Movies/TV's 3R’s 1.17.12: TCA’s, Golden Globes, Mad Men, Dark Knight Rises, More

Posted by Dimitri Dorlis on 01.17.2012

From The Dark Knight Rises already selling out and the upcoming return of Mad Men to Stephen Colbert's Presidential run, the NFL Playoffs delivering again, and more, the Movies/TV's 3R's break down the Right, wRong, and Ridiculous from the week in Movies & TV!

Welcome to Week 133 of The 3 R's for the Movie/TV world.

Once again, I am Dimitri Dorlis, and this week will feature a lot of TCA discussions. The reason is simple: this is the biggest news of the week, and this is first and foremost a news report, where we look at the biggest headlines and label them. Don't worry, though, I promise I threw in a few other things.

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Without any further ado, here is...

Ok, ABC, give yourself a round of applause: Hey, if you had the successful fall that ABC did, you'd be celebrating too! As it were, ABC ended up with more new hits than any other network, led by hits such as Once Upon A Time, Revenge, and Last Man Standing. The nice thing is that, even though these shows are new and are getting great ratings, they're actually good shows. Once Upon A Time in particular was a show that I didn't think I'd enjoy that much, but has been a pleasant surprise.

ABC President Paul Lee ended up being extremely positive throughout the presentation, glancing over the failures that his network produced (looking at you, Charlie's Angels) while giving hope to the beleaguered Pan-Am, which is beloved by critics but struggling to find an audience. ABC's presentation also gave us the most unintentionally hilarious comparison of the day, as Lee compared the now-cancelled Work It to the works of Shakespeare.

ABC was mostly positive, though, as it pumped up the new offerings it will have in the spring while not announcing any new series pickups, something rather new for networks at the TCAs. So good for ABC and the evil Disney corporation that owns it.

MAD MEN IS BACK, EVERYONE GET EXCITED AGAIN! : Ok, so AMC's TCA presentation wasn't the greatest thing in the world, mainly because Jon Hamm kinda letit slip that Mad Men would be returning at the end of March. The show has been off the air since October 2010, making it one of the longest absences for a cable drama in quite some time. AMC did get to announce that the premiere will be a two-hour long event, with the third episode being the anticipated Hamm-directed episode. So feel free to work yourselves up over more Don Draper, because he's totally back to screw all of the secretaries.

Also announced by AMC was the return of The Killing, a show that began suffering from Twin Peaks Syndrome at about the 4th episode. It also doesn't help that show producers revealed that the central mystery won't be concluded until the end of the second season, thus making the majority of this upcoming season rather pointless. Finally, the network announced that The Walking Dead's third season will be 16 episodes long, which is good news for the show and its fans.

Stephen Colbert for the President of The United States of America: Typically around primary season, Stephen Colbert decides to run for president in the Republican primaries, typically beginning in his home state of South Carolina. What made it interesting this year was that he is also in charge of the Stephen Colbert Super PAC, which would have prevented him from running. In one of the better commentaries on politics in the last year, Colbert signed over the leadership of his Super PAC to friend and Daily Show host Jon Stewart, under the agreement that there would be no coordination between the two, as listed under federal law.

Of course, Colbert can't actually run in South Carolina; he missed the November 1 filing deadline, and write-in votes are prohibited in South Carolina primaries. Still, he'd have a better shot to win than some of the other candidates, as Colbert is polling at 5%.

NFL Playoffs proves to be the best drama on television yet again: If you told me before the season that Alex Smith would lead two touchdown drives late in a playoff game to beat Drew Brees and the Saints AT HOME, I would have laughed at you, but here we are. I have a lot of friends who are 49ers fans who were understandably intoxicated following that game, but I can't blame them. Hell, if my Chargers actually showed up in the playoffs (or regular season at this point), I'd probably be in the same state.

The Golden Globes and the fat British horse they rode in on: Let's start this by being nice: I like Ricky Gervais a lot, and felt he was a very good host for the Golden Globes last year. And to be perfectly honest, the Golden Globes are really a second-rate awards show which is more laid-back when compared to the Academy Awards, so you can get away with more.

That being said, this was a horrible awards show. Gervais, who promised to be more unfiltered than he was last year, just didn't bring his A game, and for some reason resorted to jokes about Kim Kardashian, Justin Beiber, and Eddie Murphy. It's not a bad strategy, unless none of the people you are making fun of are actually in attendance. It also didn't help the show that most of the nominees were not that good. The Ides of March managed to get a nomination for Best Drama, while The Artist was relegated to a much weaker Best Musical category. The TV side of the awards tried to pick up the slack, recognizing the very good Homeland and the greatness of Peter Dinklage, but even then we had some issues with nominees (I fail to see how none of NBC's comedies managed to get a best comedy/musical nod over Glee or New Girl, or even Enlightened, which isn't even the best comedy on HBO).

Some auxiliary Rights to hand out for the night, though. Winners include Tina Fey photobombing Amy Poehler's screentime, Meryl Streep saying "shit", the Modern Family acceptance speech, and Seth Rogen admitting to having a huge erection while standing next to Kate Beckinsale.

