By Mike Frey
Before we get started with this week’s recap — which, is already late (sorry) — here’s a reminder that Glee is now on hiatus until spring 2010. New episodes are slated to start airing April 13 on FOX. Also, the show’s second soundtrack, Glee — The Music, Vol. 2, was released this week, so head over to iTunes to download it. Now, on with the show.
Dex and Harry, his real dark passenger
By Elaine Bergstrom
I’m blogging from Cleveland this week where the front news coverage is all about Anthony Sowell, dubbed “The Cleveland Strangler.” Seeing his victims smiling in old photos on the front page of the Plain Dealer and watching the local news cams hovering over the police and the search dogs hunting for more bodies or the prayer vigils being held almost nightly in the community in which Sowell found his victims, my thoughts move to the Ice Truck Killer, to Trinity and to the Bay Harbor Butcher, Dex himself. [Read more →]
Whether you’re looking for hardcore horror, family-friendly frights, or something in between, here’s a selection of some of the shows and movies to get you in a macabre mood this Halloween season. For more detail on the scary movies listed here, and to search for others throughout the month, visit our online movie database.
Goosebumps — Cartoon Network, weekdays at 4:30pm ET through Oct. 29. Episodes from all three seasons of the show that adapted R.L. Stine’s spooky book series for television.
The Othersiders – Cartoon Network, Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30pm ET; entire week of episodes Oct. 26-30, culminating in special episode Oct. 30 at 9pm ET. Twelve new episodes of this series, in which five young friends investigate haunted locations, air this month. In a one-hour presentation on Oct. 30, the gang visits the abandoned prison Alcatraz to check out reports of ghostly activity. [Read more →]
By Stacey Harrison
Contrary to initial announcements (and its title), the documentary commemorating the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons will not be in 3-D or on ice. It will, however, be the latest project of provocateur filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who shot to fame with by chronicling his monthlong McDonald’s-only diet in Super Size Me and conducted other sociological experiments in the weekly FX show 30 Days. He was at Comic-Con in San Diego (where just a few Simpsons fans have been known to gather) over the weekend auditioning superfans and grand impersonators to take part in the project.
Spurlock took time for a quick chat between auditions to tell me his plans for the special, why he wishes he could be more like Mr. Burns, and even broke off a couple of impressive impersonations of Otto and Apu.
What are your plans for the documentary?
“It’s going to be a look at the way The Simpsons sees the world, and the way the world sees The Simpsons. It’s had a global impact at the way we look at other countries, other people, pop culture, so we’re really going to travel around the world to all these different countries, because it’s not just an American phenomenon, it’s an international phenomenon and we’re going to go to a few of the many countries it’s played in and tell stories from those places of people who have been deeply affected by this show. It’s changed the way they see the world. We’re trying to make something that’s funny and different and isn’t just a gladhand strokefest, which they don’t want anyway.” [Read more →]
By Elaine Bergstrom
What happened in the episode “Never Let Me Go” was simple: Lafayette got his job at Merlotte’s back though his subdued and serious attitude is making Tara suspicious; Maryann used her usual tricks to try and convince Tara who her “real” family is and she seems to have succeeded; Sookie pursued mind reader Barry through the vampire hotel but her efforts only caused him to check out; Bill was not happy about the boy toy Jessica ordered and sent her to her room where she spent the night talking on the phone to Hoyt. And Jason, still uncertain if he should be at the Light of Day Boot Camp, got an expected reward from Sarah, who said she was only taking a clue from Mary Magdalene, who washed Jesus’ feet. [Read more →]
by Karl J. Paloucek
She’s the focal point of one of television’s coolest shows in recent memory. Thu Tran, creator and star of Food Party on IFC, is a bundle of energy with an obsession for all things cute, cool and food-related. We interrupted her lunch to get some answers from this artist and visionary responsible for some of the most lunatic television we’ve seen in years, to find out her views on cannibalism and to ask about the fate of her utterly absurd series.
How do you feel about the season you’ve just finished on IFC?
I thought it went OK. It’s on TV and — yep. There it is.
Any regrets?
There’s always … there’s never regret. [Laughs] I don’t know what I’d do differently, honestly.
How did all of this start for you back in Cleveland?
Well, in college, I was living with my roommates — one of my roommates was this guy named Vinnie, and he was this giant Caribbean dude. We really loved cooking food together, so we would basically take video classes just to make these cooking videos. But they were really, really goofy and casual. We just did it for fun. And the lights that we would borrow from the school also helped heat our apartment because [Read more →]
Eric (center) and pals get ready for lunch
By Elaine Bergstrom
Ever since the plans to move Charlaine Harris’ vampire series to television were announced, fans of the books have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the blond, millennium-plus-powerful vampire leader Eric. I don’t need to guess that they are angry. Vampire blogs have been filled with laments about the bad casting since Eric first put in an appearance last season.
Not that Swedish-born actor Alexander Skarsgard doesn’t have the looks to play Eric. He does and with the right script, he’d be perfect. In his brief moments in Season One, he exuded had a certain menace beneath those golden locks, even if he wasn’t menacing enough for Eric’s legion of fans. This season — with his foiled hair, telling Lafayette that Pam will kill him, etc. –- Eric has become a joke, at least so far. When he shows up at the boutique where Bill is shopping for clothes for his vampire ward Jessica sporting newly bleached hair and metro clothing, it’s no wonder that the vamp-smitten saleswoman thinks Bill and the bleached Eric are a couple. [Read more →]
by Karl J. Paloucek
If I could pick one thing everyone should have in their lives on a regular basis, near the top would be a bit of surrealism. If I could pick a second, it might as well be puppets. (Note that the two concepts rather complement one another.) Well, just in time for summer, IFC brings both your way in a new Internet transplant of sorts, Food Party, premiering June 9 as part of the IFC Automat.
Created and hosted by upload artist Thu Tran and a group of her art-school buddies, the series follows her adventures in and around her colorful, cardboard kitchen, with anthropomorphic plates, baked goods, vegetables and other bizarre bits of leftover nightmares that just want to sidle up next to her … often with some sort of ulterior motive.
It isn’t quite a cooking show, but Food Party does incorporate enough food into its mise en scene that you might think it’s going to turn into one at any moment. Whether we see Tran on a date with a man made of cabbage, carrots and asparagus, giving birth to a pie with a live kitten inside (I told you this was an exercise in surrealism) or gingerly, hesitantly tasting the guts of [Read more →]
by Karl J. Paloucek
Whether The CW is playing it safe in this troubled economy or it’s just basing its new work on its current successes (I’d like to think the latter, though it’s probably a bit of both), for you fans of the young-adult-skewed network, it doesn’t matter. All you need to know is to expect more of the same. In 2009, its cult-of-beauty lineup expands in some VERY familiar directions. Among the new shows announced:
Melrose Place (Tuesdays, 9pm ET/PT)
Yep, it’s happening. Not only has The CW succeeded in reinventing Beverly Hills, 90210 with its own version, now the network will complete the classic, early ’90s FOX lineup by pairing its 90210 with its reimagined sister show, Melrose Place. Fitting closely in the tradition of other CW
series like Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill and, of course, 90210, the series focuses on the lives of “a diverse group of 20-somethings” who have become a tight-knit group while living together in a posh apartment building in the trendy Melrose neighborhood. Among the talent lined up for the show are returning cast members in Laura Leighton, still playing Sydney Andrews — the landlady of the building — and Thomas Calabro as Dr. Michael Mancini, but likely much of the buzz is going to be centered on the casting of Ashlee Simpson Wentz as 18-year-old new tenant Violet Foster, who has a secret connection to scheming landlady Sydney. Wouldn’t it be fun if the show [Read more →]
by Karl J. Paloucek
It might be a little disturbing, but it’s undeniable: There’s definitely an audience out there for films that take young, attractive stars and put them in harm’s way — particularly when that star is part of a pop phenomenon that’s both incredibly popular and has the capacity to annoy.
Such is the nature of the press release that just sluiced into my inbox regarding Gossip Girl star Jessica Szohr’s upcoming appearance in Piranha 3-D, a remake of 1978’s memorable, limited-budget Jaws knockoff, Piranha. Directed by Alexandre Aja — not long ago responsible for another horror remake, The Hills Have Eyes — the new film is expected to retain the original’s essential plot (a popular lakeside town’s residents become gristle for the deadly fish teeming in its waters), but likely will be a sexier update … especially with Jaws star Richard Dreyfuss putting in an appearance. [Read more →]
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