"No one's killin' any folk today, on account o' we got a very tight schedule."

After three straight days of "all ATX Festival all the time," I needed a few days to recuperate and process my weekend. A few days turned into a few weeks and I am sorry that I am just now getting around to posting about my experience. I went through a bit of withdrawl the week following the festival, but it seemed as if others who attended had the same reaction (and are still craving queso and bbq three weeks later). The overall consensus is that everyone had the BEST. WEEKEND. EVER!

The festival kicked off Friday night, June 1 at the State Theater with a red carpet and screenings of USA Network's Suits season finale and Royal Pains season premiere. After the screening, Robyn Ross from TVGuide moderated a great Q&A with Suits Executive Producer David Bartis, Royal Pains Executive Producers Michael Rauch and Andrew Lenchewski and actress Reshma Shetty. The Opening Night After Party was held at the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental and included amazing performances by Landon Pigg, Mae Whitman and Alpha Rev with a special guest performance by Jason Ritter. I also got a chance to hang out with Ken Marino and a few of the guys from Children's Hospital as well as Robert Maschio and Neil Flynn from Scrubs.

Saturday morning, after getting about three and a half hours of sleep the night before, I headed back to the Stephen F. Austin where all of the panels were being held. My job for the weekend was to make sure that all the panelists showed up and made it to the correct room at the correct time, which basically means I was running around like a crazy person starting at 9:30 a.m. until the panels were over at 4:00 p.m. trying to track people down. (I may forever be referred to as "the girl in the green dress.") However, it also means that I got to talk to all of the panelists that were there! Everyone was extremely nice and very easy to approach. Saturday's panels were: TV Fantasy Goes Mainsteam, The Creators, Friday Night Lights Revisited, Women on Television, TBS very funny, Book to TV Series, One Tree Hill Says Goodbye, a Love Monkey Retrospective and The Stages of a Television Writing Career.

There were also screenings and Q&As going on at the Alamo Drafthouse and State Theater throughout the day, but if it did not happen at SFA, it was not on my radar.

After an Industry Reception at Austin Studios on Saturday Night, everyone headed over to the Hotel San Jose for the Friday Night Lights Outdoor Screening. Before the sun went down, there were musical performances by cast members Dora Madison Burge, Alicia Witt and Jesse Plemons. This event was free and open to the public and everyone was encouraged to bring their lawn chairs. Once it was dark enough, the crowd got a chance to see the premiere of the new Explosions In The Sky music video and then the cast of Friday Night Lights introduced the screening of the series finale episode. Following the screening, we headed back to the Stephen F. Austin for the Children's Hospital Marathon After Party. Although, I did not stay very long for this because I was so tired from the day that I almost fell asleep halfway through my Tito's Vodka Texas Sipper :o)

"Here's to God and football and, ten years from now, good friends livin' large in Texas. Texas forever."

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I watch a lot of television. However, my obsession did not really start until college. I watched a lot of TV in high school, but never really paid much attention to specific actors or directors. While it mostly started out as a way to avoid studying for my college courses, it eventually turned into something more than that. Once you start watching a lot of television, you quickly learn to decipher between good shows and bad shows. That is not to say that many bad shows cannot be entertaining, but you begin to recognize the different calibers and styles of acting/writing/directing/etc.

I eventually became the person that all my friends turned to when they wanted to know about new shows or when they recognized a guest star on Grey's Anatomy and could not figure out what else they had seen that actor on. There are more of us TV nerds out there than you probably realize and now we have some place to celebrate that, just like all you movie and music lovers :o)

This weekend I have the esteemed pleasure of volunteering for the first annual ATX Television Festival here in Austin. Beginning tomorrow night, June 1, and running through Sunday, June 3, 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. Operating similarly to a film festival, there will be screenings, panels, parties and live music with some of the industry's leading professionals.

To kick things off on opening night, ATX is screening the season premiere of USA Network's Royal Pains along with an episode from the first season of Suits. Also in attendance will be the executive producers from both shows, David Bartis and Michael Rauch, and Royal Pains cast member, Judy Greer. A few other shows screening this weekend are: Life Unexpected, Parenthood, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Firefly, Criminal Minds, a few Web series and even some Hasbro cartoons.

The panels throughout the weekend include Women in Television, TV Fantasy Goes Mainstream, a Love Monkey Retrospective, Music in Television and a final goodbye to One Tree Hill. There will be a discussion between Bill Lawrence (creator of Spin City, Scrubs and Cougar Town) and a few of his friends about what it has been like to work together over the years. Jason Katims will also reflect on his career, which started on My So-Called Life and also includes Boston Public, Roswell, Friday Night Lights and Parenthood. Moderators for these panels and screenings include Meg Masters from TVLine, Robyn Ross from TV Guide and Ben Blacker from Nerdist.

