Amber Heard

US TV

Review: Vegas 1×1 (CBS/Sky Atlantic)

28 September 2012 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

Vegas

In the US: Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS
In the UK: Acquired by Sky Atlantic HD

As you may recall, last year, everyone when 60s crazy. And by everyone, I mean NBC and ABC, with The Playboy Club and Pan Am. The Playboy Club was hampered essentially by budget and a script that tried so hard to fair to everyone and not be exploitative that not much interesting happened when Amber Heard wasn’t around in a scarlet bunny outfit. Certainly nothing interesting happened when Eddie Cibrian was on-screen.

Pan Am, by contast, had no problems with budget or even its cast. Instead, it was hampered by a script that was tedious bollocks. Trans-atlantic flights are more interesting.

The accusation then was the networks were trying to cash in on the popularity of period cable show Mad Men. Maybe a bit, but given Mad Men first aired in 2007 and the networks had already tried series set in the 70s, 80s and 90s, it’s a stretch to say it had to be because of a mad rush to ape Mad Men. But it was at least an attempt to emulate the tone of the quality period dramas of cable TV. Hell, even Starz is trying to do that with Magic City and it is a cable network.

But all those efforts failed, because fundamentally neither NBC nor ABC can make those kinds of shows. Fox? Don’t even think about it. It’s busily trying to be CBS.

Just as we all were starting to despair that no US broadcast network could actually make decent, quality dramas of any kind any more, let alone period dramas, along comes CBS – our last, best hope for quality – and saves the day with Vegas, written by Nicholas Pileggi of GoodFellas fame. Set in 1960s Las Vegas and based on a real story, it has a stellar movie-star cast that includes Dennis Quaid, Carrie-Anne Moss from The Matrix and Michael Chiklis (The Shield, Fantastic Four, No Ordinary Family), features some seamless attention to detail, a suitably complex bit of plotting and characterisation, and – because it’s CBS – a bit of police procedure.

Oh yes, and it’s got Jason O’Mara from Terra Nova. Can’t have everything right, huh?

Here’s a trailer and behind-the-scenes preview.

Continue reading “Review: Vegas 1×1 (CBS/Sky Atlantic)”

Film

Amber Heard not at all typecasting herself in Syrup

24 September 2012 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Shiloh Fernandez and Amber Heard in Syrup

They were shooting it in New York over a year ago – something of a surprise since the book was set in LA – but finally, the film of Syrup is ready to premiere… in Russia at least, 2013 everywhere else, according to the author, Max Barry. And here’s an unofficial trailer, posted by Barry himself.

A satire set in the world of corporate marketing, Syrup sees ‘Scat’ (Shiloh Fernandez from Red Riding Hood) trying to get his idea for a black-labelled carbonated beverage picked up by a certain major drinks company, helped (and occasionally stabbed in the back) by ‘6’ (Amber Heard), a brilliant young, gay marketing executive with few morals, and former best friend ‘Sneaky Peak’ (Kellan Lutz, whom you might recognise from the Twilight series, even though he never gets much to do). As 6 guides Scat through the chess game of corporate politics, Scat begins to fall in love with her. But can he trust her, can she love him and how much of anything she’s told him about herself can he believe – is he in love with a piece of marketing?

The movie, co-written by Barry and the film’s director Aram Rappaport (Whore), is going to be a bit of a change from the book, by the looks of it, not least because Tom Cruise and Gwyneth Paltrow aren’t going to be making a major sci-fi blockbuster during the movie; Brittany Snow (Harry’s Law) plays 6’s evil opposite, a character called ‘3’ rather than ‘@’; and because Sneaky Pete was originally Asian.

The trailer does also spoil rather a lot the book’s major question of whether 6 is quite the lesbian she claims to be, which makes me think it might not be as big a question in the movie.

Now it might just be our Amber getting all meta, given she’s one of the film’s producers, but a ‘might be lesbian, might be bi’ character who sleeps with a magnum under her pillow? That’s some major ‘from real life’ typecasting right there.

