Yesterday I received an email from Van Jones of Green for All telling me to watch Earth: The Sequel on Wednesday, March 11th. Despite the fact that I don’t know Van Jones personally and it was clearly a mass email, I always click when I see his name because I know it will be something meaningful. This one was no different,

Our friends at the Environmental Defense Fund have partnered with the Discovery Channel to bring green energy technologies to life as never before. Am I really writing to ask you to watch TV on Wednesday? Yes. Because this special tells the story that the whole nation needs to know: We have an abundance of clean energy alternatives already available to solve the global warming crisis and rebuild a clean, green America.

Check out the trailer and, if you like what you see, sign up to watch the show: www.earththesequel.com

Pretty cool, huh? You better believe that when the new green jobs advisor to the Obama administration tells me to watch something, I’ll be tuning in.

Thumbnail image via Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Check out the recently released trailer for Kartemquin Films’ latest documentary Milking the Rhino which will air on Independent Lens, the award winning PBS series, in spring 2009. The film was beautifully shot in HD and tells the story of African tribes who struggle to protect local wildlife while providing for their communities.

From the website:

A ferocious kill on the Serengeti… warnings about endangered species… These clichés of nature documentaries disregard a key part of the landscape: villagers just off-camera who navigate the dangers and costs of living with wildlife. Africa is emerging from a history of “white man conservation” that displaced indigenous people, banned subsistence hunting, and fueled resentment. Now, a revolution in grass-roots wildlife conservation is turning poachers into protectors.

But change doesn’t come easy.

With memorable characters and spectacular locations, MILKING THE RHINO tells joyful, penetrating and heartbreaking stories from Kenya and Namibia — revealing the high stakes obstacles facing Community Conservation today.

For more information visit www.milkingtherhino.org

Photo credit: Jason Longo

The Daily Show’s John Oliver responded last week to Fox News’ recent “documentary” about President Bush, “George W. Bush: Fighting to the Finish” (it actually exists!) with one of his own, “FOX News: The Meter is Running.” It’s an unflinching, no-holds-barred, fair and balanced look at…

It’s pretty funny. Have a look at the clip:

Part 2 after the jump…

Forget “Lost.” Tonight, it’s all about “The Office.”

Yes, most of you probably know that the NBC comedy is back from the Writers Strike doldrums, returning tonight (8pm Central) with new episodes, and more importantly, new questions about the Dunder-Mifflin romances, break-ups, and shake-ups in store for fans.

Indeed, the devoted fan base has kept “The Office” all-too relevant despite being off the air for five months. Other strike-grounded shows, now struggling to regain their footing, would kill for that kind of loyalty.

At the center of the “Office” faniverse sits Jennie Tan, a Silicon Valley technical writer who single-handedly runs OfficeTally, arguably one of the best fansites on the web.

And with a new episode on tap, along with recent (but touchy) news of a spinoff in the works, we couldn’t help but drop her a line. Caution: “The Office” may lead to decreased productivity.

Fresh Cut: How and when was “Office Tally” born?

Jennie Tan: OfficeTally went live in February 2006, about halfway through “The Office” Season 2. It was originally created as a place for people to rate the episodes (hence the “tally” in “officetally”), and nothing more. Of course, since then, OfficeTally has become more of a news site, but the name stuck!

FC: How did OfficeTally manage to set itself apart from so many other fan sites?

JT: I think part of it is luck — luck in that the site started pretty early in the show’s run. And having so much support from the show’s producers, writers, cast, and crew has been fantastic, too. Last but not least, the OfficeTally readers, or Tallyheads as they are called, do a fantastic job of providing news tips for the site. OfficeTally would not be as content-rich without the Tallyheads! Continue Reading…

With a post-writers-strike lull in new TV show episodes, I’m guessing not many people caught last week’s rerun of “The Office.”

The episode, “Local Ad,” finished on an unusual note, with an “In memory of” dedication displayed over the end credits. It featured a fuzzy video of 15-year-old Nathan Robinson playing his rendition of “The Office” theme song on his piano.

It turns out Robinson, who died a few weeks ago from flu-related complications, was a huge fan of the show. “The Office” producers moved forward with the dedication after reading a story about him in the Boston Globe, according to E! News.

Now Robinson’s YouTube performance is more-or-less considered viral. Regardless, the dedication was a thoughtful gesture that reinforced my love for the best show on television.

Speaking of which: There’ll be much more posting this week about “The Office” returning with new episodes this Thursday.

Suge Knight has a new reality show, Unfinished Business, and it looks like the most outrageous show since Cooking With Coolio launched a couple months ago. The show has apparently been in the works since 2004, and although no networks have signed on yet, an official trailer was posted on the Web this weekend.

The trailer is so chaotic and disorganized that it’s difficult to grasp exactly what the show is supposed to be about, but it seems that Knight is on a talent search to resuscitate his crumbling record label, Death Row Records. The label was all but abandoned when Knight went to jail in 1997, and it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2006.

I always thought the power relations between Tyra Banks and her contestants on America’s Next Top Model were pretty dictatorial and extreme, but judging from the trailer, Suge Knight takes it to a whole new level. If he doesn’t like the shirt a particular contestant is wearing, he tells him to take it off and lights it on fire. If Knight is disappointed or annoyed with the contestants, he and his henchmen just beat the shit out of them in the lobby of Knight’s office.

