- Image via Wikipedia
Leftovers after a long holiday weekend:
* The best news emanating from the recent agreement between Time Warner Cable and Disney got little attention from wire service stories.
Forget all the extra college football games available. Turn on cable and you can usually watch one, two, three or more games simultaneously on Saturday even before this deal.
The real bonus in the deal is the addition of ABC prime time programs like “Modern Family” and “Desperate Housewives” in the On Demand feature.
NBC and CBS programs already were available On Demand. Soon Fox prime time programs will be the only network programs among the Big Four that aren’t available locally On Demand.
However, a TWC representative said Monday that it hasn’t been determined when ABC’s programs will be available On Demand locally. Hopefully, it will be before the start of the new season in less than two weeks.
* One of my regular blog readers speculated that a recent Buffalo News column by Jeff Simon praising Channel 4’s Rich Newberg for his handling of the interview with the man later charged in the Main Street shootings was a direct response to my earlier blog criticizing Newberg.
The truth is that Jeff and I rarely agreed on much of anything on TV (or film for that matter) when we were News colleagues. I admired him and believe we always respected each other.
I always thought that our debates in the office and in print were a good thing for readers.
And I think it remains a good thing now.
Little known fact: Jeff wrote a very funny faux story about me for a retirement party. It praised me and also featured some subtle criticism. I loved it and told him so.
In one of our memorable debates over the years about a movie that he liked and I didn’t – I believe it was “Leaving Las Vegas” – Jeff told me my main problem was “you are too normal.”
No one has ever accused Jeff of having that problem. He has an entertaining, unique take on many things and that extends to his critique of Newberg for the interview with Riccardo M. McCray, who now is accused of being a mass murderer.
Newberg was shown shaking McCray’s hands before asking him a series of questions that were so soft that one former member of the media said he thought that the veteran reporter did everything but kiss the accused mass murderer on the lips.
You could say Jeff did the same thing to Newberg. As for me, I don’t want to see journalists shaking the hands of accused mass murderers and asking soft questions. I don’t think that is, well, normal and I’m supposedly an expert on normal.
* Speaking of critical disagreements between Jeff and me, add to the list the star grade he gave to George Clooney’s latest film, “An American.”
Jeff gave it three stars. I’m such a fan of Clooney’s (see picture above) that at the aforementioned retirement party some colleagues joked that I had a “mancrush” on George.
Having said that, the most suspense in “An American” was whether there would be any suspense. It’s an incredibly slow-paced film with minimal dialogue. My 17-year-old son Max took me to it for my birthday and decided afterwards he could have spent the $32 it cost for the movie, popcorn and drinks more wisely.
My older brother saw it out-of-town and decided it should be re-titled: “A Good Looking American Who Doesn’t Talk Much.”
It made $16 million on opening weekend. But judging by the reaction of the local theater crowd, it is destined to get lousy word-of-mouth. It deserved 2 stars at best.
* All preseason long Channel 7 analyst (and former Bill) Steve Tasker speculated that rookie Levi Brown would be the Buffalo Bills’ third-string quarterback and that either Ryan Fitzpatrick or Brian Brohm would be cut. Since Tasker works for the Bills on those games, a viewer had to assume that Tasker had some inside information. But then Fitzpatrick and Brohm were retained behind starter Trent Edwards and Brown was waived. That certainly didn’t help Tasker’s credibility.
* It will take awhile before Notre Dame fans decide whether Coach Brian Kelly is the answer. But after the Irish’s opening win over Purdue, one thing is clear: Mike Mayock is a much stronger analyst than Pat Haden, who left the NBC booth to become the athletic director at USC.
