"Mad Men's" Jon Hamm is Hilarious as Republican Scott Brown on SNL (Video)

Jon Hamm seriously needs to host "Saturday Night Live" more often, 'cause the show is so much funnier when he's on it.

Check out this fabulously funny sketch where top Democrats have bedroom fantasies about the newly elected Republican senator, and former Cosmo pin-up boy, Scott Brown.

The 25 Best Moments of "Lost"

 
All right Losties, it's here! 

The moment we've all been waiting for -- the return of "Lost" for its 6th and final season beginning February 2nd on ABC at 8/7c.

In honor of the big event, I thought it was the perfect time to review where we've been before we move forward.  Or backward, depending on what the island is doing.

I spent the last few weeks watching the show from the beginning to pick out my 25 best moments of "Lost."

Here they are:

Hysterical Ken Burns Documentary, "The Late Night Wars"

This comes from Jimmy Kimmel and ABC. Enjoy!

It's Done: Leno to Return as ‘Tonight’ Host on March 1 - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

Choosing their words oh-so-carefully, NBC and the comedian Conan O’Brien issued a joint statement Thursday morning about a “resolution of the issues surrounding O’Brien’s contract to host “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.’”

via mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

It's a done deal. Conan is out and Jay is back.

Conan O'Brien's last "Tonight Show" will be Friday and Jay Leno will return to the "Tonight Show" on March 1st.

The Winter Olympics and an assortment of O'Brien reruns will have to serve late night viewers in the interim.

Now that this long, national comedy nightmare is over, I can go back to worrying about more important things like what's Heidi Montag's next plastic surgery is going to be.

NBC's Leno/O'Brien Debacle: Audiences Chuckle, Letterman Laughs

This NBC Leno/O'Brien late night brouhaha is better than "All My Children" in its heyday.  It's got everything:

• Corporate blunders of epic proportions.
• Millionaires fighting it out over turf.
• Audiences protesting and taking sides.
• Two distinct personalities trapped in a legal, corporate morass.
• A peanut gallery of one, cackling about how payback is a bitch.

First, a little background.  Five years ago, NBC told Jay Leno, "In five years we're replacing you with Conan O'Brien, 'cause if we don't seal him up now, he's going to the competition.  Your audience is old and replaceable and we want Conan's following of 15-29-year-old frat boys who love guys with tilted red hair."

Jay was like, "But I'm number one!"

NBC was like, "But that won't last so you're out!"

Jay was like, "Okay, I'll go home to work on my 500 classic cars, see ya later, peacock."

David Letterman watched from afar.

Golden Globes 2010: Mo'Nique Rehearses for Oscar

At last night's Golden Globes, Mo'Nique gave a preview of her Oscar speech when she won Best Supporting Actress in a drama for her role as a monstrous mother in the film "Precious."

Rockin' a gorgeous gold gown, she also gave the most touching speech of the night when she tearfully thanked director Lee Daniels.

I celebrate this award with all the Precious's, with all the Mary's. I celebrate this award with every person that's ever been touched--it's now time to tell.  And it's okay.

Other big winners were director James Cameron and his blockbuster "Avatar."  "Mad Men" won for Best TV drama and Kevin Bacon took home the award for Best Actor for the HBO TV movie, "Taking Chance."

Comedian Ricky Gervais was this year's Golden Globe host and had some excellent one-liners.  For example he celebrated "some of the great work that's been done this year--by cosmetic surgeons."

He also took a pot shot at NBC:  "Let's get on with it before NBC replaces me with Jay Leno."

More comedy came in the form of Drew Barrymore's bumbling speech when she accepted the award for Best Actress for her role in HBO's "Grey Gardens."

The marvelous Michael C. Hall won for his lead role in the Showtime drama "Dexter."  Hall who was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma wore a black cap to the ceremony, possibly to hide his loss of hair due to cancer treatments.

Let's hope he's well on the road to recovery.

Dexter's adversary this season was the Trinity Killer played with fabulous creepiness by John Lithgow.  Lithgow was rewarded with a Supporting Actor award.

Several celebrities referred to the crisis in Haiti due to last week's earthquake.  Many wore red and yellow ribbons in remembrance.

Meryl Streep, while accepting her award for her role as Julia Child in "Julie and Julia" talked about finding it difficult to dress up and celebrate.

I come to Golden Globes weekend and I am really honestly conflicted how to have my 'happy movie self' in the face of everything that I'm aware of in the real world.

On a more positive note, Julianna Margulies got a well deserved win for CBS's freshman series, "The Good Wife."  Taking another pot shot at NBC and the failed Jay Leno experiment, she thanked CBS execs "Les Moonves and Nina Tassler for believing in the10 o'clock drama."  Heh.

You can see a complete list of the winners on the Golden Globe website.

Jay Leno Debacle Reversed by NBC

We all knew it was a crappy idea.  At least those of us who didn't have the highest corner office in NBC's headquarters.

That's right the Great Jay Leno Primetime Experiment of 2009 is over.  NBC has announced that Leno's show will return to late night, moving back to its former 11:35 home.  To add insult to Jay's injury, the show has also been cut to half an hour. That means Conan O'Brien's show which follows Leno will now be on at 12:05.

See, the guys over at NBC who made the original boneheaded decision to move Leno to primetime have finally caved to the understandable pressure from their affiliates.  Leno's yawn worthy ratings at 10PM sent the carryover audience of the affiliates' local 11 o'clock news shows into the toilet.  This at a time when local TV station's are suffering an economy induced exodus of advertisers.

Members of the Writers Guild however are dancing around their laptops now that they've reclaimed five hours of NBC's primetime schedule.

On the Conan front, many critics are upset that O'Brien's seemingly getting the shaft.  But see, I would only consider he was getting the shaft if I thought his show was funny enough for me to care.

And Jimmy Fallon?  Pretty much an afterthought.

The Boston Globe's website, Inside Track has some interesting quotes from Leno friend and fellow comedian Richard Lewis about this whole late night do-si-do.  While you're reading them, just remind yourself how much better you'll sleep now knowing the late night TV world is back to normal.

Or is it?

A Review of "Up in the Air"

"Up in the Air" is one of those movies that pisses off your average movie goer.  I'm talking about the average Jane and Joe who go to the movies to have some popcorn and some escape.

Why does it piss them off?

Because by the time Jane and Joe get to their local multiplex, it's won film critics awards and Golden Globes and Oscar nominations and been on a hundred best movie top ten lists. 

By the time Jane and Joe spend their 20 bucks on the tickets and 20 more bucks on refreshments, they end up coming out of the movie saying, "Was that it!?"

Jane and Joe then go home and tell their friends how overrated "Up in the Air" was.

Not that it's a bad movie, it's not.

But somewhat overrated?  Yeah.

One Last Look At 2009 Courtesy of JibJab (Video)

This was too funny to pass by.  Enjoy.

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TV 2009: Major Moments, Major Madness

It's that time of year again.  Time to reflect on favorite TV moments and madness of 2009.  I personally had a lot of favorite shows this year: "Lost," "24," "House," "Dexter," "True Blood," "Battlestar Galactica," "Mad Men" to name just a few.

"Flash Forward" had a cool concept and a few good episodes, but it needs to retool itself before coming back in March.  The same thing goes for "V," though at least "V" is a pretty basic good guy/bad alien show that's hard to mess up.  

We were up to our scrubs in TV nurses which caused me to ask the question, "What if Nurse "Hawthorne" Were White and "Nurse Jackie" Were Black?"

Here are some more of my 2009 boob tube thoughts:

Biggest Surprises:  Glee, The Good Wife and Drop Dead Diva.  All quality shows with charismatic stars--Matthew Morrison, Julianna Margulies, Brooke Elliott--and in the case of "Glee" some kick ass musical numbers.

Biggest Disappointment:  Dollhouse.  Joss, I love ya' but here's hoping your next one's more well thought out.

Sweetest New Character:  Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw) on "Grey's Anatomy."  She's the freshest thing about "Grey's" since McSteamy showed up and I love her to death.  The episode "Invest in Love" when she loses her young patient and does the sweet dreams speech with his mother at the end had me sobbing like a baby.

"It's Complicated," It's Funny

First, can I just tell you how thrilled I am to see Meryl Streep everywhere these days? Her "second film career" is going like gangbusters and I couldn't be happier for her or for us.

In the comedy "It's Complicated" she plays a divorcee, Jane who begins an affair with her ex-husband of ten years.  The ex, Jake, played with sufficient hammy hilarity by Alec Baldwin, is married to the drip of a young chippie he left Jane for.  She's got very little going for her except a slammin' body. 

Jane meanwhile has got everything else and I'll bet her body ain't so bad either.  She's also lovely, luminous and very touching.  And that's because of Meryl Streep.