Film

Google will now calculate an actor’s Bacon number for you

13 September 2012 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Kevin Bacon

Everyone knows about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon by now. In case you’re not everyone, here’s how it works. The theory is that everyone in the world (well, actors at least) is separated by no more than six other actors from Kevin Bacon. The number of degrees of separation of that actor from Kevin Bacon gives you that actor’s ‘Bacon number’. So if the actor is in a movie with Kevin Bacon, their Bacon number is 1; if the actor appears in a movie with someone who’s been in a movie with Kevin Bacon, their Bacon number is 2; and so on.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon has become a party game for film nerds but now Google has ruined it for everyone who has a smartphone. All you now have to do is type “Bacon number” followed by the actor’s name and Google will not only tell you the Bacon number of that person, it’ll also tell you how it worked out that number.

As a test, I typed in the names of some this ere blog’s favourite actors. Here are their Bacon numbers according to Google – turns out they’re all twos, apart from Audrey Fleurot:

  • Ali Larter: 2
    Ali Larter and Bruce McGill appeared in Obsessed
    Bruce McGill and Kevin Bacon appeared in National Lampoon’s Animal House
  • Joanna Page: 2
    Joanna Page and January Jones appeared in Love Actually
    January Jones and Kevin Bacon appeared in X-Men: First Class
  • David Tennant: 2
    David Tennant and James McAvoy appeared in Bright Young Things
    James McAvoy and Kevin Bacon appeared in X-Men: First Class.
  • Richard Armitage: 2
    Richard Armitage and Elijah Wood appeared in The Hobbit: Part 1
    Elijah Wood and Kevin Bacon appeared in Beyond All Boundaries.
  • Amber Heard: 2
    Amber Heard and Emma Stone appeared in Zombieland
    Emma Stone and Kevin Bacon appeared in Crazy, Stupid, Love.
  • Scarlett Johansson: 2
    Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray appeared in Lost in Translation
    Bill Murray and Kevin Bacon appeared in Wild Things.
  • Audrey Fleurot: 3
    Audrey Fleurot and Omar Sy appeared in Intouchables
    Omar Sy and Robert De Niro appeared in Micmacs
    Robert De Niro and Kevin Bacon appeared in Sleepers.

Give it a try with some of your favourites and let us know the answers below.

US TV

Preview: Go On (NBC) 1×1

4 September 2012 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

Go On

In the US: Tuesdays, 9pm Eastern/8pm Central, NBC. Starts September 11
In the UK: Not yet acquired

NBC. Comedy.

Funny how if you’d stuck those two words together in the 90s, you’d have got gold, thanks to Friends, and how if you stick them together now, despite Community and 30 Rock, you get lead. Certainly the viewers seem to think so, judging from the ratings.

Yes, that’s exactly how I started my review of The New Normal yesterday and I’m reusing it for three reasons: first, that if you’re still expecting an NBC comedy to be funny, you know that definition of madness and doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different? That one? That’s you that is.

Secondly, you notice how I mentioned Friends, ‘ratings’ and ‘gold’ in the same paragraph there? Well, NBC has that etched on the walls of their comedy commissioning office and when the thought of Matthew Perry (Chandler in Friends) appearing in a new NBC sitcom created by one of the producers of Friends hit them, they came over all funny. Okay, Studio 60 wasn’t exactly a slam dunk, but that wasn’t a comedy. This is an actual sitcom.

Hence, the commissioning of Go On, which – and here’s my third point – can only be described as Community, one of NBC’s few critical comedy successes of recent years, even if it’s not a ratings success. However, instead of Joel McHale, you have Matthew Perry and instead of a community college study group, you have a community college support group. And instead of laughter, you have tears. No, really, because although laughs are pretty thin on the ground with Go On, I did actually weep buckets during it. And no, not for NBC’s doomed ratings and the sure and certain knowledge this is going to be cancelled within a season.

Here’s a trailer that contains literally all the jokes. And – be warned – all the bits that will make you cry.

Continue reading “Preview: Go On (NBC) 1×1”

Tuesday’s “new Anne of Green Gables, Showtime picks up Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex, and Last Man Standing changes” news

12 June 2012 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film

Canadian TV

UK TV

US TV

New US TV shows

  • Showtime picks up Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex