Angels are the New Vampires. Specifically, Fallen Angels. Don’t take my word for it; see for yourself.

I mentioned Human Target last week, as you may remember. I really like this show. You may recall my description to be that of Bourne for TV. If you want a good hour of cool fight scenes and spy thriller type stuff, I’d recommend you give it a try. If I’m not mistaken it’s based on the DC Comic of the same name. I was never a big comic kid growing up, so that is never really a selling point for me personally, but maybe for you it is.

Two actually pretty interesting movies opening this weekend; Edge of Darkness, as I’m always a sucker for a good revenge thriller, and When in Rome, which is not something that I am personally interested in, though I do know some … married folk who are. I do like Kristen Bell though, as Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a big surprise to me. And of course, Gossip Girl (another show I find myself outside the key demographic for.)

By the way, Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time, and should take the domestic top spot in a week or two. I used to think it would have been cool to have been old enough to care about Box Office Numbers when Titanic made its run, I guess this is what it must have been like.

Jumping the Shark is something we have been noticing a lot of lately; especially from a certain National Broadcast Company.

I watched last night’s episode of Human Target. And I really liked it, but I’m not sure why. It feels sort of like sitting to watch one hour installments of a Bourne movie. Sometimes it just fun to watch TV, something I find myself doing less and less of, especially with shows like LOST where you practically need a doctorate to keep up. Since there isn’t anything on that I like to watch on Wednesday nights anyway, I see this continuing in the immediate future.

I’m going to write about Avatar again. I know-I’m beating this horse to death. I told myself that I was going to find something else to write about in today’s post, however the only stuff going on is NBC’s late night troubles, Sundance (of which I am not in attendance) and Avatar’s rampage at the box office. It should get #2 All time domestic this weekend, and is creeping up slowly on Titanic. How close is it going to get?

I don’t know if you have been watching Conan this week-but you should be. The show is absolutely on fire. It’s really amazing to watch him just trash NBC every night, knowing that NBC is footing the bill for the show. Its a sort of thing I wish would never end. His deal got finalized, to the order of $45 million, and he’s able to re-enter television in September of this year. Hopefully Fox is going to be able to sort out some sort of deal.

Obviously this is all just speculation, but the appeal of Jacky B and CoCo on the same network is something that most can see. Personally, after this whole debacle is over, I hope Conan heads straight over to Fox and crushes NBC, to add some satisfaction to his pain, which could climb as high as $50 Million. An expensive lesson for NBC. From my understanding he could be available to work at another network in September. While the idea of another summer without Conan isn’t something that I relish, fans can at least be thankful that he’s got somewhere to go. Time for Fox to pony up some money and get this train rolling.

Speaking of Fox, 24 is back, and seemingly still riding the momentum from last season. I don’t think its any secret that Season 7 was a definite “one up” to seasons past, a trend which will hopefully continue. The powers that be have granted my wish for Renee Walker (played by Annie Wersching) to return in a recurring role, a notion that I am grateful for. Notable newcomers to the series include Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) and Freddy Prinze Jr., who needs no introduction, I’m sure. Cherry Jones is also back in her Emmy-winning role. All the elements are in place for another great season.

I caught the preview event for Human Target, another Fox show, which is benefiting from an American Idol lead in this week. If we accept the general rule of thumb that all pilots are bad (with any rule, there are obvious exceptions) the show has caught my attention. The pilot was interesting enough that I’ll probably TiVo the next couple of episodes to see what’s up. I’ve been a fan of Chi McBride ever since the Boston Public days, a show that I am certain no one here watched. (Or even remembers.)

While we’re talking TV, it’s worth noting that LOST starts again soon. Not soon enough.

Avatar won Director and Picture Golden Globes, hopefully the sci-fi genre is going to get some Oscar attention this year between District 9 and Avatar. Did I mention it’s made $1.6 billion dollars? It should pass The Dark Knight’s domestic take next weekend.

I think today’s comic just about sums up which side of the ongoing NBC/Conan O’Brien incident we support.

I hope that Conan goes to Fox. I hope that Fox gives him a great time slot and that Conan’s audience follows him there. I hope that Fox gets some killer ratings, and that NBC learns its lesson the hard way. I understand the notion that there are no rules in showbiz, but there is a thing called looking out for your own. Conan was the back half of the team that has kept NBC first place in ratings in late night television for the last 15 plus years. It’s really a shame to see that the exec’s at NBC have no real clue what they are doing, which is why NBC is a sinking ship on the verge of a Comcast buyout. I don’t expect Mr. Zucker will have a job for too much longer. (I can only hope.) He’d better follow CoCo’s advice and get to stealing those office supplies.

Hats off to Conan for keeping it classy, by the way, as he always does.

I mentioned awhile ago a Jon Favreau project called Cowboys & Aliens. At the time Robert Downy Jr. was signed on to the project but has since dropped out. However,  Daniel Craig may be interested, with a deal that could be done as early as next week. I have no idea what the premise of this movie is, but from the title, it sounds awesome.

