Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Today's Video Link

Since we were talking here about S. Sondheim the other day, here's Dame Judi Dench with his (probably) most famous composition...

• Posted at 10:55 PM · LINK

Last Night on Conan... (The Second Night)

The overnight ratings for Conan O'Brien's second show were, as everyone expected, way down from his first night when he beat both Letterman and Leno. Last night, both of them beat him even though his main guest was Tom Hanks, who is about the biggest name Conan's likely to have on for a while. I assume they didn't book Hanks for Show #1 because they figured they didn't need him then and that putting him on the second night might minimize the inevitable drop. Mr. Hanks was, as usual, very funny but mostly talking about Conan's recent job relocations. One measure of whether the new show will work is whether Conan and his guests can soon drop that topic and find anything else to talk about. I think his Tonight Show for its first few weeks spent way too much time talking about how Conan O'Brien was hosting The Tonight Show.

Of course, O'Brien isn't really competing with Dave or Jay. He's competing against the cost-effectiveness of TBS having his show there as opposed to more reruns of The King of Queens. If that's the game and everyone understands it, I think he'll win.

Tonight, Jay Leno's big guest is Christine O'Donnell, which will probably give him the biggest tune-in. I have this awful feeling that we're in for a cold opening that'll go something like this: Jay runs into Christine in the hall and thanks her for agreeing to do the show. She says it's her pleasure. He says, "Hey, I hope you don't mind all those jokes I told about you being a witch." She says, "No, they didn't bother me at all." Then he starts to go off to do the show and the lights flash and she turns him into a frog or otherwise puts a curse on him. Something like that.

• Posted at 11:45 AM · LINK

Comic-Con Tix

I misinformed you the other day in the announcement that Comic-Con passes would be going on sale online on 11/22/10. I said four-day passes would be available then and that single-day passes would be offered at a later date. In fact, both kinds will be up for grabs on November 22.

None of these will involve access to Preview Night but if you're dying to go then, the cause may not be utterly hopeless. Closer to the con dates, some folks will be returning tickets they can't use and these will be made available to the general public. Some of those may include Preview Night.

And here's an early warning: Don't even think of buying tickets off eBay or anywhere else. People have gotten seriously burned doing that.

Someone wrote to ask me, "If I can only go for one day, is one day better than another?" Well, Sunday is a few hours shorter so it's not as desirable for that reason and because (if this kind of thing interests you) it usually seems to have fewer panels of a blockbuster, "I can't believe that person is here" nature. On the other hand, Sunday seems less and less crowded as it goes on because some folks with four-day passes don't stay for the whole day. Beyond that, it's just a matter of when the event you want to attend is scheduled...and of course, now — when you have to order your passes — we don't have much idea as to when anything in particular will be occurring. I can tell you that we usually do Quick Draw and the major Cartoon Voices Panel on Saturday but absolutely nothing about the programming schedule is set in concrete.

I had a funny exchange last year with a friend of mine who was doing a big presentation at the con. He wanted to do it Saturday but wound up having to take Thursday. When he came to me grumbling about it, I asked why it mattered. He said, "Saturday's the big day." I explained to him, "They're all the big day." He said, "Yeah, but Saturday's when the most people are there." I said, "The con sells out every day. Every day, the most people are there." His mind was somewhere back a decade or so ago when Thursday didn't always sell out. He finally admitted I was right but said, "I still feel like my panel's more important if it's on Saturday."

• Posted at 10:02 AM · LINK

Go Read It!

There are a lot of good film books coming out these days. My buddy Leonard Maltin discusses them so I don't have to.

• Posted at 9:14 AM · LINK