Quinton Rampage Jackson joining the A-Team?
It looks like we have a potential candidate for the B.A. Baracus role in the movie adaptation of the 80’s television show The A-Team. UFC fighter Quinton Rampage Jackson mentioned on The Jimmy Kimmel Show that he was in the running for the role made famous by Mr. T.
Looking at the photo, it’s easy to see why he’s in the running. He’s already got the pecks and the chain. If you check out the video after the link, he’s even got the attitude. Just give him a mohawk and he’ll be set.
The planned release for the feature film is June 12, 2009. It will be produced by 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios and is to be directed by John Singleton (Boyz In The Hood, Shaft, 2 Fast 2 Furious).
The question is: can the UFC fighter act? And if he can’t act, then can he at least act like Mr. T.?
[Thanks, Ryan!]
Cancel Arrested Development!!!
You’ve heard the rumors. Emmy for Best Comedy, Golden Globe for Best Actor, WGA Award for Best Episodic Comedy - all of that be damned, low ratings deserve to be punished. And so Fox is probably on the cusp of cancelling Arrested Development. After all, as David Cross helpfully pointed out on The Jimmy Kimmel Show last month, Rupert Murdoch could make a lot more money off of a hip reality show like America’s Cutest Retards. Here at TV, we have just one thing to say about that:
"Good Riddance!"
Yeah, that’s right. You heard me - we don’t want shows like Arrested Development sullying our beloved network. Face it, FOX - nobody wants to watch a character-driven comedy. We want traditional sitcoms that take place in living rooms. With couches. And lazy husbands and hot wives and mean-spirited children. Either that, or procedural dramas. Lots of them. Anything with forensics, you just keep coming. Reality is good too - let’s have more of those shows where attractive people eat bugs and poor people fight for prizes. In fact, just put those two shows together - make some hot bug-eating chicks fight over an unemployed factory worker, and then give the winning couple a makeover and a dream house. Then give us a shocking twist. Give us anything, as long as you take away Arrested Development.
We expected more from creator Mitchell Hurwitz - he is, after all, the man that brought us Golden Girls - and no one knows better than executive producer Ron Howard
how well tried and true formula works. And yet, they expect us to watch
a sitcom without a laugh track? It’s like, every single line is
potentially funny, and some of them are funny in three or four
different ways - how are you suppossed to know when to laugh? They
can’t all be jokes … right? And even if they are, what are you suppossed to do? Watch the thing over and over again to glean jokes that flew past you the first time? It sounds to us like Arrested Development wants to reward viewers who are smart enough to remember old details and have the tenacity to careful pay attention to new ones. That’s elitist. We don’t like that.
In addition, the "scenes from the next episode" that appear at the end of every Arrested Development installment never actually
appear in the following week’s episode. This is not only extremely
unprofessional, but it’s just plain rude to promise something that you
have no intention of delivering. I have personal testimonials from
dozens of viewers who have been seriously traumatized by this cruel
ploy on the part of the producers of Arrested Development -
they’re trying to get people to tune in the following week for scenes
that aren’t even there! Why would they trick us like that? We here at
TV Squad don’t like to be tricked. We don’t think you do, either.
Arrested Development is a non-traditional, genre-bending, richly
layered and intellectually complex character-based comedy. Plus, there’s a character named Job, but they spell it GOB - and that’s just blasphemous. For
all of these reasons and many more, we think Arrested Development must be cancelled. Shows like this make us work hard, and that makes our brains hurt, and we don’t like that. We don’t
need Arrested Development, and we don’t want it.
Join us, America, in mobilizing the
effort to rid our television screens of such dangerous material. The
sooner we get this thing off the air, the sooner we can all sit down,
relax, pop open a cold one and bask in the soothing rhythms of America’s Cutest Retards.
Leona Lewis: Headed For Success
Leona Lewis: Headed For Success
With her new album earning rave reviews from fans and critics alike, Leona Lewis looks to be on her way to a long and successful career in the music business.
The 23-year-old singer was spotted out promoting her recent studio release, Spirit, leaving a taping of the Jimmy Kimmel Show in Hollywood on Friday (April 11).
Of becoming the first British female singer to score a No. 1 single in two decades (for her hit single Bleeding Love), Leona told press: “I still can’t believe it. I’m trying to get my head around it. It’s such an amazing achievement.”
And while she’s a relatively new name in the States, Leona has already amassed a fan base in England after winning Simon Cowell’s American Idol-esque talent show The X-Factor last year.
“The show has given me an amazing platform and Simon has given me an amazing platform,” she says. “You never know if that would’ve been accessible if I had not done the show and have met him. I think of him as someone who’s guiding me in my career and really opening doors that would never have been opened before.”