David Chase and the golden age of Hollywood

Wow. I knew NBC's "Kings" would be a hard show for folks to get into, but from the numbers it looks like only Al Swearengen's devoted fans even bothered to start with it in the first place. Though I didn't bother to tune in for these other two, it can't be a good sign that Sunday's two-hour debut had numbers (6 million viewers, 1.6 preliminary 18-49 rating) that get it the honor of being mentioned in the trades in the same sentence with "Chopping Block" and "Crusoe." Enjoy it while you can.

In much, much better - deliriously better, I'd go so far as to say - TV news, Henry Rollins will join the cast of "Sons of Anarchy" for six episodes when the FX show returns April 27. Though, not unlike "Kings," the tale of the SAMCRO motorcycle gang starring Ron Perlman, Katey Sagal and Charlie Hunnam of "Undeclared" fame (if there really is any of that) unfolds slowly, it's pretty friggin' engrossing if you let yourself go along for the ride.

Rollins, who puts both the bad and occasionally the ass too in badass, will play one of the club's new enemies in the California town of Charming. That should be nothing but cool, and besides, shouldn't the leader of Black Flag get the chance to add more to his acting resume so the trades won't keep pointing out he was in "Bad Boys 2"?

But, before I got off on that slight tangent, this was supposed to be about the return of David Chase to HBO, which can only be called a good thing, especially since it's NOT to do a "Sopranos" flick that picks up where the series rather ambiguously (and, in my book, flawlessly) left off.

Instead he's developing a miniseries called "A Ribbon of Dreams," which will begin in 1913 and follow two men, one a college-educated mechanical engineer and the other a cowboy with a violent past, who head out to Hollywood to get into the movie business. In the story, the two begin as employees of D.W. Griffith and then cross paths with the likes of John Ford, John Wayne, Raoul Walsh, Bette Davis and Billy Wilder as they become powers in the movie industry themselves.

The casting options for this alone are enough to keep my mind occupied and off of my daily workload for quite a while, but no other info (like when any of this might hit the airwaves) came out this morning.

Sounds plenty cool to me, but long before that HBO is also cooking up something with a lot lower profile that will hopefully turn into enough of a hit that I get to watch it soon for free online.

The last movie that Anthony Minghella managed to direct before he died (eerily enough) of a hemorrhage exactly one year ago tomorrow was one based on Alexander McCall Smith's "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency," easily one of my favorite books. Minghella made it into a TV movie last year for HBO that just this morning got added to the "save" list on my Netflix queue for the day when it finally hits DVD, and come March 29 it will be reborn as a series for the channel. (And, it appears that if you're willing to watch it in installments on your computer, the entire movie is somehow on YouTube too in 11 parts or so.)

Starring R&B diva Jill Scott (who Tyler Perry has already proven is a pretty darn good actress), "The Wire" veteran Idris Elba and "Dreamgirl" Anika Noni Rose, the book, movie and now series are about Precious Ramotswe (Scott), who becomes the first female private detective in Botswana. It's light as air but all kinds of fun, so definitely tune in for this one if you can.

And, on a short tangential note before I close with the series trailer, was I the only who didn't know (until this morning) that Rashida Jones of "The Office" is Quincy Jones' daughter? I never would have guessed, but there's an interview with her this morning at Blackfilm.com to promote Friday's release of "I Love You, Man." Blackfilm.com, by the way, is a fantastic site and one that's a daily stop on my morning reading list, so definitely check it out.

But now here's the trailer for "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," and with that I'm headed to the job I thankfully still have (though at least eight of my co-workers can't say that as of yesterday.) Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Tuesday. Peace out.

Remember when Eddie was funny?

I know it can be hard to do. And I'm not talking about the family-friendly, super-silly funny of "Daddy Day Care" or "Dave" (actually, I can't confirm or deny that there was anything funny about either of those, since I didn't bother to watch them.)

I'm talking about really funny. Rude funny. "Raw" funny. Well, luckily, Bill Condon - most recently the producer of this year's rather pedestrian Oscars broadcast - does, and he wants to do something about it.

He's currently shopping around a script for the biopic "Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said," with Murphy attached to play the great Mr. Pryor himself. And to me that sounds like nothing but cool.

Richard Pryor, of course, created so many great comic routines, but my favorite was that one about the "big water-head boy." It was just so foul and funny at the same time, and like the best of his routines it made you feel thoroughly uncomfortable as you were unable to stop laughing. Much like Paul Mooney, who was adopted by Dave Chappelle and given a rebirth on Dave's Comedy Central show. I sure wish Richard Pryor had lived long enough to get in on that action.

I couldn't find the "water-head" boy clip anywhere, but I did find that one of Mr. Pryor explaining why (like Mr. Mooney) he's not gonna use the N-word anymore. Enjoy, and relish the thought of a first-rate director leading a once-seriously funny guy in a biopic about one of the true comic geniuses. Bring it on.



Seth Green about to cash in big time

Given all that Seth Green has done in animation with "Robot Chicken," which though it's thoroughly crude and ADD-inspiring is also insanely funny, it's certainly about time he gets to cash in with a big-time animated movie, especially one that sounds as good as this.

Robert Zemeckis is producing a performance-capture movie of "Mars Needs Moms" for Disney, and Green has signed on to voice the lead.

But what is "Mars Needs Moms"? Though I had never heard of it, it's apparently a children's novel by Bloom County creator Berkeley Breathed. The story is about a boy named Milo (of course), to be voiced by Green, who stows away aboard a spaceship to rescue his mom after she's kidnapped by aliens.

That all sounds great to me, and it's just well about time that Oz gets some big-time respect and, of course, cash.

Yes, I watch "Gossip Girl"

It's probably nothing I should ever admit, but I've done so here before, so I suppose that cat's already out of the bag.

And yes, I'm well aware that I'm far too old and male to be among the show's intended target audience, but I just enjoy shutting off my brain after a long day of work and ingesting entertaining trash, and "Chuck" creator Josh Schwartz is a master at delivering it.

When he's not paling around with McG to create the adventures of everyone's favorite accidental superspy, Schwartz is an expert at peddling soapy teen trash, first with the "O.C." and now with the almost-as-good "Gossip Girl." And now, not surprisingly given the CW's appetite for such fare, he's deep into a "Gossip Girl" spinoff coming to the network in May.

It was announced this morning that Brittany Snow will play the lead role in the as-yet-untitled series, which focuses on the teen adventures of Lily van der Woodsen, a k a Serena's mom, who was hopefully for our sake more than a little of a wild child. On the show, Lily has a falling-out with her parents and has to move from posh Montecito to the San Fernando Valley to live with her black-sheep sister and go from private to public school in the 1980s.

I know this means absolutely nothing to most of the people who would bother to stop by and read this site, but it does to me, so thanks for bearing with me, and hopefully this last bit will serve as a bit of a reward.

Go on a "Boat Race" with "I Love You, Man"

The more I see of this March 20 flick starring Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones, Jamie Pressly and, thankfully, J.K. Simmons, the more I'm convinced that it's gonna be exactly the kind of R-rated comedy that I love.

And the red-band clip below certainly does nothing to lessen that. Be warned, if you watch until the end, that the finish is as funny as it is simply thoroughly disgusting. Enjoy, and have a fantastic weekend. Peace out.

Diablo Cody is the voice of ... what?

I don't get Showtime - and have, in fact, never before now seen a Showtime show - but I do get Hulu (not a very exclusive feat, I concede) and have therefore seen Diablo Cody's new show, "The United States of Tara."

The show itself was a little better than I expected, but the funniest thing of all was the promo clip about Ms. Cody on the Showtime site. Now, I'm all for self-promotion (well, actually, I've never been very good at it at all), but this was enough to - really - make me do a spit take with my still very hot coffee Sunday morning.

In it, yarnhead Brie Larson, who plays Toni Collette's yarnhead daughter on the show, actually said this, and I don't think she was joking: "Diablo Cody is the voice of our generation ... blah, blah, blah ... I can't even speak to her."

