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People who know me well have often had to embark on a dangerous journey to learn how to discern my true meanings from my usual dry, cynically infused, sarcastically seasoned manner of speaking. Sadly, this journey has claimed the lives of a few aquaintances. Perhaps the problem was a lack of learning materials upon which to guide them to understand the words that are coming out of my mouth. Thankfully, this is no longer a problem, as I now have a wonderful resource for new aquaintances to learn all the ins-and-outs of modern-day cynicism: Television Without Pity.

TWP is dedicated to providing summaries and recaps of television shows. What sets TWP apart from your typical tv-show-fanboy-site is that these summaries presented through a wonderfully sarcastic and cynical filter. I give you a few wonderful excerpt from their recent recap of the Lost season finale (A warning: if you haven’t seen the show, you might not see the humour in these… BE WARNED!):

She’s all, “It’s too much!” what with her brother/lover dead and now “the others” are coming. Sayid strokes her face and tells her it won’t be too much if he helps her carry her bags, which oughta shut her cry-hole. [TWP: Lost, Exodus Part Two, p.4]

This next comment deals with one of the commercials aired again and again throughout the Lost finale:

This show Dancing With the Stars intrigues me. Because clearly ABC is trying to broadcast a show that no one will watch. If you love dancing, plus you’re a big fan of the guy who played J. Peterman on Seinfeld, which went off the air SEVEN YEARS AGO, have we got a show for you! [TWP: Lost, Exodus Part Two, p.11]

It’s important to note, however, that although the recaps are often critical of terrible hack-writing or poor decisions made by the show producers, many times the recaps are written by genuine fans of the shows and credit is given when the shows get things right.

Anywho.. thats all.

[ TWP's homepage | Direct link to the Lost finale recap: "Have a nice summer, suckers" ]

CBC.ca is reporting that MTV Canada and the canadian MTV2 will cease broadcasting on June 30th:

The change comes as part of a deal announced Tuesday by CHUM, which counts MuchMusic among its holdings.
CHUM purchased Craig Media late last year, acquiring the two MTV channels in the process.
MTV has now exercised an option it had to sever ties with the CHUM-owned Craig.

All of this is a little less surprising when you remember that CHUM owns and operates MuchMusic (“The Nation [Canada]‘s Music Station“) and pads out MuchMusic content with purchased content from MTV, like Newlyweds and Pimp My Ride.

Frankly I didn’t even know that CHUM had purchased MTV Canada and I don’t think I’ve seen the channel since my “60-days of free digital cable channels” promotion ended, which might be an indication in-and-of-itself as to why it’s being shutdown.

Read

I just noticed the new Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire trailer is now up at Apple’s Movie Trailers page. It’s not due to be released into theatres until Nov. 28th, this year, but I have to say that the trailer certainly got me excited for it.

One of the aspects of the Harry Potter series that I’ve particularly enjoyed so far has been the way they’ve attempted to handle the aging of both the actors and the themes of the novels. It’s certainly not a guarded secret that as the books have progressed the darker they’ve become, and novel-wise Goblet of Fire is no exception. Right beginning of the trailer this theme is introduced as we see images of Harry from each of the three previous films dissolve into one another, ending, finally, in a now fairly mature (and sorta creepy) looking shot of Daniel Radcliffe from the new film. We also see the same process applied to both Hermione and Ron in turn. From just the changes in colour palates from film-to-film alone we see that the relatively light feeling of the first film is long gone as we approach the fourth film in the series.

From the nice dissovles bringing us back up to date we transition (quite nicely encouraged along by the soundtrack in the trailer) to a quick series of shots from the film. Many of these shots work well for both the casual viewer as well as the hard-boiled Potter-nerd (myself included) in that they seem to be pulled from some of the more exciting parts of the book. We are also given a snippet of what appears to be a speech by Dumbledore (played once again by Michael Gambon, who seems like he finally might cast of the shadow left behind by the late Richard Harris) as a means of narration and quite succinctly surmising the main action plot.

