:: theMediaman journal ::

:: Thursday, August 23, 2001 ::

Wow. It takes a lot of dedication and time to keep a daily journal up-to-date *wipes sweat from brow*

Keifer Sutherland will be starring in a new TV drama called "24". The series takes place over a 24-hour period, with 24 one-hour episodes. My interest in this show is peaked for two reasons. First, it sounds good (no cryptic explanations there). Second, this is the first major project Keifer Sutherland has really taken part in for years. Since his brilliant performance in Dark City (where, in my opinion, he emulated some of his father's style), he has performed mostly on stage and in at least one bad, theme-driven suspence/drama with a Blair Witch budget.

Since watching Dark City, I've been anxious to see if he's finally maturing as a true ahh-ktor or if that film was nothing more than a one-off performance like Kevin Costner's directoral success. However, "24" isn't slated until late October for the premiere.

I have a copy of the pilot episode.

One of our clients at work is a CanWest employee. She occasionally gives us advertisements to digitize into MPEG video format, allowing her to include them in her PowerPoint presentations. Often it is only Sleeman ads or the like, but once I had to watch Will & Grace for a full three minutes to grab a video clip. It was a bad day and that is a very, very stupid sitcom.

Yesterday, I was asked to digitize some more content. Another Sleeman commercial, a 5-second bumper ad and the first 2-3 minutes of the "24" pilot episode. I took a long look at the tape, and it DOES HAVE THE FULL EPISODE!

I knew that getting a job in this industry would pay off for my geeky, media-obsessed addiction. The show is great. Just as good as I expected it to be, if not a little more. The television bumpers and intro have pretty basic graphics, but that may be what they're going for. Since there's another two months until the broadcast premiere, they have lots of post-production time to clean up things like that.

Really, only two things annoyed me. The first was how everyone's character had a central or peripheral storyline around sex with some other character. There are a lot of people to keep track of but I believe they could have figured out a better way to round out character development without making the common factor "how each reacts to sex".

Oh, well. I watch TV to escape - so plentiful sex would be appropriate.

The second point about the show that annoyed me was that the show was SO DAMN GOOD. It is painful for me to know that I don't get to see the second episode until the first week of November. I have two and a half months before I get to see what happens from 1:00 AM - 2:00 AM.

...and incase you're thinking of asking - it would be SOOOO illegal of me to distribute copies of this episode that you shouldn't even bother asking.

One more quick note.... go see the movie Rat Race. This movie had me laughing so hard I almost suffocated. Very, very, very few funny movies these days are made with so few "body function jokes" - not that a good Leslie Neilson movie isn't good now and then.

....and the blonde actress, Amy Smart, was born exactly one month after I was. I think this means that we are destined to be together. Besides, I've already seen her naked in Road Trip.

Rat Race is definately the most laugh-out-loud, funniest movie I've seen in years - and it's even clean enough that my Mom could (probably) enjoy it.

:: Stephen 1:20 AM [+] ::

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