"I threw my pie for you."

I follow a lot of entertainment-related people on my Twitter account. I also tend to follow people that I agree with so, sometimes my perception of what the majority of people are actually watching and enjoying is a little skewed. From my Facebook feed, it seems like most of my friends have not yet discovered my two new favorite shows so I thought I would try to change that, especially considering those same friends compose the majority of my readers.

Over the past month, my Twitter timeline has been a constant love-fest for new shows Orphan Black on BBC America and Orange Is The New Black on Netflix. I was not initially planning to watch either, but I could not ignore the loud voices telling me how amazing these shows are and I am very glad that I gave into the peer pressure. They were right and you should all be watching them as well.

While it was actually airing, I had only seen a few posts here and there about Orphan Black but again, mostly from entertainment writers and bloggers and mostly from the same few people. However, after hearing about Tatiana Maslany for four days straight at this year's ATX Television Festival, I decided I should probably see what everyone was talking about.

The pilot starts with a woman named Sarah Manning standing on a train platform when she sees another woman who looks exactly like her jump in front of a train. Sarah steals this woman's purse and identity and plans to clean out her bank account before leaving town with her own daughter and foster brother. However, she soon discovers that there is much more to this woman, Beth Childs, and their identical appearance than she first thought and she soon meets Katja, Alison, Cosima and Helena. They are all clones and are trying to figure out where they came from.

Maslany plays all of the clones and is absolutely fantastic. You forget that the same actress is playing all of these characters because they look and act and sound so different. It is rather remarkable. I had only ever seen her in one episode of Flashpoint and she was great in that small role but, after watching this show, it is baffling to me that she has managed to stay under the radar until now.

The rest of the cast is equally fantastic and includes Jordan Gavaris, Dylan Bruce, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Kevin Hanchard, Michael Mando, Skyler Wexler, Inga Cadranel and Matt Frewer.

The second season unfortunately does not come out until April 2014 but, luckily for you, the first season DVDs were just released! That means you have plenty of time to catch up on this amazing show!

"There is nothing to hold onto but reality, to realize the present whatever it may be."

I am very excited to be volunteering for Season Two of the ATX Television Festival here in Austin this weekend! Just like last year, this festival will bring together actors, writers, directors, producers, music supervisors, studio executives and fans to talk about the past, present and future of television. There will be screenings, panels, parties and live music with some of the industry's leading professionals.

Tomorrow's opening night screening and party is presented by Netflix and will feature a few of the new Arrested Development episodes followed by a Q&A with the cast. Other screenings going on throughout the weekend at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz and the State Theater are Scandal, The Riches, Hart of Dixie and The Vampire Diaries, as well as the new season premieres of Falling Skies, Hell on Wheels, Perception and Sullivan & Son. We are also excited to be premiering AMC's new Summer drama Low Winter Sun and Fox's new Fall comedy Enlisted. But that's not all! On top of that awesomeness, there will also be cast reunions for My So-Called Life, Party of Five, Boy Meets World and American Dreams!

This year's panels include Veronica Mars: a TV show...no wait, a movie!, Directing in a Writer's World, Structure of a Sitcom and the Rise of the Anti-Sitcom, Creating the Sound of a Show and Casting Deconstructed. Michael Jacobs will also reflect on his career, which includes shows like My Two Dads, Dinosaurs, Boy Meets World and the new Disney show, Girl Meets World. Panels and screenings are being moderated by Meg Masters from TVLine, Robyn Ross from TV Guide, Ben Blacker from Nerdist, Jarett Wieselman from ET online, Laura Prudom from The Huffington Post, Ryan McGee from the AV Club and a few others.

I can hardly contain my excitement!

"If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder."

In the past month, I have seen Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, The Hangover Part III and Furious 6 and they were all good. If you liked the previous franchise movies, you will probably like these as well. However, I am not going to review them here because most people have probably already made up their minds about whether or not to see those. Instead, I am going to talk about The Place Beyond the Pines and The Iceman, which were fantastic and I am not sure these films are on most peoples' radar.

To be fair, I mostly saw these two movies because of who is in them (Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans), but I am glad that I did and now think you should too!

The trailers for The Place Beyond the Pines made it seem more like an action movie and, while it did have a few fast-paced scenes, I would call it more of a character study. Similar to director Derek Cianfrance's most recent movie, Blue Valentine, it is about the how these peoples' lives intersect and how each action affect those lives.

The movie is split into three acts. The first act focuses on the character of Luke, played by Ryan Gosling, a motorcycle stunt rider who starts robbing banks in order to provide for his son. The second act follows Bradley Cooper's character, Avery, who is a young cop in a small town police department run by corrupt detectives. Avery and Luke's individual stories only overlap once, but that small interaction has huge consequences, which you see fifteen years later in the third act of the movie between their two teenage sons. It is an intense story and very well done.

The acting is great all around, as is to be expected from all involved, but I was especially impressed with Eva Mendes. She is the only actor that is in all three acts of the film and normally I am not a huge fan of hers, but she actually surprised me in this. And, of course, I would get my wish of having Cooper and Gosling in the same movie only to have them be in only one scene together. C'est la vie.

Summer Movie Preview 2013

My Entertainment Weekly Summer Movie Preview has arrived! We all know how excited that makes me so, without any ado whatsoever, here is a list of the movies that I am most looking forward to seeing over the next few months.

May
3 - Iron Man 3 (Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany)
   - The Iceman (Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, Winona Ryder, James Franco, Ray Liotta)
10 - The Great Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton)
17 - Star Trek Into Darkness (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch)
24 - The Hangover Part III (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha)
31 - Now You See Me (Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman)





Depending on reviews, other possibilities for May include: Epic (5/24), Before Midnight (5/24) and Fast & Furious (5/24).

June
7 - Much Ado About Nothing (Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Fran Kranz)
14 - Man of Steel (Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner)
21 - Monsters University (Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Hellen Mirren)



Other possibilities for June include: The Internship (6/7), Rapture-Palooza (6/7), The Bling Ring (6/14), The Heat (6/28) and White House Down (6/28)

"You need to go see the wizard. Ask him for some guts."

The seventh blog I ever posted was about my love for actress, Kristen Bell. If you have read any of the subsequent posts you probably know that I have continued to follow her career over the years. I am currently enjoying her character Jeannie Van Der Hooven on Showtime's House of Lies and really liked last summer's Hit and Run, which was written and directed by her fiance Dax Shepard (and also happened to star my other love, Bradley Cooper).

This morning at 10:35 a.m. EST, Entertainment Weekly announced that Kristen and Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas had created a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise $2 million so that they can FINALLY make the Veronica Mars movie that I have been waiting for since the show went off the air in 2007. In less than five hours, they raised half their goal and at the time of this post were at about $1.5 million. Update: They are at $2 million and counting!

I think that Warner Bros. should refund the Kickstarter donations if the goal is reached in less than 24 hours as an apology for doubting the fandom, but that's just me.

Here is the video explaining the project:



And here are all the links you need for anything else you might want:

Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VeronicaMars

Twitter: Kristen - https://twitter.com/IMKristenBell 
              Rob - https://twitter.com/RobThomas

The WB (to catch up on episodes): http://www.thewb.com/shows/veronica-mars

Mars Investigations (in case you can't watch videos at work but still want to catch up on episodes): http://marsinvestigations.net/


I am so beyond excited that I have pretty much not gotten anything done at work today. So, if I get fired, I guess I will just have to go to LA to work on the movie :)

xoxo
c
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