Category Archives: News

E3 2013: Nintendo and the Wii U

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This year Nintendo opted out of the E3 press conference circuit and instead released a pre-recorded Nintendo Direct video hosted by the company’s Global President Satoru Iwata. Ninty’s Wii successor the Wii U has been on the market since November and due to a lack of must-have titles and drooping third-party support the console hasn’t gained much traction in the gaming community. The house that made Mario is looking to turn things around this year with the introduction of many first-party games featuring some of the company’s most prized characters like Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong. And yes, there are even some third-party titles coming that should stir some excitement Ninty’s way. Iwata previewed many titles coming to Wii U, as well as some for the 3DS handheld, and you can check ’em all out after the break. Continue reading E3 2013: Nintendo and the Wii U →

WWDC 2013: Apple intros OS X Mavericks, iOS 7, new MacBook Airs & next-gen Mac Pro

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This week Apple held its latest World Wide Developers Conference from San Francisco, introducing to the world the next versions of OS X and iOS, as well as upgrading its MacBook Air lineup and previewing the next generation Mac Pro. For the full rundown, jump after the break. Continue reading WWDC 2013: Apple intros OS X Mavericks, iOS 7, new MacBook Airs & next-gen Mac Pro →

Microsoft packs Windows 8.1 with welcome upgrades in features and functionality

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On June 26, eight months after its general release, Microsoft is updating Windows 8 to Windows 8.1. The free new update brings lots of new features and functionality to the modernized version of Microsoft’s operating system.

The updated Start screen allows users to resize their apps with new larger and smaller options; users can swipe up from the bottom of the screen to reveal an app drawer and access all apps installed and organize them by name, date installed, most used, and category; installed apps are no longer downloaded to the Start screen–they are placed inside the app drawer and you must manually pin it to the Start screen if you want it there; and you can match your desktop background with your Start screen background to “create a greater sense of unity and familiarity” between them. Also, the Start button returns to the traditional desktop but it won’t open a portal to folders and files like it did in previous Windows iterations; it simply brings you back to the Start screen and all your apps. Also, multitasking just got better: depending on your screen size and resolution, you can now snap more than two windows next to each other and you can further customize the size of each window (you are no longer shackled to the 80/20 split).

Elsewhere, the lock screen has been updated to become a picture frame that can now play a slideshow of your pictures stored locally on your device or from images stored in the cloud in SkyDrive. Users can also take pictures directly from the lock screen without having to log into their Windows 8.1 powered device.

System-wide search has been enhanced here, too. Type a query in the Search charm and you’ll be provided with actual files and documents you may be looking for. To date users are forced to tap headers like Files and Apps to dig for their searches; in Win 8.1 time will be saved since the OS will now show you relavant Word documents and Xbox games at first glance. Something new called Search Heroes are also being introduced here; search “Brad Pitt” and the OS will provide an aggregated view of many content sources to help you learn more about your query.

To read more about the new features and functions inside Windows 8.1, head over to this Windows blog post that details it all. For a quick look at 8.1 in action, watch the clip embedded above. Some screenshots hang in the gallery below.

Jay-Z previews new album ‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’ in extended Samsung commercial

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If you were watching Game 5 of the NBA finals tonight you couldn’t have missed this: in a three-minute spot paid for by Samsung and promoting its Galaxy smartphones, rap legend Jay-Z introduces and previews his 12th studio album titled Magna Carta Holy Grail. Thankfully there’s no product placement or any cheesiness at all here, really; it’s just Jay and his collaborators Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, Rick Rubin, and Swizz Beatz brainstorming new beats and rhymes for Jay’s upcoming, surprise release.

“Pretty much the album is about this duality of how do you navigate your way through this whole thing — through success, through failures — and remain yourself,” remarks Hova.

