After an unexpected three week break, Kailey and Dan return to talk about the movies Insurgent and Cinderella, Dan’s recent trip to Buenos Aires and the new Pukeko Pictures/ITV co-production reimagining of the legendary TV series Thunderbirds (featuring a Q&A with Sir Richard Taylor, director David Scott and Pukeko CEO Andrew Smith). To see some behind-the-scenes pics from the Thunderbirds Are Go set check out the show notes below.
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The great Garry Shandling describing Rip Torn’s audition for “The Larry Sanders Show”:
Rip came in for the first time, and his agent said he wouldn’t read. Weeks later it was just him and me in a room with no one else, and I said to Rip, “Could we read half of this together?” And he said, “I don’t want to read.” I said, “That’s totally fine,” and I pushed it to the side of the table. We talked for less than another minute, and he reached over and took the page, and he starts the scene. It’s like trying to describe a good date to a friend the next day. I had to say to HBO and everybody else, “Honestly, this is the best sex I have had.”
[From Garry Shandling Recalls ‘Larry Sanders,’ – NYTimes.com]
“The Larry Sanders Show” is finally getting the full DVD treatment (I am a happy owner of Season One). And, oh man, I’ve just discovered that the complete “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show” is on Region 1 DVD. Must. Have.
And on the subject of “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show”, here’s the famous theme tune:
[audio:https://funeralsandsnakes.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Its-Garry-Shandlings-Show.mp3]And while we’re on the subject of Garry, please read this extended interview with the man at GQ. That is all.
“The direction I’m going in is eventually you won’t know if it’s a joke or not,” he explains, describing his new act, which he has been quietly testing in clubs where his name never appears on the marquee. “What I want to happen is that I talk for an hour and the audience doesn’t realize it is funny until they’re driving home.”
Jon Hamm (“Mad Men”) describes the life of a not-very-successful Hollywood actor in The Guardian:
And there’s this hideous thing they make you do when you go up for a television show: they make you sign a contract before you walk into the final audition. The last thing they want is for you to have everyone fall in love with you, and then you not have a deal in place. So you sign this thing – and I had no money; I was broke. You’re staring at the five-figure pay cheque you’ll get… if… If! A crazy amount of money for someone who has none. So I was thinking: I’ll pay my loans off and do this and that and maybe get my car fixed… and by that time they’re calling you in, you’re like: ‘Shit! I have to do the scene! What the fuck are the lines?’ I would get hung up on that stuff and be an utter failure in the room.”
Hamm displays an admirable amount of self-awareness in this interview, promoting his new feature film The Town (directed by Ben Affleck). Part of Hamm’s success as Don Draper is the tiny amount of “I can’t quite believe this is happening to me” he manages to project.
Hat-tip to The Story Department.
Shatner interviewed in GQ (via @saniac):
Resistance is futile, of course. You aren’t in Shatner’s presence ten minutes before he reverse-engineers your emotional state; first, you adopt those conversational rhythms of his—everywhere, the jelly!—and then, by God, you start to feel the enthusiasm of your words, an enthusiasm inevitably heightened by your knowledge that this is WILLIAM TIBERIUS FUCKING SHATNER! you are dealing with, the most meta, the most absurd, human being in Western Civilization, and you fall in love with that meta-absurdity, the bonanza of impunity and laughs it generates.
When I did The Immortals recently, the director and I had three shortcuts for line readings: Clarkson, Blessed and Shatner.
May I direct your attention to the new series of “The Gravy”, a top notch art documentary series from Wellington’s Sticky Pictures. There’s a heapin’ helpin’ of interesting content lined up including a whole episode on theatre-maker Jo Randerson and her show Good Night – The End (Downstage, Sep 2009). That’s S04E03, folks. Also of note, Wellington artist and designer Sarah Maxey features in Episode Four.
The series is broadcast on TVNZ7 (Freeview) from this Saturday, 5 December but the first episode is now available at TVNZ On Demand if you just can’t wait: Warren Maxwell looks at art in Taranaki.
Here’s the season trailer:
I’m finally watching the Spielberg/Hanks mini-series “Band of Brothers” in the beautiful new blu-ray edition. It’s stunning television and I can’t wait for the expected sequel (of sorts): “The Pacific”, due out next year.
Coming across this blog entry at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, it occurs to me that a similar drama from the Soviet side would be equally gripping viewing.
1943, Europe — Soviet Soldiers Charge to the Front — Image by © Dmitri Baltermants/The Dmitri Baltermants Collection/Corbis
