Daily Archives: March 24, 2012

Lawrence

 

Jennifer Lawrence made the talk-show rounds this week, promoting The Hunger Games.  She was on Letterman and Fallon and … I like this chick.  She isn’t “starlet charming” or “sexpot charming,” just salt-of-the-earth, self-deprecating charming.  We’ll see if it lasts.

 

*****

 

Carter

 

Best Hollywood News This Week:

 

No, it’s not the premiere of The Hunger Games.  It’s the announcement by Disney that it expects to lose $200 million on the epic bomb, John Carter.  Could this mean that Hollywood will finally stop churning out special-effects-laden, comic-book/superhero crap aimed at teenagers?  I’m not going to hold my breath.

 

*****

 

PawnS

 

Ten Free TV Shows I Go Out of My Way to Watch:

 

  1. Pawn Stars (above) — addictive and as American as apple pie
  2. Downton Abbey — soap opera, sure, but very sumptuous soap opera
  3. The Rachel Maddow Show — for one side of the story
  4. The O’Reilly Factor — for the other side of the story
  5. Survivor — still the best reality TV
  6. Mystery on PBS — nobody does this kind of thing better than the British
  7. Louie — original, real, and frequently funny
  8. The Killing (below) — news reports indicate that the producers intend to make fans wait yet another season to resolve the show’s mystery.  I might not wait that long.
  9. TCM — OK, so this isn’t technically a “show,” but sometimes you just can’t beat an old movie.
  10. Apparently there are only nine shows that I go out of my way to watch.

 

Kill

 

 

*****

 

Bite

 

Quote of the Week:  “I didn’t know what she was going to do, and then the bear bit me in my butt.” — Florida resident Terri Gurley, who encountered a 300-pound black bear at her apartment complex.

 

*****

 

President Obama is a fan of the Showtime series Homeland.  It is a good show.  However …



HP

 

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by Ross Macdonald

Chill

 

As I was reading this mystery, I was reminded of a Hollywood legend about the movie script for another classic detective story, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.  Supposedly, the novel’s plot was so convoluted that at one point the screenwriters contacted Chandler to ask him who was responsible for the death of one character.  “They sent me a wire,” Chandler later said, “asking me, and dammit I didn’t know either.”  The Chill, in which Southern California detective Lew Archer attempts to solve several murders, is all plot, plot, plot – but Macdonald’s dialogue is snappy, his action is fast-paced, and his characters are colorful.  Best of all, the denouement features a wonderful twist –  and it doesn’t cheat.

 

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