David Lynch has directed many television commercials but this one from 1993 for Adidas, titled "The Wall," gives any surreal perfume commercials (including Lynch's own) a run for their money. (See what I did there?) You can find a directory and clips of Lynch's other commercial, ad, and promo work here.
(via r/ObscureMedia)
Once again, Comcast is repeating its annual tradition of hiking "broadcast TV" and "regional sports network" hidden fees at a rate far above inflation, typically raising them from $14.50 to $18.25/month, rise of about 25%. Read the rest
During the 2018 Emmys, Director Glenn Weiss proposed to his girlfriend Jen. Read the rest
The first season of True Detective was a sensation, arguably qualifying as some of the best television of all time. The show's second season? Not so much. Read the rest
I'm headed to DC to sit down in studio with BookTV's "In Depth" on August 5; it'll air live on Aug 5 at 12PM Eastern/9AM Pacific and be repeated on August 6 at 12AM Eastern/(9PM Pacific on Aug 5) and on Aug 11 at 9AM Eastern/6AM Pacific. It's a phone-in! Read the rest
Samsung's new QLED TV comes with configuration option: take a picture of the wall behind it before you hang it up and it will use it as a background wallpaper, drawing UI widgets (like weather display, etc) overtop of it, creating the hi-rez illusion that your TV has disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the bezel. Hard to get it aligned properly, and probably a config option on most TVs (but buried 11 menus deep and just advertised as "set wallpaper" rather than "make TV vanish"). (via Red Ferret) Read the rest
Deadwood fans have been teased by rumors and malarkey about a final season or a movie that would tie up the loose ends of the series, for years.
Back in 2015, the whispers about a Deadwood movie going into production grew from whispers to a quiet mumble. Then, in 2017, Deadwood creator David Milch said that he'd completed a script that'd appeal to the show's followers and new viewers alike. Fast forward one more year to 2018: a whole twelve years after the last episode of season three went to air. According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO has finally announced that production on a Deadwood movie will start this October. Tell your God to prepare for blood!
If you're not familiar with the show, love blood, excellent writing, complex characters and dark humor, you need to get on it. During its three-season run, Deadwood chalked up eight Emmy Awards for its portrayal of the life and drama surrounding the citizens of Deadwood, South Dakota in the 1870s. While the show's roots are rooted in the Old West, at a time when outlaws and gunfighters still held sway, the story lines covered over the series' 36 episodes are more Shakespearean in scope than Spaghetti Western.
If Deadwood sounds like your thing, you're in luck: it's currently streaming on HBO Go, Amazon Prime Video, and can be bought outright on iTunes, Google Play or as a DVD or Blu-ray box set from Amazon for under $50. Image via HBO Read the rest
Marc Zicree (writer on Star Trek:TNG, DS9 and more) and friends are kickstarting another volume in their enormously successful fan-funded, "retro and stylish" Space Command science fiction show. Read the rest
There's a long history of TV programs that exploit the personal struggles of individuals for ratings. Now there's a new game show that tackles the student loan crisis. Like its predecessors in this genre, it's bad. Read the rest
Ambien manufacturer Sanofi issued a masterfully worded public statement on Wednesday in response to recently-fired ABC TV star Roseanne Barr's latest Twitter meltdown.
In a series of wackadoodle tweets she posted late last night, 'Roseanne' blamed Sanofi's prescription sleep medication for the racist tweets that got her eponymous show canceled. Read the rest
This video synchronizes every Rod Serling opening monologue from The Twilight Zone so that they converge upon him saying "The Twilight Zone." It's surprisingly weird and uncanny as the cacophony builds, only for the words to suddenly emerge at the end. Read the rest
As we make our way through the Lost In Space reboot on Netflix (or not), let's honor the late, great Jonathan Harris who stole the original series as the prissily menacing Dr. Zachary Smith.
"(Smith) was written as a deep-dyed, snarling villain, and he bored the shit out of me," Harris said.
(Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!) Read the rest
"I'm better than any piss-ant who ever lived."
Jim Nabors, who died last year, apparently recorded this fantastic clip to promote his new television series, "Gomer Pylse, USMC," to TV execs and possible sponsors.
(via r/ObscureMedia)
When I'm not here pointing out dog videos, I spend the rest of my work day as a technology journalist. I decided that I wanted in on this line of work because I love gadgets. There was always something new coming out that I couldn't afford to buy. Now, as I get to play with new tech on an almost daily basis, I don't feel like I'm missing out on much of anything. My office is full of smartphones, computers, wearables and travel gear. It's loaned to me, I play with it and then, I send it back. It's such a privilege to have access to the sorts of swag that a lot of geeks like me drool over. I never get tired of playing with new products. But having done it for close to a decade has left me a bit jaded: what's new is seldom as spectacular as we want it to be.
Take this year's crop of flagship smartphones, for example. They're a little bit faster, a little bit glossier. Maybe the one you've been looking at has an edge-to-edge display. I get it: bezels on a handset are bullshit, so, you totally want one. I know I do. But I also know, having played with them, that the incremental differences between one year's model and the next is so moot, that they won't make a lick of difference in my day-to-day life. TVs are the same. Most of the folks I know just want the shows and movies that they watch to look their best. Read the rest
The late, lamented Scottish writer Iain Banks (previously) was several kinds of writer, but one of his main claims to fame is his role in developing the idea of fully automated luxury communism, in his beloved Culture novels, a series of wildly original space operas about a post-singularity, post-scarcity cooperative galactic civilization devoted to games, leisure, and artistic pursuits, populated by AIs, city-sized space cruisers, spy networks, and weird bureaucracies. Read the rest
I have fond memories of watching ABC's early-1980s comedy The Greatest American Hero and was only mildly surprised to hear they are bringing it back (as a pilot, for now). What was surprising is that the "hero" will be a "heroine" in the reboot.
...Hannah Simone has been tapped for the title role in ABC’s single-camera comedy pilot The Greatest American Hero, from the Fresh Off the Boat duo of Rachna Fruchbom and Nahnatchka Khan. In the reimagining with a gender switch of Steven J. Cannell’s 1981 cult classic, the unlikely (super)hero at the center, played by William Katt in the original, is being reconceived as an Indian-American woman.
Written by Fruchbom, The Greatest American Hero centers around Meera (Simone), a 30-year-old woman who loves tequila and karaoke and has spent her life searching and failing to find meaning, much to the chagrin of her traditional Indian-American family. An inexplicable event occurs that will change the course of Meera’s life forever: she is entrusted with a super suit to protect the planet. Meera may have finally found purpose, but the world has never been in more unreliable hands.
