JennyPop.com - TV Reviews
If summer calls for sans souci, seaside days of sun and sticky sand, then summer nights, especially Fridays, demand a touch of gold bling and a white linen blouse to accentuate that tan, plus just enough coconut rum to help lull you to sleep by the sound of lapping waves ... but watch your back, and your neck. Blackbeard's in town for the summer and not since Jaws has the beach looked more inviting, relaxing ... and deadly. In a sea of fictionalized Blackbeards, the latest incarnation cavorts freely outside the traditional, Pyrate King design book. Clean-shaven (gone is his namesake beard tied with multiple bows of red and gunpowder fuses), bald and casually styled in island linens and sandals, casting off his trademark black velvet frock coats and leather bucket-top boots, NBC's Blackbeard appears more Gob Bluth than Rob Zombie. A mesmerizing figure to start, John Malkovich (Shadow of the Vampire, Being John Malkovich, Dangerous Liaisons, The Portrait of a Lady) portrays the 18thC. pirate with a soothing deadliness that lures the viewer into a unsuspecting trance: his escalating diatribes seep forth with an almost musical, rhythmic, Eminem-cadence, like an unsuspecting frog in a warm pot of slowly boiling water. Before you, or the frog, realize what's occurred, your kidney has been cut out; but Blackbeard has left you…
Like many a standard of American literature, Washington Irving's 1819 short-story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, has seen more facelifts and resurrections than Hillary Clinton's political career: varied adaptations on the usual theme, always entertaining and sketchy, nightmare fare for some. Irving's Sleepy Hollow is uniquely American, but its roots reach far under the lightning-charred, tulip trees of time back to Germany's Middle Ages and the wicked warnings of the folkloric Wild Huntsman, der Wilde Jäger: a headless ghoul who galloped through the forests of Northern Europe at preternatural speeds, seeking bad little children who failed to eat their wegetables, greedy men of ill-repute and stray women of low moral fiber. Be good or der Wilde Jäger vill get you, meinen Kinder! Fox TV is the latest raconteur to tell the tale of Sleepy Hollow, the town "that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie." (This is the second Sleepy endeavor for FOX; the first being 1999's Night of the Headless Horseman, a CGI animation.) The most flexible thus far in its use of artistic license, this latest narration of the ageless myth benefits from the cleverness and vision of Fringe creators Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Fundamentally, they follow the basic, chilling spine of the tale and keep…
{youtube width="580" height="380"}TsrxMrTQLJM{/youtube} Michael: It's just hard to accept that it's really come to begging. George: Sometimes, it's the only way to stay in the game. Narrator (Ron Howard): Please, tell your friends about this show! Ron Howard, we did. We looked the other way, for a just a second, and they snatched Arrested Development from our sticky, chocolate-covered banana hands with swift and heartless indifference. So, we told on the offenders. We told our parents, our teachers, our friends, our families, our congressmen and our pets. We wrote, emailed, blogged, Tweeted, Facebooked and clipped up YouTube homages in the multi-millions of copyright infringement violations. Apparently, it all worked. May 26, 2013 at 12:01 a.m. PST (That's O.C.-time, kids.), hordes of rabid Bluth devotées will commence their Memorial Day celebrations with Trader Joe's frozen bananas, Grey Goose Vanilla and O.J. hiballs, Gangytinis and the words that started it all ... And that's why you always leave a note! After Fox cancelled Arrested Development, similar to their unwise, initial cancellation of Family Guy, executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz explained he was not interested in Showtime's offer to pick up the show, nor any other network offer for that matter. Even though his show was brutally cut short after a mere three seasons, Hurwitz was "more worried about letting down the fans in…