TV and Burgers

It was a return to normalcy for the Oscars last night.  After the debacle of 2011 the Academy decided to stop trying to pander to the 18-24 demographic and gave us an old fashioned Oscars telecast celebrating vintage Hollywood.  The show, while still over three hours long, was fast paced and done well.  It was comfort food, Oscars style.  Billy Crystal returned for his ninth stint as host and he was a welcome relief from the disinterested James Franco and the way too perky Anne Hathaway.  Crystal opened with his traditional methods: inserting himself into a montage of clips from the films of 2011 followed by a medley in which he mentioned all the Best Picture nominees.  The thing you get with Crystal is that he is safe.  The Academy knows he is not going to go off the deep end, start swearing or get overly political.  The other thing that Crystal does best is that he reacts.  He reacts and adjusts to the audience and to what h...

Last fall I received from very disturbing news.  The Original Hooters in Clearwater would be closing for a few months to undergo major renovations.  How would I get by without my all time favorite restaurant?  Would I be able to get through this?  Well the answer turned out to be yes and I am here to report that the New Original Hooters is bigger and better than ever.  Welcome Back! Today, 2/13/12, was opening day of the New Original Hooters .  The first thing you notice is the expanded parking lot.  Parking could often be difficult and they have clearly solved that problem.  The next thing you notice is that from the outside it looks completely different.  There is a huge outdoor patio and the big plus with that is that you no longer have to walk through some yucky cigarette smoke to enter the building.  As has always been the case you enter the store being greeted by a beautiful Hooters girl.  To your right is...

Found footage.  That’s what we are said to be watching at the beginning of The River, a new eight episode series on ABC.  Who found the footage and how they found it is a mystery, but then again just about everything on The River is a mystery at this point.  Here is the premise: Dr. Emmet Cole is the host of a popular and long running wildlife show called The Undiscovered Country.  The show also features his wife, Tess and their son Lincoln as they travel the globe on their ship, The Magus.  Emmet ends each episode with the same tagline of “there’s magic out there”.  But six months ago Emmet disappeared in the Amazon.  His ship and crew were never found and he was declared dead.  Then suddenly his emergency beacon goes off and the search for him begins.  We got little more than that in the first 15 minutes of the show when the crew was hastily put together and we learned that Emmet had been estranged from his son, who was al...