Wherein I read things, laugh [or not], and pass them on to you…
First off, I should say that I really don’t like musicals and so at first, I gave this a bit of the stink eye. An 80′s era musical a la “Glee”? Shudder. That’s the prejudginess over with. What surprised me is how much I enjoyed it, the sheer memory tripping romp of it. Was it cheesy? Of course. And we’re not talking some in-depth story. It’s not going to change the world or anything. But it did have some truths in it that were worthwhile.
Those uptight, sex-starved/sex-depraved churchy folk for one. That was a big thing back in the day, all those churchy folk shrieking about the music, meanwhile their own exploits likely put ‘us’ to shame. At least ‘we’ were honest about it.
The stars we loved to criticize really were just a reflection of what we wanted. We lived through them, and they gave us exactly what we wanted. Sometimes it’s a little hard to look at what you asked for.
There was such an honesty in the music. Was it cheesy sometimes? Yep, but it played from the gut. There were lots of people looking to scrape whatever they could from it, but the music itself was real. It was genuine. Stars could be as drunk, as stoned, and as unreliable as they wanted, but as long as they didn’t sell out, we loved them. In contrast? The boy bands. Nuff said.
I have to say, I haven’t always been a huge fan of Tom Cruise, but I completely enjoyed him in this movie and had no difficulties slotting him into that role. That he could have been an easy double for two guys I went to high school with just added to the authenticity of the times at least made me chuckle a little.
Oh, and Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin, the humour between them and – HA! a kiss! – just sealed it.
This was a fun movie! The fact that we had a b-roll running behind us from a couple of drunk guys arguing over who drank more beer just sealed it.
An honest 3ish stars 
• Variety Profiles Anson Mount in Emmy Coverage; The Guardian Praises Hell on Wheels
• Anson Mount in ‘Hell on Wheels’ – Road to the Emmys 2012: The Actor: Anson Mount’s first scene in AMC’s railroad saga “Hell on Wheels” found his character impersonating a preacher and putting a bullet through the forehead of a man confessing his sins. Bad-ass credentials stamped and verified, Mount’s ex-Confederate soldier spent the remainder of the show’s first season working as a railroad foreman while trying to track down the Union rogues who murdered his wife. Save for the thirst for vengeance, the role of Cullen Bohannon seems tailormade for the 39-year-old Mount, a Tennessean with pride in his roots and a love for the Great Outdoors. “One of my biggest pet peeves is how hard it is to find projects set between New York and L.A. that aren’t stereotyping Southerners,” Mount says by phone from Calgary, Canada, where he’s shooting season two. “I think it’s pretty ballsy to have a protagonist who’s a former Confederate. Hopefully we’ll continue to upend expectations.” [variety/Glenn Whipp/14 june 2012]
• SPOILERS: “Walking Dead” showrunner reveals how it doesn’t end: “Walking Dead” showrunner Glen Mazzara doesn’t want to reveal too much about the upcoming third season of the show – but he will say, emphatically, how the entire series won’t end. The Wrap talked with Mazzara during a crucial day of filming of the third season – which is set largely in a prison and features a vicious new villain called the Governor. We noted during the interview that there are generally three types of endings for zombie stories. One involves the survivors finding a safe haven, perhaps by taking a boat -”No,” Mazzara interjected, seeing where we were going. “There is no safe haven in this world. I want to make that clear. At the end of our season 2 finale that farm is overtaken and that farm was that last safe haven, and there’s no safe haven in that world. I want to be very clear about that. No one is safe. There is no safe haven.” So Rick Grimes and the other survivors can’t just catch a boat to France and -”Nope. Nope. Nope,” Mazzara said. “That’s against our internal rules here.” So that settles that.
…Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of shooting inside the prison for so much of the upcoming season? A: “The prison itself will be a threatening, malevolent character. It is a challenge to live in the prison. And I think we’ve really been able to get a lot of story out of it. So it will not feel like a safe corner keeping our characters away from central action. It will really play that they are in a shark cage. Life in a prison is life in a shark cage.”
