Geek News You Should Know: 5/14/14

1) Roberto Orci, co-writer of the first two Star Trek movies and has almost too many writing credits to his name to list but no directorial experience, is going to be making his directorial debut with Star Trek 3.  Seems like a pretty daunting task replacing his friend JJ Abrams in the lead chair of the Starship Enterprise as Orci boldly goes where he's never gone before.

2) Conan O'Brien and TBS have agreed to terms to continue the Conan show on TBS to 2018.  As a big Conan fan, I'm happy that he's staying on TBS as I think he's very happy with his deal there.

3) Nintendo is working on a Skylanders/Disney Infinity style collectible figure video game that will use the NFC capabilities of the system and will allow you to play with various characters in different games.  Unlike Skylanders and Disney Infinity, the playability is going to be expanded beyond one core title and depending upon popularity will span over several different games.  While I have avoided Skylanders because it's largely marketed towards children, the Disney Infinity game always garners my interest when walking through the video game department because Disney is awesome. However, I realize how much of a money suck it truly is to start investing.  I'm not going to lie, the Nintendo idea is super compelling.

4) FX announced that it has cancelled their animated series Chozen, while FXX has also cancelled Legit.  Wasn't a big fan of the Chozen pilot so I didn't stick with it, but I truly did enjoy Legit.  It was kind of the poor man's Louie, but that's not a bad thing and I thought the show had some pretty funny moments. Plus, DJ Qualls was great as the main character's friend that was bound to a wheelchair because of muscular dystrophy.

5) CBS is the fourth of the five big networks to launch their 2014-2015 TV plans and probably most shocking of all is that they chose to not pick up the How I Met Your Mother spinoff show How I Met Your Dad. Considering how HIMYM bolstered their Monday night programming for 9 years, it's shocking but CBS said that the show wasn't where they wanted it to be at this point and I'm guessing they wanted to avoid a Joey-esque backlash if it failed to live up to the high HIMYM expectations.  HIMYD isn't dead yet as other networks could pick up the rights to this.

Also, some great news is that after 12 seasons of Two & a Half Men, this upcoming season will be it's last. 

CBS has done some minor tweaking to their schedule, including moving The Big Bang Theory to Monday nights initially, while football occupies their Thursday night line-up.  When that comes to a close, on October 30, it moves back to Thursdays to headline their comedy line-up that evening.  NCIS: Los Angeles breaks away from it's big brother and will air in the Monday 9:00 slot, while NCIS: New Orleans will get NCIS as a lead-in on Tuesdays.  Also, CSI moves to the post Good Wife slot on Sunday nights.  The Amazing Race is also on the move as it goes from Sunday nights to Friday.

Most networks announced more new shows than CBS, which is sticking with a lot of it's core programming and is only starting off the fall with 5 new shows and only 3 shows to air mid-season where other networks are in double digits with new show pickups.  NCIS is to the 2010's what CSI was to the 2000's with spinoffs galore, and new NCIS: New Orleans, which stars Scott Bakula.  Leading into Good Wife on Sunday is the new show, Madam Secretary, which stars Tea Leoni as the Secretary of State where she solves all sorts of international disputes and battles issues both at the White House and at home.... I'm already falling asleep.  Stalker is a cop show where Maggie Q (Nikita) and Dylan McDermott (or Dermont Mulroney) investigate stalking incidents.  Scorpion consists of a rag-tag group of misfits (including Eddie Kaye Thomas and Katherine McPhee) working together at Homeland Security to solve the nation's crisis and try to help each other to fit in.  Lastly, The McCarthy's is CBS' lone fall comedy and centers around a Boston family, who's oldest, least athletic, and gay son is picked by his father to help coach the high school basketball team.

Here is the grid so far of all the networks shows that I make as a reference point for my wife and I.  Orange are new shows, blue are shows that at least one of us watches, and green are shows we do not watch:

