Category: TV, Film and Radio

Super Bowl reflections

Commercials — As I said earlier, the commercials were almost an afterthought although three of the people attending my exclusive Super Bowl party were primarily interested in them.
If you want a recap of the commercials, TV Squad is one of the dozens of places with mini reviews and embedded videos.
My bottom line — it’s outrageous that people pay $2.7 million for 30 seconds of exposure, especially when the ads are mostly dissatisfying. Here’s what I thought was the best and the worst:
The best: I definitely liked the NFL’s Super Ad, much for the reasons detailed by TV Squad. Essentially, it details how future NFL player Chester Pitts was bagging groceries in San Diego when another football player discovered him and encouraged him to try out for college ball. Although Pitts said the only thing he played before college was the oboe, he turned out to be a good football player.
What an awesome commercial with a sweet rags-to-riches story. It definitely had a fairy tale feel to it, leading many to ask if the story was real. I said it has to be because I knew the months of promotion for the NFL Super Ad competition where people were asked for vote for the best story from NFL players.
I also enjoyed Coca-Cola’s duel between parade balloons Underdog and Stewie Griffin. It was all the sweeter that periennial loser Charlie Brown finally won.
Although the commercial was played for laughs, part of me was reminded of the injuries when floats have gotten out of control in the past (which is why there are much stricter rules in place at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade).
The worst: Let’s say you have a Web site in business to generate business leads, somehow. What better way to get the word out than buying at least $5 million of commercials. One of the commercials was pretty bad — it was a cartoon (!) featuring pandas having problems selling their bamboo furniture. However, thanks to this Web site (which I’m deliberately forgetting the name of), they were able to save their business.
This commercial completely rubbed me the wrong way. Not only was it the extremely rare cartoon promoting a business Web site, the whole premise of pandas selling bamboo furniture and speaking with seemingly stereotypical Asian accents struck me as vaguely racist or at least disrespectful. It seemed like one step away from making chopstick buck teeth and saying “Me so sorrie.”
I can’t say the Asian accents were faked because I don’t know who the voice talent was, but the whole endeavor didn’t seem sincere to me.
While Go Daddy may have been able to successfully promote its domain-registration business with inexplicably popular commercials, I don’t know if this other company will be able to see similar success.

The broadcast: I thought the actual game broadcast was nice although I have no idea what Super Bowl 3 and Super Bowl 42 are, as FOX Sports referred to them in on-screen graphics. I thought all the Super Bowls had roman numerals, like III and XLII. Learn to count, people.
I skipped the pregame show (which was apparently 18-hours long, give or take a day). It’s usually a lot of fluff and my disinterest grew when I heard that FOX News was producing this argueably sports-oriented program (so they could tout their Super Tuesday election coverage).
Having FOX cameras spot the celebrities in the stands was fun for a minute, but I always wonder why they have to be Hollywood celebrities. Just once I would like Joe Buck to say, “There’s Nobel Laureate Gerhard Ertl. He won the 2007 Nobel for his contributions in chemistry.”
I know not to hold my breath.

Halftime: I’ve largely derided the halftime shows since the NFL took over the production after the incident that brought America to its knees. In retrospect, it’s mostly because of their super safe choices not the entertainment value.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers gave a fun performance that definitely had a lot of people at my party singing along. I just wish the NFL would showcase some younger talent.
Also, it would be nice to see another female performer on the halftime stage. Heck, FOX Sports included a woman in its out-of-place, yet nice, tribute to the Declaration of Independence (which addressed a beef I had the last time).
Since “the incident” in 2004, the NFL must follow an extremely rigid set of rules when selecting the halftime show. The rules are all geared to avoid another “malfunction” of the sort that so disrupted our state of affairs. To the best of my knowledge, they are:

  1. No breasts — No breasts, no problems. Right?
  2. Performers must be on Social Security — All right, they’re not 65, but they’re close. The average age of performers is 59
  3. Performers must be dudes — See rule 1.
  4. Must not have reputation for taking clothes off, at least not recently.

