We’ve got a great big ol’ fun show this week with a review of Stardust on bluray and the second in our series of reviews on the Red Riding trilogy with Red Riding 1980. Brian’s got plenty of TV to talk about with an Emmy wrap and his Top 5 returning shows of the fall.
- A recap of last week’s Emmy’s, plus some suggestions on what to check out in theatres around Victoria this week.
- Brian’s Top 5 returning shows of the fall
- We review Red Riding 1980, starring Paddy Considine and Sean Harris. Things are really coming together in this trilogy and it shows as Brian actually warms to a British film.
- We discuss the release of Stardust on blu-ray (finally!). It’s a must have for your collection.
- There is a virtual trailer drought this week Brian’s got nothing, and Steve’s got a trailer he can’t even show you, Kenneth Branagh’s Thor. From the Vault, we’ve got Casino on blu-ray and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Facebook
The Film Cynics
Steve's Twitter
Is this the trailer for Thor that leaked after Comic Con? It looks pretty damn good, doesn’t it (although maybe less of the Transformer thing at the end – though I do like the (somewhat) bitchy Agent Coulson “Is this one of Stark’s?” “I don’t know. He never tells me anything.”)
I’m calling it now, Coulson is going to be the breakout character of the franchise, what with tasering and Super Nanny and all that.
Yeah, it’s the Comicon trailer that had been released and then promptly pulled. Lots of goodies in there, and yeah, I loved the stuff with Agent Coulson. As luck would have it, Paramount put out a call today for interview slots with Clark Gregg (Mr. Coulson himself) for next week. Fingers crossed that I can make that work.
Solid episode gents…except I found myself perplexed with Brian’s tangent of ratings where The Emmys are concerned.
**Preface: generally, I loathe The Emmys. I find that voters easily fall into a rut and vote for the same actors/shows year in and year out regardless of how good the actor/show was that particular season**
While I’ll admit it seems a little odd to be rewarding shows that lag in viewership, perhaps that’s a good thing. The top rated dramas last season for instance, were NCIS, The Mentalist, CSI, Criminal Minds, and Grey’s Anatomy. Are there any shows in that list that we think are amongst the best on TV??
Let’s remember that most of these ‘low-rated’ shows are on cable which never rake in the sort of viewership the networks do anyway.
Sub-question: With so many people watching shows these days by PVR, Time-shifting, and DVD…are ratings the best measure of a show’s popularity anyway?
PS – You mentioned Mad Men was a low-rated show – but believe it or not, it rakes in more viewers than Dexter! (Another show I dig btw).
Thanks Hatter!
Yeah, I think that many voters find something that they like and after that they’re probably looking for reasons to stop voting for them, rather than looking for other folks that they might deem worthy of a vote. And no, I don’t think there’s anything in that list of yours that I would deem worthy, however we were mostly refering to things like Two and a Half Men (a repeat Emmy favourite) which are in the basement of the quality department, yet bring in a lot of viewers, so they tend to get recognition from their peers. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
And no, I don’t think that ratings are an effective way of measuring either a show’s popularity or its quality. Given the huge disparity between viewer demographics, I don’t think there’s any way to get an accurate reading of how popular one show is over another. You’d think that box office returns being so effective for movies, there would be something similar for TV shows – but I don’t know if there’s an accurate way of getting a read on that either.
Oh, and I’ve got my little Mad Men piece set to go up tomorrow. I think that’ll be my final word on that.
2.5 Men is an odd animal. I don’t know a soul who watches it, and yet it’s always sky-high in the ratings. Thing is though, judging comedy is an odd animal itself right? What’s funny to you is not funny to me.
For example, I have never found “Curb Your Enthusiasm” funny either, yet it too gets nominated a lot.
At the very least we can take solace in 2.5 Men going primarily Emmy-less…one Jon Cryer statue aside.
Bring on the Mad Men rant – as it happens, you’ll be putting it out there just a few days after one of their best episodes ever.
I wouldn’t go so far as calling it a rant. I think I’m fair and even handed on this one. Mind you, it’ll be when I respond to comments on the post that I give myself license to rant like a crazy person.
Comedy is definitely a strange creature, which is why I think it’s a good idea that the Oscars don’t have a category for it. Their choices are hard enough to understand as it is without having to throw someone’s love of toilet humour into the mix.