'Star Trek' DVD release interview

Here's a clip from Jimmy Kimmel. He sent his minion Yehya to crash the Star Trek DVD release party and came back with some prime footage. I love John Cho going crazy, especially when Zachary Quinto's involved.

"Can't get you out of my head. Boy, your loving is all I think about."

Lee Thompson Young will not exit my head (thanks, Kylie).....so I watched Akeelah and the Bee, in which he has a minor, minor role as Akeelah's brother, in order to satiate my inner 15 year old. I'm rationalizing this decision by arguing that it was on my list anyway and is one of those feel good movies that makes me smile and cry at the same time. I'll withhold a review because it's too late at night for critical thinking, but this scene is just before big brother Devon heads back to the Air Force base. In a moment of pure fantasy, Akeelah wakes up bleary eyed to see that man in uniform sitting by her bedside. The camera even went all soft focus on Mr. Young

Um...in other news, episode 7 of FlashForward has been on loop over here. Rather, the Lee Thompson Young bits have. ABC did a mean thing when they told him to cook in a wife beater, and then forced him to eat alone. The shock of seeing a grown up Jett Jackson has been too much, and I never even watched that show. Also, have been checking out the boards and most are in agreement that Al's death is a loss for the show. He kind of snuck up on everyone as his role grew in the last couple episodes. I think people were eager to see an affable and competent character to balance out all the crazy in this show, what with all the bizarre shootings and creepy blue hands. The folks over at the Racialicious blog noted that the Demetri/Jett Jackson pairing was far superior to the Demetri/Shakespeare one. I love Joseph Fiennes (especially as Shakespeare), but sorry, Mark Benford is kind of a whiny bitch. Cho's character, meanwhile, is working out better. He has some of the qualities that you'd expect for the lead - humor, attitude, doubt, cool - but that are lost on Mark, who is just hurtling towards disaster. I actually care about what happens to Demetri and am anxious to discover how his murder is (hopefully) averted. Mark, on the other hand, is only useful for his vision. If his marriage disintegrates, well, he doesn't really deserve Olivia anyway. He exemplifies a type of man that women love to hate on - the hypocrite who faults his wife for cheating, before the fact, but who refuses to be candid about his own transgressions, alcohol in this case. Well, another 2 days before round 8. The preview looks positively absurd. Something about settling things like men - with poker. Please, Hobbit Merry.

More, please.

I just watched episode 2 of ABC's FlashForward and it was a-mazing! This is why I haven't followed network tv in a long time. Shows that offers surprises and cliffhangers at every turn require uncommon amounts of patience and emotional self-control, none of which I have. So rather than sitting pretty in a Snuggie and with a bucket of ice cream for a Saturday night marathon, I have to wait an entire week until my next 45 minute fix. (Luckily I have numerous distractions in Merlin, Glee, maybe Three Mile, and all the other old shows I'm just catching up on.)

Things really start churning in this second episode. The pilot was mostly a prolonged edition of all the previews they've been showing this summer. There's nothing terribly revealing about the plot, the characters, or their visions that we didn't already know from the publicity campaign. The only real surprise came at the end when it was discovered that a man was awake, wandering around Detroit's baseball stadium during the blackout. Spooky. Episode 2 jumped on the first real lead and involved the search for someone named 'D. Gibbons'. Olivia, Mark Benford's (Joseph Fiennes) wife, gets her first meeting with the mysterious man she saw in her vision. He happens to be the father of a patient - who, it turns out, Olivia's daughter Charlie saw in her vision. A crazy cupcake lady is introduced as well, and I mention this mostly because I want to eat her cupcakes, though she is sure to reappear later on.

One of the major sources of tension thus far seems to be between Mark and Olivia as they navigate infidelity of all sorts. There is the obvious conflict regarding the other man, but there is also cheating of the non-sexual variety. Mark has yet to tell his wife that part of his vision involved a relapse into alcoholism, and he makes an effort to keep even minor details from her (such as the bracelet). All signs point to a volatile descent into chaos, at least in their personal lives.

The biggest pseudo-surprise, however, comes at Demetri Noh's (John Cho) expense. In the immediate aftermath of the blackout, he hypothesized that his lack of a vision meant that he'd be dead in 6 months. Well, tonight we learned from some raspy voiced woman with some prime real estate in Hong Kong that he will be...murdered!! O-M-to-the-G. This is brutal, and I am officially hooked.

Holding On

It's embarrassing how transparent my train of thought is. It's so easy to pinpoint exactly what I'm obsessing over at the moment and how I got there. After some Sylar action, a bad Chris Pine movie, now we move on to Harold and Kumar. So yes, I am still stuck on Star Trek. I think it shoots out of theatres this weekend, which is unfortunate because that means I won't be able to catch it a second time on the big screen. But we know I'll be all over the DVD release - which can't come soon enough!


Anyway, after having clear exhausted my infatuations with Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine, the next logical step would be John Cho. (Karl Urban is next if I don't lose steam.) Curious, I'm not hot for him. Maybe his having a wife and child alters the equation, though Quinto possibly being gay does not. But I do like John Cho's work. After all, despite the progress Asian Americans have made in entertainment, we can still count the marquee actors on one hand. Gotta support a brother. I popped in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, a movie I thought was obnoxious and overhyped at first. But it's grown on me and really, how do you hate a stoner comedy starring two cool Asian dudes? And by whole country, I guess I mean the under-35 crowd. I think I'm also getting supremely homesick and this is the perfect slice of America that I need. It's not the most flattering - the battleshits scene is out of control - but it captures some of that jaded post-college ethos and leftover frat humor. And it's just damn funny. Oh yeah, and the burgers. When I was a little kid, a regular McDonald's cheese burger was too big so when those marketing gods over at White Castle delivered mini-burgers, that was my idea of 5 year old heaven.

So here is my absolute favorite scene because I LOVED Wilson Phillips. Yes, that's how cool I was. While y'all were listening to Thriller, I was rocking out to Hold On (and Tiffany).

Also some Samuel Barnett news. At long last he has another project that gets to see the light of day. This one is a BBC production called Desperate Romantics, about the Pre-Raphaelite art movement.


Those blokes gave us dreamy paintings like the one posted below that have since become a mainstay for college poster sales. Guys pick up the John Belushi Animal House poster while these Pre-Raphaelite works end up on girls' walls, next to the picture of Tom Cruise from Top Gun. In this mini-series (?), Mr. Barnett plays artist John Everett Millais who is famous for his insane talent and for getting cozy with an art critic's wife. Hooray, Sam finally gets the girl!

'Flashforward' promo

I might actually catch a US show next season. Flashforward debuts in the fall and will feature Joseph Fiennes (playing an American) and John Cho (playing an American). It's about a global blackout - in that everyone on the planet literally blacks out. In those few moments, some people have visions of themselves 6 months into the future, and not everyone's happy with what they see. From the preview, it's hard to tell if this is more event thriller in the tradition of Lost or if it will veer more towards the drama. The visions aren't apocolypic so I don't think anyone will be rushing to save the world. Take a peek.