The Pledge

Haven’t heard a peep out of the TV or any ads or buzz anywhere about this movie called, “The Pledge.” It stars the kids from Beverly Hills 90210, Luke Perry, all grown up and weathered-looking, as a cowboy and sheriff out for revenge. The bad guys killed his wife and son and he tracks him down. There are some turns of events and he ends up in a small town helping a beautiful woman and her son against the land grabbing town’s bigshot, who hires - surprise! - the same bad guy that the sheriff conveniently happens to be hunting.

It was a small budget film that felt like it might have been made for TV. The acting was good although everyone but Luke Perry was small time, and Luke isn’t a big attraction anymore - it was hard to get past the Beverly Hills association. But there was no sex, limited violence, and a fresh take on western cowboy shoot em ups that today’s kids just might embrace.

Good Bye Bernie Mac

Last week I saw a blip on the news that comedian Bernie Mac was hospitalized with pneumonia. They didn’t go into any detail and a couple days ago in the scrolling headline news I read that Bernie Mac was improving and expected to recover. So I don’t know what the heck happened over the last couple of days but I was shocked and saddened to read the headline on Yahoo this morning that announced his death due to complications from pneumonia.

I loved Bernie Mac and his stand up routines. He was able to be funny about racial issues, poverty, and contemporary life without being a smart aleck and without being completely nasty like some of the other popular black comics. Sure, he cussed and talked about politically incorrect topics, but his take on those subjects was what made him funny.

The Bernie Mac show was really funny and although I never watched the show’s original airings, I caught many reruns on late night TV. From reading his biography, the Bernie Mac show ran 5 years and was Fox’s biggest hit comedy of the time. Plus, Bernie had a long string of movie titles, including Oceans Eleven, Oceans Twelve and Oceans Thirteen.

Bernie Mac was born Bernard McCullough on October 5, 1957 - just a few days before my baby sister was born. He died this morning in Chicago at age 50. Bernie - you will be missed.

Criminal Minds Fan

Found a cool website today for fans of the TV series called, “Criminal Minds.” Well, it’s actually a blog - so that’s even better: Criminal Minds Fanatic.

I really like this show for the insights on criminal psychology and the way a team of experts from diverse backgrounds can come together and find a way to work as a team under tremendous pressure to solve the crimes.

The show is a little gory and gruesome, but if you can get past that it is a great psychological thriller reduced down to an hour show. Take out all the time for commercials and I think you have about 44 minutes of actual show.

The fan site has a lot of behind the scenes info and communicates fairly regularly with the actors, writers and production staff.

Criminal Minds

Watched the rerun of Criminal Minds tonight that was about the Russian Mafia and bringing Kate Jackson from the original Charlies Angels show back to TV as a U. S. Senator.

The show had a lot of twists and turns, but honestly, I thought the storyline was pretty lame and unnecessarily gory. This season has not been as interesting as the first season, although the writers have tried to develop the ensemble of main characters more than the first season. It seems that the writers - or perhaps the network in directing the writers - has wanted to push the envelope on how macabre and gory they can get on network TV in today’s world. I don’t really like that approach and don’t think it is necessary for this series. If they continue in this direction next season I don’t think I’ll be watching it any more. I’m not a slasher movie fan and this is getting close to that.

Bye Bye Jay Leno

Wow - the news has been all abuzz about people leaving their TV shows in the dust. The latest casualty is Jay Leno leaving NBC, with his official last day now planned for May 29, 2009 as announced yesterday by NBC officials. Of course, we’ve known for a while that this year is Jay’s last per his original contract when he replaced Johnny Carson.

In their announcement, NBC says that Conan O’Brien will take the helm of the Tonight Show immediately following Jay Leno’s last show. And with the dominoes falling for late night hosts, the vacancy left by Conan O’Brien will be filled by Jimmy Fallon.

Even with all this movement at NBC, I have to say that I’m staying loyal to David Letterman and Craig Ferguson on CBS.