Old Acting Blog

Unrelated information: John, Melissa and I watched Superman beforehand, so we started the night later than usual. My birthday is this month, and I too am 33 years old. See? Superman and I are very similar.

We ordered a couple pizzas, then Darryl came back from some party, and we began the one show for the night.

The Americans, a 1980s spy drama from the FX channel.

The show just got picked up for a second season, and none of us had seen it before. It was really engaging. Although there was some confusion over whether they were indeed spies or double-agents, the show was intriguing to follow. I can see where the nosey-neighbor drama will create all sorts of tension throughout the series. For some reason I was reminded of the neighbor on Bewitched when the FBI agent moves in across the street. There’s also that type of high stakes in other shows like the near misses of Stanley Roper on Three’s Company .. of course those are all comedies and the Americans is not funny at all. Still good though.

John noted that the main girl, was speaking English when no one was around. It may be just a technique to be able to tell the story to an American audience without requiring subtitles.

The pilot was an hour, and I’m glad we didn’t have to deal with commercials.. that would have been ridiculous. Pilots are usually long because they have so much ground to cover.

In my acting class, Laura mentioned this show in regards to how the agents have to act ‘normal’. I’m sure I’d find all sorts of interesting analogies for acting and undercover spy acting, and in this case actors-playing-undercover-spies-attempting-to-be-normal.

Anyway, the night was fun, and the show was a hit.

Thanks guys!

hmatt Pop Culture Night

John, Skyler, Amanda, Jacqui, Melissa, and Nevan, reacting to the first couple shows.

I didn’t prepare a large selection for this night, so we scrolled Hulu and Netflix.

We began with Legit. My girlfriend was visiting from Australia, and this show is about an Australian comic. I thought it would be fun.

I was wrong.

We tried watching it, but the type of humor was dark and raunchy. I waited to see if it got any better. It didn’t and I had to turn it off after the scene where the dying guy in a wheel chair is taken to a whore house.

It made everyone queasy.

I thought it’d be better for us to watch something else that is a little less intense. So we watched, Hemlock Grove, via Netflix. House of Cards had been great, so I wanted to see how this one turned out.

Then the show opens with an explicit scene of a guy and a hooker in a car, followed by a woman being eaten by a monster with graphic sound effects.

So we moved on.

My roommates have been into this Australian series called Angry Boys, starring several characters performed by Chris Lilley. So we watched an episode of that, it had funny moments.

Later on we watched another episode with Skyler.

Other than that I don’t recall watching anything else. When I asked others later, everyone only remembers the dark ‘comedy’ show or the”werewolf one”.

Next time I’ll have my list ready to go and not rely so heavily on streaming. I seem to remember slow connections ruining the experience at times too.

The next Pop Culture night will be in a few weeks and I’m eager to party it up again!

Oh, and a note: I bought a few flavors of Wheat Thins: Zesty Salsa, Spicy Buffalo and Veggie. The Spicy Buffalo was a hit, as were the banana/strawberry/Sunny D smoothies.

hmatt Pop Culture Night

Last week April 17th, was another Pop Culture Night.

In attendance: Melissa, Darryl, Lee, John, Gary, Ian, and Kristin.

This month I focused on web series. Since they are typically shorter, we ended up watching 15 different ones!

Comedians in cars getting coffee
Neil’s Puppet dreams
Burning love
Cuckoo
Average Joe
Electric City
Insayshable
Thurston
Cold Storage
Twinkle Time
The Vault
Werewolves of Reseda
Universal Dead
Lovin Lakin
Soma

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http://pv.webbyawards.com/nominees/online-film-video/general-film-categories/comedy-long-form-or-series

Comedians in cars getting coffee
http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com

We started off the night watching Jerry Seinfeld’s web series, and the ‘plot’ is pretty self descriptive. The episode I thought we were going to watch was Jerry and Ricky Gervais. For whatever reason a different episode played with Michael Richards.

Very funny! They reminisced over their Seinfeld years, and Michael was his usual kooky self. Thumbs up!

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Neil’s Puppet dreams
youtube link
I had high hopes for this one. Neil Partick Harris was amazing in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long blog. This episode however felt a little played out. I think the puppets being not-for-children idea is a little predictable, and I wasn’t too excited about watching another episode. I’ll probably give it another try sometime.. and the episodes are super short, so there’s not much that can be done in a short amount of time I suppose.

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Burning love – JULIE’S EPISODES
http://screen.yahoo.com/burning-love/
Although we didn’t watch season 1, the episodes we watched were fun! A few of us who were fans of the tv show ‘Party Down’ kept laughing as all of the various actors from that show were revealed out of the limo. The show itself is a parody of those ‘The Bachelor’ types of shows, and the show was HILARIOUS! This was one of the shows that everyone wanted to watch again, and we did. After just about everyone left, myself, John and Lee watched a few more episodes. Very addicting. = )

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Cuckoo
http://vimeo.com/54623645
This was one of those award winning series I found online. I had trouble finding the actual episode format of the show, and instead we watched about 10 min from the ‘collection’ on vimeo. – I wasn’t such a fan of this one. I guess it could be classified as another teenage angst or something, and I wasn’t the demographic. Actually, I don’t think anyone really liked this one. I remember being bothered by the camera movements on this one. And the main girl was so angry for no reason.

