Bull Pen
Can Netflix revive ‘Jericho’?
Netflix is in talks to resurrect "Jericho," the CBS cult favorite about a post-apocalyptic Kansas town, TV Guide reports.
The show debuted in 2006, and followed the lives of residents of Jericho, a small town in the northwestern part of the state. After a series of nuclear bombs destroy major parts of the country - including Lawrence - the residents of Jericho must find their way in a world that includes predatory military contractors, the bullying neighboring town of New Bern and living conditions that hearken back to the days of prairie settlers. It was canceled after two seasons.
Repeats of Jericho remain popular on Netflix's on-demand service, even four years after the show's cancellation. Insiders say Netflix execs would love to emulate the revival of Fox's Arrested Development, which is expected to return on Netflix with new episodes in 2013, seven years after the show ended its run. Like Arrested fans, Jericho's are a passionate bunch: CBS renewed the post-apocalyptic show for a second season in 2007 after viewers bombarded the network with cases of peanuts.
TV Guide notes that past attempts to revive the series have failed, but getting the stars to agree to come on board amid other projects may take some time.
Where will ‘Anchorman 2’ stack up among the best journalism movies of all time?
Beautifully mustachioed news anchor Ron Burgundy – aka Will Ferrell – stopped by Conan Wednesday night with a very important announcement.
And it wasn’t “Cannonball!”
No, Burgundy went on the air to let the world know that the Channel 4 News Team was coming back with a sequel to the 2004 blockbuster “Anchorman.”
"I want to announce this to everyone here in the Americas," Burgundy said. "To my friends, in Spain, Turkey and the U.K., including England ... as of 0900 Mountain Time, Paramount Pictures and myself, Ronald Joseph Aaron Burgundy, have come to terms on a sequel for 'Anchorman.' It is official, there will be a sequel to 'Anchorman.' "
All we know right now is that Ferrell and “Anchorman” director Adam McKay are teaming up. As for possible plot lines, who knows? “Anchorman” took place in 1975, so it’s possible the sequel will take place in the 80s, and we’ll be able to relive the era of helmet-haired tortoise-shell glasses-wearing Dan Rather types and the ruffled collars that thankfully went out of style.
This brings me to a very important question posed by folks in the news business, and one that never has a singular answer. What’s the best journalism movie ever made?
I submit these options, in no particular order.
All the President’s Men (1976)
Often considered the greatest journalism movie of all time, “All the President’s Men” is based on the book of the same title by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Their work on the Watergate scandal, with the help of an anonymous source named Deep Throat (later exposed as high-ranking FBI man Mark Felt), helped bring down Richard Nixon’s presidency. It delves into the nitty-gritty of newsgathering, from Woodward and Bernstein squabbling over the right way to phrase a sentence to Jason Robards’ Ben Bradlee taking a red pen to copy. But it’s high in political drama, and the story stands the test of time.
State of Play (2009) Based on the BBC series of the same name, State of Play follows two reporters trying to find out how and why a young Congressional staffer dies. Russell Crowe plays Cal McCaffrey, an old ink-stained wretch, who thinks young blogger Della Frye, played by Rachel McAdams, represents the death of journalism. But the pair works together, uncovering a deep conspiracy that – shockingly! – leads to the highest corridors of power. Ben Affleck also stars.
Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) David Straitham (best actor) and George Clooney (best director) won Oscars for this black and white film tracing CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow’s and producer Fred Friendly’s targeting of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. As Murrow and Friendly seek to uncover McCarthy’s campaign against Communism, the Red Scare bleeds into the newsroom, creating deep conflict.
The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt star in this film about an Australian radio reporter on his first foreign assignment. Gibson’s Guy Hamilton arrives in Indonesia amid political turmoil, and is at once smitten by Jill Bryant, a British diplomat played by Weaver. Hunt, who won an Oscar playing Billy Kwan, at once creepy and sympathetic, guides Hamilton through the murky waters of Indonesia as the country craters from within.
