedger has a great routine planned. She got her black leotard, bedazzled in silver, with sparkly fringe. She’s got her choreography, which includes a nice little Charlie Chaplin impersonation. And she’s got her trusty trumpet. Everything seems great.
Until it actually starts. Then it’s just a train wreck. Go ahead, watch it. I guarantee you’ll stare at it, mouth agape, alternating between disbelief and abject horror. Ah, I love the internet…
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the next project from writer/producer Judd Apatow (whose recent successes include Knocked Up
The film stars John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, a singer/songwriter whose career goes through the inevitable ups and downs that come with super-stardom. It’s a mock biopic, and the trailer makes it seem like a direct parody of Walk the Line
I know this is a question you’ve asked yourself time and time again. Well now you can see the answer. Japan’s Yoshitoku Company has created this 1/4 scale rendering of what the iconic Star Wars badass would have looked like as a traditional Japanese samurai. If you want to get your hands on one, good luck. If you can find one, and I doubt you can, it’s going to set you back a cool $5,200. Yikes. I’ll just take this little number.
It’s like Marvin Gaye and Jack Johnson had a rather large love child… All kidding aside, it’s actually quite good. Just a little strange.
A Chinese prison successfully held Jack Bauer. Now a LA jail will attempt to do the same to his alter ego, Kiefer Sutherland. Sutherland was arrested for DUI while making an illegal U-turn last month. Yesterday he plead guilty to the charge, which just happened to violate the probation he was on for a 2004 DUI conviction. As a result of the plea Kiefer will spend 48 days in jail, broken into an 18-day chunk and a 30-day chunk. He also has to complete an 18-month alcohol education program.
Yoink. Way to go Jack.
I went into Josh Ritter’s show at DC’s 9:30 Club last night with some reservations. Having never seen Ritter live I wondered what kind of performer he was, how he would translate the dense songs from his most recent album The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
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Sunday Music Spotlight alums Spoon made an appearance on this week’s Saturday Night Live, playing two songs. Quite possibly the most exciting thing on SNL in years. It would have been better if they’d gotten that cute little robot to come out and dance with them. Check them out:
Spoon - “Underdog”
Spoon - “You’ve Got Yr Cherry Bomb”
Matt Sharp was the bass player for Weezer, the band that defined Geek Rock in the 90’s. As a side project he founded The Rentals, a place for him to work out the indie side of his musical soul. He assembled a crack team of musicians, including Weezer bandmate and drummer Patrick Wilson, and Petra and Rachel Haden (two-thirds of a set of triplets). The band released their first album, the ironically titled Return of the Rentals in 1995.
Almost immediately “Friends of P”, the first single from the album, rocketed up the Modern Rock charts, eventually peaking at #7. The band put out their second album Seven More Minutes in 1999, then broke up, seemingly forever.
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According to their site, Trailers From Hell “is a series that showcases classic-era movie Previews of Coming Attractions with particular emphasis on the lurid, the extreme and the outrageous.” That about sums it up. They collect trailers from old classics and B-movies and get modern filmmakers to comment on them. The results can be pretty interesting. For example, here’s Sam Hamm commenting on the trailer for Scream of Fear:
via BoingBoing TV (it’s BoingBoing’s new daily video podcast. Check it out).
Meet Lev. He’s a robot specially built to play theremin. Who doesn’t want one of those? Here Lev takes on Patsy Cline’s unforgetable “Crazy”:
Ok, so Lev’s not very good. But cut him a little slack. He’s a robot made out of an old floor lamp, some plumbing supplies, a few empty mint tins, and some microprocessors. Undeterred by his lack of skill, Lev joins his buddy Thumpbot to cover another “Crazy”: Gnarles Barkely’s version. (Does that make this a cover of a cover?)
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Remember Reading Rainbow? It was the show where LeVar Burton tried to convince you to read, WHILE YOU WERE WATCHING TV. Yeah, not a great concept. But this clip is great. It’s rap pioneers Run DMC on the show, rapping for reading:
Via BoingBoing
Josh Ritter’s tour kicks off tomorrow in Portland, ME (though I’m not seeing him until the 9th in DC). To celebrate here’s a live performance of “Rumors” from Berlin:
