[via @stuartamdouglas]
Year: 2011
Friday’s unknown sailor news
Doctor Who
- Pictures of the Torchwood cast looking uncomfortable with guns
Film
- Nia Vardalos to star in American Girl movie
- Kate Winslet to star in Labor Day
- Benedict Cumberbatch to voice Smaug in The Hobbit, Luke Evans to play Bard
- Zoe Saldana and Mark Ruffalo to star in Infinitely Polar Bear
- A teaser for the Muppet movie
British TV
- Ralf Little and Craig Cash to make Sky1 sitcom
- Unknown picked to star in Sky1’s Sinbad
US TV
- Darren Aronofsky to direct pilot for Hobgoblin
- Marti Noxon, Allison Adler to write for Glee
- James Frain to guest on Burn Notice
- Trailer for Necessary Roughness
- Teaser for Dexter
Weird old title sequences: Police Squad! (1982)
Before The Naked Gun came Police Squad!, a short-lived TV spoof of other cop shows. Reams could be written about it, but if you’ve watched The Naked Gun, you know as much as you need to know.
But I will talk about the title sequence, which changed every week: it’s motif was that the supposed guest star would die in the title sequence and never appear in the show itself and that the wrong episode title would be read out each time.
The end titles were also very Naked Gun.
You just don’t get that level of attention to detail these days.
Oh, incidentally, and I used to work somewhere once where they all thought I was Johnny the shoe-shine guy, because I was the source of all knowledge and not because I cleaned shoes:
Thursday’s “Happy Endings” news
Film
- James Mangold to direct The Wolverine
- Simon West to direct The Expendables 2
- Russell Crowe to play Jor-El in Man of Steel?
- Robert de Niro joins Sean Penn’s The Comedian
- A returning character for The Dark Knight Rises [spoilers]
British TV
- Nurse Jackie acquired by Sky Atlantic, E4 acquires Happy Endings
- BBC4 acquires Danish show Government
Canadian TV
- CTV options two crime novels and develops a third TV crime drama
- Movie Central and The Movie Network pick up The Transporter and The Crimson Petal and the White
US TV
- Off The Map‘s Caroline Dhavernas joins Over/Under
- Patty Duke joins The Protector as Ally Walker’s mother
- Goldie Hawn to star in Darren Star’s The Viagra Diaries for HBO
- Elizabeth Rodriguez joins Prime Suspect
Question of the week: who’s your favourite TV or film composer?
Music’s an often-overlooked aspect of film and TV production. It can create a mood or it can destroy it – indeed sometimes one composer can do both (cf Murray Gold). So today’s quick question is:
Who’s your favourite TV or film composer?
Mine is Clint Mansell, who composed the music from Requiem for a Dream (aka "the music from the Lord of the Rings trailers"), Black Swan and Moon amongst other things. In fact, I don’t know of any time he’s ever produced anything that was less than excellent. But how about you?
As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog