Category: Entertainment (Page 253 of 277)

One-man mock draft: “The League”

October 4, 2011 /

When FX debuted “The League” in 2009, my first reaction was: What took so long? With how popular fantasy football has become over the last decade, I’d been waiting for someone to do a movie or TV show about a bunch of degenerates in a fantasy league. Granted, “The League” is not without its warts, but it fills a growing and rabid niche while also being careful to not exclude people who aren’t into the game. As it says on the show’s official website, “To be a fan of ‘The League,’ you don’t need to know much about fantasy football, or sports at all. You just need to have friends that you hate.” Well put.

In honor of the show’s third season kicking off this week (Thu 10/6 on FX) and Season 2 now being available on Blu-ray and DVD, I decided to stage a one-man mock draft under the following premise: Something has made it impossible for me to manage my team in a long-running fantasy football league this season, and I need to pick my replacement owner from one of the show’s six main characters. From left to right in the photo above, there’s Pete Eckhart, the league’s most successful owner and a shrewd trader who divorced his wife in season 1; Andre Nowzik, the butt of so many jokes who earned a bit of revenge by winning the league’s Shiva Bowl at the end of the first season; Rodney Ruxin, reigning league champ and owner of the well-deserved nickname “The Herdsman”; Kevin MacArthur, lawyer and league commissioner who is still looking for his first title; Jenny MacArthur, who used to co-manage a team with husband Kevin before taking over her own team last season; and Taco MacArthur, Kevin’s younger brother who knows surprisingly little about fantasy football but a considerable amount about weed, women and hooking up. I didn’t include fan favorite Raffi, a no-brainer choice for the last pick, or Raffi’s buddy Dirty Randy, who will be played by Seth Rogen this season in what promises to be a memorable guest appearance.

The commissioner has stepped to the podium and it’s nearly time to make my picks. Check out the quick trailer for Season 3 below and then follow my draft, from #6 to the top pick at #1.

6. Taco
I’ve got nothing against stoners, but I wouldn’t let Taco anywhere near my fantasy team. He’s an idiot, which is usually great for the show but not so much for sustained fantasy success. I’d definitely, however, hire Taco to record a victory song to post on the league message board after I take home the title.

5. Kevin
The first thing to know about Kevin is that he’s the only owner in the group never to play in the Shiva Bowl. Ouch. Aside from Taco (and Raffi), everyone in the league knows more about the game, and wife Jenny actually dumped him to take control of her own team when Raffi was replaced late last season. Kevin is more trustworthy than the slimier Ruxin (below), but playing it safe rarely results in league championships.

4. Ruxin
To be clear, not much separates Kevin and Ruxin in this draft. Ruxin knows what he’s doing when it comes to fantasy football, and he’s ruthless, which is a great quality for any successful fantasy owner. But I just don’t trust the guy. Case in point, near the end of the first season, he let Jenny blackmail him into trading Peyton Manning to Kevin for pennies on the dollar. Still, Ruxin is coming off a Season 2 league title, whereas Kevin has never even sniffed the championship game. I may not trust Ruxin, but I’d choose the upside knowing my team would be competitive with him at the helm.

3. Andre
This guy gets a bad rap. Well, okay, he deserves most of it, but you’ve got to love an underdog. After being the group’s punching bag for so many years, maybe all Andre needs is for someone to believe in him. A case could be made for Andre to go after Kevin and Ruxin, but keep in mind that Andre not only won the Shiva Bowl in the show’s first season, but he also at the time was sleeping with Shiva, the trophy’s namesake and the hot former valedictorian of the group’s high school class. Sure, he took home the dreaded “SackO” as the league’s worst team last season, but I’m playing a hunch and banking on a rebound at #3.

2. Pete
Winning the league three times really beefs up your résumé, but that’s not all Kevin has going for him in this draft. He’s ruthless but not as slimy as Ruxin, he’s mastered the art of lopsided trading, and he arguably knows more about the game than anyone else in the league. He eats and breathes fantasy football, so I know winning would be priority #1 with Pete. Plus, he’s recently divorced and is a notorious slacker at work, so he’ll be more focused on my team than the other guys. So why isn’t Pete my #1 pick? Because he’s not Jenny.

1. Jenny
Like a career backup running back finally getting a chance to shine, Jenny seems destined for stardom now that she’s out of Kevin’s shadow. For years, Jenny made her husband look good with her behind-the-scenes counsel and maneuvering (like the aforementioned Peyton Manning trade with Ruxin), and now she’ll flash her skills while managing her own team. She’s already proven her ability and willingness to get a sweet deal worked out, and after so many years in a supportive role, she’s hungry and ready to thrive. Pete is probably the safer choice but, in more ways than one, Jenny is the hot up-and-comer.

Entertainment, Humor, Television, Videos

Amber Heard can’t save “The Playboy Club”

October 4, 2011 /

Amber Heard in The Playboy Club

NBC announced today that “The Playboy Club” has been cancelled after only three episodes. It’s not a surprise given the anemic ratings so far.

The show wasn’t great, but it was beautifully shot, and Amber Heard was simply stunning as Maureen, the young Bunny caught up in the murder storyline. As you can see from the photos above, Heard looked like the perfect Bunny, particularly in the red costume, and her acting was solid as well. All of the Bunnies were beautiful as you might expect, but Heard jumped off the screen. She has a great career ahead of her, and you can see her on the big screen in October in “The Rum Diary.”

