Top 10 Irritations of Watching Movies on TV

As I’ve mentioned several times before — and as longtime readers will easily notice — I tend to watch older movies more than new releases. It’s easier to stay home and watch a movie on my computer or TV than to go to the theatre several times a week. And like any movie fan, I appreciate the options available when it comes to watching movies on TV. After all, Hulu usually doesn’t have much from the last two or three years, and hardly ever anything that’s both that recent and high-profile. Television frequently does, in addition to films of an older vintage.

But watching films on TV has some definite downsides as well. Now, I’ll grant that many of these would be mitigated (though not usually eliminated) with the use of a DVR, which I don’t actually have and am not likely to for some time. But a lot of them would remain the same, and even the others would generally still be a problem on some level even then. So here are my top 10 choices for things that bother me about watching films on TV.

News Bites: J.J., J. Michael and J. Malko

Friday morning has rolled around once again, and if I had thought that previous weeks were indicating an increase in the amount of press releases coming out of Hollywood, this week’s the mother lode. Even with the usual caveat that there are things I miss or overlook or just don’t attribute any significance to, there’s a lot. In fact, there are just shy of two dozen news items this week.

Sheer volume indicates at least some of it should catch your interest, so let’s get to it, shall we?

A Sketchy Kind of Format

Last Saturday, I did something I haven’t done in many years: I watched a new episode of Saturday Night Live. I did this for a couple reasons, the main one being that some friends had said it was a good episode, and that this was a rarity for the current season (I’m in the Pacific Time Zone, these friends are in Eastern and Central, so I was able to get a heads-up; and yes, this does mean I wasn’t watching it “live”). I had also seen some chatter from Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin that they would be on, and I’m a fan of the older comics, so that was an incentive as well. And finally, I’ve been reading a book on the history of Saturday Night Live (which I’ll probably give its own review when I finish it), so the show has been on my mind lately.

Justin Timberlake was hosting, and while I’m not the biggest fan of him as a serious actor, he does pretty well in sketch comedy. Since I haven’t really watched it since high school, I didn’t expect to recognize any of the cast members; other than the surprise of seeing Kenan Thompson among the players, this held true. But overall, even though I didn’t know the comics, it felt like the same show. I didn’t like every sketch, but I laughed at most of them, so I’d say it was a fairly good episode. Naturally I got a big kick out of the “five timers club” and the Three Amigos salute.

I don’t see a need to recap the whole episode. But all this reading and this recent watching has gotten me thinking about the show, and about sketch comedies in general. So it seemed like a good time for a ramble on the subject.

News Bites: Bonaparte and Birdman

Once again, Friday morning brings with it your weekly supply of News Bites. And this week, I’ve finally gotten around to creating a logo for the section, so it looks just a little less ramshackle. It seems that when it comes to Hollywood, spring means more than just the start of blockbusters; just as the movies start picking up in both quality and quantity, the news also appears to be increasing in both magnitude and volume. Even counting only the confirmed stuff, this week’s interesting news is at least a full page long. So read on to see what’s been revealed this week.

News Bites: Toys, Turtles, and Teachers

It’s Friday morning, and that means it’s time for another weekly pile of news, with just a bit of snarky commentary from myself. This week there’s still more television news — this is the time of year when the big networks start planning their next years’ pilots — and a few more standard film franchise rumors. As well as a few other items of interest. As is becoming the rule, there’s a bit too much for the front page of the blog, so click through to see what’s going on!

News Bites: Minions and Mutants

Another week with a lot of news, especially on the television front once again. A lot of this just came in yesterday and this morning, so it can be considered “hot off the presses” if there were a printing press actually involved here. A lot of this week’s news is science-fiction related, and of course, there are the usual updates on comic book superheroes coming to the big screen — as well as a superhero of a different stripe coming to the small screen. I’ll be out most of the day, so it may take me a bit to respond to comments, but there’s a lot to discuss, so read on!

Super Bowl XLVII

Like many Americans, my Sunday was spent on the couch watching Super Bowl XLVII. In this case, my brother’s couch, because he’s got the nice big television, and I enjoy having someone to crack jokes with. This proved to be very important, as this year’s Super Bowl provided plenty of times when it was necessary to have some outside entertainment, including a 37-minute power outage at the Superdome.

I didn’t really have a team I was particularly rooting for in the game; I only watch the NFL off and on, I don’t have a favorite team or anything. I wound up rooting for the 49ers out of solidarity with my brother, but was mostly just hoping for a good game. It took a while for the game to deliver on that front; I think the 49ers must have taken advantage of the power outage to finish their naps.

Of course, like a lot of people who don’t have a strong team preference, I was watching as much for the entertainment experience as for the game itself. On that front, I have to say I don’t think Super Bowl XLVII was one of the better ones.

News Bites: How I Met Your Muppet

I’m still fighting this infection, but I’m feeling a bit better, and at any rate, I’m not going to let that stop me from posting the weekly dose of interesting movie and TV news. Of course, this morning I’m also having to cross over half the damned state to get my driver’s license renewed, which thanks to Oregon DMV’s idiotic policies means I need to go to Portland to get a copy of my birth certificate as proof of U.S. citizenship — the numbskulls only accept tribal IDs if they’re from in-state tribes. Apparently the 560 other federally recognized tribes don’t count in their opinion. So I may not be able to respond for a bit while I go chase down paperwork. Still, here’s the news:

Who’s next on the Marvel movie docket? Ant-Man has been in the planning stages for several years, but is supposedly coming close to fruition. He’s not the only one, though. Doctor Strange is also confirmed to be in the works.

Deadline reports that the 3D re-releases of Star Wars episodes II and III have been canceled. (Deadline throws in some possibly-spurious assertions that this is because of the focus on the new films, which they also refer to as a “reboot” because Deadline has a bad habit of using that term when it doesn’t apply.)

How I Met Your Mother has been renewed by CBS for a 9th and final season. The writers have promised the mother in question will finally be revealed.

20th Century Fox has picked up the film rights to the Dark Horse comic Mind MGMT, by Matt Kindt, about a secret government agency of psychics. Ridley Scott is set to be the producer of the film.

The new Muppet movie has a release date, March 21 2014, and a title: The Muppets… Again! Not the greatest of titles, in my opinion, but that doesn’t really reflect on the film itself in this case.

There is going to be a World of Warcraft movie, and it will be directed by Duncan Jones, director of Source Code and Moon. Filming is expected to begin this fall. Will it still hold true to the general rule of “video game movies suck” when it’s one of the most popular games in the world? Probably.

Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.
— Albert Einstein, The World As I See It, 1949

First Impressions: The Following

FOX debuted their new series The Following Monday night; the series stars Kevin Bacon as a former FBI agent called back on duty as the serial killer he put away is on the loose again. Ryan Hardy (Bacon) has to track down Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), protect the survivor from his previous killing spree, and determine what Carroll is up to. This is quickly complicated by the discovery that Carroll has built up a cult of followers, each wanting to add to their idol’s body count.

As stories go, it’s certainly a different premise, especially for an ongoing drama. And the first episode was well-done and reasonably entertaining. But I’m not completely sold on the series just yet.

Post-Mortem: Fringe

Fringe has come to a conclusion, after five seasons on the air. It’s been a heck of a ride, and while I wouldn’t say it was perfect, I would certainly say it had more ups than downs. With the final episode airing last night, it’s time for me to take a look back at the series and how it evolved, and what I did and didn’t like. Obviously, there will be spoilers; if you haven’t seen the finale, go check your DVR and come back later.