Sundance Channel Alert!
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"Slings & Arrows," second-season premiere 8 p.m. Feb. 19, first- season encore marathon 3 p.m. Feb. 18, Sundance Channel.
This Canadian import is searingly spot-on and seems effortlessly great, probably helped by having only six episodes per season.
Revolving around a group of actors at the New Burbage Theatre Festival (purveyors of all things Shakespeare), the series attempts to mix art with commerce, real life with drama. It focuses on Geoffrey (the superb Paul Gross), an actor turned director who ran a theater that stood on its values but never attracted an audience.
He was once as thick as thieves with his mentor, Oliver (Stephen Ouimette), and with the love of his life, fellow thespian (and aging star) Ellen (Martha Burns).
But the bitterly mean Oliver was killed while drunk (he now reappears in death) and Geoffrey had to put away thoughts of selling out and instead become artistic director of the New Burbage Festival, where he manages to pull off "Hamlet" despite myriad woes (Mark McKinney of "Kids in the Hall" and indie film guru Don McKellar also star).
In the second season, all hell continues to break loose while Geoffrey must stage "the most jinxed play in theatrical history" -- "Macbeth."
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Highly recommend this show to all Buffistas.
He throws away the mad scientist and pig-man vote
The pigmen are always marginalized.
Listen! Can you hear the weeping of the pigmen...?
The pigmen are always marginalized.
What about the bat-boy? Nobody ever thinks of the bat-boy.
X-post toasties:
The controller said that my current salary and bonus will transfer to a new position in Philly. We are seeing if Joe can transfer.
What about the bat-boy? Nobody ever thinks of the bat-boy.
Ehn, the bat-boy's been tabloid-beloved for decades and he has his own musical now. I save my tears for the pig-man. America's forgotten chimeric hero. The other other white meat.
Glarkware does a McDreamy shirt. I still feel bereft about missing the spy daddy shirt.
Aimee, life in Philly is so much less expensive so it would be like getting a raise to b/c of cost of living. Where are the offices?
Whether he'll have to relearn to walk and talk is a question for a couple of weeks from now.
Right. Although, this is the first time I've seen anybody admit outright that his injuries might be longterm. (I expect everybody vaguely expected him to die, and now he's unlikely to do that, the speculation bandwagon is catching up.)
The brain is tricksy, and some people with shockwave trauma only, no wounds, have serious problems, whereas there was some historical guy who took an iron bar through the head and seemed unaffected.
The funniest part about Gage is that, given the medicine of the time, it was basically a matter of yanking the bar (a pin thicker than your two thumbs together, used for packing explosives) out of his head, and sewing up the flesh wounds. I mean, have you seen the models they've done of his skull? If you've got to take a giant rebar to the head, remember to take it vertically, up front near the face.
Ha, glad to be of service (kinda), doppelkat. However, upon further review, it seems that Balhtazar Getty was not in R+J. It was this dude, Jesse Bradford whom I probably got mixed up with Balthazar Getty because the character he's playing was Balthasar.
Seeing now that he played Eliza Dushku's boytoy in Bring It On years later. Two of my favorite movies! But alas, I still can't help you place the real Balthazar Getty.
Nam June Paik, R.I.P.
Oh, that's so sad. The man's video installations were amazing—he basically created a new art form. I particularly loved Global Encoder.