Kanye West drops ‘Yeezus’ on Tuesday, exalts his achievements in NYT interview

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This Tuesday Kanye West releases his sixth studio album Yeezus. Pictured above is what the physical album will look like in stores. Its minimalist design features no album album artwork, only a transparent jewel case with some red tape. There is no link from iTunes or Amazon to preorder the album. It drops June 18 and that’s the day you can snag it. ‘Ye hasn’t done much in terms of promoting the album in the traditional sense. He performed on SNL and after that he projected images and sound on buildings around the world for fans to flock to and discover his new sound.

The most hype is emitting from a recent interview he conducted with The New York Times. In it ‘Ye opens up about his past mistakes, his problem with the Grammys, the inspiration behind previous albums 808s & Heartbreak and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, parenthood (his girlfriend Kim Kardashian gave birth to their daughter days after the interview posted), fashion, and more. Expectedly, Kanye stroked his ego more than once throughout the back-and-forth describing himself as “the Michael Jordan of music” and saying about his career “I knew I was going to make it this far; I knew that this was going to happen.” He also calls himself the “Steve [Jobs] of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture.” And he concluded the interview with this:

I think that’s a responsibility that I have, to push possibilities, to show people: “This is the level that things could be at.” So when you get something that has the name Kanye West on it, it’s supposed to be pushing the furthest possibilities. I will be the leader of a company that ends up being worth billions of dollars, because I got the answers. I understand culture. I am the nucleus.

It’s a must-read for fans of the undoubtedly talented artist who has certainly evolved in many ways since his 2004 debut The College Dropout. Read the interview in full here.

Now what can you expect from Yeezus? The Times‘ Jon Caramanica describes it as “a turn away from [Kanye’s] reliable maximalism to something more urgent and visceral.” He describes the songs as “becoming more skeletal and ferocious.” He goes on to say, “The music of Yeezus — spare, direct and throbbing — is, effectively, a palate cleanser after years of overexertion, backing up lyrics that are among the most serrated and provocative of his career.”

And even Mr. West, who thinks of himself as a “black new wave artist,” shared some of his influences: “It’s like trap and drill and house. I knew that I wanted to have a deep Chicago influence on this album, and I would listen to like, old Chicago house. I think that even “Black Skinhead” could border on house, “On Sight” sounds like acid house, and then “I Am a God” obviously sounds, like, super house.”

After the break, a brief clip of Kanye rapping new track “I Am A God” on headphones with an appearance by collaborator Rick Rubin. Under that, a short film inspired by the movie American Psycho starring Kourtney Kardashian’s boyfriend Scott Disick (who actually really does resemble the movie’s star Christian Bale) and Kim’s friend Jonathan Cheban in the role orignially made famous by Jared Leto.

Update (6/17): Yeezus is now available for digital download at kanyewest.com & iTunes, and you can purchase a physical copy at Amazon.

Update 2 (6/25): Yeezus debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 327,000 copies in its first week. For more stats surrounding Kanye’s latest release, head over to Billboard.com. Continue reading Kanye West drops ‘Yeezus’ on Tuesday, exalts his achievements in NYT interview →

TV reminder: ‘Wilfred’ returns June 20 on FX (also: status update on ABC’s ‘Zero Hour’ & ‘666 Park Ave.’)

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Everyone’s favorite talking dog Wilfred (Jason Gann) returns for more adventures with his easily persuaded neighbor Ryan (Elijah Wood) on Thursday, June 20 at 10PM on FX. FYI, the 13-episode third season will air two episodes a week. Previously on Wilfred, Ryan made an intriguing discovery that he had actually drawn a family picture–Wilfred included–when he was just a boy. What does that mean? Who-slash-what is Wilfred? Will we finally find out this season?! If you’re not watching Wilfred, you’re missing out on what has to be the most hilarious, dark and deep existential dramedy on television. It makes you laugh, it makes you think, and most of all, it keeps you guessing at its true intent.

On a totally unrelated note… it’s summer time and most fall/midseason shows have come to their conclusions. A couple that were cancelled are getting their time in the sun to finish out their respective runs. ABC’s conspiracy thriller Zero Hour returns tonight at 8PM with two new back-to-back episodes. It will continue to air Saturdays at 8 until its two-hour series finale which lands on August 3. Supernatural series 666 Park Avenue has four episodes left in its run, and it will begin its final rollout next Saturday, June 22 at 9PM leading out of a new installment of Zero Hour. 666‘s one-hour finale falls on July 13. So there you have it.

