Catching Up With Scotty Smalls

Okay, sorry for the random post overload today but... well, I got nothin'. I just like posting random stuff, I guess! So here's one more:

My Afternoon with The Sandlot's Scotty Smalls (EW.com)

...it just so happens that April was the 15th anniversary of The Sandlot, so for fun, [Tom] Guiry and I began our afternoon yesterday at the Chelsea Piers batting cages to, you know, emulate The Babe.

When you’re an actor in a film that becomes a classic, it’s hard to live it down. For starters, Guiry's now 27, old enough to smoke his Camels and drink red wine (and yes, we drowned our sorrows in the latter following our poor display of connecting bat with ball). Guiry’s had many, many roles in the last decade and a half (Mystic River, U-571, The Black Donnellys, Law & Order), but people still geek out with him about The Sandlot. And he still gets recognized for it. “Little kids don’t miss a trick,” he says, as we walk to The Half King, a bar co-owned by author Sebastian Junger that Guiry's haunted with the L&O folks before. “I don’t think I look like Scotty Smalls anymore, but anywhere I go—if I go to the mall—and there’s a kid between 6 and 12, they notice me. They’re like, 'Smalls!' Even now.”

Growing up, Guiry used to hate the recognition, but now, as the father of an 8-year-old son named Michael, he embraces it. “When he was about 5, I tried to get him to watch The Sandlot and he’d be like, ‘Turn this off, this is daddy movie,’” says Guiry, with that same Scotty Smalls smile. “But then he got into little league when he was about 7, in Hawaii, and all of his friends liked the movie. He was like, ‘That’s my dad,’ and they didn’t believe him. So I was like, I’ll be there in a week. I go there and I pick him up from school. All of the kids get excited, 'It really is him.' It made my kid’s day, man. That was probably the happiest moment of all my life.”

Man! I didn't realize The Sandlot was such a huge hit. I mean, Robert and I quote it a lot ("FORRRRRR-EHHHH-VERRRRRR!") but I figured we're weird - we always do stuff like that. I'm really surprised kids my age made it a hit, much less that kids today watch it enough to recognize Tom Guiry when he picks up his kid!! I've never noticed ol' Tom-baby in anything else lately but he'll always be the way-less-cute-than-Benny kid with the stupid fish hat from The Sandlot to me. And, I guess, a lot of kids. :o)

Movie Morsels 02 - Indiana Jones & The Dark Knight

Robert and I planned on seeing Iron Man this past weekend but didn't get a chance to do so. We are going next weekend but still... I'm bummed! Turns out the new trailers for Indy and Batman were shown before the flick and they look pretty good (if you want to save you viewing for the big screen, you can skip the rest of the post):

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The Dark Knight

Movie Morsels 01 - The Lovely Bones

I needed something along the lines of 'TV Tidbits' for my movie news and, well, 'Movie Morsels' just called to me. They're both alliterative and morsel is a synonym for tidbits so it's like it was... meant to be. :o)

Anyhoo... I read The Lovely Bones a while back and while I liked it, I wasn't quite as taken with it as I think I was supposed to be. It was a national phenomenon!! For me? Eh, not so much. Still, I was following the status of the movie and felt bad for Ryan Gosling when he was unceremoniously dumped as the father. Rumor was that he was either (a) too fat and Peter Jackson didn't like it but Ryan felt he looked too young at a lesser weight; or (b) a prima donna that rankled everyone and no one was sad to see him go. However, recent developments may shed some light on the production and clear Ryan's name a bit.

This report about a temporary set shut-down surfaced on Friday, courtesy of Defamer.com. The basic gist is:

It was Ryan Gosling who was originally blamed for being the temperamental artiste gumming up the works on the set of Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, but recent mumblings suggest it is the exacting director who is proving to be his own worst enemy: Production has reportedly temporarily shut down as Jackson battles with his art director over how to best depict the movie's version of Heaven. On top of that, Susan Sarandon has grumbled on the Speed Racer red carpet about how she was instructed to play her character. From Flicks.co.nz:

"I play the comic relief, an alcoholic grandmother - my first grandma - but she doesn't really seem like a real grandmother because she has a lot of hair and jewellery and nails and liquor. I don't think I ever talk without a cigarette and a drink in my hand."

"Peter Jackson is really a nice guy and very interesting. It was really a very different way of working. We had a good time, I'm really curious to see what it's like because he kept pushing me to be more and more extreme and sometimes that's when you make your big mistakes so I'm not sure how it will come off - it will be interesting to see it from the point of view of the audience."

