Archive for August, 2008
Let it be known that my son knows a good thing when he sees it. He’s 14 now, but between the ages of six and 10, he was obsessed with Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends, a Cartoon Network show that just earned an Emmy. Character designer Ben Balistreri won in the juried award category for individual achievement in animation for the “Mondo Coco” episode.
I would see the show in passing and think, what the heck is this? It just looked so weird, and the animation is practically primitive compared to today’s CG standards. But the concept is somewhat more complicated.
In the Foster’s universe, imaginary friends become physical beings the instant a child imagines them. An Imaginary Friend is completely real and can be seen, heard, and felt by all under most circumstances. The only problem is that children outgrow them, and they’re left to fend for themselves.
That’s where Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends comes in. Founded by the elderly Madame Foster, it provides a foster home for abandoned Friends. According to the episode “Emancipation Complication,” there are 2,038 Friends currently residing in the Home, and they’re all quite creative and fluid, sort of like our imaginations. The house motto is: “Where good ideas are not forgotten,” and the stories revolve around 8-year-old Mac and his Imaginary Friend, Bloo.
This isn’t your average cartoon, where a simple mystery is solved or superheroes save the world from yet another legion of doom. Much thought goes into Foster’s, which is why I decided it was good viewing fare for my impressionable son.
Even the episode titles are ingenious, such as “The Trouble With Scribbles,” “The Big Lablooski,” “My So-Called Wife,” and “Room With a Feud.” There’s usually a message, but not the preachy, in-your-face kind. More subtle, something kids are more likely to absorb. Foster’s has been on the air for six seasons since 2004, and I hope it continues for a good long while, even though my son has moved on to Naruto
and Avatar: The Last Airbender, shows which also feature complicated characters and storylines.
Also taking home an Emmy is Teresa Drilling, key animator for CBS’ Creature Comforts episode entitled “Self Image, Winging It, Art.”
Juried awards are selected in categories in which there are no nominees, and winners are selected by a blue-ribbon panel of experts. Categories may have more than one winner or no winners at all.
This year’s Emmy Awards will air September 21 on ABC.
Another daytime talk show? Apparently, but this one could have some promise. Why? It’s got Bonnie Hunt.
The Bonnie Hunt Show will be unscripted and low-key with a lot of audience interaction. The producers who back Ellen’s and Tyra Banks’s talk shows are behind Hunt, so shouldn’t we be too?
My fondest memories of Hunt as an actress are not of TV (although her sitcom, Life with Bonnie, was pretty funny, just not my bag), but rather her roles in Jumanji and Jerry McGuire. I feel that those characters allowed Hunt to showcase her dry wit balanced with her gentle nature the best. But I do agree with the producers: Hunt’s got personality.
Back to the unscripted: If Hunt’s show remains unscripted and unpredictable, my guess is that they’ll have a hit. Do you have any predictions as to whether or not Ms. Hunt can weather the daytime talk show competition?
Courtney B. Vance
Angela Bassett will likely not miss her husband too much when she’s working on “ER” this season. He’ll be on set with her.
Courtney B. Vance, Bassett’s real-life spouse, has taken a recurring role for the NBC drama’s 15th and last season. He’ll be playing the husband of Bassett’s character, a new attending physician at County General.
“We are excited to see the on-screen chemistry and emotion this incredibly talented husband and wife team will bring to our show,” executive producer David Zabel says. “Fans are in for a treat, and we couldn’t be more thrilled that they chose ‘ER’ to make their first [TV] appearance together.”
Vance starred on NBC’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” for five seasons, playing Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver. His TV credits also include Lifetime’s “State of Mind,” the original “Law & Order” and the 1995 HBO movie “The Tuskegee Airmen.”
On the big screen, he’s appeared in “The Hunt for Red October,” “Panther” — which also featured Bassett — “Cookie’s Fortune” and “Space Cowboys.”
London, Aug 19 (IANS) Actress Felicity Huffman got the role in the hit TV show “Desperate Housewives” after an audition where she complained about the troubles of motherhood.Huffman has three children and she walked into the audition all distressed, reports contactmusic.com. She then told the agents, “I’m losing my mind.”
The actress added: “The women pulled back from me as if I’d said, ‘I eat babies’. I felt such shame and remorse and humiliation. And I guess that’s exactly what they wanted for (my character) Lynette.
“I’d just left two screaming kids in the bathtub and it was raining. I thought I pulled myself together well. Later on, one of the producers said, ‘It was so great because you were such a mess and so frazzled, and your pants were filthy!’”
Director: Jirí Menzel
Stars: Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
The Plot: After being released from his 15-year prison sentence, Jan Díte looks back on his life, and how he went from being a waiter at Prague’s most-celebrated hotel with dreams of being as wealthy as his diners, to becoming a millionaire himself, only to watch his fate take a turn as Hitler’s army began to break apart his native Czechoslovakia.
THE BUZZ: Chances are you’re reading about the winner of this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Director Jirí Menzel won said award 42 years ago with Closely Watched Trains, and with his first film in 12 years — a WWII-set romantic comedy, no less — one almost has to have sympathy for his competition. Especially when one considers that Menzel adapted the novel by his longtime friend Bohumil Hrabal, who passed away last year. P.S. Hrabal also wrote the novel Closely Watched Trains …
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I.O.U.S.A. [limited] |
Director: Patrick Creadon
Stars: (Full Cast)
Studio: Roadside Attractions
The Plot: A documentary that outlines and examines the U.S.’s rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for America, its citizens, and its international alliances.
THE BUZZ:
Wordplay director Patrick Creadon is back, but this time he isn’t playing games; he’s looking at how our national debt numbers add to, well, doom. Call it Another Inconvenient Truth or whatever comes to mind, though we prefer Variety’s label: “stat-studded geekfest for accountants and economics majors.” Read their review here.
Director: Peter Cattaneo
Stars: Rainn Wilson, Josh Gad
Studio: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
The Plot: Two decades after he was kicked out of his famous rock ‘n’ roll group, Robert ‘Fish’ Fishman (Wilson), an over-the-hill drummer, pounces on a second chance at coercing his way into a garage band fronted by his newphew (Gad).
THE BUZZ: Before seeing this movie’s awesome trailer, I thought the concept would best be served by a digital short starring Andy Samberg. But then? Said trailer arrived, and I noticed the screenplay was co-written by one of the creative minds behind The Larry Sanders Show (Maya Forbes) and one of Wes Anderson’s cronies (Wallace Wolodarsky). Maybe August isn’t the summer dumping ground it used to be.
Director: Fred Durst
Stars: Ice Cube, Keke Palmer
Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
The Plot: Eleven-year-old Jasmine Plummer (KeKe Palmer) looks to become the first female to play in the Pop Warner football tournament in its 56-year history.
THE BUZZ: Fred Durst directs Ice Cube in a family comedy? That’s fine, but Durst better never don a red ballcap and chinos again, and Ice Cube is fully aware that his street cred is long gone. So let’s turn our attention to KeKe Palmer, the endearing star of Akkelah and the Bee who takes center stage here and is — wait for this — attached to portray Roxanne Shante, the legendary disser/rapper in the indie Vapors. Suddenly she’s more bad-ass than her co-star and her director combined. Here’s the trailer, which looks perfectly harmless and all, but still makes me wonder if girls will be attracted to this story.
Director: Fred Wolf
Stars: Anna Faris
Studio: Columbia Pictures
The Plot: A Playboy bunny (Faris) who was recently booted from the mansion winds up becoming the new house mother for a sorority in jeopardy.
THE BUZZ: Can you plagiarize yourself? That’s the question that screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith seem to be positing with this comedy, which lifts so much from Legally Blonde that we wouldn’t be surprised if Bruiser the dog made an appearance. This is even so much like LB that we bet it’s the talented star who makes it watchable. And while we love Faris to pieces, and are glad she’s getting the lead roles these days…. something a little different wouldn’t hurt on the resume!
And total US Weekly babe alert: “American Idol”‘s Katharine McPhee and celeb progeny Rumer Willis too?! OMG — where do we pick up the free L’Oreal make-up bags?
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Stars: Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Tyrese Gibson
Studio: Universal Pictures
The Plot: Former NASCAR champ Jensen Ames (Statham) is framed for the murder of his wife, and subsequently sent to a notorious prison overseen by a warden (Allen) who has created the country’s most popular sport: a kill-or-be-killed car race in which her inmates compete for their freedom.
THE BUZZ: Whoa, the Transporter faces off against Jason Bourne’s oppressor? One good thing is: since this is set in a Paul W. S. Anderson universe, Jason Statham and Joan Allen will probably make out at some point. Here’s another: At least Sly Stallone didn’t lobby to star in this re-envisioning of his 1975 cult action flick. First Showing has a first look (actually, they just reprinted Empire Magazine‘s photospread) at the action, which we imagine Anderson is envisioning as a potential franchise. And check out the curiously sexy trailer, complete with a sequence that makes me realize how Anderson is getting to make his proposed Spy Hunter movie after all …