‘The Walking Dead’ season 4 premiere names its writer and director

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When The Walking Dead returns to AMC this fall, the season 4 opener promises to be one special episode. It is written by new showrunner Scott Gimple (who previously wrote last season’s gem “Clear,” the one where Rick finds Morgan) and directed by the show’s zombie-maker Greg Nicotero. Such a collaboration should have fans salivating for the fourth season premiere. Watch a clip announcing the news above; unfortunately it does not contain new footage but fans can expect that next month at the show’s hyped Comic Con panel.

J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot acquires the rights to Rod Serling’s screenplay ‘The Stop Along the Way’

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J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production company just secured the rights to Rod Serling’s final screenplay The Stop Along the Way. Serling is most famous for creating and hosting The Twilight Zone in the ’60s; he also wrote many screenplays and some of his works include Planet of the Apes and Requiem for a Heavyweight. Like all things Bad Robot, plot details are non-existant this early in the stage. In Serling’s final interview before his passing in 1975 he mentioned the project saying, “I just wrote The Stop Along the Way, which is, I think, a lovely script.” Abrams’ Warner Bros. TV-based Bad Robot plans to develop the script into an event limited series, according to Deadline. As the project gets shopped around to various networks, it is one to keep a close eye on and you can check back here for any and all pertinent updates. Abrams (the man behind one of the most mysterious television series Lost) and Serling (the visionary who thought up The Twilight Zone and all its intrigue) together–one can only imagine the possibilities of a such an exciting partnership.

Mitch Hurwitz opens up about the future of ‘Arrested Development’ (video inside)

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Warning: Do not proceed if you haven’t finished watching the new season of Arrested Development. Spoilers ahead; you have been warned.

Netflix wants more, Imagine Entertainment wants more, and obviously so does series creator and mastermind Mitch Hurwitz. On May 26 Arrested Development returned after a seven year hiatus with 15 new episodes. The new season ends with without much resolution and this is by design, reveals Hurwitz. In a postmortem interview with Vulture, Hurwitz discusses exactly why so many plot points and character arcs were left up in the air.

The initial idea for these new episodes was to reset things. Let’s show what happens to this family, who were starting to make progress as human beings, when they decide to go it alone. Part of the theme of this thing is that we do need our families. Our families are attached to us whether we like it or not, in all these mysterious, invisible ways. It’s somewhat allegorical but we see that they’ve all affected each other’s lives in really profound ways for the negative because there’s no communication between them to speak of. So in one sense that was the theme, but in another way it really was just setting up the future. If the pilot was about their lives falling apart, then this was designed to be the first act of a larger story about winding everybody up, getting everybody to a point of peril and then having a jumping-off place for the next story where they all come together.

Whether it’s a movie or another season on Netflix, Hurwitz has a plan for what’s to come next. As far as we know, Lucille Austero aka Lucille 2 is dead and the impetus for the next Bluth adventure will be a murder mystery.

That really is the idea. Everybody’s gotten their lives into a state of peril and everybody said, “To hell with this family,” and Michael said “I’m done with all of you,” and then — Buster is arrested for murder! Now what do they do? Now they have to come together or let their baby brother go to the chair. We’re sort of resolving or ending the season with both an emotional story and a plot story. The plot is that Buster’s been arrested for the murder of Lucille 2. And think about it, all the Bluths have a relationship with her. One of the main reasons we were kind of obsessed with telling the story in the right order is because we wanted to slowly reveal not only that Lucille 2 was gone and that she died, but that they all had ways in which they were connected to her that could either look like motives or could exculpate some of them. But they’re all connected to this woman who disappeared … It’s always been a show that dealt with a lot of big plot points, stealing the Queen Mary and all these off-the-wall things. The more important stuff is really what’s going on in their hearts and minds. That’s what the Michael–George Michael thing is about.