In the end, the Super Bowl is supposed to be about a game and it succeeded this year.

Diminishing returns, take 2

Over the years, I’ve made some pretty weird trips for an event, but probably not as often or as far as others. I’ve never been compelled to travel hundreds of miles for a music festival (although the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival sounds tempting).
This question came up recently when I saw the announcement for theater screenings of “Razor,” the new “Battlestar Galactica” movie airing later this month on Sci Fi. After my hopes were elevated about seeing the modern incarnation of the sci-fi series on the big screen, they were dashed by the realization that the nearest screening was Walnut Creek in the Bay Area.
Oh and the screening was on a Monday night.
One part of my mind screams, “It’s only a trip to the Bay Area. Get the tickets.”
Sometimes, I indulge that part of my brain (sometimes I indulge it too often). A cooler part of my head prevailed in this case.
In the end, is it worth driving about six hours for a two-hour movie? Considering that it’ll be on TV and available on DVD, I reluctantly said “no” and passed on the offer.

Colts at Chargers: What was that?

I’m not going to make it habit of writing about sports on this supposedly entertainment-oriented blog, but I just watched the Chargers eek out a two-point win over the Colts. Although I’m a Chargers fan, I’m flabbergasted how the San Diego team managed to prevail over Indianapolis.
After watching some of the game, I really think it wasn’t really the Chargers “winning” as it was the Colts “losing.”
The Chargers offense didn’t light up the board too much. The Chargers scored all their points in the first half and most of them came from special teams in the form of punt returns. The Chargers were there to be sure, taking advantage of some opportunities and putting up stops, but it seemed like the Colts were in the driver’s seat.
If Indianapolis was driving, they were lost for much of the first half. The Colts first-half performance wasn’t great — quarterback Payton Manning threw far too many interceptions. He ended up with six for the night.
However, Indy righted course and Manning and the rest of his dinged-up team went on to put up 21 unanswered points. They were a field goal from winning the game, but the kick went wide right.
It was the Colts kicker that missed. Although the Chargers got the ball back, they didn’t reach a first down to put the game away. They had to punt on fourth down and gave the Colts 26 seconds to try and score. The ball was in the Colts’ court before Manning threw his sixth interception as the horn sounded.
From what I saw, the door was wide open for the Colts to win. By the flukiest of flukes, the Chargers were declared the winner.

Bang for your buck: First edition

I’ve seen a lot of things over the past few weeks that I’ve been meaning to write about, but haven’t got around to. So I want to launch my first-ever “Bang for your buck” round-up where I look at things that I’ve done and seen or things that I might want to purchase.
Without further ado:

  • “Flight of the Conchords: Season 1” DVD – I didn’t quite know what to expect when I saw the first commercials for this HBO series, but the show about a lowly rated New Zeland folk band is pretty hilarious. The plots can be very straight-forward — most comedic band use the plot to string along a set of jokes or songs. The true genius is in the band’s songs and videos. The music ranges ballads to rock to pop electronica. It’s a brilliant deal for $20.
  • “Jekyll” — Less impressive was the performance at the Blue Room Theatre last Friday night. The troupe there put on an amusing, if extremely short, take on the classic tale of “Jekyll and Hyde.” It had been a while since I had been to the theater so I enjoyed the live performance and the staging. The music number was fun and the live music was a cool touch.

    The performances were pretty good with the actor playing Hyde doing a convincing job of displaying the wild nature of this classic alter ego. The play did a decent job of showcasing Hyde’s orgy of violence. However, I feel the play could’ve done more to offer a newer take on the classic struggle between a man’s civilization and his wild side. It’s OK at $10 and 45 minutes, but the play would be pushing it if lasted longer or cost more.