And if all that was not enough to make your head explode with excitement, the Alamo Drafthouse is hosting The Ultimate Children's Hospital Marathon on Saturday afternoon. Cast members Rob Corddry, Rob Huebel, Ken Marino, Erinn Hayes and Executive Producers David Wain and Jonathan Stern will all be in attendance.



However, the event that I am probably most looking forward to is the Friday Night Lights Outdoor Screening taking place on Saturday night at the Hotel San Jose. It is open to the public and includes a screening of the Pilot and Finale episodes and will showcase music from cast members Alicia Witt, Dora Madison Burge and Jesse Plemons. A few of the other cast members who will also be on hand for the event are Scott Porter, Gaius Charles, Michael B. Jordan, Matt Lauria and Louanne Stephens. It should be tons of fun and I cannot wait!

This weekend, there is really something for everyone and if you are not in Austin you are definitely missing out on what is sure to be a FABulous time.

Like I said, I am working for the festival Friday through Sunday, but I will try my best to update Facebook and Twitter with behind-the-scenes info and pictures. And if I manage to meet Kristen Bell, it has been nice knowing you all because, I will probably die of excitement :o)

xoxo
c

For more ATX  Festival information:
http://www.atxfestival.com/

For Children's Hospital Marathon information: http://drafthouse.com/movies/the_ultimate_childrens_hospital_marathon/austin
-----------------------------------------------

"Good cop and bad cop have left for the day. I'm a different kind of cop."

For the past few weeks, I have been making my way through the first six seasons of The Shield and am about the start season seven. I have to be honest, it did not interest me at all when it was on the air. Even though it was getting great reviews from the critics, I do not remember a single one of my friends ever telling me that I should be watching it. At least, not until the last few seasons. But I am also not sure that I would have appreciated it as a freshman in college. Actually, the only person I ever remember telling me that they loved the show was the receptionist at my high school swimming pool :o)

So, why did I start watching it now? Well, it took a little while to get me to this point, starting with the FX show, Terriers.....

The Way We Were...

...the first movie I ever got from Netflix.

If you have not already figured it out, I watch a significant amount of television and movies. The amount tends to go up even more in the summer because my other activities go down (ie. church commitments-which are numerous). I catch up on shows I didn't have time to watch and are now on DVD or movies I missed in the theater. However, my obsession really did not start until college. I watched a lot of TV in high school and went to the movies, but never really paid much attention to specific actors or directors. This started to happen about Sophomore year of college.

Sophomore year is a phenomenon I was not prepared for and was not aware happened to most people until a couple years later. You make this great group of friends Freshman year, most of whom live on your hall or are in your classes. You see them constantly and do not have to make too much effort to find someone to hang out with. Then Sophomore year comes and everyone moves all over campus, and even on a small campus like Elon, the other side of campus seems like a world away. It is at this point when you figure out who your real friends are and who are friends of convenience - unfortunately for me, there were more of the latter. It also didn't help that three of my close friends transferred schools that year. Needless to say, I needed to find something else to occupy my time. I mean, I clearly wasn't going to study more :o)

I went to visit my brother in Jackson, Wyoming during winter break that year and one of his friends had Netflix. I thought it was brilliant, I could choose movies from my dorm room and they would be in my mailbox within two days. I am not trying to be an ad for Netflix (although, I do highly recommend it) but for me at that time it was just what I needed. It was a way for me to get my mind off of things and I was going through several movies a week. It also gave me something to look forward to doing and I was getting mail on a regular basis, which is key for any college student.

The obsession has continued mostly because I like to lose myself in these make believe worlds. It sometimes make me feel better to imagine that I could have been a pirate in another life, or a passenger on a Firefly, or a teen detective, or a vampire slayer who falls in love with the vampire with a soul, or found my one true love as a teenager and lost him because my parents didn't think he was good enough for me but find each other later in life to spend eternity together :o)

It is now goal of mine to see every single movie on my Netflix queue before I die. I still have over 200 on the list...I'm trying to get down to 150 before I add anymore...it's not going so well, but I'll keep you updated.

I swear I'm not as big of a loser as I sound...a dork, maybe...but not a loser :o)

xoxo
c

"There are some things I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense."

Primetime Emmy nominations came out this morning. Here is the list of nominations, courtesy of TVGuide.com :

http://www.tvguide.com/special/emmys/nominations.aspx

Of the shows nominated, I watch the following: How I Met Your Mother, Ugly Betty, Mad Men, Grey's Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, Top Chef, The Daily Show, Dancing with the Stars and Project Runway. I don't get HBO or Showtime, so I Netflix Entourage and Weeds once the lastest season is on dvd.

I felt like I should post something because this is a "TV and movie blog" but I don't really know what to say. I don't really watch the Emmys, mostly because the same shows and actors win every year. I also usually don't agree with the winners.

As I was trying to figure out what to write for this, I was checking my twitter (cmswim13) and found this interview with Joss Whedon thanks to his brother Jed (drhorrible) and sister-in-law Maurissa (MoTancharoen):

http://scifiwire.com/2009/07/joss-whedon-on-emmys-dr-h.php

And it got me thinking.....

I was a little behind on the Joss Whedon train. I had seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie but had no interest in watching the TV show when it started. (I actually didn't realize until awhile later that Whedon had written the movie as well as created the show.) I was more of a Dawson's Creek girl in high school and I remember saying to my friends who watched Buffy, "At least Dawson's Creek is realistic, why would I watch a show about vampires?!" Clearly, I had no idea what I was missing.

Freshman year of college, while avoiding studying, I started watching the reruns of Buffy on FX. They would play two episodes a day, every week day. I very quickly became addicted and within a few months had seen most of the series. Then, because of a few crossover episodes, I started to get into Angel as well and soon got addicted to that. Both shows have a very different feel about them and I even know people who watched one but not the other.

I did not even know Firefly existed (way to go FOX marketing) until the movie, Serenity, was due to come out. I was looking through Entertainment Weekly's Fall Movie Preview one summer and found the article on Serenity. There was a picture of the cast and right off the bat I recognized Alan Tudyk from Patch Adams, 28 Days and A Knight's Tale. I also knew Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin and Gina Torres from Angel and Buffy but couldn't have told you their names. As I started to read the article and realized it was from the same guy who made Buffy and Angel (Joss's name still wasn't stuck in my brain yet) I decided I wanted to see the movie. After reading further and learning that Firefly had first been a TV show, I knew I needed to watch the series before I saw the movie. Onto the Netflix queue it went and after watching it, I was hooked. I was mad that I had never seen it when it was on TV and mad that it had gotten canceled because it was so good! Unfortunately, I missed the movie in theaters but saw it as soon as it was on dvd.

And then the Joss obsession started.....

I started to pay attention to projects he was working on and following his career. I had already seen Toy Story (tho I didn't realize he had written the screenplay at the time) and was very excited when he made a guest appearance on one of my favorite shows, Veronica Mars (another show that was cruelly canceled too quickly, but that's another story for another time). There was also a website for a movie called Goners that he was writing but that had little to no detail about what it was about an according to IMDb is not set to come out until 2011 but still has no cast or any sort of description. I then heard about his next project when he did an interview with TVGuide.com around the time of the writer's strike (or just after, I can't remember exactly). The project was called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along blog.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along blog sprung up during the writer's strike because people were trying to figure out how to create things without the studios dictating their every move. As you can read in the above article, it starred Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day (another Buffy alum and star of The Guild which can be found on youtube and which you should be watching) and Nathan Fillion (who I had seen in Firefly and then pretty much fell in love with after seeing him in Waitress). It was released on the internet last summer in three parts, each around 15 minutes. And it was just nominated for an Emmy (which is how this whole rant started in the first place). It's FABulous and if you haven't seen it we're clearly not very good friends :o) Seriously, go to www.drhorrible.com right now and watch it...RIGHT NOW!!!

Joss's current project, Dollhouse, is just as awesome as the rest of his work and I am very excited that FOX realized it in time to bring it back for another season. It involves several Buffy/Angel alum including Eliza Dushku, Amy Acker, and Alan Tudyk, as well as Tahmoh Penikett (who I loved in Battlestar Gallactica - and I've now solidified my standing as a huge nerd), Harry Lennix, Fran Kranz, Miracle Laurie, Dichen Lachman, Enver Gjokaj, Olivia Williams and Reed Diamond . He also has another movie coming out next year called The Cabin in the Woods with Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.

I will probably watch the Emmys this year, if only for the fact that NPH is hosting, and I certainly don't base my viewership on who wins awards, but it makes me sad when good talent doesn't get recognized...as I've clearly stated before. That being said, I really really hope Dr. Horrible wins...and maybe a few other underdogs.

Alright, I'm done ranting.....for now.

xoxo
c