I Want To Go To There

from TheChicagoTheatre.com

Actors/Directors/Musicians and comedy icons Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are doing something they have never done before; performing a six week, 30 city multi-media acoustic tour without wigs and electric instruments.

UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED are the guys behind Spinal Tap and The Folksmen (from A Mighty Wind) coming out from behind the hair, the facial hair, and the absence of hair, to perform as themselves songs from both films, and more, in a rare acoustic setting. You'll never hear Tap songs less loud!

UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED will feature songs from the original soundtrack This Is Spinal Tap (1984), the studio album Break Like The Wind (1992), and A Mighty Wind (2003) along with some special surprises and rarities thrown in.

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Just got tickets for that concert. SO pumped as This Is Spinal Tap is my favorite film of all time! Between DMB, Jason Mraz, & The Travoltas, it's going to be a busy summer of shows this year...and I'm not complaining.

Saw Watchmen last night at the midnight screening.

Believe the hype. It's really well done.

Now they're naturally going to be haters out there (regardless of if they actually enjoyed any part of it or not) as I'm sure it'll be the cool thing to bash the film because it's popular right now. To this vain attempt to gain some sort of 'cred' in between getting another piercing or tattoo so that you can stand out and be so different - just like everyone else - I offer the following: it's a popcorn blockbuster film & doesn't runaway or try to hide from that. Enjoy it for what it is or don't pay the money to go see it because you should know by now what you're getting into.

I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion, but those people that are already going in with the mindset that they're going to hate it and have already passed judgement (graphic novel purists and film snobs alike), your pre-bias is unwarranted and not needed.

What Watch Would A Watchmen Watch If A Watchmens' Watch Wouldn't Work?

The Jason Mraz concert @ NIU was surprisingly short, but very fun - & it was great to get a chance to reconnect with B-Lo.

The real surprise was the opening act called Vedera. They were AWESOME & I can't recommend them enough. They're based out of Kansas City so I'm wondering if Pete and rest of the K.C. crew has ever heard of them before. You can find them on MySpace and on iTunes.

Religulous is out on DVD. Buy/Rent it. Watch it. Discuss.

We finished principal photography on The Adventures of Brad & Chet, our follow-up pilot to Reality Check, last weekend & now it's off to editing. It was great to be a part of the filming this time and getting to meet and hang out the cast. We're hoping to duplicate and exceed the success from last year as promoting and traveling cross-country with the pilot was a blast.

Now, I tried to steer clear of the Watchmen craze, but also admit that the graphic novel has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for about 4 years. One of those things I always was going to get to, but never did. So I pulled it down, dusted it off, and proceeded to read it cover-to-cover a day or so ago & now I get what all the hub-bub is about. It's an amazing read and really was one of the forefront "anti-hero" comics. It presents super-heros with human flaws and I couldn't put it down.

Who watches the Watchmen? Well, I can tell you it will be myself and millions more when it drops this Friday (midnight showing on Thursday, if you're a hardcore fan).

5 Underwhelming Happenings in Entertainment 08

1) Cloverfield

As Pete wisely mentioned over a year ago in reference to this film: "Save your money." Proof that not everything J.J. Abrams touches turns to gold, this is a prime example of not living up to the hype. With an amazing marketing campaign and solid concept to create a, "Godzilla movie for the U.S.," as well as the unique decision to film everything in first-person, the overall execution just wasn't there. Inconsistent acting and strange editing made it seem like the filmmakers were trying too hard to cram easter eggs and secret messages for fans to hunt for in the Blu-ray/DVD release rather than actually focusing on telling a compelling story for theater goers. Here's hoping the recently announced sequel gets it right.

2) NBC's Horrible Mismanagment of Scrubs

With a built-in audience & loyal fan base, NBC never really got behind nor advertised, the "final" season of 'Srcubs,' so naturally viewership numbers began to drop. But their decision to not only cancel the show, but then air the final few episodes out of order bringing zero closure to the show amidst the writer's strike showed a severe lack of loyalty and disrespect to a series that was in it's 8th season. Now comfortably resting in it's new home on ABC (for one season, at least), not to mention receiving prime advertising slots, the best revenge would be viewer numbers that shows NBC what a horrible mistake they made.

3) Kath & Kim
How is this show still on the air? Seriously? When your secondary characters are stronger and more endearing than your two leads (here's looking at you, John Michael Higgins), you've made a horrible mistake. Sandwiching it between your two strongest shows will naturally generate misleading numbers, but the nano-second it moves to another slot, it's dead. Not every U.S. remake of a BBC show is going the be gold (for every "The Office," there's about 10 "Couplings") & Molly Shannon deserves a much better vehicle than this.

4) Lack of Solid Titles for the Wii
Wii Fit. That's it. That's the only game in a whole year that is worth playing on the Nintendo Wii, with maybe a small nod to No More Heroes. The hottest gaming system out (and still in high demand) is losing steam at an alarming rate - especially when the most popular game in the system is still the one that shipped with it - Wii Sports. With an announced sequel to Wii Sports (entitled Wii Sports Resort) to come at some point in 2009, here's hoping that it will lead a charge of acutal good titles for the system.

5) Pending Lawsuit by FOX to Hold the Release of "Watchmen"
One of the most anticipated graphic novel to movie release of all time is now in danger of being delayed for an undetermined amount of time. FOX apparently still owns distribution rights to the franchise despite Warner Bros. owning rights to actually make the film. There's an excellent overview laid out by the Los Angeles times here that goes into much more detail about it than I will here, but needless to say, it would be a travesty for this film not to hit the big screen in 2009. (and as a friend pointed out, the original date was to be 03.06.09 - all marker points on a watch or clock)
UPDATE: Looks like everything has been settled as of January 15, 2008.

Honorable Mention: The PlayStation Beta Release of Home
Talk about not living up to the hype. The much-anticipated release of the social networking "game" from PlayStation that was to fuse The Sims style gameplay with the online power of the PS3 roared onto the platform with a meek whimper. With areas only accessed by secret codes, a theater that looped an annoying trailer for Twilight (which is the exact movie to appeal to the the male 16-35 demographic that owns the system), bland and severly limited furniture to place around your cyber-apartment, and weak animations for your avatars, Home has a LONG way to go if the PS3 hopes to make a dent in the dominating online presence of the Xbox360.