Humor District

Starz had a hit with the first season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, so they decided to capitalize by not only working on a second season of the show, but also making a prequel show. The prequel, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, really won’t have much to do with Spartacus. Instead it will focus on the house of Batiatus, played by John Hannah, before Spartacus shows up and dominates everybody. Expect to see an intriguing look into the inequality of social classes in ancient Rome, along with the responsibilities of those in charge of the care for others. I’m just kidding, it is going to feature a bunch of very muscular men in leather underoos killing each other in extremely over the top ways.

For fans of the first season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, there will be a few familiar faces returning for Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. First, Batiatus and his wife Lucretia will have prominent roles in the series, and will still be played by John Hannah and Lucy Lawless. The gladiator Crixus will also be returning, played by Manu Bennett. Crixus will once again be playing second fiddle to another gladiator, this time Gannicus, the first Champion of Capua. Gannicus will be played by Dustin Clare, an Australian actor I’ve never heard of before. New cast members joining Clare will be Jaime Murray and Marisa Ramirez, who will be playing Gaia and Melitta respectively. Gaia is a friend of Lucretia and Melitta is a slave who will be getting very friendly with a gladiator. At least that is my assumption. Best of all the real Spartacus, Andy Whitfield will occasionally make appearances, so I guess that justifies the show being named after him. Actually, best of all might be Jaime Murray.

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AMC has ordered six episodes based off of Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic book series, The Walking Dead. This is old news, but no series is complete without the main character, who is small town cop Rick Grimes in this place. AMC made an interesting choice and cast Andrew Lincoln, a British actor, to play the Kentucky based officer. I’m not saying it is a mistake to cast a British actor as a small town American cop, after all acting is pretending to be somebody you are not, I’m just curious to see how Lincoln approaches the character of Rick Grimes.

Anybody who has read The Walking Dead series knows it is fairly graphic, contains some harsh language, and is more about the survivors than the zombies. This last part is what will be most important in a TV adaptation. Expect to hear pretty much everything except the F-Bomb in this show, see some violence, and lots of character development. The Walking Dead is about how the living cope with their lives being so drastically altered, in this case by hoards of undead craving the taste of human flesh. Some can handle it, some can’t. AMC has announced the largest casting choice with Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, we can only hope that he and everyone else cast live up to the standard set by Kirkman’s characters.

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As told to me by the ghosts of Hollywood past, present and future.

Pretty much every romantic comedy or teen angst movies targeting a male audience is about a 5-rate guy daring to dream about landing a 10-rate girl.  Most of these movies however, are not lazy enough to put that premise in the title and market it as such.  Most of those movies have some other kind of hook.  Like giant robots, last days or High School/College or McLovin.  But not She’s Out of My League.  Nope.  That’s what the whole movie is about.  Just throw in some curse words and juvenile male pranks and it’s an instant cult success.

But isn’t that sad?  If your a 5, you shouldn’t be with a 10.  You don’t deserve a 10.  What could you possibly have to offer her?  All a movies like this does is reinforce male complacency.  It makes losers believe they are “good enough.”  Well your not.  That’s the truth.  But the kicker is: you can be better.  They shouldn’t have to accept you.  Hell, you shouldn’t accept you.  You can be a 10 if you work at it.  You can earn your 10 mate the right way.  That’s what these movies should show people.

2) Present – The minority led TV shows are going to be awesome.

I already raved about Forrest Whitaker’s Criminal Minds spin-off.  Now there are three other minority led pilots that I can gush over now.  Breakout Kings is an instant hit mixing Prison Break and Criminal Minds together (though the title leaves a lot to be desired.  Here’s to hoping it’s just a working title).  JJ Abrams is crossing over to the darkside with Undercovers, a black version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.  Genius.  And even the brown is getting down with another CIA drama called Chaos.  We are here baby!  We are finally here!

It doesn’t seem like much on the surface, but can you name a minority driven TV show of the past decade that was not a sitcom…and that lasted more than 5 episodes?

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Me neither.  I’d have to go back to NY Undercover for that one.  Yes I went that far back.  But NY Undercover was a great show (and might I add spearheaded the whole undercover cop show movement), and that’s the difference.  Well all these shows — judging by their loglines — appear to be great shows too.  And I think that’s going to keep them around a lot longer than the Gideon Crossing‘s of the world.

