Tag / Alec Baldwin

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2017 Emmy Awards – Reality and Movies

Emmy_statueWith the Emmy Awards scheduled for Sunday night, here’s day two of my predictions for the awards, today focusing on reality shows and made for TV movies.  I likely have seen not seen most (any?) of these, so I will probably not have an informed decision, but when has that ever stopped me.

Outstanding Reality Show Host

Alec Baldwin, Match Game

W. Kamau Bell, United Shades Of America

RuPaul Charles, RuPaul’s Drag Race

Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, Project Runway

Gordon Ramsay, MasterChef Junior

Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party

RuPaul already took home the prize for hosting the long-running hit.

Outstanding Reality Show Competition

The Amazing Race

American Ninja Warrior

Project Runway

RuPaul’s Drag Race

Top Chef

The Voice

The Amazing Race is the usual favorite in this category and I don’t see a reason for that to change this year.

Outstanding Variety Talk Series

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

Jimmy Kimmel Live

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

The Late Late Show with James Corden

Real Time with Bill Maher

A little more turnover here, thanks to the ongoing changes that is the late night landscape.  I think John Oliver and his HBO show, Last Week Tonight, certainly deserves the award.

Outstanding Variety Sketch Series

Billy On The Street

Documentary Now!

Drunk History

Portlandia

Saturday Night Live

Tracey Ullman’s Show

Given the election boost, I’m going to give the nod to SNL this time around.

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by admin

2017 Emmy Awards – Comedy

Emmy_statueWith the Emmy Awards scheduled for Sunday night, here are my predictions for the awards for Comedy shows.  I most likely have seen most of these shows, so, unlike my annual Oscar predictions, I will not mostly be going on gut feel and word of mouth, but will have a somewhat informed decision.

Outstanding Comedy

Atlanta

Black-ish

Master of None

Modern Family

Silicon Valley

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Veep

Veep has won for the past two years and would seem to be a good choice to three-peat, so I’ll go with that.

Outstanding Actress In A Comedy

Pamela Adlon, Better Things

Jane Fonda, Grace and Frankie

Allison Janney, Mom

Ellie Kemper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish

Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie

Julia Louis-Dreyfus won this award the past four years, and I see no reason why she won’t repeat again this year.

Outstanding Actor In A Comedy

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish

Aziz Ansari, Master of None

Zach Galifianakis, Baskets

Donald Glover, Atlanta

William H. Macy, Shameless

Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Jeffrey Tambor brought home the award the past two years for his gender-bending role on Amazon’s hit series, but I’m going to go out on a limb and go with Donald Glover.

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Goodbye, iPhone 4S – Music Edition

A little more than a week ago, I upgraded my phone from the iPhone 4S to the newly released iPhone 5S.  The biggest difference, aside from a slightly bigger screen, is the jump from 3G (or 4G, if you believe AT&T’s hype) to LTE.  I had the 4S for a little under 2 years, and in that time, we traveled the world together (well, at least going back to the UK) and have listened to a lot of podcasts and music. Here is every song (all 2079 of them) I’ve listened to on the phone, with some (ok, very little) bonus commentary.  Godspeed.

 

Let’s Go-Go-Go White Sox Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers 33
He’s a Pirate Klaus Badelt Pirates of the Caribbean (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture) 32
Take Me Out To The Ballgame Harry Caray 31
Thunderstruck AC/DC The Razors Edge 31
Gordon Beckham Intro 29
Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye Steam Billboard’s Top Rock ‘n’ Roll Hits: 1969 29
Don’t Stop Believin’ Journey Journey’s Greatest Hits 27
sox05_montage 27
We Are The Champions Queen Queen: Greatest Hits I & II 27
Your Love The Outfield Play Deep 27
2008 White Sox Central Division Champs Montage Chris Tannehill WSCR 670 The Score 25
Take Me Out To The Ballgame Nancy Faust 25
Harvester Of Sorrow Metallica …And Justice For All 20

You would hope that these numbers would have been higher, but this past season’s miserable performance by the White Sox has put the songs on their playlist out of mind more often than not.

