by Joshua Cohen on April 30th, 2011
On Sunday, May 1st and 1AM ET the first Polish successor to St. Peter becomes one step closer to becoming a saint. Current Pope Benedict XVI will preside over deceased Pope John Paul II’s Beatification ceremony six years and 29 days after his death (which, if you’re layman, seems like a long time to wait, but is actually a very fast clip for such religious practices).
For all the non-Theology majors and non-Roman Catholics in the room, Beatification is:
A recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person’s entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name (intercession of saints). Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process. A person who is beatified is given the title “Blessed.”
The ceremony begins at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, will include a 2AM EST Holy Mass presided over by Pope Benedict XVI and will end with the weekly Marian Prayer and some kind words about Pope John Paul II at roughly 4:45AM EST.
by Joshua Cohen on April 29th, 2011
Who watched the season finale of The Office last night? Who didn’t cry? Who still hands their hands up in the air right now and is lying? Got you! It was emotional, right? I know. And if you want to relive some of the emotionalness of it all but from a method other than by watching the season finale all over again, you should check out the latest installment of Adventures with Angela.
The NBC web series follows the real-life exploits of actor Angela Kinsey, who plays uptight Angela Martin on the hit NBC sitcom. She and her colleagues sit in their trailers while they’re hurrying up to wait to act and discuss things like who would be a good replacement for Steve Carell or the how, when, and why of double dating. The camera also follow Kinsey to EW photoshoots and appearances on Yo Gaba Gaba (while the documentary crew stays off camera).
But in the most recent webisode, Kinsey follows Steve Carell into his own trailer and asks the actor to recount some his most favorite times and fondest memories during the past seven seasons of The Office. It’s heartfelt, revealing, and worth a watch.
by Joshua Cohen on April 29th, 2011
With all the beef in his life and his inclination to air that beef on YouTube and social media outlets instead of by way of music, which has contributed to the decline of hip-hop as we know it, it makes sense 50 Cent would need a few laughs.
The rapper who’s not into making love launched a comedy site yesterday to go along with his diversified portfolio of non-music-related enterprises, including video games, films, and loose-fitting clothes. ThisIs50.com launched with the premiere of This is 50 Comedy Show, emceed by G-Unit comedian Young Jack Thriller (which is hysterical in and of itself, especially when you look at photos of the rest of the G-Units and realize they now have a professional funny man in their posse).
The program is taped in front of a live audience at the Times Square Arts Center in New York City the last Thursday of every month. If you want to catch the action, but aren’t in the Tri-State area, there’s an online, pay-per-view, live stream for $2.99 just for you.
Here’s what 50 has to say about his new venture::
by Joshua Cohen on April 29th, 2011
Did you get up at an ungodly hour this morning with 2 billion other humans on the planet Earth to watch the Royal Wedding? (Editor’s Note: 2 billion? Really?!? Almost ⅓ of the world’s population tuned in to some television or internet device to watch Prince William peck Kate Middleton? Who comes up with these viewership estimates? Glenn Beck?)
If you did get up at an ungodly hour to to watch the Royal Wedding, did you develop some type of platform paralysis, which rendered you unable to make a decision about where to watch the event because of all the live streaming options? Me too! So I watched them all.
The below is a screen capture of my Royal Wedding viewing experience, with concurrent live streams from Hulu, PBS, CBS, and YouTube in the foreground and the Associated Press and Jay and Silent Bob in the background. In terms of quality, CBS won (upper right hand corner), YouTube (lower left) and PBS (lower right tied for second, and Hulu (upper left) came in last.
William and Kate’s wedding, as predicted, was viewed by a helluva lot of individuals online, but didn’t blow away previous online streaming records. Livestream reports its livestream of the event peaked at over 300,000 concurrent viewers, while Akami says it saw 2.9 million simultaneous streams. A big number for sure, but not nearly a large enough audience to make it more popular than a number of football matches.
by Marc Hustvedt on April 28th, 2011
TV’s loss of Steve Carell’s Michael Scott tonight is like Barry Sanders hanging up his pads at 30, just too darn early for most fans. Sure, Carell’s a major film star on top of his game and the rigor of seven seasons of TV work aren’t exactly the
It’s a parlor game amongst TV writers just which big name star NBC will cough up some coin to replace the iconic Carell. For the moment, they have Will Ferrell hired for a multiepisode arc as Deangelo Vickers, the new Dunder Mifflin (Sabre) branch manager. Other names in the final episode, and possible contenders for the permanent gig, include Jim Carrey, Ricky Gervais, Will Arnett, James Spader, Ray Romano and Catherine Tate.
