I suppose I could dwell on the fact that a major Hollywood guild has once again ignored the very existence of TV's finest acting ensemble, Friday Night Lights — in favor of the mugging and posturing on Boston Legal. As they'd say on another SAG favorite, Grey's Anatomy: Seriously? Is it wrong to want to form our own picket line?Also: What's up with snubbing Pushing Daisies and its fantastical cast?And yet the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations, announced Thursday morning, did shower love on my favorite new show of 2007, AMC's Mad Men, and its terrific star, Jon Hamm (who has just joined the cast of the remake of the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still, with Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, which sounds appropriately robotic). So while not all may be forgiven, the wound stings a little less.My favorite part of the SAG Awards is the ensemble-cast category. Because let's face it, most great TV shows rely on cast chemistry. Even The Closer, which on face value looks like a vehi...read more
"Are you feeling the feeling that I'm feeling?" I hope so, because I'm enjoying this show so much that I might turn into Mel II. When Bret and Jemaine finished singing those lyrics, Mel and Murray were two of three people clapping in the audience. Saturday Night Live's Will Forte played Ben, a dry cleaner and semiprofessional actor whom the duo asks to tell Murray that he's from a record company and to give him a rejection call to boost his spirits about the direction of the band. We all need a little rejection to feel better, right?When a brainstorming session to elicit a larger audience is going slowly, and Bret's idea to hand out free pencils at each gig gets nixed, the first song of the evening was presented in a video scrapbook to "Cheer Up Murray." The well-meaning guys sang about Murray's helluva good English bulldog, his wife having met someone on the Net, and that his friends are Bret, Jemaine and Greg. (Have we heard about Greg before?) Forte was perfectly cast as he match...read more
Walk into the Yankees' locker room on the set of ESPN's new eight-hour miniseries The Bronx Is Burning (premiering tonight at 10 pm/ET) and the only thing missing is the smell. The odor that permeates the bowels of the real House that Ruth Built combines tobacco spit, wet socks, dog hair, moldy basement and body odor into one toxic brew. But the spot-on replica in a Waterford, Connecticut, studio, where the Bombers' 1977 world-championship season is being re-created, smells just fine. Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me), who plays Reggie Jackson, gives a visiting sports writer an annoyed look and says, "Well, is the smell all we're missing?"
Actually, yes. To stroll on the set of The Bronx Is Burning is to take a remarkable walk back in time. Inside the Yankread more