By Ryan Berenz

To say that there’s buzz about the New York Jets is an understatement. No, that buzz is more like the deafening roar of a Boeing going throttle-open down the LaGuardia runway.

The Jets are coming off a loss to Indianapolis in the AFC Championship, and they’re a popular preseason favorite to win the AFC — if not more — this season. Their confident and colorful head coach, Rex Ryan, has the Jets throwing their weight around the league (though Ryan lost weight himself, thanks to offseason lap-band surgery). Their quarterback, Mark Sanchez, enters his second season and is already an Internet legend for his “poise” on the field and with the ladies. Their rushing attack, tops in the NFL a season ago, now has LaDainian Tomlinson, who spent the past nine seasons with San Diego and is now out to prove he’s still a premier back. The No. 1 defense from ’09 returns arguably the NFL’s best defensive player in CB Darrelle Revis (if he ever ends his holdout), and adds CB Antonio Cromartie. Longtime Jets nemesis DE Jason Taylor is now in the fold, as is former Super Bowl MVP WR Santonio Holmes. The Jets appear on ESPN’s Monday Night Football a league-leading three times. And they’ll play in the nifty New Meadowlands Stadium opening this season.

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Categories: Documentary, Reality TV, Sports by Cubicle QB
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Tags: Documentary, Football, Hard Knocks, HBO, New Jork Jets, NFL, NFL Films, Reality TV, Sports

By Ryan

Maybe you went to see a fight at the Spectrum in the 1970s and a hockey game broke out. The old quip was probably true if you were going to a Philadelphia Flyers game back in their infamous “Broad Street Bullies” era from 1972-78. During that time, the Flyers enjoyed success with two straight Stanley Cup championships, but it was their colorful characters and aggressive, hard-nosed style of play that earned them both adoration and abhorrence.

On Tuesday, May 4 at 10pm ET, HBO (HD) looks back at the notorious Flyers teams of the ’70s in the new documentary Broad Street Bullies. Combining archival footage and interviews with several former players from that time, Broad Street Bullies “explores how a group of characters, who also happened to be an extraordinarily talented collection of hockey players that enjoyed contact on the ice, formed one of the most prominent and controversial teams in pro sports history,” says Ross Greenburg, president of HBO Sports. “We are going to retrace the steps that led to the love affair between the city and the team, and show how to this day these players are revered in Philadelphia and despised elsewhere.”

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Categories: Documentary, Sports, TV News & Program Updates by Cubicle QB
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Tags: Broad Street Bullies, Documentary, HBO, Hockey, NHL, Philadelphia Flyers, Sports, TV News & Program Updates

Wendell Pierce plays Antoine Batiste in HBO's "Treme"

By Stacey Harrison

It’s usually hyperbole to say that an actor was born to play a certain part, but in the case of Wendell Pierce and Treme, it might just be true.

David Simon and Eric Overmyer, creators of the New Orleans-based drama that debuted on HBO on Sunday and has already been renewed for a second season, wrote the role of Antoine Batiste specifically for the gregarious actor, who is best known for his role as cigar-chomping homicide cop Bunk Moreland on The Wire. A New Orleans native, Pierce knew the rhythms of the city and the characters, and has been intimately involved with helping his hometown rebuild after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Treme tells of the recovery by weaving together a tapestry of characters who are trying to make sense of their new realities and figuring out how New Orleans can live again.

Pierce spoke with me recently about his deep connection with the show, and what Hollywood just doesn’t get about New Orleans:

David Simon and Eric Overmyer said they created the role of Antoine just for you, so does that give you more leeway to forge the character as you see fit, or do you feel more compelled to give them what they want?

Wendell Pierce: We’ve been basically on the same side with the character. But to have someone write a role for you is a highlight for an actor’s career. It’s a great honor. I was flattered and humbled that they would think of me for a role, especially in a show like Treme, which is about my hometown, the city that I love. So it becomes more than a job, it becomes a great responsibility. It becomes this great cathartic moment, especially in this time for New Orleans when we’re trying to recover, and to have this opportunity to bring the character and this show to life while I’m also struggling with developments and trying to bring my neighborhood back to life. In our darkest hour, I feel it’s like a bright, shining light. [Read more →]

Categories: Drama, Fall Preview 2009, Horror, Movies by sharrison76
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Tags: Antoine Batiste, Clarke Peters, David Simon, Eric Overmyer, HBO, Jazz, John Goodman, Kim Dickens, New Orleans, Stacey Harrison, Steve Zahn, Treme, Wendell Pierce

Wendell Pierce plays struggling musician Antoine Batiste in HBO's "Treme."

By Stacey Harrison

During his time playing Bunk Moreland on The Wire, Wendell Pierce often regaled the Baltimore cast and crew with stories of his hometown of New Orleans — the food, the music, the culture. If only they could see it for themselves.

That was before Hurricane Katrina. The city he showed them during the production of Treme, more than four years after the unprecedented destruction, still had areas that didn’t require much work from the crew to make it look like only three months had passed.