  • “Dan in Real Life” – The new romantic comedy starring Steve Carell was a pleasant way to spend an evening, but I don’t know if I would pay the full evening ticket price. Carell plays a widower who happens to write an advice column on parenting. He sometimes has a hard time living up to his advice as he meets a beautiful woman during a family reunion weekend. The catch is that the woman is the currently attached to Carell’s brother, played by Dane Cook. I thought the story held together all right, but it didn’t launch itself into greatness. If I was rating it on a four-star system, I would give a solid 2.5 stars.

I guess a Nobel prize is all right …

… but it’s no Grammy. As I’m sure many know by now, Al Gore and a UN committee won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize (BBC News article).
Earlier, I predicted Gore would be up for a Grammy for his spoken-word efforts. I guess he decided to skip the minor leagues of awards and go for the big payoff.
Congratulations on Gore and the other Nobel laureates. Although Gore has already said he would donate his portion of the $1.5 million prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, that much money would have helped pay his utilities bill for a couple of months.

The blogging thing

I’m surprised at MySpace. It’s been an Internet phenomenon for more than two years, but they still can’t get their blogging tool to fully work in Firefox. For shame, Tom. For shame.

On the subject of blogging, I wanted to announce the newest and coolest blog to hit my profile in the past 10 minutes. I’ve started up a pop-culture entertainment blog on NorCal Blogs. It’s the Buzz Blog. It’s sorta like my old pop-culture column, but slightly more frequent and vastly more banal.

To keep tabs on all of my blogging endeavors, I’ve added a little widget to my profile. All of my blogs are now squeezed into a tiny space.

I’m not going to “watch it all for you”

Odds are, you’ve got a friend who’s more than willing to say, “You should really watch this TV show.” At the very least, they’ll say something like, “Did you watch ‘Survivor’ last night?” Then you’ll have to shrug your shoulders and respond, “Isn’t that the show with the naked dude on it?”
In my office, I’m “that guy.” I try to stay up on the TV shows and other pop-culture happenings. I don’t obsess over TMZ every hour, but I watch my favorite shows and I check in with “The Soup” and “Best Week Ever” and call it good.
The thing is — after a week of trying to watch the new fall TV shows, I’ve come to the annual conclusion I’m not going to get to them all. I spent nearly all day Saturday watching recorded shows from the past week. The first seven hours of “The War” are a battle I have yet to engage.
There are some train wrecks that I want to watch (“Cavemen” and “Carpoolers” come to mind), just so I can have the experience of it. There are also some good shows I have no idea when I can watch them.
There’s a lot of enjoyable TV shows out there that have never entered my orbit. It happened last year with “Ugly Betty,” a show I have yet to watch a single episode of. It’s gotten to the point where I watch and thoroughly enjoy an episode of a “good” show, like “24” or “Lost,” but I have to pass on future airings because my viewing dance card is full.
I almost don’t want to watch another good show because it means there’s another series I’ll want to follow.
So, while other pop-culture enthusiasts say they’ll “watch it all for you,” there’s no way in heck I’ll do that. I’ll write about the amusing things I come across naturally. At some point in November, I’ll write about the most-viewed programs in the country (which often differ from what I watch).
I know most of my posts thus far have been about television. That’ll change as I get out into the Chico nightlife and explore other aspect of entertainment.

