WTF

I stopped watching Smallville about three episodes into the first season despite how pretty the cast was because it wasn't fun or clever or well acted, and also because I think Superman as a super hero is lame, so maybe I'm off the mark here but...

...does that look like Superman's costume to you? Because to me it looks like something Jimmy Fallon would wear in a Barry Gibb Talk Show skit on SNL.

Bones is such a fun show

And it looks like they have fun making it.



Are you watching? You should be.

Cupid

I never watched the original with Jeremy Piven - which I have no explanation for, since I've been a fan of his since Say Anything - so I don't have anything to compare this to. Which may turn out to be a good thing, because it looks adorable.

Well, it's about time.

I've been saying for a couple years now that Supernatural is a good show. I've talked it up to all my friends, and my family, and have managed to sway a couple of them into watching the show at least sometimes if not consistently. It's struggled with ratings from the very start, but has always had a strong enough fan base to not actually be as close to the cancel bubble as many of the fangirls seem to think each spring when all the new shows are being announced. Also, the ratings system is antiquated and inaccurate, we all know this. DVR viewings, downloads, both legal and illegal, and website airings need to be more heavily factored in for all shows, not just the "struggling" ones. I know every week I don't watch Supernatural when it's actually on. I don't think I watch anything besides baseball and football when it's actually on.

That being said, Supernatural's ratings for its Season 4 premiere was up 33% from its Season 3 premiere. It helps that it didn't have any competition from The Office, 30 Rock, Grey's Anatomy or CSI, most of which premiere next Thursday, but still. Thirty-three percent! I'm thinking quite a few people caught up over the summer with DVDs.

If you're not watching, you should. The show is really very good. Plus, just about everyone cast on it is absolutely gorgeous. And I don't just mean the two leads.

The Tudors

I actually really enjoyed the second season of The Tudors, politics and religion and all. But then, I've read several books about Henry VIII, so I like seeing how they interpret history for their sex-fueled show. I was worried that they were going to just stop now that Anne Boleyn has lost her head, but it looks like they're going forward. Season Three will cover Henry's marriage to Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, which gives hope that they'll keep going and cover Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr. At this rate, The Tudors series can go on to cover Edward VI's short reign, Jane Grey's even shorter one, Bloody Mary and Elizabeth I. The history is ripe with possibilities that will translate well to screen, and I, for one, hope it goes on until the end of the Tudor dynasty.

Hopefully I'm not the only one.

"These are OR scrubs." "OH, ARE they?"

Jason Schwartzman, former drummer for the fantastic Phantom Planet, current singer/musician/songwriter for the fantastic Coconut Records, and actor known most for playing one of the most amazing characters ever created, Max Fischer in Rushmore, has signed on to do an HBO pilot called Bored to Death.

The premise is a struggling writer in NY who, following a breakup with his girlfriend, decides to emulate his literary heroes by pretending to be a private detective. It has potential. Jason's definitely funny. I mean, just look at the picture I posted. (He's also super nice. I met him a few times).

Roundup 5

• Dominic Monaghan (Charlie from Lost) has filmed a pilot in which he co-hosts a political comedy show. I'm all for it. He's super funny, and I want him back on my TV.
• Jim Carrey will co-create and executive produce a show for HBO. In related news, where the hell has Jim Carrey been lately?
• Has it really been 15 years since Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville was released? My cd is that old?! Wow. It's held up well. (PS: That album is brilliant).
• This week's issue of Entertainment Weekly is all about the 'New Classics', i.e. the best of the best from the last 25 years. I largely agree on a most of it, though I must admit that I haven't read a lot of the books. Which, if you know me doesn't mean I don't own a lot of them; I just haven't read them yet.
• Matthew Perry will star in a pilot for Showtime that he will be co-writing and co-producing with Steve Tolan. I love love love Matthew Perry.
  
• I was just talking about how Wilmer Valderrama disappeared the other day. And now he's starring in a pilot for Fox.
• The mighty Jason Schwartzman was a guest DJ on KCRW this week.
  
• Limewire has a list of the best rock star onstage outbursts, with YouTube videos. The Green Day one doesn't surprise me since I was at a show once that they had stuff thrown at them and they left about 10 minutes into the set. The Nirvana one is interesting. Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy is less of a pussy than I would have expected. I have no idea what's going on in the Rolling Stones one. And the Queens of the Stone Age one makes me a little scared of Josh Homme.

There goes my childhood...again.

I'm not going to lie and say I didn't know about this movie. I set up auditions for actors when they were casting it. But The Lost Boys remains to be one of my favorite movies from my childhood, and it saddens me that they made a remake. You can watch the trailer here. The trailer makes it look like Corey Feldman is the only original actor to be in it, but I guess after Corey Haim cried about Warner Brothers not asking him to be in the movie on The Two Coreys, they did actually get him and Jamison Newlander to reprise their roles as well.



