Blog Post
1950s Television on DVD
by darla
Did you know we have hundreds of old television shows on DVD here at the AADL?
If you are a fan of classics from the 1950s, head to your closest library and check out our selection: Return to "ideal" American family life with the Nelson family in The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, revisit the Red Skelton comedy/variety show, watch Lassie and Superman save the day, make your own decisions about the controversial Amos 'n Andy Show, laugh along with I Love Lucy, watch Perry Mason and Peter Gunn fight crime, watch the comedy of Jackie Gleason and friends in The Honeymooners, or experience the dramas, mysteries and thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
All of these shows and many many more can be browsed here.
Blog Post
Phil Harris, Captain of the Cornelia Marie, has died
by CasualTim
It was announced this morning that Phil Harris, captain of the Cornelia Marie, died yesterday. The Cornelia Marie is one of the founding ships on the Discovery reality series Deadliest Catch. The show documents what is generally regarded to be the deadliest job in the world: crab fishing in the Bering Sea.
In the few episodes of the show that I have seen, Captain Harris stood out as a family man. Not only did he treat his two sons - who sailed with him - with the kind of kid gloves a brown bear might use on its cubs, he also showed genuine and constant concern for the fleet as a whole. He was committed to the life at sea perhaps to a fault, being known for consuming mainly Red Bull and tobacco products, and measuring his sleep in minutes rather than hours or nights, all so that he could maintain a vigilant watch over the dangerous work of his crew.
Harris suffered a stroke in late January. He briefly recovered enough to speak with friends and family. He was 53 years old.
Blog Post
Kurt Wallander TV series based on the books
by manz
Henning Mankell is a Swedish all-star when it comes to writing crime fiction. His best-selling books featuring Inspector Kurt Wallander have been wooing readers for years. BBC aired a TV series featuring Sidetracked, Firewall, and One Step Behind - all based on the books of the same name- back in May. The first three are available on one DVD at AADL. Three more episodes of the Wallander TV series are set to air on BBC sometime soon. I look forward to more, as I really enjoyed these three episodes!
It’s interesting to see how Kurt Wallander is portrayed live in person, and by Kenneth Branagh no less. If you’ve been wondering what all the fuss is about regarding Scandinavian fiction, give the DVD a whirl. It may just encourage you to read Mankell’s books, or perhaps those by Asa Larsson, Kjell Eriksson, or Håkan Nesser- all of which are Swedish crime fiction all-stars.
Blog Post
It's good to be short
by CasualTim
While perusing the blog of a Harper Collins marketing coordinator (read about it on muffy’s post), I saw that she invited readers to create six-word memoirs, inspired by the book It All Changed In An Instant : More Six-Word Memoirs By Writers Famous & Obscure. This got me thinking about how the new kind of mass communication (that is, personal broadcasting) is all about brevity. 140 characters in Twitter and texting, four-word film reviews, six-word memoirs, or 55 fiction, the personal tale is trending to shortness.
The cynic in me might attribute this to what seems to be an increasingly shorter attention span in the human animal, but the English major in me knows there’s more to the (short) story: rigid structure and restraint often help us process and speak about things in a more poignant way. Perhaps one of the most moving examples of this phenomenon is W.S. Merwin’s “Elegy,” which can be found in The Carrier of Ladders or The Second Four Books of Poems. Another amazing example of hard-hitting, extremely short poetry is The Really Short Poems of A.R. Ammons.
Other short things I can suggest? The song “Minimum Wage” on the classic They Might Be Giants album Flood is 46 seconds long and contains two (maybe three) words. Kristin Chenoweth is reportedly 4’11,” and has done quite a bit of fun work in music, television, theater and film. Find her song “Taylor the Latte Boy” on your online vendor of choice or check out Pushing Daisies. The Ann Arbor District Library conducts its own short story contest, and the winning stories are a part of the circulating collection. I haven’t gotten around to watching the Pixar Short Films Collection (v.1), but if the shorts you always get to see at the theater before one of their features are evidence of anything, it’s the beauty of simplicity and diminutiveness.
Blog Post
Arrested Development
by anonymous
"Now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together. It's "Arrested Development."
"Arrested Development", a little-known television series, consisting of only three seasons, aired first in 2003 on FOX.
The series, which also features film actors Jason Bateman, David Cross, Tony Hale, and Will Arnett, was a huge hit among the sarcastic, subtle, and a little off crowd of TV-viewers. Stephen Kelly of PopMatters called it "a laugh-out-loud, deeply quirky, and audacious series that has its own wacky agenda and dares to be delightfully different."