The Front Page (1974) Ben Hecht’s play-turned-film about a grizzled Chicago newsman reporting his last story amid a cadre of hard-drinking, card-playing, fast-talking reporters is a classic. The 1974 version, which came out more than 40 years after the original film, stars Jack Lemmon as Hildy Johnson, as conniving and resourceful a reporter as there ever was. Lemmon’s on-screen foil Walter Matheau plays Walter Burns, Hildy’s shrewd editor at the Chicago Examiner. After a murderer condemned to death escapes, Hildy has to weigh his desire to get out of the news racket and move away with his fiancée against the competitive urge to get a big story. Hilarity ensues.
Anchorman (2004) Will Ferrell leads a misfit group of braindead TV reporters while attempting a romance with a lady anchor, something these guys can’t even conceive. Throw in a news team gang fight, a unique translation of “San Diego,” a jazz flute, and the laughs are inevitable.
Fletch (1985) What investigative reporter Irwin T. Fletcher, played by Chevy Chase, lacks in ethics, he makes up in one-liners and disguises. Thanks to him, we know everything is ball bearings these days.
Live from Baghdad (2002) On the eve of Operation Desert Storm, a CNN crew, led by Michael Keaton, braves bombs to snag an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein. Based on a true story.
The China Syndrome (1979) Jack Lemmon tries to convince a TV reporter played by Jane Fonda that a California nuclear plant in on the verge of a meltdown. But not everyone wants that story to get out.
Absence of Malice (1981) Sally Field stars as an eager reporter who lets her ambition muddle her objectivity. Paul Newman also stars.
Nothing but the Truth (2008) Kate Beckinsale goes to jail to protect a source, and a secret. Especially poignant after the Scooter Libby saga, which saw New York Times reporter Judy Miller go to prison to protect a source.
“The Last Jayhawker” - College sports meets “Inglorious Basterds”
James Naismith as a hardened assassin. Phog Allen as a sharpshooting marksman. William Quantrill as a basketball strategist.
These nonsequitors and more run rampant in a new short film called “The Last Jayhawker,” which is making its way around the Internet just in time for tonight’s tipoff. (Watch it at the end of the post)
Created by W. David Keith, Jon Mohr and Chris Dorsey, the short stars Kansas City-area actors, and envisions what would happen if William Quantrill, whose raiders burned Lawrence to the ground and murdered hundreds of civilians in 1863, met James Naismith, who you also may have heard of.
After his Kansas University squad is trounced by a Missouri team coached by Quantrill, Naismith is recruited by the U.S. government to lead a team of assassins into Missouri to take out Quantrill.
“I’m going to teach you to do two things,” Naismith tells his Jayhawks. “Play basketball [or basket-ball, perhaps], and kill Missourians!”
The short climaxes with Naismith confronting Quantrill.
A gun to his face, Quantrill says, “The war’s over, Jayhawker.”
“You’re wrong. It’s just getting started,” Naismith replies.
Well, it’s over, as we know. But Keith, a Kansas City filmmaker who attended KU, wanted to bring to life an idea that formulated over beers during a past incantation of the KU-Mizzou basketball rivalry.
“We (Keith and Dorsey) were sitting at the bar watching the KU-MU basketball game and we thought, ‘What if Quantrill didn’t die and what if he lived at the same time as James Naismith,’” he says, laughing. “It would be the ultimate face off between the ultimate KU guy and the ultimate Missouri guy.”
The film gets more violent than your typical basketball game, and Keith says that stems from “Inglorious Basterds,” the Quinton Tarentino film that follows a group of American soldiers as they brutally hunt down Nazis. The film was released when Keith and Dorsey were kicking around the initial idea for “The Last Jayhawker.”
And just like Tarentino, Keith and company took historical liberties.