CBS cares not for you poor critics: CBS also had a presentation at the TCAs, which was a lot more brutally honest than you were probably expecting. Here are the facts as we know them.

1. CBS has the highest rated shows on television, according to Neilson ratings.

2. Critics do not like any shows on CBS beyond The Good Wife.

So of course a CBS presentation at a Television Critics Association would end up being rather blunt. CBS President Nina Tassler spent the majority of her time calling her shows "underdogs" for some reason, even though reruns of some of their shows end up getting better ratings than new shows on other networks. She also noted why CBS is on top without pointing out the real reason, which is that old people tend to watch CBS more than any other network, and also tend to own more Neilson boxes when compared to younger generations.

But the land of crime procedurals and laugh-tracked comedies will march on, with a new cop drama NYC 22 showing up as a midseason addition, while shows such as How I Met Your Mother get renewed for another season, at which point the kids just might get fed up and leave Bob Saget in whatever room he's telling his stories because you can only listen to how his best friend Barney got them into a situation for so long.

Lionsgate looking into making a Twilight tv series, because why not: Lionsgate recently announced that it had acquired the studio Summit, who's biggest claim to fame was that they were the jerks making all those Twilight movies. In a clear grab for even more money, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer noted that he would like to see the story of Twilight continue past the end of the film series (did you know they split the last book into two? That is SO Harry Potter). What this means, obviously, is that Lionsgate will look into any possible way to continue the story of Edward and Bella and Jacob and all the other weird people in whatever corner of America allows vampires and werewolves to hang out (and I know it's not the South, because Bill and Sookie would not put up with this). Lionsgate will now entertain any possible way to milk more money out of the franchise, which will probably work because, let's face it, there are a ton of die-hard Twilight fans who would totally watch a prequel tv series about Edward's life before he met Bella (oh god I just gave Lionsgate ideas oh jeez).

Rape just isn't the same as it used to be.: In today's "Using words completely out of context in order to get attention" story of the day, actess Kim Novak proclaimed that she was raped by The Artist and director Michel Hazanavicius. Of course, when I say rape, I don't actually mean rape. As it turns out, Novak was protesting the film's use of selections from the movie Vertigo in the soundtrack.

Now, I'm not one to take things like rape lightly, but come on. You don't think rape is a bit strong of a thing to say? You weren't sexually assaulted in any way, unless the music in Vertigo actually causes you to…..well, yeah. And to take out a full page ad to proclaim that you were raped when you clearly have no idea what that word means is also probably not a good idea. Director Michel Hazanavicius took the high road and stated that he disagreed with Novak's belief, and that they paid the licensing fees required to use the music, so it's all fair.

I probably should have changed the title of this one to "Has-been actress cries out for attention", but oh well.

Dark Knight Rises already selling out: You know, I get that the new Dark Knight Rises is a highly-anticipated movie. I really do. But did people really need to go out in droves and buy premiere tickets already? There's a good 5 months until the movie is released, and it's already sold out in the cities of NYC, Lost Angeles, and Chicago. I have to note that it is only IMAX theaters which are sold out right now, but still. This is the definition of ridiculous.

Gratuitous Adorable Animal Video of the Week

Time to combine two of my favorite things: adorable animals and Skyrim.



Adorable.

Yes, but at least Whitney herself is nice to look at. (I know nothing of the show other than it's in a time slot here with no competition, so I keep it on and muted, watching out of the corner of my eye...)

''Allen Gregory'', on the other hand, starred French Stewart and needs to be wiped from the historical record, except maybe as a cautionary tale hidden way at the back of the library to brought out in only the most extreme of emergencies...

Posted By: The Ogre (Guest)

Somehow I actually agree with this. Whitney Cummings is deceptively cute. It's too bad her show is so bad I can't even have it on while muted. You are a stronger person than me.

Allen Gregory looked like it was going to be self indulgent rubbish and surprise surprise it was. All the promos they ran with Jonah looking smug and him and his friends talking about how great the show was and how much work had been put in, you could see it was going to be hilarious to those five guys and no one else.

After I heard it was cancelled I went back and enjoyed rewatching his promo where he talks about how many seasons he thinks he'll get and how this is the next Simpsons.

Posted By: Rasher (Guest)

I think the thing that Jonah Hill failed to realize is that self-serving shows never achieve any hint of success. It's a hard lesson to learn, especially for someone like Hill who was riding a pretty good train of success at the time, but we all take our bumps.

Surely, due to the nature of 24, a movie might be a bit long for most cinema goers...

Posted By: Norvic (Guest)

Yeah, this is the one thing I am a little wary of when it comes to a 24 movie. Part of the appeal of 24 was the episodic nature of the show, and the hook where every episode is just 1 hour in the day. Although the 24 tv movie they did between seasons 6 and 7 was actually very good, so I'm a little optimistic.

Funkosaurus>Tebow!

Posted By: The Great Capt. Smooth (Guest)

Well duh.


Last word: And so ends my two-week run of terror I MEAN GOOD TIMES at the 3 R's. Porfirio will be back next week, but feel free to comment. I may even respond to you by email if you're nice.

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