[Reuters/Tim Molloy/27 Jun 2012]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYErgUu95HA
• BREAKING BAD Season Five Official Trailer
Rock of Ages surprisingly good [I read stuff]
Wherein I read things, laugh [or not], and pass them on to you…
First off, I should say that I really don’t like musicals and so at first, I gave this a bit of the stink eye. An 80′s era musical a la “Glee”? Shudder. That’s the prejudginess over with. What surprised me is how much I enjoyed it, the sheer memory tripping romp of it. Was it cheesy? Of course. And we’re not talking some in-depth story. It’s not going to change the world or anything. But it did have some truths in it that were worthwhile.
Those uptight, sex-starved/sex-depraved churchy folk for one. That was a big thing back in the day, all those churchy folk shrieking about the music, meanwhile their own exploits likely put ‘us’ to shame. At least ‘we’ were honest about it.
The stars we loved to criticize really were just a reflection of what we wanted. We lived through them, and they gave us exactly what we wanted. Sometimes it’s a little hard to look at what you asked for.
There was such an honesty in the music. Was it cheesy sometimes? Yep, but it played from the gut. There were lots of people looking to scrape whatever they could from it, but the music itself was real. It was genuine. Stars could be as drunk, as stoned, and as unreliable as they wanted, but as long as they didn’t sell out, we loved them. In contrast? The boy bands. Nuff said.
I have to say, I haven’t always been a huge fan of Tom Cruise, but I completely enjoyed him in this movie and had no difficulties slotting him into that role. That he could have been an easy double for two guys I went to high school with just added to the authenticity of the times at least made me chuckle a little.
Oh, and Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin, the humour between them and – HA! a kiss! – just sealed it.
This was a fun movie! The fact that we had a b-roll running behind us from a couple of drunk guys arguing over who drank more beer just sealed it.
An honest 3ish stars
• Variety Profiles Anson Mount in Emmy Coverage; The Guardian Praises Hell on Wheels
• Anson Mount in ‘Hell on Wheels’ – Road to the Emmys 2012: The Actor: Anson Mount’s first scene in AMC’s railroad saga “Hell on Wheels” found his character impersonating a preacher and putting a bullet through the forehead of a man confessing his sins. Bad-ass credentials stamped and verified, Mount’s ex-Confederate soldier spent the remainder of the show’s first season working as a railroad foreman while trying to track down the Union rogues who murdered his wife. Save for the thirst for vengeance, the role of Cullen Bohannon seems tailormade for the 39-year-old Mount, a Tennessean with pride in his roots and a love for the Great Outdoors. “One of my biggest pet peeves is how hard it is to find projects set between New York and L.A. that aren’t stereotyping Southerners,” Mount says by phone from Calgary, Canada, where he’s shooting season two. “I think it’s pretty ballsy to have a protagonist who’s a former Confederate. Hopefully we’ll continue to upend expectations.” [variety/Glenn Whipp/14 june 2012]
• SPOILERS: “Walking Dead” showrunner reveals how it doesn’t end: “Walking Dead” showrunner Glen Mazzara doesn’t want to reveal too much about the upcoming third season of the show – but he will say, emphatically, how the entire series won’t end. The Wrap talked with Mazzara during a crucial day of filming of the third season – which is set largely in a prison and features a vicious new villain called the Governor. We noted during the interview that there are generally three types of endings for zombie stories. One involves the survivors finding a safe haven, perhaps by taking a boat -”No,” Mazzara interjected, seeing where we were going. “There is no safe haven in this world. I want to make that clear. At the end of our season 2 finale that farm is overtaken and that farm was that last safe haven, and there’s no safe haven in that world. I want to be very clear about that. No one is safe. There is no safe haven.” So Rick Grimes and the other survivors can’t just catch a boat to France and -”Nope. Nope. Nope,” Mazzara said. “That’s against our internal rules here.” So that settles that.
[Reuters/Tim Molloy/27 Jun 2012]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYErgUu95HA
• BREAKING BAD Season Five Official Trailer