But lest we actually forget that The Office is actually a documentary, with a crew we never see aside from Jim’s requisite eye shrugs into camera. Thank “It’s safe to say that after seven years, the camera crew tasked with documenting the inner workings of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, Inc. is in over their heads,”
by Marc Hustvedt on April 28th, 2011
If we had to name the biggest break out web series of the year so far, it would be Epic Meal Time hands down. “Fast Food Pizza,” the group’s first carnivore-inclined gastroporn episode hit the internet just six months ago, whipped up a solid two million views and hasn’t looked back since. Now the EpicMealTime channel has cracked the top 100 most subscribed list on YouTube (currently at #73 with 654,316), in one of the fastest climbs we’ve seen yet. Who ever said it wasn’t possible to launch a web series into the Top 100 these days?
Now after signing with online network Revision3, who will also pick up the show for distribution across its web of platforms, the parodies have begun. Parodies with kids are well trodden territory on YouTube, with LandlineTV and TheFineBros fishing from this pond often. But this time it wasn’t the usual suspects who scored big riding the slipstream of EMT’s success. It was an editor and animator from Philidelphia, James Favata, that nailed the show’s power cuts and penchant for Jack Daniels—with his own son as the star.
by Joshua Cohen on April 28th, 2011
If you’re un-American or have a connection with the “rejected-child aspect of Anglophilia,” you’re all jazz hands right now in anticipation for tomorrow’s Royal Wedding and wondering whether Prince Charles is going to wear his Eichmann or Goebbels uniform to big bro’s big day.
If you pledge your allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, however, you’re giddy like a monkey cowboy right now for tonight’s NFL Draft.
The biggest event in off-season professional football begins tonight, Thursday, April 28 at 8PM ET. The Twitter is already blowing up with fan favorites and predictions and the NFL is keeping score. For instance, in the past five minutes 330 tweets have mentioned Georgia Wide Receiver A.J. Greer and 168 discuss Virginia Tech Running Back Ryan Williams.
If you’re late to the game, didn’t do your homework, but still want a crash course in this year’s First Round prospects so you have something to talk about in your man cave before the team’s announce their selections, Gatorade has just the web series for you (which they’ve disabled embeds on. Who still does that?!? That’s not G, Gatorade. Definitely not G.).
by Joshua Cohen on April 27th, 2011
It’s a big week in the Big Apple for the web series world. At least two New York City-based independent productions debuted their sophomore or junior seasons in the past two days. Here’s a look at the premieres and what fans can expect from the next chapters in a teenage “coming of age story in a post 9/11 world” and a “dramedy about the extremes people go to when faced with an economic crash.”
Anyone But Me returned for its third season by way of an exclusive online premiere on Monday, thanks to a more than successful web-a-thon and a helluva lot of fans with cash to give and a wishes for creators Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward to continue the storyline.
Rachael Hip-Flores (aka Vivian) and Nicole Pacent (aka Ester) womanned live chats on both coasts before and after the episode debuted, interacting and answering questions with at least 5,000 individuals who caught the premiere. Since then, the first episode has racked up over 46,000+ views and counting, which makes for a total of 550,000 views in the last 30 days for Anyone But Me episodes on Blip and YouTube.
The new season is slated to last five episodes, with more in the works if Miller and Ward are able to wrangle sponsors. So, what can fans expect from another half dozen or so installments from Anyone But Me? “Playing with time,” Miller tells me, “New faces. Challenges and changes as characters are one yeard older, and locations never seen on the show before.”
Like what you see? Be sure to show your support here by voting Anyone But Me for Best Drama in the Webby’s People’s Voice Award.
