Thursday, January 31, 2008

Happy Birthday, Anthony LaPaglia

Entertainment News would like to wish a happy 49th birthday to Anthony LaPaglia. The Australian born actor is probably best known for his Emmy-nominated dramatic work as Special Agent Jack Malone on Without a Trace. And while he's very good on that show (or used to be before the show's creators stopped getting creative with story and character development), he's also good in comedic roles as well. His guest appearances on Frasier won him an Emmy, but some loyal readers might know him better as Joe the easy-going store manager in the 90's teen comedy Empire Records. However, my favorite Anthony LaPaglia performance is as Mike Myers' friend Tony in 1993's So I Married an Axe Murderer. Below is a video (3:29) from said film featuring a series clips of Mr. LaPaglia opposite Alan Arkin, another actor who can do both comedy and drama well.

Friday, January 25, 2008

A Crap Country

This video goes out to my friend Boubacar, aka, The Other Black Guy. He is from Guinea, a country in West Africa that has recently been through a great deal of turmoil. Still, Ali G isn't willing to give it any love. Below is a clip (1:09) from Da Ali G Show starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G. For those unfamiliar with the show, it's a British import that airs on HBO in the US. In it, Cohen travels the country participating in various activities and interviewing people disguised as one of his three alter-egos, the most famous being Borat (the other two being Ali G and Bruno the fashion reporter). In this particular episode, he visits the United Nations.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Dirty Psychic

I apologize to the thousands, OK hundreds, OK maybe dozens, alright, four or five loyal readers* for my hiatus from posting Entertainment News items. With the birth of my son, blogging has taken a back seat. But despite the writers strike seriously hindering the current television season, I've still managed to watch too much TV. My favorites like The Office and its fellow Thursday night comedies have been drastically cut, so I have been forced to go elsewhere on the dial and in the process I have discovered two gems that had previously gone unnoticed by me. The first is Psych on USA. It's about a guy who so adept at observing details around him that he's convinced the Santa Barbabra Police Department that he is a psychic. He uses his abilities to solve crimes in a theatrical fashion. They had a marathon the other day and I was able to catch up on some episodes. I highly recommend it. The second show I watch every now and again is Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe on The Discovery Channel. Unlike most educational/vocational reality shows on The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, TLC and HGTV, this show actually has a funny host. In it, Mike Rowe, an average schmoe, travels around the country and spends a day doing all manner of messy blue collar work from earth worm farming to sewer cleaning. It makes for good TV.

One new show that really had me disappointed is the new American Gladiators. It's like the show's creators did all that they could to make the contestants as annoying as possible. It's hard to watch when I can't make myself root for one contestant over the other. Hopefully the strike will end soon and my usual shows can return.

* In actuality, my web log has been getting quite a bit of traffic lately as it has averaged between 100 and 120 visitors a day over the past month.