Continue reading »

Celebrities, Entertainment, Television

“Pulp Fiction” Blu-ray is better than a $5 milkshake

October 3, 2011 /

Is “Pulp Fiction” the greatest movie of the 1990s? That seems to be a popular talking point on the eve of the film’s Blu-ray release, with everyone from Entertainment Weekly to star John Travolta (on one of the disc’s new special features) making their case for the argument. Whether or not you agree doesn’t really matter, because Quentin Tarantino’s sophomore effort is definitely up there among the best, which only makes the film’s numerous snubs at the 1995 Academy Awards (particularly for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor) seem even more egregious nearly two decades later.

Though I thought about putting together a list of my five favorite scenes from the film in celebration of the Blu-ray release, I quickly realized that there were far too many great moments to choose from to settle on just five. The movie was already pretty close to perfect when I first saw it on DVD as a teenager, and it’s even closer to perfection now after receiving the Blu-ray treatment. It’s sometimes easy to forget how much a good high definition video transfer can do for a film’s presentation, but the director-approved HD transfer on “Pulp Fiction” is absolutely stunning. And yet, while the movie looks better than ever, the disc’s brand new special features are the real standout additions.

The first featurette, “Not the Usual Boring Getting to Know You Chit Chat,” is a 43-minute retrospective that includes interviews from several key cast members about everything from getting involved in the project, to production, to the Cannes premiere and the film’s subsequent success. While there are a few notable absences from the list of participants (like Tarantino, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames), it’s still loaded with tons of interesting facts about making the film. Travolta and Jackson are particularly enlightening, with the former revealing that he was initially pitched the lead role in “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn” before landing the part of Vincent (a role originally given to Michael Madsen) and the latter telling a funny anecdote about the history behind Jules’ Jheri-curled wig.

The other featurette is a film critic roundtable moderated by Elvis Mitchell entitled “Here Are Some Facts on the Fiction” that, while not as revealing as the retrospective, offers up an engaging conversation about each critic’s first experience seeing “Pulp Fiction” and their thoughts about the movie. It’s especially fascinating to listen to Stephanie Zacharek discuss her love/hate relationship with the film, as it appears to take the other critics (all of whom regard it as a modern masterpiece) by surprise. That doesn’t exactly make the debate over whether “Pulp Fiction” is the best movie of the ‘90s any easier to settle, but then again, the question itself is ultimately more important than the answer.

Entertainment, Movies

“Arrested Development” returning to small screen, debuting on big screen?

October 3, 2011 /

Ever since “Arrested Development” was yanked off the air in 2006, rumors that a big-screen version of the quirky Fox sitcom have refused to die. Fans have long been skeptical, and for good reason, but even the most optimistic “AD” fan never could have predicted what series creator Mitchell Hurwitz has in mind: an abbreviated fourth season with nine or 10 episodes airing on either Netflix or Showtime, leading up to the release of the much-anticipated “Arrested Development” movie.

Said Hurwitz, while addressing the audience at the New Yorker Festival on Sunday:

“I have been working on the screenplay for a long time and found that as time went by there was so much more to the story. In fact, where everyone’s been for five years became a big part of the story. So, in working on the screenplay I found that even if I just gave five minutes per character to that backstory, we were halfway through the movie before the characters got together. And that kinda gave birth to this thing we’ve not been pursuing for a while and we’re kinda going public with a little bit. We’re trying to do kind of limited run series into the movie.”

Too good to be true? Hurwitz doesn’t seem to think so, judging by his candor and optimism on the subject. Jason Bateman, who plays Michael Bluth on the beloved show, further stirred the pot when he tweeted, “It’s true. We will do 10 episodes and the movie. Probably shoot them all together next summer for a release in early ’13. VERY excited!”

“Arrested Development” fans have been waiting five years for good news, and while it’s wise and natural to remain somewhat skeptical until production on the movie and/or episodes has actually started, there’s enough smoke here to at least suggest the existence of a real fire.

To be safe, we thought it wise to prepare for an “Arrested Development” return. We’ve got reviews of Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3, and our 2009 interview with David Cross. You can also see where “Arrested Development” placed in past editions of our TV Power Rankings, and don’t miss scenes from the show below, including an awesome Chicken Dance mash-up.

Entertainment, Humor, Television, Videos

Breaking Bad 4.12 – No More Prolonging the Inevitable

October 2, 2011 /

To call last week’s episode of “Breaking Bad” intense is to undercut the utterly traumatizing effect it had on the show’s regular viewership. This week attempts to start off with a similar level of tension, showing a pair of vehicles pulling up outside the White house without immediately identifying them. Within seconds, however, we confirm that what we’re witnessing is the arrival of the DEA agents who’ve come to put Walt, Skyler, and Walt Jr. into protective custody.

Wait, scratch that: Walt’s not going.

“All that matters is that the rest of you are safe,” Walt tells Skyler. “And that’s why I’m not going with you. I’m the real target.” Ever the naïve one, she can’t quite grasp that being under the watchful eye of the DEA isn’t enough to keep everyone protected, but Walt knows better, just as he knows that he and his family are only being included in the DEA’s protective of Hank because Marie has demanded it.

“There’s got to be another way,” sobs Skyler.

“There isn’t,” Walt says, matter-of-factly. “There was. But now there isn’t.”

And so Walt steps outside and calls Hank, playing his brother-in-law like a fiddle with the suggestion that Marie has a history of overreacting, and assures him that somebody’s got to keep the car wash up and running. Hank isn’t thrilled, but he doesn’t sound suspicious, even when Walt’s voice cracks with emotion as he tells him to keep his head down. The look on Walt’s face as he says goodbye to his infant daughter is heartbreaking, if only because we know that, in his mind, he believes this could well be the last time he ever sees her…but, y’know, you can’t really blame the guy for thinking that, can ya?

Continue reading »

Entertainment, Television

« Older posts Newer posts »

BULLZ-EYE INFO

© 2026 Bullz-Eye Blog

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