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Entries tagged with 'HBO'
Posted May. 7, 2008,
Flight of the Conchords at Town Hall Will Make Your Cheeks Hurt
By Whitney Spaner
Last night I went to see the musical-comedy duo Flight of the Conchords at Town Hall and my cheeks still hurt from laughing. Their folky-jokey songs are never my favorite part of the New Zealand duo's HBO series (also called Flight of the Conchords and about their band) so I wasn't sure how much I would like them live in concert, but somehow on stage the songs were funnier and they still had the silly banter they have during their show that I became addicted to during its first season last summer. There was a sign on the box-office that said the show was beyond sold-out and the crowd was an interesting one filled with hipsters and business-types alike. I also heard more than a few New Zealand accents. If you can somehow charm you're way in they are playing again tonight and believe me their show made for a great mid-week lift. Of course it didn't help that I have a huge crush on both of them! You just can't beat funny and cute, and these boys are capitalizing on it!
Here they are in a scene from their show which I hear starts filming again in September! (l-r) Bret Mackenzie and Jermaine Clement
Posted Jan. 30, 2008,
Wired Over The Wire!
By Dennis Dermody
Was looking through the recent box set for the fourth season of that brilliant TV series The Wire and it just makes me crazy. The last season was that heartbreaking one about Baltimore's inner city schools and focused on several kids. That storyline was mixed with the fall of the Barksdale drug empire and a new force Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) rising on the streets. It was absolutely astonishing.
But then this series created by David Simon has never been anything but great from the first season on. Watching the show lately has been both thrilling and upsetting because I'm fearing it coming to an end. And the whole newspaper subplot with a fabulous Clark Johnson as a terrific reporter is so beautifully integrated you'd think the newspaper has always been a part of the series. And Dominic West as the hard-drinking impulsive Detective Jimmy McNulty has been really off the wall recently, fudging crime scenes of dead homeless people to make it look like a serial killer is on the loose. And then there was the incident with Proposition Joe this week -- I can't even go there. You really need to buy the box sets because there are so many interweaving threads that it's fun to revisit to watch them all weave together seamlessly. What a cast. What a great fucking show.
Posted Aug. 15, 2007,
RIP John From Cincinnati
By Dennis Dermody
HBO has pulled the plug on John From Cincinnati, the existential surf noir from David Milch (creator of the brilliant Deadwood). While it can't be called a surprise, it saddens me greatly because I grew to be quite fond of the head-scratching series, and the whole Yost clan -- the dysfunctional family of surfers. Not to mention the weird alien boy John, and the cast of misfits at the motel. I especially liked seeing denizens of Deadwood pop up from time to time in this show. Milch definitely made the show difficult to embrace, each episode grew maddeningly weirder. But that's what I grew to love about the it. Dead in the water but not forgotten.
Posted May. 23, 2007,
Flight of the Conchords Is Funny Stuff
By Shanon Kelley
So by now I'm sure that you've all heard of Flight of the Conchords, New Zealand's fourth most popular digi-folk band, if only because they are the subject of a hilarious new comedy series on HBO. And if you haven't, well, you should! The show follows the two Conchords, Bret and Jermaine, as they try to make a name for themselves in New York City. You can watch the entire premiere episode online, and boy is it funny. Seriously. After all, when was the last time you ever saw a folk musical masked as a comedy series? And it even features a couple cameos from funny men Eugene Mirman and Aziz Ansari. The show airs June 17th, but for now watch their hilarious live performance of one of my personal favorites, "Business Time."
Posted Mar. 27, 2007,
Whoopi Meets Barney
By Dennis Dermody
Whoopi Goldberg's new special on HBO is due to premiere on April 9th, but I prefer to remember this mortifying mess from her past -- a 1995 film called Theodore Rex put out by New Line Cinema that was so stinky it never made it to theaters and went straight to video. She plays a futuristic cop whose new partner is a dinosaur -- or a guy in a Tyrannosaurus costume. Even Joe Dallesandro is in it! The trailer tells you all you need to know about this stink bomb.
Posted Mar. 26, 2007,
Et Tu Rome!
By Dennis Dermody
I felt like taking the asp to my breast like Cleopatra did after I watched the series finale of Rome last night. This season was just spectacular, crackling with with wit and plenty of nudity and violence to make history interesting. But James Purefoy as Mark Antony was absolutely phenomenal, as was Ray Stevenson as Titis Pullo, Kevin McKidd as Lucius Vorenus and the wonderful Polly Walker as the lusty, vicious Atia. It made me recall this season's scene where Sevilia (Lindsay Duncan) stabbed herself to death in front of Atia's house only to have Mark Antony comment sardonically: "Now that's an exit..." No kidding.