No one knows the struggles the city has faced better than Pierce, who grew up in New Orleans, and has been one of the more highly visible champions of the rebuilding. Aside from his appearance in Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke, Pierce has fronted an organization dedicated to helping re-establish the city’s Pontchartrain Park neighborhood.

So when his old Wire cohorts, David Simon and Eric Overmyer, said they were creating a show for HBO about post-Katrina New Orleans, and that they had written the main role with him in mind, Pierce seized the opportunity.

“I was flattered and humbled that they would think of me,” he said. “It becomes more than a job, it becomes a great responsibility. It becomes this great cathartic moment, especially in this time for New Orleans when we’re trying to recover, to have this opportunity to bring the character and this show to life while I’m also struggling with developments and trying to bring my own neighborhood back to life. In our darkest hour, I feel it’s like a bright, shining light.” [Read more →]

Categories: Drama by sharrison76
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Tags: Allen Toussaint, Clarke Peters, David Simon, Dr. John, Eric Overmyer, HBO, Hurricane Katrina, John Goodman, Kermit Ruffins, Khandi Alexander, Kim Dickens, Mardi Gras, Melissa Leo, New Orleans, Rob Brown, Stacey Harrison, Stafford Agee, Steve Zahn, The Big Easy, The Corner, The Wire, Treme, Trombone Shorty, Wendell Pierce

Here are a few notable programs airing in February to celebrate Black History Month. Check back for further updates throughout the month.

Black Experience On Demand – On Demand (check your local cable system On Demand lineup for availability). In recognition of Black History Month in February, the nation’s content providers and cable companies are providing digital cable customers with On Demand access to hundreds of programs and movies, specifically focused on the black experience and history. Multiple genres of programming are available as a part of this “Black Experience On Demand” initiative, including movies, music, biographies, documentaries, news and television series.  Shows will be accessible via the On Demand feature whenever the viewer chooses. Viewers can access these programs in a “Black Experience” or “Black History” folder from their Cable On Demand menus. Participating cable companies include Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, Insight, Mediacom and Time Warner Cable. Click here to download a lineup of shows airing on certain On Demand channels.

Black Cinema On Demand — Movies on Demand (check your local cable system On Demand lineup for availability). During February, this new category of Movies on Demand includes some of the most acclaimed and influential films created by or featuring the most celebrated black directors, actors and themes. Movies include: How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Brown Sugar, Facing Ali, Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself, More Than a Game, Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls, Amistad, Do the Right Thing, Ray, The Best Man, Malcolm X, The Color Purple, Akeelah and the Bee and Blood Diamond.

Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans — PBS; check your local listings throughout February. Lolis Eric Elie, a New Orleans newspaperman, takes viewers on a tour of the city in what becomes a reflection on the relevance of history folded into a love letter to his storied neighborhood, Faubourg Tremé. Arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America and the birthplace of jazz, Faubourg Tremé was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South during slavery and a hotbed of political ferment. Here, black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor cohabitated, collaborated and clashed to create America’s first civil rights movement and a unique American culture.

Independent Lens: Banished

Independent Lens: “Banished” – PBS; check your local listings throughout February. This is the story of three counties that forcefully banished African-American families from their towns 100 years ago – and the descendents who return to learn a shocking history. [Read more →]

Categories: TV News & Program Updates by RabbitEars
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Tags: BET, Black History Month, Black History Month programming, HBO, PBS, The Great Debaters, Zora Neale Hurston

By Stacey Harrison

It almost seemed odd this being the season finale of Hung. Didn’t really feel like it had been building up to much. Not like True Blood or anything. But it does get down to some serious business in this last half-hour, starting off with Tanya absorbed in a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking. Her mellow is harshed by an infestation of flies in her home, an infestation she makes into a literary metaphor for her life turning in to dead meat. She’s so upset that she rushes out in the middle of the night to Ray’s tent and tells him she’s deathly afraid of being alone. Her boyfriend (Pierce — remember him?) is somewhere in Cuba and everyone in her life seems to be abandoning her. Thank God she has Ray. Tanya may not be the best pimp, but she’s an expert at laying on the guilt.

Ray assures her he’s not leaving her, but the next day he’s having a power lunch with Lenore, who points out all the rich, horny ladies sitting in the restaurant — women Lenore could set him up with to make a mint. Problem is, Lenore’s proposition is absolute: It’s either her or Tanya. [Read more →]

Categories: Comedy by sharrison76
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Tags: A Dick and a Dream, Fight the Honey, HBO, Hung, Recap, Stacey Harrison, Thomas Jane

By Stacey Harrison

Ray is lecturing some detention students on making wrong choices in life (“detention now leads to jail later”) when in walks Damon looking extra goth and with a friend looking the same. Ray asks him out in the hall to see what’s going on and learns that Damon didn’t actually do anything to deserve detention. He just wanted to hang out with his friend, Powell. Ray is unnerved, wondering what’s going on with the Dame-ster, when the kid pops off and asks his dad if he’s homophobic. That pretty much ends the discussion. Later, Damon and Darby are climbing a rock wall (Jessica’s latest attempt to bond, for which she gave up Pilates) and Darby asks him if he’s had sex with the guy yet. He says no. Not yet.

Ray mentions it to Tanya, saying he thinks Damon might be “a gay.” She tells him to lighten up, that he might just be experimenting, like she did this one time in college. That’s a little too much information for Ray, who tries to steer their meeting back to business, and as Tanya is telling Ray they might have to lower their price a bit to accommodate the bad economy, she gets a call from Pierce. He’s in Cuba, apparently. Tells her not to worry. It’s a long story, and he’ll tell her all about it when he gets back in a few days. He’s gotta run, see. He’s running out of minutes on his phone. The fact that she still refers to him as her boyfriend after this call says a lot about poor Tanya. Ray shoots down the idea of lowering his price, saying he still needs lots of cash to fix his house and get his kids back. [Read more →]

Categories: Comedy by sharrison76
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Tags: Fifty Bucks, HBO, Hung, Rebecca Creskoff, Recap, Stacey Harrison, This Is America, Thomas Jane

By Stacey Harrison

Ray is slow to take the hint that Jemma isn’t really interested in a non-financial relationship, calling her several times from the dock before deciding to leave. But the second his cell phone rings, he runs to get a reception, only to have her say they should slow down. Again, he doesn’t take the hint.

Feeling bummed, he decides to take Jessica up on her offer to host him for dinner. Just Ray, his ex-wife and her new husband, his ex-mother-in-law and his two kids smack dab in the middle of adolescent madness. Should go swimmingly, eh? It starts out civil enough, with Ray and Ron even seeming to be on the same side in disapproving of Damon’s new tongue stud. Jessica says it’s a method of self-expression (she read about it on the Internet!), which must also account for his dyed hair and bleached skin. Ron also seems to be suspicious that Jessica and her mom have been shuffling through his papers, since they seem to be out of place more often. That must have been weighing on him when Ray stops in the kitchen while Ron is doing the dishes, and their strained small talk soon leads to Ray asking Ron how a nerd like Ron could steal a girl from a stud like Ray. And that leads to Ray being asked to leave. [Read more →]

Categories: Comedy by sharrison76
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Tags: HBO, Hung, Recap, Stacey Harrison, Thith Ith a Prothetic, Thomas Jane, You C... Just Right

By Stacey Harrison

©2008 HOME BOX OFFICE Credit: Chuck Hodes

Ray takes Jemma (I know, I’ve been spelling it wrong) to see his tent. She seems a bit confused at first, but is soon making out with him by the lantern light. Then they’re doing a lot more. It all feels very real to Ray, not just a business transaction, but the pile of cash on the sleeping bag in the morning says otherwise.

Tanya is soaking her sorrows at a bar, still incredulous at Floyd’s rejection of her nonexistent advances. At her lowest point, a nearby patron notices her Proust tattoo. He then comes over to her and begins sweet-talking her, eventually kissing her full-on. His name is Pierce, which seems perfect.

Ray comes over to Tanya’s to give her a share of the payment from Jemma, only to find Pierce has spent the night. They also have some sort of disagreement, but that seems par for course. Whatever it is, it spurs Ray to the marketplace to try to drum up business. After a few hilariously awkward attempts that end quickly, he tries again only to find it’s Jessica. They have some pleasant small talk, and she invites him over for dinner sometime. Anytime, actually. His spirits are lifted enough to give Jemma a call and persuade her to go out on a real date. [Read more →]

Categories: Comedy by sharrison76
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Tags: HBO, Hung, Recap, Stacey Harrison, The Indelible Stench, The Pickle Jar, The Rita Flower, Thomas Jane

By Stacey Harrison

Gemma is back, amping up the crazy. She has Ray (Jim) meet her for a session with her therapist. She begins railing at him about what he did to her, and how his father’s money is like vomit in his throat. Ray tries to play along, giving as good as he gets, and Gemma storms out, pays him a nice bit of cash and goes on her way. Ray’s pretty happy with the arrangement, but Tanya feels there must be a protocol here.

Against Ray’s advice — he’s all for letting a good thing alone — Tanya confronts Gemma at her office. Gemma is, shall we say, dismissive, telling “Terry” that she’s just going to ignore her and keep scheduling appointments with Ray however she chooses. Tanya loses her cool and fires Gemma as a client, whatever that means. She also lets slip Ray’s real name.

Jessica pushes Ron to know the true state of their finances, but he’s still vague, settling on telling her they’re not rich but they’re not poor either. And that he would be happy to buy her something. Not satisfied, Jessica and her mother go snooping around Ron’s office at the house to try to get some answers. They ultimately find a document that shows Ron has lost more than $800,000 in the stock market. [Read more →]

Categories: Comedy by sharrison76
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Tags: Are We Rich or Are We Poor, Doris Is Dead, HBO, Hung, Natalie Zea, Recap, Stacey Harrison, Thomas Jane