Filmography 2010

For my last blog post I wanted to post a video I found today that not only really really cool, but also inspiring to me. Filmography 2010 is a short video of 270 movies from 2010 that were put together with a great selection of music. This video is so well edited and the music goes along in such a great way, it makes me think how much time this guy spent not only watching these movies but then thinking of how he can edit is such a way and then actually executing it in such success.

As I'm going through college I have been thinking of what skills I actually want to learn. And by trying to plan out my next couple years this is something I want to have the capability of doing. I'll be soon transferring to another college to focus on Animation and Special Effects, but tying editing to that would be an awesome thing to learn. I can just imagine trying to come up with something half as cool as this and being proud of it. It's the little things like this video that inspires me and makes the years of going through school and different work worth it.

Jeopardy: Man vs Computer

Jeopardy!, the game show that seems it has been on television since the creation of TV, is now going to put two of the best contestants up against a computer program developed by IBM.  Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter — will play two games against "Watson," the name they are giving the program.  The name sounds like it came from the 80s version of the future computer, kind of like Rosie from The Jetsons.  Watson has already had some test runs with other winning contestants but it is kept secret what his it's record was. The matches will be spread over three days that will air Feb. 14-16.

15 Worst Films of the Year

1. The Last Airbender
2. Sex And The City 2
3. Jonah Hex
4. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore
5. The Nutcracker In 3D
6. Finding Bliss
7. Grown Ups
8. When In Rome
9. Flipped
10. Killers
11. Marmaduke
12. The Bounty Hunter
13. Multiple Sarcasms
14. Letters To Juliet
15. Hot Tub Time Machine

Community Christmas Special

This year Community did a Christmas that was stop action animated.  All of the characters looked like they were made out of clay like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.   The episode was about Abed only seeing everyone made out of clay while everyone else thought he was nuts.  They seek help from the Psychology professor and they travel to Winter Wonderland all in Abed's mind.  They seek the meaning of Christmas and through song, Abed finds out that the meaning is different to everybody and that he just wants to be around the people that loves him.

The Internet is now as popular as TV

The average U.S. consumer now spends as much time online as watching television, according to research being released today by Forrester. The survey says that people spend 13 hours doing each activity.  It seems that the Internet has been consuming more and more time over the years is because people can do normal activities on the Internet like reading newspapers.  The Internet is not for just email anymore.  People are on social networking sites, attending class, and even watching shows on streaming sites.  I'm predicting in the next five years the amount of time people are on the Internet will far surpass the time they spend watching television. 

Movie Ratings

The MPAA assigns different rating for movies. (G, PG, PG13, R, and NC17) Even though the MPAA never put out a guideline of what determines each rating, Holllywood producers have a sense for it.  NC17 is the most dreaded rating because it can't be played in many theaters, advertised in many places, or nominated for many awards.  People are now speaking out that they should change the rating system.  The MPAA rating system wasn't even designed for parental guidance. 

Today most people think of movie ratings and can put them into two categories: R and not R. And everyone knows that to get into an R rated movie you must be 17 or accompanied by parents. Kids will always sneak into movies but most of the time they will sneak into a R rated horror movie and not a  nudity filled film.

A good option for parents to determine if a movie is rated a certain way is to go on the website www.screenit.com.   And in the end it seems like there should only be a need for three categories.  G for young audiences, T for Teen and A for adults. 

Disney and Netflix reach to a $200 million agreement

The Walt Disney Co. has reached an agreement with Netflix Inc. that allows the rapidly growing subscription service to stream television shows from the ABC network, Disney Channel and ABC Family, signaling Netflix's growing clout as a distributor of programming over the Internet.

Was Harrison Ford High on Conan Last Night?

Yes, Harrison Ford is a bad ass. I know this. But something just didn't seem right last night when he appeared on Conan last night. I'm not complaining or anything. At least this wasn't as awkward as the Joaquin Phoenix's interview on Letterman a year or two ago. This one is probably one of the best interviews I saw on a talk show in awhile and I wish most interviews were this funny and entertaining. Another person that gives funny interviews is Russell Brand but he's very fast paced and on the different end of the spectrum than Harrison Ford.

 Click "Read More" for the full video.

Cowboys & Aliens

I'm a huge fan of movie trailers.  I probably spend more time watching trailers than I do movies.  This week one movie trailer caught my eye.  It's a movie called Cowboys & Aliens and I think Steven Spielberg has something to do with it. (It just seems lately he just puts his name on any movie though)  From what I've read or seen, this is should be one of the summer movies for next year that doesn't disappoint.  

 

A man from Wisconsin Shoots his TV with a shotgun after Bristol Palin's performance on Dancing with the Stars

MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) — Prosecutors say a rural Wisconsin man blasted his TV with a shotgun after watching Bristol Palin's "Dancing with the Stars" routine, sparking an all-night standoff with a SWAT team.

According to court documents, 67-year-old Steven Cowan of the town of Vermont in Dane County became enraged while watching Palin dance on Monday evening. He felt Palin was not a good dancer.

He went to his bedroom and returned to the living room with a shotgun and blasted the TV, then pointed the gun at his wife, who managed to escape and call police. Tactical officers surrounded the house and finally managed to talk Cowan out Tuesday morning.

He has been charged second-degree reckless endangerment, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 in fines. It was unclear whether Cowan has retained an attorney.