It’s been four days since HBO debuted its critically acclaimed mini-series, John Adams, but only after watching it again last night did I notice some curious parallels to a certain Illinois senator running for President.

I’m not really going to review Sunday night’s episodes; for that, check out the New Yorker’s and New York Times’ thorough recaps and reviews.

Although it wasn’t really the talk of the town (thanks a lot, Ashley Dupré!), the series did draw about 2.5 million viewers for each of its two premier episodes, making it the best mini-series debut for HBO since 2004, according to Broadcasting & Cable.

But as one of those 2.5 million viewers, I hope I’m not the only one who felt a peculiar connection between John Adams (as portrayed in the script) and Barack Obama.

First, there’s the series tagline: “He United the States of America.” Read into it what you will, but I could just as easily see that slogan on an Obama ‘08 bumper sticker. Continue Reading…

While exploring videoart.net, I came across this short film, ‘Charlie Rose’ by Samuel Beckett by experimental filmmaker Andrew Filippone Jr. The re-mix of the popular PBS series “Charlie Rose” shows the host engaging in an absurd conversation with himself about the state of technology today. His repetition of the words “google”, “Microsoft” and “yahoo” place these entities in a farcical context while at the same time implying their disturbingly large importance in our lives. Say “google” three times and it begins to sound like gibberish. Say it yet a few more times and you recognize the power contained in that word. The filmmaker explains,

“Something has happened to PBS favorite “Charlie Rose.” The erudite conversations and sober intellectualism have been replaced by an absurd world where illogic, inane dialogues, and open hostility rule. The one-on-one interview between Charlie and his guest begins as usual but quickly goes awry, so much so that Charlie is warned that, somewhere, a man named “Steve” is “not happy.” Though this seemingly random statement might confuse us, Charlie understands it for what it is — a threat. But who is “Steve” and why is he angry? And why does the mere mention of his name stop Charlie cold?”

Pat Buchanan got in over his head on the Dan Abrams Show on Wednesday as he tried to defend Geraldine Ferraro’s recent comments that many perceived to be a racist swipe at Barack Obama. Buchanan was double teamed by Rachel Maddow and Keli Goff as he tried to clarify his and Ferraro’s positions, and at one point he lost control and asked Goff to “Shut up for a second, please!” [a short clip is below; the entire 17-minute show is here]

However, the part of the exchange that’s most interesting isn’t when Buchanan tells Goff to shut up (although it is sort of surprising, considering how accustomed to being interrupted the McLaughlin Group regular must be by now). Buchanan’s actual line of argument is of far greater interest, because he argued two separate points, thus articulating exactly why Ferraro’s remarks have been interpreted as racist. First, he said that Ferraro’s comments (”If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position” and that he’s “lucky” to be black) are valid, and second, that Obama is winning certain Southern states because large African-American populations in those states favor him.

Ferraro’s position has been tagged as racist because of its open-endedness; it trivializes any and all of Obama’s personal successes, suggesting that he’s been given a free pass all along. The other argument — the voter demographic position — is no different than the sort of exit polling data that CNN gives viewers as the returns come in. Pundits always address who wins the female vote, the black vote, the white male vote, and so on and so forth. It’s not a particularly racist exercise, although it does tend to over-simplify the results.

Buchanan surely knew the difference between the two positions he was taking, and he must also know that people are likely to respond passionately when one outspoken racist (Buchanan) comes out in the defense of another perceived racist. Incredibly, Buchanan didn’t stop there though; he actually tried to further his argument by citing Joe Biden’s famous 2007 flap in which he told the New York Observer that Obama was the only “articulate” and “clean” African-American to have a shot at the White House. Probably not the best source to cite there, Pat.

It’s been about five months since Hulu first launched in beta back in October, but today the site is finally available to the public. The site is a partnership between NBC Universal and News Corporation, and Warner Bros. Television Group and Lionsgate have recently joined, bringing along a bunch of movies and sporting telecasts with them. The site will feature full-length TV shows and films from more than 50 media companies, although no major TV networks other than NBC have gotten on board yet.

Like other similar sites that have recently launched like Veoh, Hulu promises to give YouTube a run for its money, but that’s what everyone says. The idea of legally bringing TV shows and movies online for free (ad supported) viewing is a great one, and the site is guaranteed to be popular, but there’s skepticism over Hulu’s business model.

Silicon Alley Insider, for example, points out that because the site will be hosting content that it doesn’t own, the media companies that produce the shows will be getting most of the revenue. Hulu will bear most of the costs, which will become more expensive as the video resolution improves. So basically, Hulu has had to bend over backwards to attract content (which is still pretty limited) to the site, and in doing so, they’ve willingly given themselves the short end of the stick.

And according to the New York Times, they’ve been experimenting with some unusual advertising arrangements, which sounds sort of neat (if you’re into web ads):

Hulu is experimenting with giving viewers a choice in advertising. During certain shows, viewers will be able to choose which commercial they want to watch — for example, whether they want to see an ad for Nissan’s Rogue S.U.V., Maxima sedan or Z sports car.

Right now, the biggest challenge facing Hulu is getting more content online. There are currently about 80 movies on the site and many more TV shows, but many of them are obscure old shows that most viewers would probably prefer to forget about. And to get more and better content, they’re going to have to woo more studios and networks.