A Review of "The Lovely Bones" Starring Saoirse Ronan

I'm one of the five or six people out there who hasn't read the bestselling novel, "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold.  That's one reason I was excited about the film version.   After all, I didn't have the book to cloud my judgment of the movie.  The other reason I was excited was because the movie was directed by Peter Jackson who's the Oscar winning director of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

But you might be asking yourself, if I never read the book, how am I going to help out those who did read it?  Well I saw the film with my friend Lucy who has read the book, so I'll give you her take as well.

"The Lovely Bones" is about the murder of a 14-year-old girl and the effect it has on her family.  What's unique in the book and in the film is that the story is told by the murdered girl herself.  Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) narrates her experiences and observations as she exists in a nether world between the land of the living and what we perceive to be heaven. 

Meanwhile her family, devastated by their loss, splinters into varying levels of grief.  Susie's mother, Abigail (Rachel Weisz) eventually leaves the family to find relief, while Susie's father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg) becomes obsessed with finding her killer.

And he doesn't have far to look.  The killer, as Susie tells us at the beginning of the movie is the Salmon's neighbor George Harvey (Stanley Tucci).

A Little Review of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury in "A Little Night Music"

I went to see "A Little Night Music" last week, without knowing a thing about the show. 

Except of course that it starred the legendary Angela Lansbury and the drop dead gorgeous, not to mention multi-talented, Catherine Zeta-Jones.

The only other thing I knew was Stephen Sondheim penned musical was home to the lovely ballad "Send in the Clowns."

Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film "Smiles of a Summer Night," "A Little Night Music" is all about sex.  Some romance too, but mainly sex.

In a nutshell, Fredrik Egerman (Alexander Hanson) is an older man married to young chippie Anne (Ramona Mallory) who won't have sex with him even though they've been married for eleven months.  Meanwhile he pines for his lost love, actress Desiree Armfeldt (Catherine Zeta-Jones).  She in turn is involved with the dim witted, married dragoon, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm (Aaron Lazar).

What develops from all these "Liaisons" as Desiree's mother, Madame Armfeldt (Angela Lansbury) sings in the 1st Act, is a muddle of sexual complications, misunderstandings and deceptions. 

Enchanted by Disney's "The Princess and the Frog"

Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" was number one at the box office last weekend, taking in $24.2 million.  It's Disney's first animated fairy tale starring a black princess and after you ask yourself, what the heck took them so long, the big question, black princess aside is, how's the movie?

Well, the movie's quite good. 

Time Magazine in fact calls it the Best Film of 2009.

While I'm not quite ready to say that, I will say all the Disney magic and beautiful, hand drawn animation are enchanting in this story set in New Orleans during the Jazz Age.  Tiana (Anika Noni Rose, pictured left), the aforementioned princess, is a lovely character full of hopes and dreams.  As a child, she shares her Dad's (Terrence Howard) love of cooking and as an adult, she dreams of opening the restaurant he never could. 

Her prince, Naveen (Bruno Campos) loves jazz music and wants to live the high life even though he's been cut off without a cent by his parents.  That lust for money is what gets him in trouble with Dr. Facilier (Keith David), an evil voodoo priest who tempts people with their heart's desire but demands a terrible price.

Also in the cast is Tiana's friend Charlotte (Jennifer Cody).  Charlotte's kind of a parody of other Disney princesses.  She's blond, her daddy's rich and she's quite spoiled, but--and here's where those racial images are important--because she's white, I was thrilled to see that she never became Tiana's savior or her enemy.

Anika Noni Rose of "Dreamgirls" and "The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency"shows her marvelous versatility as Tiana.  Bruno Campos, aka The Carver from "Nip/Tuck"--from one extreme to the other!--does Prince Naveen proud.  The rest of the cast including Jenifer Lewis, John Goodman, Michael-Leon Wooley, Oprah Winfrey and Jim Cummings give solid and entertaining support.

Actor Patrick Stewart, A Child of Domestic Violence

Actor Patrick Stewart, Captain Jean-Luc Picard himself, of "Star Trek" fame, recently published a very moving article in The Guardian describing how he was a child of domestic violence.  Stewart has been speaking out against domestic violence for several years, but I didn't know this about him until I saw a tweet about the article by Stewart's former co-star in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Wil Wheaton (@wilw).

We like to think of our TV and movie heroes, especially if they're male, as strong and invincible.  We like to think of the actors who portray those characters in the same way.  Except most of them aren't.  They're just human beings like the rest of us with strengths and weaknesses and hidden hurts that we can only imagine.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard was always in strong, capable control.  Except of course when the Borg forced him to become their leader--but every other time, in strong, capable control.