	NBC	FOX	CBS	ABC
Sunday 6:30	Sunday Night Football	Bob's Burgers	60 Minutes	Funniest Home Videos
Sunday 7:00		The Simpsons	MADAM	Once Upon a Time
Sunday 7:30		Brooklyn Nine-Nine	SECRETARY
Sunday 8:00		Family Guy	The Good Wife	Resurrection
Sunday 8:30		MULANEY
Sunday 9:00		News	CSI	Revenge
Sunday 9:30
Monday 7:00	The Voice	GOTHAM	2 Broke Girls	Dancing With The
Monday 7:30			Mom	Stars
Monday 8:00		Sleepy Hollow	SCORPION
Monday 8:30
Monday 9:00	The Blacklist	News	NCIS: Los Angeles	Castle
Monday 9:30
Tuesday 7:00	The Voice	UTOPIA	NCIS	SELFIE
Tuesday 7:30				MANHATTAN LOVE
Tuesday 8:00	MARRY ME	New Girl	NCIS: New Orleans	Agents of SHIELD
Tuesday 8:30	About a Boy	The Mindy Project
Tuesday 9:00	Chicago Fire	News	Person of Interest	FOREVER
Tuesday 9:30
Wednesday 7:00	MYSTERIES OF LAURA	Hell's Kitchen	Survivor	The Middle
Wednesday 7:30				The Goldbergs
Wednesday 8:00	Law & Order: SVU	RED BAND	Criminal Minds	Modern Family
Wednesday 8:30		SOCIETY		BLACK-ISH
Wednesday 9:00	Chicago PD	News	STALKER	Nashville
Wednesday 9:30
Thursday 7:00	The Biggest Loser	Bones	Big Bang Theory	Grey's Anatomy
Thursday 7:30			The Millers
Thursday 8:00	BAD JUDGE	GRACEPOINT	Two and a Half Men	Scandal
Thursday 8:30	A TO Z		THE McCARTHYS
Thursday 9:00	Parenthood	News	Elementary	HOW TO GET
Thursday 9:30				AWAY WITH MURDER
Friday 7:00	Dateline NBC	Masterchef Junior	The Amazing Race	Last Man Standing
Friday 7:30				CRISTELA
Friday 8:00	Grimm	UTOPIA	Hawaii Five-0	Shark Tank
Friday 8:30
Friday 9:00	CONSTANTINE	News	Blue Bloods	20/20
Friday 9:30

Geek News You Should Know: 5/13/14

1) Since they recently started filming Batman vs. Superman, you knew pictures of Batfleck would pop up online sooner rather than later, well be prepared for sooner.  Personally, I think it looks great, although the entire internet will crap on it because it's what they do.



2) The X-Men Universe is about to blow-up with spin-offs, prequels, sequels, solo movies, and more!  One of the solo movies previously announced was a Gambit movie, despite the role being played by Friday Night Light's Taylor Kitsch in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it was announced that Channing Tatum will be playing the Rajun Cajun in the solo movie.  I loves me some Channing Tatum, so this gets a big bucket of win from me.

3) The Harry Potter spin-off film, FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM will be coming to theaters November 18, 2016.  This movie is going to be part of a planned trilogy and is based on a novel by JK Rowling and is based off of a textbook mentioned in the Harry Potter series.  It will follow the author, Newt Schmander, on his adventures around 70 years before the first Harry Potter book took place.  In a lot of ways, this sounds like what the same studio did with The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

4) One of my favorite horror ideas from the past few years has been a small movie called V/H/S and it's sequel V/H/S 2, normally I'm against horror franchises that come out every year, but considering these are all short horror vignettes, the format works and feels fresh every time around.  The trailer for the third movie in the series V/H/S Viral was released and it looks awesome!  Here it is.




5) ABC has announced it's fall slate of shows and unlike the NBC and FOX, they really haven't monkeyed around with their format.  They have shows that work on every night and they are centering their new programming around those shows.  The biggest move is probably The Goldbergs into the established Wednesday comedy night, it will air before Modern Family.  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been flipping around between 7 and 8 and now officially gets the 8:00 slot. Grey's Anatomy and Scandal move up an hour on Thursday nights to make room for another Shonda Rhimes show How to Get Away With Murder, so if you are a fan of hers your Thursday nights are now set!

ABC will be airing 6 new shows in Fall.  Forever is a new drama about a New York City medical examiner who is immortal.  Black-Ish stars Anthony Anderson as a suburban black dad trying to get more in touch with his culture.  Selfie stars Karen Gillan who has a ton of online friends and no real ones stepping into the real world.  Manhattan Love Story is a sitcom that dissects a newly budding relationship, delving into the differences between men and women.  Cristela is like Reba but with Mexicans instead of country folk.  You can check out the trailers for all these new shows here.

They also have Marvel's Agent Carter set to begin airing in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D's timeslot after it's midseason finale and new show Galavant, a musical comedy fairytale (sounds right up Anthony's alley) will do the same for Once Upon a Time. 

Here's ABC's Fall Lineup (all times in Central, Eastern time zone is overrated).

Monday
7:00: Dancing With the Stars
9:00: Castle

Tuesday
7:00: Selfie
7:30: Manhattan Love Story
8:00: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
9:00: Forever
 
Wednesday
7:00: The Middle
7:30: The Goldbergs
8:00: Modern Family
8:30: Black-ish
9:00: Nashville

Thursday
7:00: Grey's Anatomy
8:00: Scandal
9:00: How to Get Away With Murder

Friday
7:00: Last Man Standing
7:30: Cristela
8:00: Shark Tank
9:00: 20/20

Sunday
7:00: Once Upon a Time
8:00: Resurrection
9:00: Revenge

Geek News You Should Know: 5/12/14

Welcome to your Monday edition of Geek News You Should Know.

