Concert Review: The Shins, Minglewood Hall, 5/18/2013
Political Passport: Everything You Need to Know about the IRS Scandal
Jack Bauer, Michael J. Fox, and Agent Coulson - They're Back!
Movie Review: The Great Gatsby
I consider myself a horror movie buff. Seen the good ones, seen the bad ones, seen the ones other people have never even heard of.
In the past few years, I have been pleasantly surprised to see the uptick in horror-esque television shows appearing on nearly all of the major networks. Scary TV programming is very hot right now. Just look at the following list and you’ll see something that either you or someone close to you watches on a regular basis. Read more
“Politics have no relation to morals.” – Niccolo Machiavelli
“Don’t worry, I hate spoilers.” – Joshua Smith
When House of Cards was pitched to me, it went something like this: “It’s The Godfather meets The West Wing.” Ok, I’m listening. “It’s based on a UK miniseries, based on a novel.” Oh, great. So I’ll have to endure the endless procession of tweets about how it didn’t capture the novel and the British version was more understated and poignant. “It has Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects, American Beauty) and Robin Wright (The Conspirator, Moneyball).” Alright, there’s going to be some stiff competition for Emmys this year. “It’s a collaborative effort between director David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network) and producer Andrew Davies (BBC’s Poet Laureate, probably). Ok, I’m in. But since I don’t have 13 hours to spend on a show I’m not watching with my wife, I have to wait until the opportune moment. Cold virus ravaging our bodies and making it impossible to move any more than is necessary to pay the pizza guy and keep the kids alive (same thing)? That’ll do. Read more
Scandal isn’t great television, if by great you mean “top-tier” or “Emmy-worthy”. It doesn’t belong in the same breath as Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Homeland, Downton Abbey, and Game of Thrones. There are a lot of shows on television that are better-made than Scandal. I watch some of them. However, I’d rather watch Scandal than a good number of those “greater” shows.
But, if by great television, you mean addicting, entertaining, and a lot better than you want it to be, Scandal is indeed great television. Scandal is my new guilty pleasure show. It was a sweeping addiction that happened as my wife and I watched the first 19 episodes of the show in 15 days. (We may or may not have Netflix binge-watched all 7 episodes of season 1 in one day!) Am I even a little ashamed at how much I love Scandal? Yes. But am I counting down the hours until the next episode on tonight? Definitely.
When I first saw the trailer for FX’s newest drama, The Americans, I was instantly excited. I was skeptically cautious, but I had high hopes that perhaps The Americans would be the next great drama on TV. In the short term, we needed something to fill in between Homeland‘s finale in December and the premiere of Mad Men and Game of Thrones at the end of March/beginning of April. In the long term, we need some new dramatic series as Breaking Bad and Mad Men begin to wrap up their runs with the final season and penultimate season approaching, respectively.
HBO’s Girls is taking the world by storm, and Lena Dunham (on the show Hannah Horvath) is the thunder and lightning behind it all. And to be quite honest, I think it’s a very funny, entertaining, and well-written show. I have seen the 1st season in its entirety, and at this point have seen all of the episodes of the 2nd season, so I feel I have a right to make some general statements about my feelings towards it. Read more
The previews for next week’s double feature of The Bachelor were, as usual, far more interesting than the show itself. They featured a hypothermic ambulance ride, tears (naturally), and girls going nuts. Just a great way to start off a week. This week was BLEH as usual, but with so many idiotic people being filmed at the same time, there’s still a few shining moments.
First, Sean’s one-on-one, where he jet-set to Joshua Tree with Selma, a terrifyingly small Iraqi chick whose boobs were precariously close to bouncing out of her shirt the whole time. We couldn’t look away!
Busty Muslim. (From her ABC Bio page)
Happy 2013 Wise Guise Family! We hope the holidays treated you well and you, too, are excited for everything the new year always brings!
Like many years before this one, we’re immediately thrown into the dog days of the NBA season, postseason football, the Oscar movie season, and the return of many of our favorite TV shows. With the return of ABC’s dating reality show extravaganza this week, Liz Riggs will be returning with her hilarious weekly coverage for everyone, enjoyable for both fans of the show and those of us who don’t have a clue what’s going on.
If a 30 minute sitcom gets a mid-season premiere the week before Christmas, then it is almost certain to fail. If it gets its premiere after the finale of the network’s most popular show, then the network execs really want to push it and hope for the best, but they know it’s destined to fail. If the show stars an actor who is playing the very same role he played in a movie that is 15+ years old, then, well then it’s just weird.
1600 Penn premiered on NBC this week, the week before Christmas, after the finale of The Voice, and it stars Bill Pullman as the President of the USA, a role he played in Independence Day in 1996. Read more
It’s been awhile since my wife, Palmer, and I debated and discussed “important issues of the day” on the blog. It’s allowed lots of tension and opinions to bubble up, lots of movies and television to be viewed, and lots of opportunity for us to bring you our latest edition of “He Said, She Said”! Check out our latest edition, where we discuss, debate, and review: Argo, fantasy football, Looper, the “Nashville” series premiere, and the latest seasons of Homeland, Modern Family, and Parenthood!
Confession: I love conspiracy, serial dramas. I watched 24 the night it premiered. Alias hooked me on the reboot, post-Super Bowl episode, which prompted me to go back and watch from the beginning. I loved the return of the serial drama to network TV. Sidney Bristow and Jack Bauer’s tackling of government conspiracies to take over the world. I was hooked at every twist and turn.