How many times does a ghost have to slaughter entire families before stupid-ass wannabe home owners get the f—in’ message?  If you move into a house and freaky stuff starts happened.  Move the hell out!  Last year it was Paranormal Activity and sometime in the future it’s going to be Dream House.  What pile of bricks is worth your life?  Can someone please tell me that?

I understand that this is a common fear among first-time home buyers, but geez, do we need to see it over and over again with little to no variation on plot.  Why is it always a ghost?  Why can’t it be a witch, or troll, or dragon or even a bear hibernating in the attic.  Can we mix it up a little, because we’ve already established that evil spirits make horrible roommates (maybe they should do a movie about a exorcised ghost looking for a place on Craigslist).  But to make it more relative, if I found out that my boss was murdering employers with the lowest sales, I’m not going to bust my butt to be #1, I’m f—in’ quiting!  Wait, maybe that could be a movie too…dibs!

Beaze and all his crazy antics, featured articles and random thoughts are now on twitter @Beazewriter

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For anyone wanting a career in journalism, Charlie Booker gives a few valuable tips such as:

Show a familiar location, then have the presenter walk towards the camera ignoring all the pricks milling around him, like he’s glidingthrough the fuckng matrix.

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As told to me by the ghosts of Hollywood’s past, present and future.

Past – Mel outburst will have no affect on his film, but his age will.

It use to be that men were ageless in Hollywood, while the women had a short self-life but that trend seem to be changing.  The movie going public seems eager to accept Carrie Bradshaw and her shopaholic croonies living the single life, Meryl Streep can do no wrong and TV audiences are buying into Cougartown, but what about our aging men?

Yes, Stallone is back in the Expendables, but he has lots of company, Indy had to come back with a son and Pacino & De Niro can’t seem to get the dollars up anymore (see 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill).  Could it be because women don’t have the same interest in the distinguished, intellectual and traditional blue pill heroes they once adored?  They seem to have their eyes glued to the young little sex pots now.  The Shia’s and the Taylor Lautner’s of the world.  Have the tables truly turned?  If so, that’s just disgusting!

Present – Spiritual movies are an endangered species.

I tried to make my case for their comeback here, but it seems Hollywood is making the case for spirituality box office futility at the movies.  As we speak there are three divine movies at your local theaters: The Book of Eli, Legion and the Lovely Bones, but none of them are having the commercial impact the studios were hoping for.  Legion is a B-movie at best, but Book of Eli stars Denzel Washington (see above maybe?) and the Lovely Bones is based on a popular book, yet neither is the blockbuster it was suppose to be.

Which begs the question, is spirituality too intellectual for the big screen — creating success only in literature — or is the subject just too taboo, turning off the religious and atheist alike?  It can’t be that people don’t like being preached to.  No, not with Avatar‘s success.  It can’t be that people don’t want to hear stories they heard a million times, see Avatar again.  So what is it that makes people shy away from blatantly religious movies?  Maybe it’s the over-the-top fantasy element of it.  Maybe, just maybe, people actually want spiritual tales without the creepy spirits.  You know, something they can actually relate to.

Future – the Criminal Minds spinoff will be a ratings top 10 out the gate.

I’m not exactly going out on a limb here, but with Forest Whitaker on board, this show is a sure-fire smash.  I myself just recently hopped on the Criminal Minds train over the Christmas break (oddly enough I first tuned in to verify my wife’s claim that Shemar Moore waxes his eyebrows) and I just can’t get off.  This is a franchise that will rival CSI and NCIS with Whitaker on the team.

Typically I only choose one: I only watch Law & Order: SVU, I only watch CSI and I only watch NCIS: Los Angeles.  But I’m watching both Criminal Minds.  Namely because the show doesn’t just switch scenery.  But then again, how could they?  Federal jurisdiction spans the entire United States — though Criminal Minds: Afghanistan does have a nice ring to it.  This Criminal Minds is suppose to be the “bad boys” of the FBI.  Profilers that don’t always “go by the book.”  Whatever, as long as they have psychos killers who could give the Joker a run for his money people will tune it.

Beaze and all his crazy antics, featured articles and random thoughts are now on twitter @Beazewriter

Popularity: 3% [?]

