Andrew Firestone shares his Wine Ways
Is The Bachelor: Paris catch Travis Stork still canoodling with Sarah Stone, the kindergarten teach he picked in this week's finale? Who knows. But until the would-be couple come forth, TVGuide.com got up to speed on another Bachelor, Season 3 star Andrew Firestone, who has his own big news to share. After all, maybe things have reheated up between him and Jen Schefft, right? No? Maybe he just has a DVD to tout?
TVGuide.com: Tell me about Wine Ways, the new educational DVD you produced and star in. How did it come to be?Andrew Firestone: In a nutshell, what I do in my day job is teach wine tasting, and I really like to focus
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Dancing with the StarsI think I was the only person in the office who didn't watch this over the summer, and I regretted it for months, so I had high expectations here tonight. The only problem is, it seems like the show's producers have decided that everyone else watching was a fan of the first season, so we got very little explanation of how the celebrities and partners were matched up, how long they had to learn their dances, what dances to expect in the coming weeks, etc. How about a little bit of love for the new people here? Master P says he got all the people in the 'hood to watch! OK, I'll cut to the dancing right away, like the show did:
George Hamilton and Edyta Sliwinska: I thought George would be pretty good, since he's older and maybe da
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Dancing with the StarsI think I was the only person in the office who didn't watch this over the summer, and I regretted it for months, so I had high expectations here tonight. The only problem is, it seems like the show's producers have decided that everyone else watching was a fan of the first season, so we got very little explanation of how the celebrities and partners were matched up, how long they had to learn their dances, what dances to expect in the coming weeks, etc. How about a little bit of love for the new people here? Master P says he got all the people in the 'hood to watch! OK, I'll cut to the dancing right away, like the show did:
George Hamilton and Edyta Sliwinska: I thought George would be pretty good, since he's older and maybe da
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The Office So this is the new arrangement, then? The Office moves to Thursdays and commences with an entire half-hour of breaking my heart? One more gut-wrenching look of longing from Jim and I'm gonna make a special weekend trip to Lake Wallenpaupack myself, just so I can jump overboard. (But not like the guy who thinks the boat's pulling a Titanic and reasonably decides to make a break for it; my plunge would have a little more "Goodbye, cruel sitcom world!" panache.) The romantic atmosphere aboard the booze cruise — and a snorkel shot or two — finally persuades Pam's fiancé, Roy, to set a wedding date, and it's the straw that breaks the lovesick camel's back. Not only does our adorably twitterpated Jim break up with his hottie ex-cheerleader of a girlfriend (an always e
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James Cameron and Mel Gibson are each sharing details about their next big projects. Cameron, out to deliver his first big-budget feature since Titanic, is prepping Battle Angel, an adaptation of a Japanese manga series (huh?) set in the 26th century and centered on a cyborg named Alita; a casting call has gone out for actresses between ages 16 and the mid-20s who are athletic, agile and have an ear for dialects. Meanwhile, per Variety, Gibson is developing Flory, an ABC TV-movie set against the backdrop of the Holocaust — news sure to be embraced by all of the Jewish folk who loved Passion of the Christ.
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More than a capsized ocean liner is askew in this halfhearted attempt to remake a true camp classic: 1972's pinnacle of disaster cinema The Poseidon Adventure. You remember, the one where a cruise ship is turned on its head by a monster wave and the wellheeled survivors climb to the top — er, bottom — of the sinking ship to get out. It's Titanic on steroids.
Sadly, this listless three-hour TV remake (Sunday, Nov. 20 at 8 pm/ET, NBC) — a new feature version is expected next year — wastes way too much time on a terrorist-bombing subplot that feels like amateur night on 24. An explosion, not Mother Nature, sends the S.S. Poseidon topsyturvy, and it often seems as if the entire catastrophe was arranged so cheating husband Steve Guttenberg (who's all wet from the start) can see the light.
In a nod to the new century, one of the survivors is an Australian reality-show
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You know how last week NBC forced a Crossing Jordan-Las Vegas crossover episode on us? Too. Early. This week the show redeemed itself in my eyes. The Wedding Singer old lady made me laugh and scared me at the same time (it's those eyes). And that's after Monica had Danny shake what his mama gave him to get said old lady to vacate her house that was uglying up the Montecito grounds. Turns out she shot a mean old mobster 60 years earlier and buried him underneath her house. Trust me, this was funny.
Remember when I said Lara Flynn Boyle's character was obnoxious? Well, I still think so. But now I think she's good obnoxious. Monica got hers at the end, though, when Mike and Danny found her stuck in her hotel-room shower (that she designed!). Loved the two pals doing the whole Rock, Scissors, Paper bit to see who would save her nekkid self. Survivor alum Colby Donaldson popped in; he played one of Sam's whales that she had a ser
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UPN has reshuffled its new Thursday-night lineup just a week before its launch. Per The Hollywood Reporter, buzz-magnet Everybody Hates Chris will stay put at 8 pm, but it will now be followed at 8:30 by Love, Inc., not Eve, which moves to 9 pm. Cuts, meanwhile, will shift to 9:30, where Love, Inc. was originally skedded. UPN says the changes make for better "flow" on the night. I say it's akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, since this ship's going down at 8:30 no matter what.
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Question: A friend of mine says there are two remakes of The Poseidon Adventure (1972) in the works, one for theaters and one for TV. How can that be? It's not like Titanic, where the source is a historical event anybody could draw on. If my friend is right, what gives?
Answer: Your friend is right: A four-hour miniseries version of The Poseidon Adventure is scheduled to air on NBC in November 2005, and Warner Bros. has a theatrical remake called Poseidon due out in 2006. Because neither project is finished, I don't have access to contractual credits, but my guess as to how it happened is that the theatrical version is a remake of the first film and the TV version is an adaptation of the original novel by Paul Gallico. The why is another matter; I can't even begin to say. In any event, the $150 million thea
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Question: In your Aug. 15 column, you commented that you didn't understand the market for edited R-rated movies on broadcast and basic-cable television. I was a little surprised by that remark, because it was somewhat insensitive for you. The market for edited-for-TV movies exists because there are many people who really want to see Titanic (yes, I know it's PG-13) but don't necessarily want an extended view of Kate Winslet's breasts. It exists because there are people who want to see an inspirational story like The Shawshank Redemption, but don't necessarily want the F-word hurtled at them numerous times. These are the same people who would probably enjoy Deadwood or The Sopranos were it not for HBO inserting as much profanity as possible just because they can (a topic you have also addressed). The fact is that many people avoid R-rated movies in theaters because of moral or religious objections. With the "offending" material cut from TV airings, at least these people can experience ...
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