Sunday Night Round Up - Hateration and TV

Let's see: I have clean laundry and a shitload of work to do this week.

I hate the Red Sox, the Patriots, and the Bruins.

I watched a bunch of TV: Ugly Betty is still awesome, Grey's Anatomy didn't suck and neither did Private Practice but neither lit my heart on fire and the world needs more Bailey (and PP would be a better show if it were all Cooper and New!Bailey). Pushing Daisies was awesome but 11 days ago I abruptly became tired of Ned and Chuck; I'm now watching solely for Olive and Emerson, which isn't a good sign after only five episodes. Apparently, whimsy is like mayonnaise - tasty as a garnish but too sickeningly rich to make an entire meal. I've also now watched all of Moonlight and Sophia Myles is very... well, she glows in that moist English Rose fashion. The vampire guy is fine but the plots make Bionic Woman look complex. Heroes continues to be plain boring this season. Please kill, in order of magnitude of "annoying the shit out of me", Lucky Charms Waitress, the Goo Twins, Takeo Kensei and whatsherface, Bad Influence Boy, and Mohinder, Matt and Molly since neither Mohinder nor Matt apparently has a functioning brain cell between them and the rugrat gives me hyperglycemia. Keep Elle, because I love Kristen Bell, and Bob, because this show is way light on bad guys and heroes need villains, and copycat girl because I like her 'tude. Please stop sucking and have something actually happen in the next episode. Also - there are other cities in the US (not to mention the rest of the fucking world) consider having something go wrong in one of them. New York has enough problems and besides, Spider-man has that beat covered. Get your own schtick. On the other hand, Friday Night Lights gets a shout-out for fixing 60 per cent of the suckitude of its sophomore season by reuniting Coach and Mrs. Coach. The "I know who you killed last summer" storyline still bites but Landry and Tyra act the hell out of it, so I'm prepared to let that slide.

Finally, Skiffy wants me to wait another six months for new BSG and then knows how long for the second half of the final season - and they wonder why the ratings go down after each hiatus. Welcome to the real, asshats - when you make an audience that expects a four month hiatus between TV seasons to wait over a year, they find other things to do. For the record, however, I mind waiting less than being jerked around by network execs.

Valkyrie

I find it interesting that the first promotional vid for Bryan Singer's "Tom Cruise Saves Us from the Nazis" project Valkyrie has Ken Branagh doing most of the talking and we're shown no finished footage of Tom Cruise as Von Stauffenberg. Not that I wouldn't chose Branagh over Cruise to speak on any subject in the known universe (including Scientology) but isn't Cruise supposed to be the biggest movie star in the world™? Or maybe someone finally cottoned onto the fact that, compared to the rest of the cast - Branagh, Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Fry, Eddie Izzard, Christian Berkel - Cruise looks like a kid in a Hallowe'en costume. Prince Harry makes a more convincing Nazi (not to mention a more convincing soldier, although he does little more than play dress-up himself).

Early days yet but, given the bad early buzz on Cruise's latest pic - Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs - including a less than fresh rating from the early reviews, and Cruise's ongoing tabloid problem (not to mention his questionable range as an actor), I wonder if producers are regretting signing up Xenu's favourite son to headline in their movie. I find it hard to believe that Valkyrie was a project that needed Cruise's name to secure financing but stranger things have happened in Hollywood.

Time will tell whether or not the movie's any good but everytime I see that photo of chunky Tom dressed up like the Wehrmacht, my only thought is surely, surely there was another actor somewhere they could have found to play the role. Like, oh, maybe the sexy East German playright from The Lives of Others. Though why Hollywood would want to cast a talented German actor to play a German hero, I don't know....

In Which I Make an Exception

From the Daily Mail (reading of which will, inevitably, make you stupid):

New publicity pic of Donna, Martha and the Doctor for Doctor Who's fourth season (spoilers)

Cate Blanchett has announced that she's pregnant with her third child.

From the Times Online:

400 years later, Catholic Church still has no sense of humour or perspective about Elizabeth I (also, please: off my side - the history in Elizabeth and The Golden Age is a travesty but now you're just talking out of your ass. Also, if you're going to criticize someone else's bad history, avoiding hyperbole would be a good idea - the fact that I exist today is demonstrable evidence that Elizabeth I did not succeed in exterminating the Catholics of either Scotland or Ireland. Get a fucking grip already.)

From ComicBookResources.com:

The weirdest thing about the upcoming Ironman movie is that it looks pretty cool - although I reserve judgement on what looks like an "Ironman versus the Jihadis" subplot). Ironic given how Marvel recently turned Stark in a George Bush analgue/reigning douchebag of the Marvel U (or maybe not given the Jihadist BBQ Ironman seems to be hosting in the trailer).