Very Mad Men. Mad Men is losing steam in its second season. This past Sunday's episode, MM's fourth episode of the season, garnered 1.1 million viewers, significantly fewer than the premiere, which attracted 2.1 million.
Olympic Proportion. The Summer Olympics continue to dominate television. Every night this week NBC's coverage has brought in more than 20 million viewers. Thursday's coverage, at 22.1 million, was the least watched night thus far.
CBS Trails NBC. As a result of the Summer Olympics, many other stations are feeling the sting of lost viewers. CBS is a distant second to NBC. The big shows of the week for that network were Two and a Half Men on Monday night with 7.9 million viewers, and Flashpoint on Thursday night with 7.3 million.
The Hills Stay Alive. The Hills debuted to a very respectable 3.5 million on Monday night. This is only slightly down from the season three finale which drew 3.78 million.
Movie I'm excited about: Whip It! I think it's going to be awesome. Movie I know nothing about but already feel a "meh" coming on: Tom Cruise as a superhero. Movie I'm excited about that's a tiny bit embarrassing: the sequel to Center Stage.
I often go to see advance movie screenings by myself since, you know, it's work, and not all my friends are willing to sit through things like The Love Guru, even in the name of friendship. But recently I went (and paid) to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona (more on that later!) by myself and it was really nice and relaxing. I also found that I wasn't the only person who was seeing that particular movie alone. It might get lonely to do too frequently, but it was nice for a random Saturday afternoon.
Appaloosa hasn't really been on my radar since the casting news was first announced over a year ago, which I find odd, especially since it stars some pretty big names, is directed by Ed Harris, and looks all Western epic-y. By contrast, we've had to see every new photo and poster and trailer for Australia as that film has been in production — and that one's coming out two months after this one. So, I find the lack of Appaloosa awareness to be strange.
Then again, the trailer's not totally fascinating. It's a dusty, dramatic Western. There are manly men (Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris, Jeremy Irons) and guns and a brief flash or two of a woman's face (Renee Zellweger). The plot description states, "Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow."
My favorite thing is the tagline on the movie's official website: "Feelings get you killed."
Is the fact that we haven't heard much about this a bad thing? Not necessarily. But I'm still a little puzzled. Appaloosa opens in limited release Sept. 17 before its wide release Oct. 3. To check out the trailer, read more
Did you kinda forget about Dido like I did? Well, I was reminded of her today when I learned the following things:
She's releasing a new album this November.
A track from the new album is available for download here, and it's great.
It's been five years since Dido released her last album and I'm really excited she's still out there, making pretty music for us to enjoy. This new track, "Look No Further," is a delicate, somewhat mournful lullaby-type song about all the adventures she might have taken in life and the people she could have met.
Hurry up and grab your MP3 — as they say, they'll run out by Sept. 7. What do you think? Are you looking forward to Dido's musical return?
Singer and actress Selena Gomez posed for pictures at the 2009 American Music Awards with a pretty pink smile on her face. She took advantage of the occasion and went glam; wearing a Talbot Runhof sequin dress with black strappy heels.
Laura Clement
7 For All Mankind
Blue Wax