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http://www.lawebfest.com//2013-LAWEBFEST-AWARD-WINNERS.html

Average Joe
http://www.funnyordie.com/averagejoe
Darryl and Lee worked on this series, and I hadn’t yet seen it, so we fired it up. We watched season 1, episode 2. It was fun to hear behind the scenes stuff. As John mentioned, “It’s like having a real audio commentary”.

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Electric City
http://electriccity.yahoo.com/
This is a cartoon, by Tom Hanks, and is about a futuristic society. Not everyone was hooked with the first episode, but I’ll watch another episode sometime. I’m a Hanks fan.

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Insayshable
http://insayshableonline.com
Very similar to the Mindy Project, the New Girl– overly wacky woman and her daily life. Wasn’t a fan. It was too in-your-face.

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Thurston – The Western Web Series
http://www.thurston-series.com
Kudos to these guys for creating a period style web series. That being said, I didn’t get into the plot, so eh.

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Cold Storage – Walking Dead spinoff
link
Although I haven’t seen AMC’s The Walking Dead, John said it is shot in the same style. I guess if you are into that show you’d be into this.

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Twinkle Time
We watched their newest music video – Ian was in this one. = ) Always fun.

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The Vault
http://www.thevaultshow.com
This one has a REALLY great hook that doesn’t reveal hardly anything which leaves you wanting more. Students find themselves in part of a show where they have to solve puzzles in an all white room. Brilliant idea for a webseries because it would be only one room to shoot in. So brilliant.

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Werewolves of Reseda
link
We watched the preview for this one and EVERYONE was ready to watch… and it was no where. Their website said it was available to watch on myspace.. myspace?!? Not so unbelievably enough when I went to the myspace page, the ENTIRE SITE WAS unavailable, likely due to updates or something. Then the series said it was available on Netflix. We loaded up the PS3, readied to watch it on Netflix.. and then it said the ‘series was unavailable’. For whatever reason we weren’t meant to watch it that night, so we moved on. Although their trailer really did look fun.

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Universal Dead
http://universaldead.wordpress.com
Another zombie series, and John, our local zombie show expert, kept pointing out the inaccuracies and plot holes. So, yeah… this one didn’t stick.

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Lovin Lakin
http://www.christine-lakin.com/#!/lovin-lakin/
This series stars Christine Lakin, who played ‘Al’ on ‘Step by Step’, as a self-parody acting teacher. Everyone was laughing at this one. Definitely another thumbs up. I guess parody shows were a hit!

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Soma
http://www.webserieschannel.com/soma/
We finished up the night with a foreign series. It had an amazing production value. The show was a little too dark/gruesome for me though.

The night was once again a blast. Next month my Australian girlfriend Jacqui will be visiting, so we’ll probably watch a mix of US and Australian shows. ; )

hmatt Pop Culture Night

On March 10th I hosted another Pop Culture night.

There were five of us total that night: Skyler, John, Feikamoh, Marcus and myself.

We watched the HBO show, GIRLS, House of Cards, and Homeland.

I was all excited because I bought an Apple TV for these nights. I then discovered that it stutters while mirroring the display on my Macbook Pro.. This is likely due to my WIFI network, but still- completely unacceptable. I’ve since returned it and bought a Thunderbolt to HDMI cable so I won’t have to deal with that again. Oh well.

I keep hearing about this GIRLS show and once again, I am not the demographic. However, at least now I know the premise of the show. Young early 20s woman vs New York. I thought her parents had an interesting dynamic.

Next up was the Netflix created show House of Cards and it WAS interesting (like the reviews state). First off, I didn’t know that Kevin Spacey’s character breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience, which is novel! There are very few movies that do that, and as my roommate John pointed out, the last tv show to do that was Saved by the Bell. Still, it is a great way to know what the character is thinking and is extremely efficient in a series to get you up to speed quickly. Secondly, now I want to see the House of Cards tumble. I wonder where the show leaves off (this season?, how is this classified when Netflix releases everything at once?) [Update 3/21/13: I was browsing on Netflix and I found out that this is actually a remake from a 1990 BBC show, and that guy talked to the camera too. The more you know!]

We finished up the night with the pilot of Homeland. This is one of those shows I hear referenced as being quite poplar with Americans, so I thought.. I should probably see this thing. It reminded me of Manchurian Candidate (the classic movie with Sinatra, not the remake) as the tension built up to the climatic scenes. The end of the pilot leaves you with a sense of what is to come, along with a variety of questions.

Fun night once again.

Next time I’ll switch it up. Now that I have my computer connected properly we can watch online series.