As Conan O’Brien nears closer to signing a nearly $40 million deal to walk away from the Tonight Show, his dream job, there are two sticking points have surfaced in negotiations. A clause that would prevent Coco from continuing to publicly bash NBC and the custody of his show’s intellectual property. Among the characters in question are Triumph the Insult Dog, Pimpbot 5000 and the Masturbating Bear. No news on the “In the year 2000″ segment, but if they take that as well I’ll be overwhelmingly pissed.

This is not the first time NBC has stripped late night talk show host of their material. In 1992, NBC retained the rights of several of Letterman segments and characters. The network’s head, Jeff Zucker, becomes the bad man in all of this by the day.

All in all though, news of a legal fight over a Masturbating Bear is probably the greatest news you’ll hear this year.

If you’ve never seen these characters in action, behold:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Ricky Gervais hosting the 2010 Globes wasn’t the only thing to light up the evening. Arnold Schwarzenegger mistakenly yet awesomely mispronounced Avatar as “Abadah”.

Take a listen, clearly “Abadah”!

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Ricky Gervais did a brilliant job hosting the Golden Globes last night. One downer was he was woefully absent for far too much of the ceremony. When he was there, he was side-splittingly funny, but too often, the producers opted to have the announcer introduce the presenters. Were they possibly scared of what he would say if he was given too much time? He was downing beers as he introduced speakers, maybe he was a little rowdy backstage. If so, awesome!

The best part of the night, was in Ricky’s opening monolugue. He pointed out that despite Steve Carell’s huge mainstream success with The Office, he wouldn’t have any of it if not for Gervais first creating The Office in England. Carell responded in the only way he could: mouthing to Gervais, “I will break you.”

Check out all the his best moments in the video below. Because hell, who wants to watch the rest of boring speaches.

View all the 2010 Golden Globes winners over at MovieFone.

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[Via Deadline]

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As told to me by the ghosts of Hollywood past, present and future.

Past: Hulk Hogan is the cause of movies like the Tooth Fairy.

When wrestling icon Hulk Hogan signed on to star in Mr. Nanny in 1993 he cursed action stars for eternity.  Now any meathead who can bench press the director is obligated to sell his testicles if he wants to “cross over” and attract a young female audience to combine with his massive male audience.  This must be what Vin Diesel (the Pacifier) and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (The Tooth Fairy) believe.  Right?

But my question is, does the same work in reverse?  Could you ever have a movie starring a domesticated female who suddenly finds herself the go-to-hero on a bloody battlefield surviving by using techniques she learned in the kitchen?  Could Renee Zellweger or Carrie Brad…Sarah Jessica Parker go from shopaholics to rage-a-holics?  Let’s all pray they try.

Present: Disney will never cast a black princess again.

Before the Princess and the Frog struggled to break the century mark, the last Disney animated adventure to gross less than 100 million was Meet the Robinson’s in March of 2007.  In that span, Bolt, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up and A Christmas Carol all top 9 figures.  So a dog, rat, robot and a couple of geezers are all more bankable than a black princess, who by the way turns into a slimy, ugly frog.

Maybe it’s because of all the “hey come see Disney’s first black princess” advertising.  People don’t like to be sold.  I think if they’d advertised, “hey come watch this princess adventure with your daughters” the audience would have figure out she was black on their own.  But anyway, America has spoken.  Black President, yes we can.  Black princess, no not yet.

Future: NBC will never be a ratings juggernaut with it’s current executives.

After NBC punted Conan O’Brien on 2nd down there is no way they are getting the ratings-ball back.  And I’m not just talking about at 11:30 either.  This clearly shows that no one at that network with any pull has vision or balls, two essentials in building a winning team.  After 5 years of planning, yanking O’Brien after a couple of months is spineless.  Anybody remember the old saying, “no guts, no glory”?

This explains why they are constantly one step behind in breakthrough programming and cheating off the other networks papers (see: America’s Got Talent and the Listener as prime examples).  And let’s pretend for a second that they “had” to cancel Conan because of low ratings.  Are you telling me they didn’t see any holes or warning signs during that 5 year span?  If not, someone should probably reevaluate their career choice.

Beaze and all his crazy antics, featured articles and random thoughts are now on twitter @Beazewriter

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