The series, narrated by "Happy Days" great Ron Howard, features a grounded son and father, played by Bateman, who has to keep his family together amidst crisis after crisis. His offbeat relatives, romantic relationships, and job all wreak havoc, episode after episode, and offer hilarious quotes throughout. (For more on these, see the ultimate in "Arrested Development" fan site, The Balboa Observer-Picayune.)
Now, one of its cast members, Michael Cera, is a popular indie and teen film actor, of works such as Juno, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and the new Youth in Revolt, who may be seen as type cast in these movies, due to his role as young George Michael Bluth, the anxious and awkward teen son of Bateman's character.
The show also guest stars many well-known actors, such as Martin Short, Amy Poehler, Charlize Theron, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Liza Minnelli, and even the Fonz.
A movie based on the series is announced, according to IMDb, but is not yet in progress.
Blog Post
The Sword of Orion
by CasualTim
In honor of the upcoming Great Lakes Shipwrecks event, I'm reminded of a maritime disaster referred to in one of my favorite television shows, Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night. In episode 18, Jeremy struggles with the breakup of his family by obsessively researching the literal break up of the Sword of Orion.
The yacht was one of several boats to experience tragedy during the 1998 Sydney-to-Hobart race. 115 Boats began that race, five sank, and six crew were lost. Only 44 boats finished. You can read about it in the detailed and suspenseful book The Proving Ground.
One imagines the Sword of Orion's original owner was paying that useful constellation its due in naming the boat. The AADL offers several books on celestial navigation; it's never too early in the season to learn how to find your way home!
Blog Post
Man of the Decade: Jon Stewart
by sarahc
It’s halfway through December, which means 2009 is almost over – and so is the first decade of the 2000s. As news programs and magazines reflect on the end of this year and all that’s happened in the past 10 years, I’d like to recognize a man who I think has significantly influenced this decade: Jon Stewart. In 1999, when he took over the hosting job at Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, he was essentially unknown, a comedian who had done stand-up, some appearances on Dave Letterman’s show, and a handful of movies. Now, he is considered, according to an online poll from TIME Magazine, the “most trusted man in news” today. Similarly, The Daily Show itself, during his tenure as host, has gone from being a small show parodying conventional newscasts to an enormously popular show parodying politics and the media. According to the Pew Research Center, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", despite being a “fake news show”, is actually a primary news source for many young people.
Jon Stewart has won Emmys and Peabody Awards for The Daily Show; hosted the Oscars twice; written a best-selling book ( America: the Book); and helped to launch the careers of two other well-known comedians: Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell. Stephen Colbert started out as a correspondent on The Daily Show in 1997 (before Stewart), and gained so much popularity for his segments on the show that he was given his own Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report. Steve Carell joined The Daily Show as a correspondent in 1999; he left to star in the hit TV sitcom The Office, and has since become famous for his movie roles, both small (Anchorman) and large ( The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Get Smart). I think that Jon Stewart, as host of The Daily Show for the last 10 years, can claim some credit for Colbert and Carell’s current popularity, since his show gave them the platform to launch their solo careers.
As one of the most popular and influential comedians of our time, who has redefined both comedy and politics, Jon Stewart deserves to be considered a Man of the Decade.
Blog Post
Live from Ann Arbor, It's . . . Santa Claus!
by Debbie G.
That's right, Santa himself will be taking questions and wishes LIVE from the North Pole on CTN Channel 17 on Thursday, Dec. 10, 6 - 8 p.m. He'll be ready for your questions and your wish lists, so set you speed dial to 734.794.6155 and talk directly to Mr. Claus. Ho! Ho! Ho!
Blog Post
Goodbye Reading Rainbow
by darla
I am so saddened to hear the news that Reading Rainbow, the PBS show that has fostered a love of reading in children for the past 26 years, has come to an end. According to the NPR story, Reading Rainbow is the third longest-running children's show in PBS history — outlasted only by Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. Fortunately, the AADL is well stocked with Reading Rainbow DVDs, as well as many of the books featured on the show, which means you can still see LeVar Burton sharing wonderful stories and hear those magic words, "Take a look, it's in a book".
Blog Post
Season Five of the Simpsons
by jaegerla
After close to seven months without watching television it began to seem like tv was a wonderful luxury we couldn't wait to have again. I began to fantasize about watching the news while cooking dinner, turning on the weather channel instead of taking an educated guess at how the day would go, and watching Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show before going to bed. We have our cable hooked up, but to our general dismay there was not a single good thing to watch on any of the 120 channels. For three days straight. We wound up watching some DVD's we had checked out from the library and nearly died laughing at Season Five of The Simpsons. Reruns of the show are almost always on tv, but watching it commercial free and in chronological order definitely enhanced the experience. AADL owns several seasons of The Simpsons, but you should check out Season Five, the _best_ season.