When can fans expect the next chapter in the story? It’s all up to the talent and their inherently conflicting schedules.

Whatever the next step is, I will say that by design the Bluths will come together. They’re all going to be together. Now it’s a question of what’s the most efficient way to do that, how do we make that happen and when do we make that happen? It certainly won’t be another seven years. If we do it, we’re going to do it soon while we’re all still alive. While we’re all still sensate. A lot of it has to be worked around John Beard’s schedule.

I highly recommend you jump over to Vulture to read the Hurwitz interview in full; in addition to talking about the future of the show, he also discusses the intensive creative process behind making the new season, Franklin’s absence, the return of Ben Stiller as Tony Wonder, making Ann Veal a more substantial character, the idea behind the Fantastic Four musical, the many easter eggs, George Michael’s almost chicken dance, and why ostriches.

Also this week, Hurwitz spoke to the press at large about making more Arrested, responding to reviews, finally revealing Michael’s late wife Tracey Bluth in a flashback, going back on his idea of watching the new episodes out of order, the inspiration behind Terry Crews’ Herbert Love, and he shares a scene that didn’t make the final cut involving Mitt Romney and George Clooney. In fact, he also blurted out that there are tons of extra footage that he hopes will eventually see the light of day. “We have a lot of material that we’re planning on putting out on Netflix at a later time, probably, to tie in there.” Consume all the juicy quotes at Entertainment Weekly.

Bonus! Pop after the break to watch behind-the-scenes featurettes with Hurtwitz, Portia de Rossi (Lindsay Bluth), David Cross (Tobias Fünke), Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth), and Henry Winkler (Barry Zuckerkorn). Also there you’ll find a Q&A clip with some of the cast and a look at the walk-on contest winners. Continue reading Mitch Hurwitz opens up about the future of ‘Arrested Development’ (video inside) →

‘Arrested Development’: the aftermath

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In case you’re putting off watching all 15 episodes of the new season of Arrested Development, I’ll be careful not to spoil things here.

And so it came and went. On May 26 Netflix released an entirely new batch of Arrested Development episodes that played out quite brilliantly; I consider them to be some of the most complex, layered & brilliantly designed episodes ever produced for any series spanning the drama and comedy genres. Even more so than the original three seasons, these new installments beg to be rewatched again and again.

The consensus is like this: the majority of long-time AD fans absolutely loved the new episodes while critics gave mixed reviews. The New York Times bashed the whole experiment starting with the line, “Chalk one up for the Internet: It has killed Arrested Development.” But in my opinion, the NYT review must be taken with a grain of salt since the piece’s writer had only watched the first 8 of 15 episodes before “deadline” arrived. Fans would ferociously argue that all 15 must be screened before an appropriate review could be conjured; jokes set up in episode 1 are not unlocked until the final episode, in fact. A more delicate review can be found over at The Atlantic; “Hurwitz et al. have bequeathed to us something that doesn’t really have a name, or a meaningful precedent: not a series, or a movie, or even a mini-series, but rather a single, eight-hour work of dada televisual art,” writes Christoper Orr. It’s true–what creator Mitch Hurwitz did here is something so unusual and unique that it’s hard to categorize it into a single genre or type.

No matter which way you see it, Netflix has confirmed that the May 26 launch Arrested Development was a great success. “It’s been huge, just as we had hoped,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told CNBC in a televised interview. When pressed about sharing numerical results, Hastings held back. “Netflix is about being able to watch when you want, not having to watch at a certain time like linear TV is. So we’re really not focused on the day one ratings, it’s really over the first year.” So perhaps by next May we will have a better idea as to how the new episodes performed for the streaming service in terms of how many people watched and how many new subscribers the company picked up along the way.

This brings us to the big question fans ’round the world are wondering: is there more where this came from? AD season 4 ends with many plot points still up in the air, but this shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise for most. Leading up to the launch star Jason Bateman spilled that these new installments serve as “simply just the first act of what we hope to continue and complete in a movie, which would [serve as] Act 2 and 3. These episodes set that up. One does not work without the other.” He added, “There is certainly a satisfying conclusion to these episodes, if for some unfortunate reason the movie does not happen. But [the episodes and the movie] are all meant to work within each other as a hybrid package of Arrested Development stuff.”