Spoilerwise, this trailer isn’t actually that bad. While it does show scenes from each of the challenges in the story, it doesn’t actually give much of the meat of the story away. It’s found a nice balance between building anticipation and showing enough ‘wow-shots’ to possibly pull in new audience members who may have previously dismissed the previous films as kid’s stuff. Overall the story, as presented in the trailer, certainly feels more epic than I recall feeling about the other films. One thing to note is the total absence of any comedy from the trailer.

We’re left with a somewhat ominous detached voice advising Harry that he’ll need to make a choice. I can’t recall from memory who or what this pertains to but I think it’s a great hook to leave the audience with.

I’m sure the people over at mugglenet have dissected this trailer to death by now, they’re pretty much the premier site for Potter related news on the net.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Trailer Page

Got this from the alt.tv.newsradio newsgroup (and no, I’m even going to comment on how nerdy that makes me…):

[The following message was sent to the members of the NewsRadio
Newsletter mailing list. If you'd like to subscribe yourself, send a
blank e-mail to newsradionewsletter-subscr...@topica.com.]

As you all know, the first NewsRadio DVD set, containing the first two
seasons of the show, will be released on May 24th. Releases for
subsequent seasons will depend on how well it sells, so don’t be shy
about picking up your own copy and spreading the word to your friends
(or, heck, even your enemies)! I know I’m basically preaching to the
converted here, but just in case you need more reasons to open your
wallets, NewsRadio’s erstwhile creator Paul Simms has graciously
provided his take on the platters.

Without any further ado, I’ll pass the mic to Mr. S…

—————————————————-

I’m sure most of the following info is probably already available
somewhere on the Internet, but here’s what the DVD will contain:

1) The first 27 episodes. Which means: the pilot, the six episodes of
Season One, and the 22 episodes of Season Two.

2) Tons of extra Audio Commentary stuff. Of the 27 episodes on the
DVD, 20 of them have Audio Commentary. (Which is great, considering
that originally, it seemed like we were only going to be able to do
Commentary on six episodes.)

Just about everyone involved participated in the Commentary sessions:
– The entire cast (except, of course, for Phil): Dave Foley, Maura
Tierney, Stephen Root, Andy Dick, Khandi Alexander, Vicki Lewis, and
Joe Rogan.
– Almost all of the writers (except, of course, for Drake): Me, Josh
Lieb, Joe Furey, Brad Isaacs, Lew Morton, Brian Kelley.
– Also: director Tom Cherones, producer Kent Zbornak, producer Julie
Bean, executive producer Brad Grey and — believe it or not — former
NBC President Warren Littlefield.

Each Audio Commentary features three (and a few times, four) people
all together — with me acting as question-asker and otherwise doing
my best to get people talking as much as possible. (Because I’ve seen
too many DVDs with audio commentary where the participants just sit
there and watch the shows and periodically mumble, “Oh yeah… I
remember when we shot this… I had a toothache that day.”)

I think the Commentaries turned out great: lots of juicy, gossipy
personal revelations — many of which I didn’t know about until the
Commentary sessions. Like: who had crushes (or more) on whom, who was
mad at whom and why, me and Littlefield revisiting our scheduling
arguments, and so on.

One of the things I think the hardcore fans will enjoy most is hearing
the cast members (many of whom hadn’t seen each other in a while)
talking to each other — and in many cases, falling right back into
the chemistry they had all those years ago. Joe Rogan, lovingly
antagonizing Andy Dick, is one highlight I remember from the sessions:
their interplay sounded as much like “Joe Garelli vs. Matthew Brock”
as it did “Joe Rogan vs. Andy Dick.”

3) Also, there’s the Blooper Reel we put together and showed at the
wrap party, and (I think) some kind of mini-documentary put together
from the Electronic Press Kit footage we did back then.

What a deal. I hope the following seasons get the same treatment.