• Annalee Newitz looks at the five most prevalent themes in Clinton-era sci-fi. I would have thrown in a shout-out to strippers, who appear prominently in both Armageddon and Independence Day. But then, I’m usually on the lookout for chances to throw shout-outs to strippers.
• LIBERTAS accuses “millionaire filmmaker” Morgan Spurlock of –– SPOILER ALERT!! –– being too chicken shit to actually hunt down Osama Bin Laden and put a stake through his heart.
• Bob Rehak contemplates the impact the HD format wars will have/are already having on the porn industry. “How will viewers respond to the pathos and suffering at the industry’s core — of capitalism’s antihumanism writ large across the bodies offered up for consumers’ pleasure-at-a-distance — when those excesses are rendered in resolutions of 1920×1080?”
• NBC has decided that Access Hollywood will be the “news” division to cover the Golden Globes. Defamer mocks the ensuing outrage: “If the network had any interests but its own at heart, it would have made some attempt at incorporating the solemn ritual that usually begins each Globes ceremony–the consumption of Orson Welles’ transubstantiated body and blood in the form of filet mignon and stiff vodka-tonics–as a show of good faith.”

I’ve been keeping a vague log of Chris Matthews’ tendency to wedge non-sequitor movie references/analogies into his ostensibly hardcore-wonky political chat shows for awhile. Hands down the worse that I’ve seen: on the night of the Iowa caucus, Matthews tried to diagnose Mike Huckabee’s popularity thusly: “He appeals to a lot of people in the middle of the country, mostly because of I Heart Huckabees.” Really, Chris? Really?

When you consider that my minor obsession with this has required me to become a faithful viewer of Matthews’ god-awful, cheap McLaughlin Group-knockoff Sunday morning chat show, I probably deserve a medal. But give me the silver, because whoever put together the montage on last night’s Daily Show––proving that Matthews is not the only guilty party, but certainly the undisputed champion of the “This event is EXACTLY LIKE that one movie…” genre of political analysis––deserves the gold. Skip to about 4:25 on the above clip to go straight to the good stuff.

If you’re on the East Coast or time zones further down the clock, you may have been already out the door by the time the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and NBC finally, officially conceded their mutual defeat: there will be no Golden Globes, there will only be Golden Globe winners, announced at a one-hour press conference telecasted by––gulp––NBC News. It took several hours for the film and entertainment blog worlds to chew up this news and thoroughly spit it out. Here then, a timeline, culled from my RSS reader, of the blogosphere’s coming to terms with The Fall of Globes, without a doubt the greatest tragedy of our…week. So far.

6:02 PM EST––The Cold Hard Facts: “The mechanics of the one-hour announcement itself are muddled. The original idea was that at some point during the parties the HFPA would stop the proceedings and make the declaration of the winners. Cameras would be poised on the nominees at the different parties, so that there would be reaction from Atonement’s Keira Knightley, for example, at the Universal/Focus party. This concept was scratched by the WGA.” — Anne Thompson

7:21 PM––Let’s Focus On What’s Really Important: “Who aren’t you wearing?! … Sorta hard to have a ceremony when no stars are gonna show … we’re just sayin’.” — TMZ

…Read more

Nikki Finke says her sources tell her that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and NBC have worked out a compromise to be able to produce a Golden Globes telecast that the WGA can’t picket. Nikki’s using the word “scraped” in her headline, but that doesn’t really sound accurate at all; it seems that the show will go on, just without the montage bloat.

The plan is to apparently throw “a news event where the actors can still get all glammed up”––basically, a glorified press conference, with most of the “content” stemming from the winners’ ostensibly improvised acceptence speeches.  Presumably, such a set up would allow NBC to keep their ad revenue whilst the HFPA gets to keep both their licensing fees and a teeny-tiny shred of dignity. Even better for us the viewers, Steven Spielberg will get to accept his Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award, whilst we’ll be spared the clip reel attempt to legitimize Hook.

Do you ever wish that an actor would drop their own persona and just adopt the life/career plan of one of their fictional characters? That’s were I am right now with Tracy Morgan, who is SO good––and SO underrated––on 30 Rock, but who spends his time off from the show making films like First Sunday. There’s a clip from that slice of modern blaxploitation floating around; I like the way FilmDrunk sums it up:

The clip gives us a hilarious taste of what black church is like. It’s great, because I’ve often said that the differences between how white people do things and how black people do things too often goes unaddressed in comedy.

I totally understand that Morgan has a mortgage to pay and base audience that he wants to play to, but it just seems like the caricature of himself that he plays on TV is doing both with a little bit more style.

On 30 Rock, Morgan plays Tracy Jordan, a huge movie star known for films like Samurai I Am Awry and Honky Grandma Be Trippin’, in which he employs all manner of costuming and prosthetics in order to play multiple parts. Last season, Tracy took a DNA test which revealed that he was a distant descendant of Thomas Jefferson, and became inspired to make a Jefferson biopic, in which he would, of course, play every part. He took the idea to the president of NBC/Universal (which, on 30 Rock, is a subsidiary of the Sheinhardt Wig Corporation), who thought Tracy should make a movie version of The Jeffersons instead. Tracy then made the above trailer, in hopes that a visual aid would change the suit’s mind. It didn’t, but it’s hilarious.

There’s been some hubbub over the past couple of days on media blogs about Michael Douglas, who recently became the new announcer for NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams. According to TVNewser, Douglas “worked for scale, and … donated his earnings to charity.” But I have to wonder if maybe the aging actor took payment of another sort. Check out the most recent episode of NBC’s 30 Rock, embedded above. Wait (or skip) to about 8:10, and you’ll see a very clear reference to a film from Douglas’ heyday––which was recently re-released on DVD. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

And if you’re wondering if this post is just an excuse for me to justify using work time to watch clips of 30 Rock on Hulu … well … guilty!

Remember Masters of Horror? The name-brand horror directors anthology series on Showtime that gave birth to Valerie on the Stairs, as well as Joe Dante’s inimitable Homecoming, in which zombie veterans rise from their graves to storm the voting booths? Although Showtime has declined to pick it up for a third season, Masters executive producer Mick Garris and his team have signed a new deal to produce a similar show for NBC. This definitely means the show will attract more eyeballs, and it probably means the producers will have higher budgets, both of which will make luring talent easier. So this is good news for horror fans, right?

Wrong. Film Junk’s Sean writes: “The problem is that a network environment will be extremely limiting for a horror series — blood and gore will have to be borderline non-existent. I suppose there would always be the option for unrated DVD releases afterwards, but I find it hard to believe that the content wouldn’t suffer because of it.”

He may have a point. Take a look at the Homecoming trailer above. It’s a total sanitization of the movie, and I still can’t imagine ever seeing that shot of the guy on the table with the missing legs network TV. For more on Dante’s Homecoming, you must read Grady Hendrix’s Slate piece from December 2005, here.