Since the new season launched, Netflix’s Hastings and someone high up in the AD camp commented on the series’ future. “Arrested is unique, because that’s really up to the talent. If the talent were willing to do more, and interested in that, I’m sure we would be willing,” said Hastings to CNBC. And then in an interview with Deadline, Imagine Entertainment co-founder Brian Grazer said, “It’s up to [Netflix Chief Content Officier] Ted [Sarandos]. If Ted is into it, we would be very excited to pursue it.” Added Imagine TV president Francie Calfo, “It’s also up to Mitch, who is probably resting right now as he put everything he had into these episodes and hasn’t had a chance to think beyond that.” When asked about the potential of the long-imagined AD movie Grazer simply stated, “We’re hoping that we could do that; the popularity of the series will inform that decision.” So in sum, Imagine (the producers) and Netflix (the content distributor) are certainly interested in bring the gang back together to make more Arrested whether it’s another season or a movie. First, Mitch must do what he does best and come up with more character arcs and interweaving plots to continue the story; and second, the actors must make time in their busy schedules to reunite again.

As we wait (again) to learn the fate of Arrested Development, don’t lose sight of what’s right in front of you and available now.

Showrunner Josh Safran discusses what would have been ‘Smash’ season three

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Smash took a dive in the ratings in its second season following a showrunner change from Broadway vet Theresa Rebeck to former Gossip Girl executive producer Josh Safran. It wasn’t long until NBC moved the creatively fickle musical dramedy to Saturday nights, effectively canceling the show without physically pulling it from the schedule. In an in-depth interview with Entertainment Weekly, Safran shares his vision for what would have been Smash season 3 and comments on how season 2 turned out. I’ve pulled some quotes here (they’re posted after the break), but I recommend you jump over to EW for the full read. Continue reading Showrunner Josh Safran discusses what would have been ‘Smash’ season three →

USA decides not to pick up ‘Happy Endings’, sitcom stumbles into grave

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This sucks. This is so sucky. Every now and then there’s a network series that is so incredibly raw and genuine and infectious that catches the attention of a small percentage of TV viewers and for that reason it gets the sharp axe. For some, life goes on; ABC’s Cougar Town and NBC’s Southland both found life after death in the cable arena on TBS and TNT, respectively. Even FOX’s Breaking In managed to come back from the dead and return to FOX, but that didn’t last long. And most recently there is Arrested Development, an irreverent show that got cancelled before its time telling stories up and seven years later it was resurrected on Netflix.

One causality to low ratings this season was the critically acclaimed Happy Endings, an ABC sitcom with an all-star cast and impeccable writing. Like Arrested before it, Endings comes out up with too many jokes to count and leaves it up to the viewer to sift through it all laughing all the while. It’s fast-paced, younger-skewing nature is probably what led to its demise; ABC president Paul Lee admitted it was “on brand” for the network but unfortunately wasn’t “broad” enough to warrant a fourth season. And so backing studio Sony TV began shopping it around to cable nets to find a new home for it. USA showed interest in possibly picking it up for another season, but Deadline reports those talks have shut down and the cable network ultimately decided to pass on it and invest in its own programs. Sony TV continues to shop it, but now it’s really starting to look like Happy Endings has come to the end of the road.

That’s such a shame, since its ensemble cast including Casey Wilson, Elisha Cuthbert, Eliza Coupe, Adam Pally, Zachary Knighton, and (who I considered to be the funniest man on TV this season) Damon Wayans Jr. make a wonderful, natural comedic team that are always in sync week after week. I guess all we can do now is be thankful that the show even managed to make it to three seasons despite bubble ratings along the way, just like we did with Arrested. Now hopefully it won’t take a network nearly a decade to realize just how funny and hip Happy Endings really is and produce at least another season.