1) Nobody really knows much about who will be playing what roles in Star Wars Episode VII, but it is rumored (could almost be part of Ridiculous Rumor Round-Up) that Adam Driver will be playing Han Solo and Princess Leia's son.  It's hard to imagine that scruffy nerfherder from Girls fighting along side the Jedi however, as I could easily see him turning to the dark side.

2) If you haven't seen the season finale of Once Upon a Time and want to, skip this.  The world of Frozen has officially invaded Once Upon a Time, as Elsa appears at the end of the season finale that aired last night.  Kind of seems like Disney (which makes both and owns ABC) is trying to capitalize on it's billion dollar animated movie with the crossover, but it's a good move that I'm sure will spike interest in the show going into Season 4 next fall.  However, Elsa may not be the only Frozen character coming to Once Upon a Time, I'm personally hoping they figure out a way to bring Olaf to the show!

3) It's been announced that instead of the Daredevil series coming to Netflix will be treated as one long movie instead of 13 individual episodes.  Netflix figures many will binge on the show and plan on telling story elements that will resonate with audiences as they won't have to wait 2 or 3 weeks for information and can get it just a few hours later.

4) Both X-Men and Fantastic Four are Marvel movies owned by FOX and while there have been talks about the properties to crossover in the past, however at least initially the two will not take place in the same universe and will not be aware of each others existence.

5) FOX has released it's upcoming line-up for the 2014-2015 and in my opinion looks much more promsing than NBC's.  The biggest news is the end of Animation Domination on Sunday Nights as animated shows Bob's Burgers, The Simpsons, and Family Guy are now joined by Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the new comedy show Mulaney (starring former SNL writer John Mulaney). Also, Glee's final season has been pushed back to midseason, probably to air as one entire Glee chunk.  Bones moves back to one of it's old homes on Thursday night.

The Batman universe inspired show Gotham, focusing on Detective Jim Gordon will air on Monday nights.  Red Band Society, a high school drama set in a children's hospirtal will air on Wednesday nights.  Gracepoint, the US adaptation of Broadchurch, which stars David Tennant as the same role as he played on Broadchurch, is a whodunnit mystery show along the lines of The Killing and The Bridge.

I'm not one for reality TV, but I'm liking the concept behind Utopia.  A group of people move out to an undeveloped piece of land for a year and have to create a civilization out of nothing.  They will have to write the rulebook for their society and also be productive members or risk being voted out and replaced by others wanting to come to their land.  This will be shown on Tuesday and Friday nights, but also be streaming online as cameras will be rolling 24/7.  I have a feeling that much like the Dutch series it is based on, this could be a huge hit for FOX.

You can check out the trailers for all the shows premiering in Fall as well as some midseason shows here. 

Here is their Fall Schedule (times listed in central):

Monday
7:00: Gotham
8:00: Sleepy Hollow

Tuesday
7:00: Utopia
8:00: New Girl
8:30: The Mindy Project

Wednesday
7:00: Hell's Kitchen
8:00: Red Band Society 

Thursday
7:00: Bones
8:00: Gracepoint

Friday
7:00:  MasterChef Junior
8:00: Utopia

Sunday
6:30 : Bob's Burgers
7:00: The Simpsons
7:30: Brooklyn Nine-Nine
8:00: Family Guy
8:30: Mulaney

News You Should Know: 5/11/14

About 5 seconds ago I came up with a brilliant/idiotic idea for a new mostly daily feature on this here underutilized website.  During the episodes we talk about some of the news that happens during the week that strikes our fancy but there is so much more going on in the world of entertainment that we don't have an opportunity to talk about in a weekly podcast.  So here are some headlines for today that you should know.

1) The Neighbors took number 1 in the box office this weekend beating out The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in it's second week.  The Neighbors premiered at $51.1 million, which is the fourth largest opening for an R-Rated Comedy ever, trailing The Hangover Part II ($85.9 million), Sex and the City ($57 million), and Ted ($54.4 million).  Here's the rest of the Box Office Top 10 estimates from www.boxofficemojo.com.