“It’s all tongue in cheek. Its all in fun,” he says. “James Naismith starts out as a nice, friendly, loving man, Bible-toting, which in real life he was, and then his hatred for Missouri that ‘s pushed upon him by others overcomes him. That can happen to any KU fan, especially this time of year.”
While Naismith only played Missouri twice, losing both times, Keith says the scene in which the Jayhawks are pushed around on the court is based in reality.
“The game that we have in the movie was based on the time he played the Kansas City YMCA, where they played children of Bushwackers,” Keith says.
Keith, who is also a cartoonist, says the film was originally discussed as a graphic novel. But he wrote a full-length script, and hopes to one day film the entire thing.
But depending on what the college sports powers-that-be decide, some folks may not understand the enmity between KU and MU.
“The next generation won’t have that rivalry like we have for 100 years because we’re not going to be in the same conference and if we don’t play the rivalry’s gong to go away,” Keith says.
Scottish artist creates amazing, lifelike pencil drawings
The Daily Mail took a break from cutting and pasting from American newspapers to write about a Scottish artist named Paul Cadden who has a remarkable talent to create lifelike drawings using pencil.
His works look like photos, and there's not much more I can say beyond, "wow."
Cadden works in a genre called hyperrealism, which seeks to emphasize the detail of an image.
On his website, Cadden writes, "Although the drawings and paintings I make are based upon photographs, videos stills etc , the idea is to go beyond the photograph. The photo is used to create a subtler and much more complex focus on the subject depicted, The virtual image becomes the living image, an intensification of the normal. These objects and scenes in my drawings are meticulously detailed to create the illusion of a new reality not seen in in the original photo."
His work is stunning, and each takes weeks to finish.
Michigan artist Chris LaPorte works in a similar vein. On a visit to Grand Rapids a few years ago, I saw his entry into that city's annual Art Prize event, where the city celebrates local artists during an exhibition. LaPorte won a $25,000 grant for his drawing of a 1920s-era Army cavalry unit.
Historic Jayhawk Theatre in Topeka wins restoration grant
Fresh off a press release, the Jayhawk Theatre in Topeka, closed since 1976, has won a $54,240 Heritage Trust Fund grant to repair its roof. It's one of 24 projects across the state to win grant money from the Kansas Historic Sites Board of Review.
“We want to make the Jayhawk the crown jewel of downtown development,” said Doug Jones, president of the theater's board.
When renovations are complete, the theater will seat 900 and will host live theater and music events.
The theater's website has a really cool video of the interior, which has fallen into disrepair over the years. If that soundtrack doesn't move you, you're made of stone.
These old, crumbling buildings are reminders of the classic architecture of bygone days. I'm no expert, but aesthetically, I prefer a beaux arts structure to the unimaginative, cookie-cutter buildings that are popular today.
Driving through Indiana en route to Ohio this weekend, I thought the same thing as I passed an abandoned building off I-90 in Gary, Ind.
There must be so many stories tied to this building (see more abandoned buildings in Gary here).
Similarly, skeletons of Detroit's past are haunting, as you can see in this stirring gallery.
When I covered news in Chicago, I spent a lot of time in the city's medical district, walking past the old Cook County Hospital (you may know it as the hospital from "The Fugitive.") It was once one of the busiest hospitals in the country, but it was replaced by the shiny Stroger Hospital some years ago. Today, vines creep up its canopy and plastic bags twist around the chain link fence keeping trespassers out.
There's hope for the old girl, though, as the county health department is moving into what will be a renovated Cook County Hospital sometime in the future.
For now, though, the fences haven't kept curious photographers out.
Boulevard offering refunds on some Chocolate Ale batches after ‘unwanted flavor’ detected
If you were one of the lucky ones who scored some Boulevard Chocolate Ale earlier this month, the Kansas City brewery wants you to know that some batches may have “an unwanted flavor.”
“We do routine quality checks on all of our beers and we recently found that some of the batches of Chocolate Ale have unwanted flavors that we really did not anticipate to have in the beer,” brewmaster Steven Pauwels said in a video posted on YouTube today.