Cannonball The Breeders The First 1000 Years- Rock 19
Man Or Muppet Jason Segel The Muppets 15
It’s Time For Our Song Miss Piggy The Muppets 14
Get Out There And Help Those Guys Jason Segel The Muppets 13
Main Title LOST Soundtrack LOST Soundtrack 13
Are You A Man Or A Muppet? Amy Adams The Muppets 12
How Charming, A Finale Uncle Deadly The Muppets 12
I’m On A Boat (ft. T-Pain) The Lonely Island Incredibad 12
Down At The Ole Barbershop Kermit The Muppets 11
Me and Drugs David Cross Bigger and Blackerer 11
The Antichrist Howard Stern Private Parts: The Album 11
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by admin

2013 Emmy Awards – Comedy

With the Emmy Awards scheduled for Sunday night, here’s my predictions for the awards for Comedy shows.  I most likely have seen most of these shows, so, unlike my annual Oscar predictions, I will not mostly be going on gut feel and word of mouth, but will have a somewhat informed decision.

Outstanding Comedy

30 Rock

The Big Bang Theory

Girls

Louie

Modern Family

Veep

The sentimental favorite would be the final season of 30 Rock, but my feeling is it will end up being one of the two critical darlings, Louie or Girls.  I’m going to go with Louie, as there may be a backlash against Girls and Lena Dunham.

Outstanding Actress In A Comedy

Laura Dern, Enlightened

Lena Dunham, Girls

Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie

Tina Fey, 30 Rock

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation

I think this category is where 30 Rock gets celebrated and creator, writer, and star Tina Fey will take home the statue.

Outstanding Actor In A Comedy

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock

Jason Bateman, Arrested Development

Louis CK, Louie

Don Cheadle, House of Lies

Matt LeBlanc, Episodes

Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory

While I can see Jason Bateman pulling an upset, I think the Netflix-based release of Arrested Development will work against him here.  My guess is Jim Parsons takes home the hardware for his role on the top rated comedy on television.

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by jim

Post Mortem – 30 Rock

30 RockOur look back at the shows that called it a day this year concludes with 30 Rock, the ratings challenged sitcom that somehow managed to survive for 7 seasons.  Way back in 2006, NBC’s fall schedule included 2 shows set behind the scenes at a network sketch comedy show.  Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip starred a post-Friends Matthew Perry and was created by wunderkind Aaron Sorkin.  30 Rock had a post-SNL Tina Fey and Tracey Morgan plus former movie star Alec Baldwin.  If you had to guess which show would last 7 years and which would last 1, you probably would have gotten it wrong.

While never a ratings powerhouse, 30 Rock was a critical darling and continued to be strong in to its final season.  Thursday nights will be less funny without 30 Rock going forward.

by jim

2012 New Fall Season – Thursdays

Thursday night is traditionally the busiest night of the week.  Here’s what’s on the slate for this season.

7:00

The Big Bang Theory – Entering its 6th season, the show is at its ratings high point.  They pick up right where last season left off, with Howard married and in space.

30 Rock – Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin return for the 7th and final season.  I will certainly look forward to these last 13 episodes.

Last Resort – Early reports are that this show had the best pilot of the season, but left some doubts as to how it could continue on on a week to week basis.  I’m looking forward to seeing for myself.

7:30

Up All Night – Christina Applegate and Will Arnett return in the last minute renewal from last spring.  The status quo gets shaken up a bit as Ava’s show was cancelled in last week’s season premiere, putting Applegate’s Reagan and Maya Rudolph’s Ava out of work.

8:00

Person Of Interest – The enigmatic hit returns for its second season.  Michael Emerson was not given as much to do last season as one would have hoped following Lost, but his role did pick up somewhat towards the end of the year.

The Office – The producers had previously announced that this season would be the show’s last.  With original EP Greg Daniels returning to bring the show to its conclusion.  Last week’s season premiere introduced some new, younger employees that might cause Jim and Pam to re-evaluate their lot in life.

Grey’s Anatomy – The 9th season opens a few months after the plane crash that closed out last season.  There will be some cast shakeups, as Chyler Leigh is gone and Eric Dane is leaving.  While not as good as it once was (and what show is after 9 years), it is still an entertaining way to pass an hour.

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