Everyone’s favorite little green mischief makers have returned, and they’re doing what they do best in this ninety second BT spot featuring Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones.
Thanks AICN.

Check out the full ad here.
 
 

Bored by the same old selections on the shelves of your local video store or on that cable on-demand line-up? Searching for thrilling cinematic expeditions that can’t be found elsewhere? Look no further than right here. The following is my recommended cable viewing list for May 2008, of films unavailable on video – and it marks an unusual month, with the broadcast appearance of a fascinating Michael Powell film forgotten for forty years, a deeply moving and heartfelt documentary by a twentysomething tyro that checks in as one of the top three or four nonfiction films of the past decade, and oh, so much more. So as always: keep your remote handy and fire up your glitter box. We’re going channel surfing.

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Is it just me, or do Shannon Marie Woodward, Linda Cardellini, and Jewel Staite look like they could all be related? Maybe it’s the dark, flowing locks and cute little triangle shaped lips. Or maybe it’s the fact that all of them got their big break on iconoclastic one hour dramas (The Riches, Freaks and Geeks, and Firefly, respectively). If the latter is what cosmically ties them all together, then I hope that the mantle of Tragically Cancelled isn’t part of their genetic makeup. I really like The Riches.

For those of use who grew up watching Count Scary, The Ghoul, Sir Graves Ghastly, Elvira, or even Commander USA, the mere thought of schlock horror flicks hosted by wisecracking characters on ramshackle studio sets is enough to make us instinctively reach for some non-existent, noggin-top rabbit ears in a nostalgic bid to clear the static distortion of our collective memories. Thankfully, we need not lament the death of a bygone era or regret the fact that we’ll never be able to share those memories with our own children any longer, as – at least in the Detroit television market – good-humored lycanthrope Wolfman Mac is primed and ready to revive this long-dormant television sub-genre with his late-night horror show entitled Nightmare SINema.

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Snacking on some lunch and checking out the latest links over at Neatorama, I stumbled across a curious little short film by the mute illusionist most folks know as the shorter half of long-time comedy/magic duo Penn and Teller. Of course anyone familiar with their cable television series Bullshit or their popular Las Vegas act knows that the man they call Teller isn’t exactly the outspoken type, so it’s just about as disconcerting to hear him talk as it is to see him taunting the living dead.

At a time when the zombie trend once again seems to have run its course (Day of the Dead remake, anyone?), perhaps this melancholy little short is a fitting epitaph for the lurching sub-genre.

& Teller

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The line between your computer and TV gets a whole lot blurrier today with the public launch of Hulu.com. It’s hard not to be impressed by the joint NBC/Fox venture. Full episodes of TV shows from 30 Rock to House and full-length feature films like The Usual Suspects and Ice Age are all available at no charge, streaming in high-quality. Many are even available in HD.

It’s ad-supported, and playing around a little, I saw a few different advertising models. Some movies give you the option of watching one trailer before your selection or a few commercials throughout. Others don’t give you the option and you either just watch a trailer and the movie plays without interruption or a handful of commercials play at random intervals. I also saw one not-too-intrusive overlay add at the bottom of the screen for a few seconds during one of my selections.

More after the jump.

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As we return to the hidden treasures of non-video-released cable movies, March ‘08 marks an exciting month indeed. Among other developments, this month witnesses Turner Classic Movies ditching their 31-day Oscar retrospective and returning to the roots of long-forgotten Hollywood melodramas, such as The Great Sinner from 1949 and The October Man from 1948. The most thrilling occurrence, however, is the Encore Love Stories channel’s screening of Albert Finney’s drama Charlie Bubbles - a fascinating little picture that turns up on cable once in a blue moon – plus one of my own personal favorites, Shock Treatment (1964). This macabre drive-in comedy returns to The Fox Movie Channel once again, beckoning unacquainted viewers to discover its charms. So, as always - keep your remote handy and fire up that glitter box.

1. Big-Hearted Herbert (1934) – Guy Kibbee headlines this long-forgotten farce as the title character, a working-class plumber who scores his big break when he moves into manufacturing bathroom fixtures – and finds himself wealthy for the first time. He comes to prefer the welcome company of a bunch of slightly arrogant misers who feel and behave exactly as he does, only to have his priorities dramatically challenged when his wife needs surgery. At a breezy 60 minutes, this winsome slice-of-life comedy is packed with a surprising number of real laughs. Runs on Turner Classic Movies, Thursday 3/6/08 at 7:15am

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It looks as though fans will have to wait until fall to find out the latest comings and goings of their superpowered friends, be they time travelers, indestructible megalomaniacs, or goodhearted young women dealing with both a language barrier and life as an involuntary spreader of plague. According to Ain’t It Cool News, Hayden Panettiere, a.k.a the conflicted, almost immortal cheerleader Claire Bennett has confirmed that new episodes of Heroes will not be shooting until April, despite progress in the writer’s strike.