 

NBC Thursday Nights

Yes with football coming to Thursday nights starting very soon, many viewers will forget the best night of comedy television.  Thursday has always been a night NBC valued as their "Comedy Night." As of today, Community, The Office, 30 Rock, and Outsourced take up the line up. But NBC announced that their comedy lineup will no go for another hour til 11pm.

THURSDAYS (all beginning January 20)
8-8:30 p.m. – “Community”
8:30-9 p.m. – “PERFECT COUPLES”
9-9:30 p.m. – “The Office”
9:30-10 p.m. – “Parks and Recreation”
10-10:30 p.m. – “30 Rock”
10:30-11 p.m. – “Outsourced”

 

Conan Returns

Conan returned after his nine month break when being fired from NBC.  His new show on TBS, titled Conan, is now on at a new time at 11pm.  O'Brien joked that he named the show Conan so that it would be a lot harder to replace him.  The first three episodes are in the books and his ratings beat out both Leno and Letterman.

 

Scott Pllgrim vs the World

Scott Pilgrim vs the World was a movie that I knew nothing really about except that it was a comic book.  The first 20 minutes there were lots of video game references along with video game music and the movie really played out like a video game.  It did get weird at some points, like when on of the actors started singing during a fight scene.

Top 3 Worst TV Spin Offs

Spin offs have been apart of television forever.  Why not create a new show based on one of the characters of an older successful show.  Sometimes it works, but most of the time you have the worst TV shows every created.

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother is a half hour comedy on CBS.  Ted Mosby played by Josh Radnor is the main character and the show is based on the events leading up to how he met your character.  Bob Saget plays the voice of future Ted in the year of 2030 and most episodes have him explaining the story to his two children in the beginning. 

The Social Network

Today I want to talk about a movie I recently saw.  It's called "The Social Network" and it's based on how the largest social networking site, Facebook, was created.  Overall I enjoyed the movie.  The split time lines from the present "getting sued" to the past and how it happened were well done.  This movie got me thinking on a couple things.  First, was Mark Zuckerberg that much of a jerk during the whole process?  And I had no cue Sean Parker, creator of Napster, had such an influence.

Community Halloween Special

I watched this a couple nights ago and I really enjoyed it.  Community is becoming one of my favorite shows on television.  It follows a diverse group of friends that met through a book club that Jeff Winger started to get Brinda's phone number.  The Halloween special takes place at a party in the community college library.  The Dean, dressed as Lady Gaga, is serving a food that he got from the Salvation Army.  Apparently that food is very powerful and people start turning into zombies.  Most of the episode is the group of friends avoid getting bitten.  Eventually everyone except Troy gets bitten but he goes back inside after the dean is told to quarantine the Library and keep the zombies inside. When Troy goes inside his plan doesn't work as he thought it should, but he does get to hit the thermostat to make it cold so that people wouldn't die from brain hemorrhaging.  At the end the army comes and drugs everyone and when they wake up they don't remember what happened.  They just think that someone drugged everyone.

 

Diggnation

This is one of the only Internet TV shows I watch.  Diggnation covers news stories on the social news bookmarking site Digg.com. It is hosted by Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. It is more of a video podcast than a production TV show as they have conversations with themselves and also two cameramen and whoever else is in the room.

30 Rock Live

Last Thursday, NBC's 30 Rock had two live shows.  One for East Coast and one for the West.  This gave 30 Rock a real SNL vibe from back in the 90s-early 00s.  The live show takes place when they are filming an episode of TGS.  It also falls on Liz Lemon's 40th birthday which no one remembered.  Also in the episode, Jack stopped drinking because his girlfriend can't while pregnant and Tracy wants to "break" (the act of messing up lines and start laughing during a act) during one of the shows. 

CONAN

With Conan O'Brien returning in less than a month, I wanted to blog about my top three Conan skits.

1. Walker Texas Ranger Lever

After NBC bought the rights to Walker, Texas Ranger, the lever was introduced.  Even though the lever is just a very simple prop that everyone knows it isn't connected to anything, fans cheered for Conan to keep pulling it.  When he would pull it, a scene from Walker, Texas Ranger, would play.  And what made them so addicting is that the scene would be so random and out of context, that it was funny.

The Event

THE EVENT 

RECAP

PART ONE

I am going to do these recaps differently than what is viewed during the showing.  The show skips through the time line and POVs of about five characters.  The first character's journey I will be going through will be Sean Walker's.  

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Modern Family

Modern Family is my favorite sitcom on air.  It is compromised of one extended family, which are broken down to three smaller branches.  First you have the most "normal" family which includes a standard Mom and Dad (Phil and Claire Dumphy) and three children (Haley, Alex, and Luke). Next you have a gay couple and their adopted daughter (Cam Tuker, Mitchell Pritchett, Lily). Lastly you have an older husband married to a younger Colombian woman who has a son via a previous marriage (Jay, Gloria Pritchett, and Manny Delgado).

Fall TV

With The Event being one of the shows I'm going to watch this fall, I was thinking on what other shows
would I like to watch.  First let's look at the new one hour dramas on the three major networks:

The First New Show I Started to Watch

After my favorite television show went off the air after six years, I was truly LOST with out it.  (terrible pun, I know) I almost felt like the guy that wrote this Facebook update.