Portraying Heaven on screen is a far dicier proposition than, say, the Fires of Mordor—all those feathers, fluff, and pearly gates threaten to tip your vision too easily into the Realm of the Cheesy Afterlife. Still, we have high hopes for any Jackson film, and we only pray he doesn't use this production to indulge his more volatile creative instincts, pushing a tray of painstainkingly hand-sculpted femurs and ulnas into his prop master's face, screaming, "These bones aren't nearly lovely enough!" before storming off to his trailer.

Bummer. Then, this popped up this morning:

Yet further ominous news for Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones: the badandugly.com reports the movie's release date has been pushed from March 13, 2009 to the far more vague "fall 2009." First Valkyrie, now this: We'd just gotten used the fact that we'd have to wait months for our one-eyed Hitler-hunter yarn. But at the rate things are going now, it seems like we'll never get a change to enjoy kicking back to a brutally raped and murdered tween's mile-high observations about the family who has yet to discover her skeletal remains. It's no fair!

While I don't doubt that Ryan's very likely eccentricities played a part in his dismissal, it doesn't look too good for ol' Peter these days, either. I definitely think the story is a difficult one to portray on film but that's why Jackson makes millions and billions of dollars and I get paid in gum and quarters.

TV Tidbits 07 - Men in Trees, CSI, House, Project Runway

I actually don't watch any of these shows but hey, I'm all about you, people. (Except you, Christina - I will never post about American Idol!!) :o) So, here goes:

• Men in Trees - ABC has gone and canceled one of TV's most consistently heartwarming hours. The sad, depressing news was just confirmed to me by series creator Jenny Bicks, who says she was informed of the network's decision late last week. "I am really proud of the work we did on MIT," she tells me. "A huge thank you to our supportive fans."
  
  Bicks believes that two years of schizophrenic scheduling ultimately did the cherished dramedy in. "I wish the show had not been moved six times and put onto two long hiatuses," she sighs. "No show could survive that."
  
  Truer words have never been spoken. As soul-crushing as this is, I managed to find a silver lining in all this: Viewers will get their happy ending. Bicks and her team prepared for Trees' possible demise by shooting an alternate series-finale ending that will now be tacked onto the show's last episode, which is slated to air this summer. Trees kicks off its final run of episodes on Wednesday, May 28. [TVGuide.com]

• House - With the May 30 premiere of the Sex and the City movie looming, fans of that storied show might want to catch House to sample an appetizer course of Jason Lewis (aka Samantha's boy toy Smith Jerrod) as this week's whipping boy…er…patient.Lewis plays Evan Greer, the star of the crank's favorite daytime serial, Prescription Passions. But House's interest soon turns professional when something about the actor's appearance on TV triggers his medical Spidey-sense. He gets no help from Greer, who denies having a problem and refuses treatment. The doc doesn't give up on him though, administering a stealth injection while Greer jaws on a cell phone. So why is House so fixated on this guy and his soap? "It's almost a release for him to see a skewed view of his world," says executive producer David Shore. "This is somebody in a weird way House cares about. He cares about [the actor's TV] character surviving." [TVGuide.com]

• CSI - Gary Dourdan on Saturday acknowledged regret over his recent arrest in Palm Springs. In his statement to People the former CSI star says, "Obviously I am embarrassed to find myself in this situation, and I am profoundly grateful to everyone for their support."
  
  Earlier Saturday, AccessHollywood.com posted a personal e-mail Dourdan purportedly sent in which he lamented the situation, insisted on his innocence and apologized to fans. Dourdan had been at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival prior to his arrest. "The after party, it ran me ragged," he explains, "but I'm glad pulling over did prevent a DUI. I recommend not driving at all, but a little [nap] is always good."
  
  Dourdan continued, "I am blessed that the [sergeant] realized that the luggage carrying whatever [drugs] they found was not mine and that my tests have been coming back negative." The actor also apologized to fans, "especially the young ones, like Taylor Swift." (Dourdan was slated to present an award to the country-music starlet at last weekend's Young Hollywood Awards.) [TVGuide.com]
  

UPDATE: Oh great. This is just what the gradually-becoming-worse PR move from Bravo to Lifetime needs - the departure of Magical Elves!!! And they are magical... if you recall, the lack of Elves was blamed for Top Design's failure and now PR thinks they can make it on their own? In Golden Girls-land? Tsk, tsk, tsk Heidi. I think you and your are in for some trubba!!

Less than a month after Lifetime announced that it nabbed future seasons of Project Runway away from Bravo, NBC/Universal announced today that it has signed an exclusive first-look deal with Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz of Magical Elves, the production team responsible for the Heidi Klum-hosted fashion show. According to NBC, Cutforth and Lipsitz will walk away from Project Runway after season 5 (which will air on Bravo) and begin developing exclusively for all NBC-owned platforms. Lifetime will begin airing originals of Project Runway in season 6, under a deal it forged with Miramax Television. Magical Elves has been responsible for the award-winning Project Runway since its inception on Bravo, as well as Last Comic Standing, Treasure Hunters, Top Chef, and Step It Up and Dance. Developing.... [EW.com}

Txting 8 r brains

Click me!! I get bigger!!