Tuesday’s episode of “Eureka” was -INSERT AD HERE-

Lewis Black ranted about it during the Emmy ceremony, but few TV executives seemed to have heeded the sage comedian’s words. Black delivered a funny, yet obvious, monologue about the annoying -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- banners and bugs that clutter up the TV screen when someone is trying to enjoy their program.
It seems the Sci Fi Channel hasn’t gotten the message. I was trying to watch Tuesday’s airing of “Eureka” but my viewing was interrupted by -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- the constant presence of a large promotional ad for an upcoming show of another series in the -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- right-hand corner of the screen. It loomed above the station’s normal bug (which is unnecessary in this era of digital cable/satellite and DVRs).
This ad was on the screen for the entire episode. (UPDATE: You can see the image on TV Squad’s episode review. Grrr.).
Now, I can see why Sci Fi can -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- lend some of the screen real estate for some promotions, but did I really to have to be subjected to that annoying promotion for -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- the entire 42-minutes of actual programming? Not only did it consume a bulk of my viewing time, it ate into the screen image. The station bug and banner ad gobbled up about a tenth of the viewable screen (already reduced because the show is letterboxed). When you add Sci Fi’s -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- 18 minutes of commercials along with the show, a viewer ends up watching commercials the entire time.
Indeed, the banner was so -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- annoying, I paused my enjoyment of the show I wanted to watch to give the advertised show -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- “Three Thumbs Down” on my TiVo (The thumbs are a way of indicating show preferences on the DVR). Not only have I never seen the show -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!-, I know have no desire to ever seek the show out. If the show happens to be on when I watch TV, I will steer far clear of this -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- program.
Notice that I have not disclosed the -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- show that Sci Fi was so eager to -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- promote. I have no desire to give this program any inadvertent promotion on my -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- own.
As I’ve tried to illustrate with this blog with the -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!-, the constant presence of the advertising banner totally takes away from my enjoyment of -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- this -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- program. -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!- -WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!!-

More on “Chuck”

Now that the premiere of “Chuck” has aired, I can discuss what I view to be two big pitfalls in the series. Chicago Tribune critic Maureen Ryan mentioned them in her review of the show, but I’ll summarize. First, won’t all the secrets in Chuck’s head get old after a while? And second, the cold-blooded shooting of a character added a dark tone to the pilot.
Since her blog allows people to comment, here’s what I wrote:

I picked up on the potential “stale secrets” plot hole as well. I wonder how they’ll deal with it, but I imagine they have to especially because the pilot dealt with intel acquired within a matter of weeks, not years.

My theory — the trio of Chuck, Sarah and Casey will become the human version of the two intel agencies feeding data into the secret computer. It makes sense for the agents (and agencies) to keep providing information to Chuck — somehow.

My other concern dealt with the casual brutality of Casey telling other agents that it’s OK to murder another U.S. agent and on American soil to boot. Of course, how Sarah dispatched the agents was violent, but still executed in a fun, if implausible, fashion.

I’d be curious to see the longevity of the series after a few episodes. I wonder how the show will spin its wheels through weekly episodes while trying to drive a plot arc through a number of episodes.

I’m still gonna watch the show, but these things are in the back of my mind. A promo for an upcoming episode showed the spies and Chuck sitting at a table with photos. I hope they’re feeding him intel and proving my theory right.

Hey! Free marketing information

The Nielsens are probably best known for the TV ratings the organization releases every week. The trouble is the ratings are less useful in this era where people watch shows from hundreds of channels on DVRs.
Nielsen is also facing problems convincing networks and their advertisers that its information is still useful. After all, who cares who’s watching “The Office” when it’s potentially possible to measure who’s watching the commercials between the show.
20070925_heynielsen.jpgNielsen has launched Hey! Nielsen, a new site which just seems geared to mine marketing information from the general public. On the face of it, the site appears to be a place for people to sound off about TV, music, etc., but Nielsen has plans for the information.

From Hey! Nielsen’s About page:

Using data from real users, Hey! Nielsen generates a Hey! Nielsen score — a real-time indicator of a topic’s impact, influence, and value. As users submit feedback, the score is created from a number of factors such as user response, blog buzz, and news coverage, as well as raw data from our sister sites Billboard.com, HollywoodReporter.com, and BlogPulse.com.

It seems to me Nielsen is trying to use the social-networking potential of the Web to build a new set of marketing data. I wonder how many people are going to divulge their opinions for Nielsen’s new data mill.
I also wonder how useful the data will be. After all, marketing data is used to help determine the Peoples Choice Awards and we all know how well a barometer of pop culture that event is.