1	N	Neighbors	Uni.	$51,070,000	-	3,279	-	$15,575	$51,070,000	$18	1
2	1	The Amazing Spider-Man 2	Sony	$37,200,000	-59.4%	4,324	-	$8,603	$147,900,000	-	2
3	2	The Other Woman (2014)	Fox	$9,250,000	-35.8%	3,306	+68	$2,798	$61,730,000	$40	3
4	3	Heaven is for Real	TriS	$7,000,000	-18.6%	3,048	+118	$2,297	$75,220,000	$12	4
5	4	Captain America: The Winter Soldier	BV	$5,619,000	-27.7%	2,701	-478	$2,080	$244,997,000	$170	6
6	5	Rio 2	Fox	$5,125,000	-33.5%	2,973	-341	$1,724	$113,165,000	$103	5
7	N	Moms' Night Out	TriS	$4,200,000	-	1,044	-	$4,023	$4,200,000	$5	1
8	N	Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return	CE	$3,705,000	-	2,575	-	$1,439	$3,705,000	-	1
9	7	Divergent	LG/S	$1,700,000	-22.1%	1,233	-406	$1,379	$145,024,000	$85	8
10	6	Brick Mansions	Rela.	$1,480,000	-59.9%	1,954	-693	$757	$18,328,000	$28	3

2) The TBS sitcom Men At Work completed it's third and now final season this March as it was announced today that this show will not be renewed by the network.  This show starred Danny Masterson but most importantly to the AB Conversation, Adam Busch who most famously played Warren on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

3) Adult Swim has announced some really cool new series including a live action show starring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and 30 Rock's Jack Macbrayer as former cast members of a Lassie like series and their lives 15 years after the show has been cancelled.  Also announced is Mike Tyson Mysteries, which is an animated series where Mike Tyson, a ghost, his adopted Korean daughter, and a pigeon who was once a man solve, you guessed it, mysteries.

4) Comedy Central announced that Senior Black Correspondent for The Daily Show, Larry Wilmore, will be taking Stephen Colbert's spot in January 2015 with his show, The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore.

5) NBC was the first of the 5 major networks to announce their 2014-2015 TV plans and most importantly their fall schedule.  Noticeably absent from the fall schedule is Parks and Recreation which will return mid-season for it's final season.  It was also announced that a show that has always been on the bubble Parenthood will return for 13 episodes in it's sixth and last season. The Blacklist which has been NBC's surprise breakout will return in fall but then move to a Thursday nights in February.  The Blacklist will also get NBC's post Super Bowl timeslot.

NBC will premiere 6 shows in the fall (in bold below), A to Z, Bad Judge, Constantine, Marry Me, The Mysteries of Laura, and State of Affairs.  Trailers for these shows can be seen here.

Here is the line-up for the peacock network with times listed for Central Time Zone:

Monday
7:00: The Voice
9:00: The Blacklist/State of Affairs (Beginning Nov. 17)

Tuesday
7:00: The Voice
8:00: Marry Me
8:30: About a Boy
9:00: Chicago Fire

Wednesday
7:00: The Mysteries of Laura
8:00: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
9:00: Chicago P.D.

Thursday
7:00: The Biggest Loser
8:00: Bad Judge/The Blacklist takes over the timeslot beginning Feb. 5
8:30: A to Z
10 p.m.: Parenthood

Friday
7:00: Dateline NBC
8:00: Grimm
9:00: Constantine

Joining Parks and Recreation at midseason are a bunch of new comedies including Tina Fey and Robert Carlock's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (starring The Office's Ellie Kemper), the Ellen DeGeneres-produced One Big Happy, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production Mission Control (starring Don't Trust the B's Krysten Ritter), and The Office's Craig Robinson's sitcom Mr. Robinson. 

Also unplanned shows premiering sometime in the year are The Bible miniseries sequal A.D., NBC's answer to shows like Homeland and The Americans, Allegiance, Charlie Manson based show starring David Duchovny as a cop trying to hunt him down, Aquarius, a Once Upon a Time-esque take on Wizard of Oz called Emerald City, a conspiracy theory drama Odyssey, and the 13-episode Heroes reboot, Heroes Reborn.

Episode 105 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 105: Test Pod 404.

Episode 104 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 104: Convomania.

Movie Reviews: 4/22/14

More movies came out and even more reviews of them came from me.

The Legend of Hercules: Take 300, sprinkle it with some Gladiator, cast Kellen Lutz in the lead role and make it feel like a Syfy Original Movie and you've got Legend of Hercules.  This is not a good movie but there is plenty of violence that I'm sure this will have an audience somewhere, but not with this guy. This movie was legendarily boring, poorly written and acted.

Review: 1 Shirtless Guy Out of 5.

Black Nativity: When movies are made, most of the time they are made with a specific audience in mind.  Even movies that transcend audiences like Star Wars, The Avengers, and Frozen are made to capture the attention of their core audience and then spread through the masses.  It's hard to find a movie that I can say I don't fall into the audience for it at all, and this is the one.  Part unnecessary musical that doesn't make any sense (other than to get Jennifer Hudson to sing) and part super religious family drama should have just stayed on my skip list.

Review: 1 Gospel Choir Out of 5.