Speaking of The Two Coreys, the new season starts on June 22nd. Even though Haim and Feldman are apparently not on good terms right now. Whatever. It's a trainwreck and I'll enjoy every minute of it.

Cigarettes, scotch and misogyny.

How cool is this Mad Men Season 1 DVD boxset?! Even if I didn't like the show, I'd want to own that. It'll be released on July 1st.

I love the show, by the way.

There was a fish in the percolator!

If you've never watched Twin Peaks, do yourself a favor and rent or buy it because it was one of the most interesting, weird, creepy, innovative shows ever to grace our television sets. The show also starred Kyle McLachlan, Sheryl Lee, Sherilyn Fenn, Ray Wise and Peggy Lipton among so many others. (Oh yeah, David Duchovney played a transvestite FBI agent in a few episodes, hee!) It was typical David Lynch-style weirdness, but, in my opinion, so much better than his movies, which are really hit or miss for me.

And now Lara Flynn Boyle, who played Donna Hayward, is blogging about it (and her time on The Practice). It's actually a pretty interesting read.

Is this going too far?

Top Chef Junior. What?

Weeds Season 4

The new season of Weeds premieres on the 16th, along with Billie Piper's Secret Diary of a Call Girl, on Showtime. I love Weeds, and highly recommend it, though you might want to watch the first three seasons first. Mary Louise Parker is adorable, Elizabeth Perkins is a force to be reckoned with, and the rest of the cast is brilliant. I'm sad some of the best characters have been cut due to plot issues, but I'm in this for the long haul so I'll deal.

Also, I want the shoes MLP is wearing in the ad. Here's a close-up.Possibly the greatest shoes ever.

Short and awesome (The post and Francis, actually),

Francis Capra, Weevil from Veronica Mars, will be joining Heroes this fall. My fingers are crossed that my girlcrush Kristen Bell will be back as well, so there can be a snarky reunion. That would be must see TV.

New TV show news

Showtime has picked up a series, United States of Tara, created by screenwriter/Oscar winner/Entertainment Weekly correspondent/ex-stripper Diablo Cody. The series will star Toni Collette and John Corbett and is due to air in 2009.

According to the Yahoo press release, the show will be about a woman with dissociative disorder, and how she and her family deal with the different personalities that emerge. Sounds interesting. I'm sure the dialogue will be snappy bordering on self-congratulatingly clever, just like in Juno. But, I liked Juno a lot, and I love Collette and Corbett, so I'll give this a try.

Bend me, break me, breaking down is easy

Shirley Manson, my first ever girlcrush, will be joining the cast of The Sarah Connor Chronicles next season. Just another reason I should watch that show.

Oh, she's also releasing a solo album that will feature appearances by Jack White, Billy Corgan and Beck (among others), and which will be produced by her Garbage bandmate and producer extraordinaire Butch Vig. AWESOME.

Get ready to have your minds blown tomorrow night

The Season 4 finale of Lost is tomorrow night. I'm excited, are you?

Here's a YouTube video someone put together of all of the flash forwards in "chronological order". I don't thing they got it exactly right, but it's close enough. I know beggars can't be choosers, but had I put it together, there would be more dialogue. But it's a decent refresher for tomorrow's shenanigans.

I'm not the only one who was disappointed in the Gossip Girl finale, right?

It could have been so much better. And it would have been, except for the strike. 22 episodes became 18, and four hours of content had to be reduced and crammed into the five hours they had left. And what we were left with was...lame. Here's what (supposedly) would have happened, had they had the time.

The Gossip Girl Finale That Could Have Been...
Casting Director Renee Godbout on the high-stakes drama in the original season 1 finale script
By Renee Godbout

Now that the season finale of Gossip Girl has aired, I can let you all in on a little secret. Not only was the original script completely different, the first ending was so much better. Here's what would have gone down if the show had kept the first script:

Serena & Dan
Serena (Blake Lively) doesn’t catch Dan (Penn Badgley) with Georgina (Michelle Trachtenberg) the morning after the concert. Georgina had already left, and Dan's moral compass persuades him to tell Serena the truth. Serena still tries to lie to herself about what really went down between Dan and Georgina. Actually, this change was a good decision. It brought out a much-needed confrontation between Georgina and Serena, and more drama is always better television!

Chuck & Blair
The major changes of the show include my favorite characters, and their drama would have made the finale really good:

Instead of waiting at the helicopter pad for Chuck (Ed Westwick), Blair (Leighton Meester) is actually waiting at the airport. She runs into Carter Baizen (Sebastian Stan), our favorite bad boy who made a guest appearance earlier in the series. She tells Carter that she and Chuck are together, and that she's waiting for him. Blair continues to look at her watch, nervously watching the time fly by. Carter suggests that this is exactly the type of game Chuck would play: Making her believe he was in love with her and then leaving her stranded alone at the airport. Blair doesn't believe that... at first. As it gets later and later, Carter's suggestion makes more and more sense.

At the same time, Chuck is in his limo, impatiently waiting in traffic. He is complaining to the driver about the traffic when they come upon a car accident. Chuck sees Lily sitting on the curb. She's crying, clutching a lily in her hand, and is hunched over what looks like a body. Someone is draping a cloth over the body's head. Chuck tells the driver to stop and gets out of the car. Lily looks up, sees him, and shakes her head at his questioning glance. Chuck’s father is dead.

Unaware of this, Blair is finally convinced that Chuck has stood her up and decides to go to Europe with Carter instead. End of episode.

What high-stakes drama it would have been! The new season of Gossip Girl would have started with Chuck's anger and sadness, as well as Blair’s guilt. The original finale would have amped up everything about the show, instead of the relationship cop-out they aired last Monday night.

The ending that aired seemed like the show was trying to find any reason to keep Chuck and Blair apart. Happy couples may be boring couples, but the original ending would have given both characters so much more drama to work with. Who knows why the writers changed the script - maybe they didn’t want to start the new season on such a low note. But it would have been one helluva finale!

Renee Godbout - Casting Director, Grant Wilfley Casting. Renee is currently casting background for the first season of The CW's popular teen show Gossip Girl at this busy casting office. Some past projects include 2 seasons of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the pilot for Dirty Sexy Money, and the upcoming Jonathan Demme-directed Dancing with Shiva. The office also casts background for several other New York episodics including Law and Order: SVU, Lipstick Jungle, and New Amsterdam. Grant Wilfley Casting's recent films includes both background and some principle casting for: Sex & The City: The Movie, The Departed, Enchanted, The Bourne Supremacy, and Oscar nominee Michael Clayton.


Source


Sigh.

I heart Cylons

Holy crap. How good was Battlestar Galactica last night? I had no idea that Alessandro Juliani could sing! (Bear McCreary, the composer of all the BSG scores, blogs about 'Gaeta's Lament' here). Are we going to start taking bets on whether or not Gaeta is the final Cylon? I've kinda been thinking he is for a while. Think about it:

• The other four were instrumental in the rebellion on New Caprica; Gaeta is the only other person as instrumental, though the other four didn't know it was him until they almost airlocked him.
• When you think of it that way, four known resistance leaders = four known (to us) Cylons in the final five. One 'secret' resistance leader = the 'secret' member of the final five. Makes sense, right?

I really can't think of anyone else it could be. They shocked us with the Four reveal last season, and while I think it would make sense to shock us again, it almost makes more sense for us to follow the clues and figure it out as he does.

Plus, he was singing, and music was a key factor in the revelation of the Four. I think that's why Sam was a little freaked out that Gaeta was singing. Well, that and because he's a Cylon and he shot someone, which could get him airlocked when they find out what he is. (But it won't because I say so. No airlocking Sam).

And now the two week wait for some answers begins. Which is nothing compared to the probably six month wait we'll have to endure between when this part of the season ends and the next part begins, but right now it feels like a long time.

Jack's crying. Must be Thursday.

LOST!

Let's make some predictions, shall we?

• Jin, Michael and Desmond are probably going to die. It's going to be sad. All those red shirts that rode in the boat with Awesome Daniel Faraday, Jin, Sun and Aaron are also screwed.
  
• Daniel will be back with the second batch of people, most likely containing Bernard and Rose, just in time for Sun to get on the boat with Aaron. And then the freighter will go kaboom.
• Or! Wait! Scratch that. There's another boat on the freighter, right? Sun will get in that with Aaron and head back to the island. And that's why they had a boat to float away on and land on another island. But it only fits six.
• I can't even bear to think that something happens to Sawyer. You think I cried when Charlie died.
  

I have to admit, the opening scene when they all get off the plane and are reunited with their families? Totally made me cry. That was beautiful and heartbreaking (for Kate and Sayid) all at once. Damn, I love this show.

Thumbs down.

Dear How I Met Your Mother showrunners,

Next time you think bringing Britney back will be a good idea, take another look at the episode titled "Everything Must Go." Not good, you guys. Not good at all. The only reason she wasn't HORRIBLE the last time she was on was because she had very little to say, and was not wholly featured. Last night's episode was, well, honestly, not great anyway, but worse because of her performance.

If you insist on doing the stunt casting, can you stick to actual actors? And, I don't know, take a look at what Will and Grace turned into (a joke) and just cast capable people for the roles like you used to?

XOXO.