My dad cut this article out for me this weekend as a little joke and I thought I'd share it with you. I thought it was very cute but hard to read! I got about 2 paragraphs in before my eyes started crossing and my brain started to hurt. 'Textlish' should really only be read in little spurts... :o) I can't believe kids are actually writing papers in this stuff!! Ridiculous. I am so old we still used pager code my first year of college but I somehow was still able to write all of my papers without using any numbers!! I guess I'm just skilled like that. Actually, I am a bit of a stickler - I don't used any abbreviations when I text. I do write in all lower case because I have a non-QWERTY phone and don't want to spend my life flipping between upper and lower case letters BUT I always use correct punctuation and spell everything out. Nary a "U" or "R" will you find in my text messages... and yes, it takes me eons to write anything but I don't care! I will not submit to your Textlish pressure, people!

More Formatting Issues

All right, people - I'm bored. I get bored with my blogger templates really quickly and want to change it up a bit. However, my posts are in a wide variety of colors and, depending on the background color of the template I choose, some do no show up as well as others. (Because I get bored, I like making each post have its own color... spices up the page a bit.) As such, I am forced to go back and change the color of, like, 65% of my posts when I change templates. Therefore, I've made a decision: I'm going to be a stick in the mud and make all of my posts the same boring color. I know, it's a bit of a bummer but I feel like I have no other choice in the matter.

I will start re-coloring my posts today and, because I'm anal, I'll probably be done by tomorrow morning. Still, I apologize in advance for the ho-hum-i-ness of my post colors... I will do my best to choose fun backgrounds that are good eye candy. :o)

Okay, seriously? This is a bitch and a half!!! Forget it... I got to mid-February and I gave up. You'll just have to struggle through and love me with and without color-coded posts!! GAH!!

JUST KIDDING!!! Oh. My. God. I was the stupidest person alive and picked a shade of blue that does not come out at all on the new template... I hate myself!!! Bear with me as I change the font to black ever so slowly... :o( Mew for me.

Prince William Has a Headache

I saw this at candykirby.com and it made me laugh:

“Oh, dear. How do I tell this lady it’s time to close the cleavage curtains?”

I've never heard 'cleavage curtains' before but I think it's pretty snappy! ;o) Poor Prince William... he is totally losing his hair. He's already combing it over. Mew.
(Oh, and the lady in question is Carol Vorderman, a British TV host).

Colbert's Singin' in Korean

It's that time of year again when Time puts forth its Top 100 list of the most influential people. Steven was bested by South Korean singer/actor Rain last year and Rain is ahead of Steven (by 1) once again this year. The following video was made last year in order to put Steven atop the list once and for all and though it didn't do the job in '07, it's popped up once again. I am chained to my computer this afternoon while I work on a DVD for someone and, while it's uploading, I thought I would share because, well, it's funny and I like it. Duh! :o)

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Steven has been courting Colbert Nation votes heavily on his show and Rain has finally responded:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

I, for one, really hope Rain accepts and he and Colbert have a dance-off... it would be awesome!!

UPDATE: Steven lost out to Rain again! But, this year, both were beat out by the video-game designer who created Mario, Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda.

Have You Quit Any Shows?

I saw this blurb on Gawker.com this afternoon and I think it hits the nail right on the head:

Since the strike ended (feels like three years ago) shows like Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, and House have seen ratings dip. Television people—who are always scratching their heads, every day, it is their whole job—are running around, desperately trying to come up with ANSWERS. Bill Carter ventures to help them in the New York Times today, saying it's serialized story lines that are keeping people away, while The TV Addict wonders if it has anything to do with videogames. What's happening here? Why is everyone tuning out?

1) People Forgot What the Hell Was Going On
People are easily confused. Serialized television is hard to understand when you stop in the middle and then start up again on some arbitrary date. In the countless interviews magazines and newspapers have done with actors and other creative types on television shows, many have said things to the effect of "Oh we were just humming along, picking up momentum. It was such a bummer to have to stop." (Desperate Housewives' reinvigorating Dana Delaney storyline comes to mind). When there was nothing left for audiences to see, for an indefinite time, they slowly steeled themselves to cope with the bitter loss. It was time to move on and forget. And that's not easy to undo. It takes time and therapy. This is why comedies have done fine; there's no difficulty jumping right back in. My advice is to just let it be for now, then come back, publicity guns blazing, in the fall. That's what people are used to.