Really? Granted I'm more than a little older than Ms. Larson, but I'll take, maybe, Barack Obama.

Even so, like I said the show is pretty good, and I have the sense it's going to get better. The only problem (and, yes, I guess it's a pretty big one) is the premise and how Toni Collette fits into it. Her multiple personalities are gross caricatures, and she looks so uncomfortable doing it that you get the feeling she's well aware of that. The rest of the characters, however, are fairly well drawn for a pilot episode, and I think Collette will get better as the show goes on, so assuming Showtime will keep letting me watch them for free, I'll keep doing so for at least a few more.

If you haven't seen it, there are certainly worse ways to spend your lunch hour than going here and doing so today.

As for Diablo Cody, if I have my French right (and I'm pretty sure I do), she has her ever-roving eye set next apparently on Shakespeare (and, since you're a writer who's almost as clever as you think you are, why not Shakespeare)?

According to the fantastic Froggy film site Cinempire, now that "Jennifer's Body" (in which, if I may be as piggish as possible, the titular "Body" belongs to the rather appropriately named Megan Fox) is in postproduction, she's going to write a modern version of "La Mégère apprivoisée," which is apparently the French title for "Taming of the Shrew."

My first reaction was, wasn't that done already on a sublimely silly episode of "Moonlighting"? Sheesh. As for Cinempire, even if you can't read French (and I really can't all that well anymore), it's still worth checking out. They report movie news like a lot of folks, but are quick to pounce on tidbits about filmmakers like Atom Egoyan or Pedro Almodovar, who don't usually get much attention from your average geeks. Plus, you can, if you really want to, see the poster for the upcoming Festival du Cinéma Espagnol de Nantes.

"Mad Men" finally gets its main man

Actually, I guess that would be Jon Hamm, who I have to assume is smart enough to never walk away from this series before it comes to its rightful end, but "Mad Men" really wouldn't be the same again if creator/mastermind Matthew Weiner had. Well, fortunately, that's not anything we have to worry about (so I can instead worry about whether or not my car can last until I have time to take it to my beloved mechanic Thursday morning.)

Word came down late Friday that Weiner had indeed signed a two-year deal with Lionsgate that will keep him on board through four of the show's projected five seasons. I can only imagine he's gonna hold out for real before signing a rather fat deal for the last hurrah.

The best news is that, according to Variety, along with a seven-figure payday for himself, Weiner was also holding out for - and received - a big boost for the show's budget. Now that he's on board, writing on season three is set to start immediately. Bring it on!

Easily the coolest thing I've seen today

Actually, this is so good I probably should have lead with it. Anyone who's been here before (and there are apparently a few of you, thankfully) knows that there's no movie that may never even come out I like to talk about more than Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are."

It now has a release of Oct. 16, 2009, and until I get to see the final project I'll still have doubts that Warner Bros. will let Mr. Jonze release the movie in anything approaching his original cut, which is apparently more than a little (appropriately, I think) warped. For now, we get a glimpse - courtesy of /film, where you can see more - of just how twisted his Wild Things might be, on these promotional skateboards Jonze plans to release through his Girl Skateboards Company. Though I tried my hand at skating as a kid, I was never terribly good at it (and, if I can confess, preferred roller-skating), but I think even I would learn a few moves for something as cool as this. Enjoy!


And, finally, a NSFW trailer

Although I kind of enjoyed Jason Segel's "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," I also found it too short on laughs and too long on conventionality (though that "Dracula" puppet show at the end was a hoot). It's biggest crime was it wasted veryfunnyman Paul Rudd in a simply annoying role as a stoned out surfing instructor.

Thankfully, Rudd takes the lead role in the March 20 comedy "I Love You, Man," and he's surrounding by a first-rate comedy cast: Segel, Jamie Pressly of "My Name is Earl", Rashida Jones of "The Office", Jon Favreau, Andy Samberg and J.K. Simmons, who can make me laugh without saying a word. The trailer below is plenty funny, but be warned: It's also plenty rude, so please wear headphones if you're gonna watch it at work, and have a perfectly passable Monday.