It’s nice to have news other than Avatar isn’t it?

Warp speed ahead people, Star Trek 2 has itself a release date.

In other news, in a late night schedule that feels an awful lot like musical chairs, Conan O’Brien is left standing without one. In case you haven’t heard, the unsuccessful iteration of the Jay Leno Show at 10pm is getting cancelled. Which means Jay is moving back to his 11:30 time slot, which is currently occupied by Conan’s Tonight show. Or is he? NBC has seemingly chosen to side with Jay, but at the same time want to keep the A team (Leno and Conan) together. This also could mean that Jimmy Fallon may get shoved back to the graveyard 1am hour. What a mess. There was always a chance that this whole ordeal would come back to bite NBC in the ass, and it seems that day may be fast approaching. We’ll see how it plays out and if Conan bails on NBC and heads over to FOX who apparently want to get in on the Late Night action now. There are no rules in showbiz apparently. Or honor amongst thieves.

Avatar is still #1 at the box office for the 4th week in a row. James Cameron now holds the top 2 spots for all time grossers, which probably effectively gives him carte blanche for the rest of his life. (As if he didn’t already have it.) Avatar is sitting a coozy $1.3 billion, but just how close is it going to come to Titanic’s titanic $1.8 billion? I wonder how these dollars and cents will translate into Oscar nominations?

Obviously Pierre Morel isn’t a nobody. Taken was one of my favorite movies from last year, not because it broke some new cinematic ground or had fantastic writing. Liam Neeson just kicked people’s ass for 2 hours. It was just a fun movie to watch, and sometimes thats just all a movie needs to be. I’m very excited for From Paris with Love, which comes out soon. I’m also excited to see what he does with the Dune movie, since its such a famous and distinct book.

The script for Twilight: Eclipse got leaked onto the internet this week. I haven’t read it yet, but maybe I’ll find time this weekend. There are rumors circulating that the next James Bond movie might be directed by Sam Mendes. Not sure how I feel about this, I don’t know if a Bond Film is the right thing for Mendes, but its all academic at this point, the franchise is on hold until MGM gets sold anyway.

A bit of TV news: CBS has given the thumbs up to Scrubs co-Exec Producer Matt Tarses’ new comedy “True Love.” As the title suggests, its about a group of friends in New York searching for love. I loved Scrubs, so I’m looking forward to this.

Most likely we aren’t going to have a comic for Thursday. I’ve finished up my Holiday traveling, and in all likely hood I’ll be too jet lagged and busy catching up on things when I get back home to throw a poor attempt at one together. My apologies, we’ll see you next week.

The comic today is based on the imaginary notion that James Cameron actually reads his own mail. The man has enough money that he probably pays someone to pay someone to read his mail and then download it into his brain. James Cameron is actually the terminator. This will be the last James Cameron related comic and post for awhile, too much more of this and he might actually find out about my man crush.

All of us here at the Drive In wish our readers (all three of you!) a Happy Holiday season and a wonderful New Year. Count on us to be back in 2010 with more jokes and crazy humor to make that morning coffee even better.

Cheers!

How good is Avatar? That was the big question entering the weekend, and I am here to tell you that not only is Avatar good, I consider it a must see movie. The level of filmmaking present in this movie only serves to reinforce that James Cameron is one of the most influential directors of his time.

Here is why I consider Avatar a must see movie; regardless of your interest in the film itself the 3D technology that has been developed for this movie truly provides an experience which leaves no words to describe it . The only way that I can chronicle my encounter with this movie is to compare the movie to that of looking through a window versus looking at a picture on a wall. And the difference is so subtle; there is no gimmick 3D here, nothing popping out of the screen at the audience, quite the contrary – the 3D actually goes the other way, adding lifelike depth to the images. 

Avatar is not without its faults. The storyline is very easily predicted, and doesn’t really push any new boundaries within the genre. It’s essentially a love story set within a sci-fi universe with a morality tale at its core. That being said, the story is perfectly adequet, I never found myself frustrated with the writing or was ever pulled out of the movie because of story elements or poor characterization. The bottom line is that the film excells in so many areas that the few drawbacks that it does have are hardly worth mentioning. If you are a fan of movies in general, this is a film you should see. (In the theater, and in 3D, but this goes without saying.)

To the point of the “future of cinema” Avatar has raised a lot of eyebrows. Granted, if you have an endless budget you can make anything; but can this new 3D be produced on a budget? Cameron has an answer for that to; he is producing low to mid range budget movies to prove the technology is not only workable, but economical to the ever important studio bottom line. Monitarily, 3D screens have been outpreforming their 2D counterparts by a ratio of 2-to-1. The amount of available 3D screens is continuing to increase, and maybe Avatar will be the movie that finally gets the ball rolling. I think Cameron has successfully started a new 3D revolution, it is just going to take some time for the rest of us to catch up.