2) Like Adopted Gypsy Children, Viewers Secretly Wanted to Run Away
Many people don't like their addictions (I should know). But you suffer through them anyway because they're a part of you. If cigarettes were to just suddenly disappear one day, unavailable for months at a time, I'd probably quit once and for all. And I'd be happy about it. The same can probably be said for Ugly Betty or CSI. What better time to open a book, take a walk, or, more realistically, ramp up one's porn viewing and knickknack shopping on this creaky old internet? People, I think, were secretly glad for all this extra time in their lives. And now they don't want to cede it back to the glowing box, Dr. House MD be damned. I advise the networks to alter the way they relate viewership to advertisers, at least for the time being. Emphasize the quality and loyalty of the viewers who've stayed on. Everyone else will realize that they were rash and foolish to leave. They'll come crawling back. They always do.

The strike really was the final nail in the coffin of several shows for me. Just this week I got rid of Ugly Betty and The Tudors and I don't really miss them. It was definitely a combination of numbers 1 and 2 for both shows... I loved Ugly Betty last season but my interest was already starting to wane at the beginning of this season. I would have one, then two, then three episodes pile up on my TiVo before I would force myself to watch one or two. Some of the spark diminished for me this season and I just wasn't enjoying it as much as I had been. Once the strike happened and I completely lost track of what had been going on in Ugly Betty-land, I decided to cut my losses and deleted my season pass. If I really miss it, I can rent the entire season on Netflix later on in life. But I doubt it. As for The Tudors, that sucker confused me even as I watched it last year! It was interesting but the creators crammed so much into every episode; the entire first season covered, like, 10 years! Crazy. Robert and I watched the first episode of the new season a few weeks ago and we couldn't remember anyone's plot line. I tried refreshing myself on the message boards but holy bejesus, the posters are hard-core history buffs and their bickering back and forth over the authenticity of the storyline wasn't clearing anything up for me! I had three more episodes pile up and then last night Robert says "Do you think we still want to watch The Tudors?" Answer: no. With CSI, House MD and Without a Trace already booted from our regular rotation, Robert and I have really cleared some space on our TiVo. Woohoo! We're down to just one show a day on some days... not bad! And it's not like we have a bunch of free time on our hands where we're wishing we had more shows to watch, so all in all I guess the strike worked out pretty okay for us. We don't feel like we have TV homework anymore!

TV Tidbits 07 - Man vs. Wild, Project Runway

As I'm sure you've surmised by now, Robert and I watch some pretty random shows. :o) A new season of M v. W starts tomorrow night and EW.com has a Q&A session with Bear Grylls in preparation. Highlights include:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Would you rather eat slimy maggots or crunchy beetles?
BEAR GRYLLS: Probably slimy maggots. Crunchy beetles always have a habit of crapping down my throat as I swallow them. Maggots seem to behave better.

Would you rather eat sheep eyeballs or goat testicles? Eyeballs are bad. I always thought it would be like a hard-boiled egg, but they explode into gristle and blood. But it's better than goat testicles, which melt in your mouth into just what you imagine is inside a goat's testicle. That's just not my cup of tea, having a mouth full of goat sperm.

Would you rather cross a slow-moving river that contains piranhas and candiru [the tiny, parasitic fish that supposedly swim up your urethra while you're peeing in the water] or violent rapids that contained no scary fish? The fast one is probably more dangerous. Only certain piranhas will attack humans, and only when there's real limited food source. As for those candiru, I'd go through the river and not pee while I'm crossing it. And keep my pants on.

We saw the episode where he ate the goat testicle - it was offered to him by some desert nomad guy and it would've been rude to refuse, I expect. If memory serves, however, Bear threw it up... I believe it was the only time he's thrown up on camera in the history of the show. And the bit about keeping his pants on? That'll be hard for ol' Bear because the dude takes his pants off to warm up/cool down/dry off at the drop of a hat! Speaking of which, he also sometimes wears his underwear as a hat. It's a good show.

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Also according to EW.com - Project Runway may be moving to L.A. Say wha?

One day, New York is in. The next day, it's out. EW.com has learned from two well-placed sources that Project Runway and its host Heidi Klum (pictured) will move to Los Angeles for the series' sixth season, expected to premiere on Lifetime in November. The show's fifth season, which debuts on Bravo in July, will be shot in the Big Apple — as it has been since the Emmy-nominated reality program's inception. A Lifetime spokesman was unaware of any decision to move production for the sixth cycle. Story developing...

I would honestly be surprised if this turn of events actually transpires because I think that would mean Tim Gunn would be auf'd. He's the chief creative officer at Liz Claiborne Inc. and I don't think it's a seasonal job! I doubt he'd have time to commute between NY and L.A. to keep his two gigs running smoothly so something would have to give. And if Tim leaves PR, many, many, many viewers will follow, I think. They'll still have Nina - I mean, now that she's been fired from Elle, what else is she doing? - but no one tunes in to see Mean-a Garzilla!