Yay for new media!

hmatt Pop Culture Night

On Monday last week, I threw another Pop Culture night. I’ve decided to try to make this a monthly thing, because it is a great way for people to get together and keep tabs on things like I’ve mentioned before.

A total of 11 people attended this night (myself and Marcus, who arrived later, are not pictured)

I started up the Netflix DVD rental again so I can obtain those shows which aren’t available to stream. Unfortunately, because I was using a Kindle to order the queue and didn’t have access to Hulu or Netflix streaming, I didn’t order “Homeland” so I’ll make sure to have that next month.

The first one pilot we watched was Boardwalk Empire.

A lot of people commented on how visually interesting it was. The opening itself is amazing if you haven’t already seen it. I also mentioned the Sesame Street spoof which is equally well done. The 1920s are an era I’m a fan of anyway because of my history with swing dancing. I felt such joy listening to soundtrack of the show because I’m also a long time fan of music from that era. I really don’t know anyone else who listens to songs from Billy Murray, Helen Kane or Ruth Etting. There was such a simplicity in the music of that era.

The show itself has all sorts of great moments. There are a few scenes that I’m not such a fan of, but since it is HBO they tend to favor nudity and over the top violence.

I think the biggest thing I noticed was the transformation of Steve Buscemi as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson. I’ve always seen him as the bumbling guy in Reservoir Dogs or The Big Lebowski or comic stuff like his character on 30 Rock. To see him in a role where he has absolute authority and power was such a great example of how actors can really become someone else.

I ended up watching the second episode before I returned the disc, and I can see how the show has become so popular.

Next we watched The Neighbors. Hmm, what do I say about that show. The regular dad was like Jackie Gleason from The Honeymooners. Everything else about that show was ridiculous as the premise.. a family moves into a suburb and discovers that the community members are all aliens. This was nothing like 3rd Rock from the Sun. The jokes often fell flat IMHO but then again it is the pilot.

Next up was the BBC show Spy. Jamie gave his recommendation as we scrolled the Hulu options, they are apparently remaking this for American audiences. A lot of the group enjoyed the show. The actors reminded others of other actors.. I thought the main guy looks a lot like Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber.

Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how this show gets ‘translated’. The premise is that an ordinary guy gets accidentally enlisted in MI5. There are great spoofs to the entire spy genre, and it makes me wonder if the american version will be switched over to the CIA and that’s that. Hmm.

The night was another success! We had popcorn, ice cream and sodas; Doritos, Sunchips and Twizzlers. Plus, Morgan brought her Pinterest inspired Nutella cookies. Jamie and Sarah brought some wines they were taste testing for their wedding, which was a delight for many that night.

Tonight I’m going to an Oscar watching party in Burbank. I’ve only seen Argo, but this year’s selections all look amazing and I hope to watch them soon!

hmatt Pop Culture Night

Last Sunday was Pop Culture Night.

It was a night where I invited a bunch of friends (8 of us in total, I’m taking the picture) and we watched the pilots of popular shows of which we weren’t familiar.

What a great time! We saw a total of four shows & if I were to quickly review those shows I’d say:

Mindy Project  – the character/plot of this show was ‘a quirky, “terrible-with-love” professional woman and how she takes on the world’– I don’t think I was in the demographic for this one, so I wasn’t all that into it. 2/5

1600 Penn – I’m so used to seeing the white house as serious, so having this be a over-the-top comedy threw me off a little. The characters are very, very heightened. 1/5

Nashville – definite high stakes for everyone & everyone’s acting was great. I could see how people would get into this show. 4/5

Once – This show I could see getting hooked on myself. Afterwards a few of us watched the second episode to see where the show was going. 4/5

 

There are several things to think about on these nights. Of course it is useful to have a working knowledge of the shows for when I do improv or when conversing with others. I also want to know the tone of the show, and which casting directors worked on which projects. Plus consider which types of characters I could play and how other actors are marketing themselves (or reinventing themselves). I’d like to have a theatrical agent this year, and when I go on auditions I’d like to know the ins and outs of this industry. There is a lot of research to do, and I prefer spending time with my friends rather than sitting on the couch by myself.

I’m having another Pop Culture Night in February. After I get back from Australia I’ll buy a month of the Netflix DVD service to rent a few shows that weren’t available online. I’ve also made a deal with myself that if I sell my unwanted things things I put on a list, I could use that money to purchase an Apple TV. I’d like to mirror my computer screen for those shows that stream outside of Hulu and Netflix. Plus, It’d be great to show Vimeo and YouTube clips too. Craigslist and ebay, here I come!

Of course, my favorite part of the night was the great company. I’m fortunate to have really interesting friends who are all insightful on the various aspects of a show’s plot, actors or quality of the acting. Every so often people would comment about the projects an actor was in and other shows to check out for next time. (Dalex and Morgan are looking up IMDB on their phones in the picture..)

Oh, and I had all sorts of yummy snacks for everyone! Air popped popcorn, cake and Sunny D smoothies.

 

Good times.

acting Pop Culture Night