The New York Times‘ “Magazine Preview” has a long and excellent article on Conan O’Brien and his journey to his new nightly gig. The whole piece is a nice collection of anecdotes, interview quotes, and narrative, along with the typically great photography I’ve come to expect of the Times. Here’s one of my favorite nuggets:
“Music and comedy are so linked,” O’Brien said earlier, as he walked up and down the halls of his offices, playing one of his many guitars. “The rhythm of comedy is connected to the rhythm of music. They’re both about creating tension and knowing when to let it go. I’m always surprised when somebody funny is not musical.”
Holy hand grenade, what glorious news: Monday Night Football is ditching the lamentably awful Tony Kornheiser in favor of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden.
I think even Dennis Miller would have been a welcome substitute, but this will certainly do much better.
While digging through some old and neglected regions of my home office this evening I came upon some pictures from a few years ago. I decided to scan a bunch of them, and I think some of them turned out alright (or I was able to salvage them a bit).
I’ve never been deeply in to the Trekkie world, but I just got back from a late showing of J.J. Abrams‘ version of Star Trek, and holy Ron Gettelfinger, was it awesome. Here are some stand-outs:
1. They freaking used Futura for the in-movie titles!
2. I’ve seen a lot floating around lately about the heavy doses of lens flare in this movie. My opinion on the matter is that, whatever the purpose, the flares help establish a rather unique-feeling visual style. I say unique-feeling because I’ve not really researched whether it’s been done before. Either way, I feel that it helped the aesthetics.
3. The film score was considerably better than I expected. They smacked you in the face with it early on and it stood out as an aural guide at just the right moments. While I really dug hearing “Sabotage” in the first act, I was happier to have strong symphonic music carry throughout most of the story.
4. Okay, Heroes really just needs to die now, because Zachary Quinto is more Spock than he’ll ever be Sylar.
5. Simon Pegg, I love you.
6. I feel like they hit a number of marks on the Geek Check List with the Vulcan Death Grip, Mind Meld, and countless quips from the original series.
I would see this in the theater again with any of my friends that haven’t yet checked it out. Definitely a good start to my spring/summer movie season, and a great new direction to the Star Trek franchise, I hope.
