Thursday, June 30, 2011

The TV equivalent of Fantasy Football...

Fantasy Emmys just sounds weird.
I've put !s by who I think should win.

I'd say the hardest category is best supporting actor (comedy), but here are my top six:

Danny Pudi (Community)
Nick Offerman (Parks & Recreation)
Ty Burr (Modern Family)
Donald Glover (Community)
Adam Pally (Happy Endings)
Garrett Dillahunt (Raising Hope)

No ! because it's just too hard to choose. I want all to win.

best supporting actress (comedy):

Julie Bowen (Modern Family)
Jane Leeves (Hot in Cleveland)
Busy Phillips (Cougar Town)
!Mayim Bialik (Big Bang Theory)
Christa Miller (Cougar Town)
Wendie Malick (Hot in Cleveland)

best lead actress (comedy):
!Amy Poehler (Parks & Recreation)
Courteney Cox (Cougar Town)
Martha Plimpton (Raising Hope)
Tina Fey (30 Rock)
Kaley Cuoco (Big Bang Theory)
Melissa McCarthy* (Mike & Molly)


best lead actor (comedy):
Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory)
Joel McHale (Community)
!Steve Carell (The Office)--only because his farewell eps were so great
Matt LeBlanc (Episodes)
Louis C.K. (Louie)
Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)

best comedy:
Big Bang Theory
!Community
Louie
Parks & Recreation
Cougar Town
Raising Hope

*this is more for her work in Bridesmaids, since I haven't watched anything of M&M but the crap pilot

I haven't seen Game of Thrones or much of Justified or Boardwalk Empire so I think my drama choices are less "spot-on"...

best supporting actor (drama):
Manu Bennett (Spartacus)
Josh Charles (The Good Wife)
Alan Cumming (The Good Wife)
Joel Kinnaman (The Killing)
Steve Zahn (Treme)
Ian Somerhalder (Vampire Diaries)

again too hard to pick

best supporting actress (drama):
!Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife)
Khandi Alexander (Treme)
Sara Ramirez (Grey's Anatomy)
Christine Baranski (The Good Wife)
Christine Hendricks (Mad Men)
Kim Dickens (Treme)

best lead actress (drama):
!Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)
Mireille Enos (The Killing)
Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)
Lucy Lawless (Spartacus)
Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights)
Emily Deschanel (Bones)

I'm not really committed to this race without Bryan Cranston...

best lead actor (drama):
!Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights)--just this once
Simon Baker (The Mentalist)
Nathan Fillion (Castle)
Hugh Laurie (House)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter)
Jon Hamm (Mad Men)

best drama (again I haven't seen many, so I can only honestly say...):
The Good Wife
Friday Night Lights
Treme

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Though it should be rather obvious from my tweets, here are some things I'm loving now.

Streaming the British sitcom The IT Crowd on Netflix. Amazing. It's like a master class in hilarity. Deadly that there's only 24 episodes and no more coming any time soon (a fifth series is in the works, supposedly, but Graham Linehan isn't rushing it, and a sixth season seems unlikely, blast!), so ration the episodes if you can.

Reading Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. Short stories that are splendid if random as fuck.

Planning my trip to Europe in November. Spanair had a crazy sale last week, so I'm going to Madrid in November with my middle sister. Trying to decide where else to go while we're there. Lisbon? Malta? Barcelona? Any suggestions would be welcome.

The Great Wall of LA in Sherman Oaks. Not the greatest art ever, but a commendable project. The end of it is two miles from my apartment precisely, so it's a fantastic walk too.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

good

When people visit me, I make a habit of forcing them to accompany me to all the hip, cool restaurants and places I've been meaning to visit but haven't had the opportunity/balls to go to solo. So when my friend came into town last weekend, we went to Reservoir in Silver Lake for dinner. I had the Cornish hen and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were off the hook, but I have a difficult time mauling tiny birds. Reservoir is right next to L.A. Mill, so we went there afterwards. Luce had some absurdly expensive coffee that actually smelled inviting (and I don't usually like the smell of coffee much), and I had an absurdly expensive, itsy-bitsy brownie sundae that was, for its size, very delicious. I would like to go back to L.A. Mill for breakfast I think.

Saturday we went to brunch downtown at Lazy Ox. Ricotta fritters, boo! Luce liked all her vegetables, but my meal was just so-so. I wasn't bowled over on the whole, but I still am a downtown convert.

Saw X-Men: First Class today. The dialogue was on-and-off, but it held together decently. I did quite enjoy the surprise cameos, and I particularly liked Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee. He could have easily been one of the Weasley brothers if he'd been born in the UK a few years earlier. But how weird was it to see Brendan Fehr as an American XO with, what, one line?

James McAvoy has three people's amount of charm, I swear. It takes a lot to take attention away from Fassbender, but damn. Here's one question. If Charles Xavier has been pressing his fingers to his temple for all those years, why, by the time he's bald, isn't there some sort of imprint there? I feel like the skin would be raw by the start of the millennium.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

I'm making plans, God's laughing, all's status quo

Hey, losers, I'm lying on my bedroom carpet (it's the color of fossilized excrement), still in my PJs--I'm talking cartoon owl shorts and a Grumpy tee from Disneyland. What are you doing?

I have read 23 books this year, most of them short-ish, when I should be at 41. Gah! Before summer begins in about 20 days, I would like to read five books, i.e., one every four days. This can include art books and/or plays and probably will. I'll also probably read Room, since I just realized my roommate has it. Some people say quality is more important than quantity. But these people don't have reading lists 1,000 books long, so. I'm very attracted to primary colors too. Somewhere along the way I reached such a level of maturity and intellect that my brain and personality collapsed in on themselves and went all neutron star on me. The good news is my brain can't degenerate anymore, if the physics of my metaphor holds up, due to the Pauli exclusion principle.

Going to the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA manana then picking up one of my college roommates from the airport. She's coming down from San Francisco to hang out with me for about 36 hours, go on a hike, make a pizza. Weird, right?

I will be going to Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans, Hawaii, Mexico, Sydney, or Europe this year. Probably two of those places in the next 18 months if it's cheaper/more local places. I'm saving up the cash, and IT WILL happen. If anyone wants to go somewhere, hit me up, we can make plans. This Nomad needs a change of scene.
In summing up, I wish I had some kind of affirmative message to leave you with. I don't. Would you take two negative messages?
-- Woody Allen