The unwanted flavor is only in some batches of the bottled beer, he said. They are 2011-01, 2011-02 and 2011-03. According to a letter posted on Boulevard’s website, beers with the flavor are not harmful to consume. The taste did not extend to other Boulevard products.
The brewery identified the “undesirable” flavor while doing laboratory and sensory analysis of the beer, said marketing communications director Julie Weeks.
“It was part of our quality assurance program. We do this with all of our beers,” she said.
The brewery is offering refunds to those folks who got the extra-flavored ale. More information on that can be found here.
“We’re a proud brewery and we want to do that right thing,” said president John McDonald in the video.
Dang, that woolly mammoth video was a hoax
Last week we wondered if some lucky Siberian had actually caught a woolly mammoth on video.
Well, wonder no more. It there are no lucky Siberians here.
Some suspected the video is an outright hoax — a computer-generated mammoth digitally inserted into a real river scene. Many others, however, were convinced that the animal was real: not a mammoth, but instead a bear with a large fish hanging from its mouth. That would explain its relatively small size, the shape of the "trunk" on its head, and the color. Experts cast doubts on the video's authenticity; Derek Serra, a Hollywood video effects artist, concluded that it "appears to have been intentionally blurred."
The website Life's Little Mysteries caught up with the man who made the original video, Ludovic Petho, who said he didn't see any woolly mammoths.
"I don't recall seeing a mammoth; there were bears, deer, and sable," he said. "But no woolly mammoths."
The original footage isn't quite as dramatic as the altered video.
When parents discover Facebook
This video of a dad publicly shaming his daughter is making the rounds. After she unleashed a litany of complaints about her life - mainly about her chores - mixed in a with a few choice four-letter words, her dad took to YouTube to rebut her claims. Oh yeah, and then he shoots her laptop.
"You don't have that hard of a life," he says. "But you're about to."
So far, the video's been seen more than 1.4 million times.
Social parenting, I suppose.
Is that a woolly mammoth caught on video?
A government worker in Siberia claims he filmed a woolly mammoth crossing a river last summer. Woolly mammoths have been extinct for about 10,000 years. The video is as grainy as those that purport to show Bigfoot. But, hey, it's the Internet. Let's let our imaginations run wild.
Still, British tabloid The Sun says it could actually be such a beast. Well, the "paranormal writer" the paper quoted says that.
Paranormal writer Michael Cohen said: "Rumours of a handful of mammoths still kicking around in the vast wilderness of Siberia have been circulating for decades and occasionally sightings by locals have occurred.
"Siberia is an enormous territory and much of it remains completely unexplored and untouched by humans. "
Anne Heche, Clancy Brown (aka the guard from from ‘Shawshank Redemption’) join cast of Slash’s Stull horror film
As former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash prepares to begin filming his new horror film about the cemetery in Stull, a few well-known names (and faces) are jumping on board.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Anne Heche and Clancy Brown, a prolific character actor who played the merciless Captain Hadley in “The Shawshank Redemption,” have joined the cast. That’s in addition to Ethan Peck (“Gossip Girl,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”), James Tupper (“Revenge,” “Mr. Popper’s Penguins”) and Willa Holland (“Gossip Girl,” “Legion”).
Brown, who has appeared in dozens of films, will play an evil pastor in the film, which is about a family whose fabric is torn asunder by “a charismatic but emotionally conflicted man of the cloth.”
The film is being filmed in Louisiana, but takes place in Stull, much to the chagrin of area residents who are tired of ne’er-do-wells trying to find a portal to Hell in the local cemetery.
Slash is no stranger to the silver screen. He's appeared in "Howard Stern's Private Parts," "Bruno," and his Wikipedia entry has an incredible and context-free description of his cameo in the Dirty Harry flick, "The Dead Pool." "In 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses band mates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, in which his character attends a musician's funeral and shoots a harpoon."
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