The What Men Love Post.

There's your two thousand words right there.

The All About How You Don't Have To Be Posh To Watch Privileged Post.

I had to miss Privileged last night, but Channel 4/E4/More4 has an OnDemand facility so you can watch episodes of this and many other 4 shows online (see also the BBC's iPlayer, ITV's ITV Player, and so on). So I head off to the site and prepare for more of the adventures of the engaging Megan and the Baker twins. (Unlike Gossip Girl, it doesn't revel in amorality and doesn't suffer from too many epically hateable characters - sometimes I suspect only the immense beddability of Blake Lively keeps me going. Which is probably why, unlike Gossip Girl, the CW isn't bringing it back. But I digress.)

Anyway, I went to the site but... um... it didn't play. Unlike ITV Player, where this kind of thing is to be expected, it refused to play because it said I wasn't in the area where it was available. Which would be fair enough if I was out of the UK (these things never go across borders), but I'm not, darnit. It's not like I'm trying to watch it on the CW's site. Anyway, until Saturday morning's repeat (or until the DVD release, which at least should have the episodes in their uncensored forms and no loud-mouthed announcer talking over the end credits and that blue bird at the end, but that's another story), that's your lot.

"Bye."

The Bandslam Post.

Bandslam was the second time I've ever seen Aly Michalka in a non-Disney context; the first time was when she was on London Tonight promoting Bandslam. The film itself, despite coming with a trailer for New Moon attached, has turned out to be something of a box office dud on both sides of the Atlantic (a fate doomed to be shared by I Love You, Beth Cooper thanks partly to the reviews - most of which, mercifully, didn't go after my girl Hayden (though woe betide Chris Tookey and Nicholas Barber if I meet them) - but mostly to it not being on many screens in London... and thanks to my unwillingness to see anything in its first week of release I'll have to wait until next weekend!); for which some have blamed the marketing. Others blamed the casting of Vanessa Hudgens.

I blame the marketing - for a start, you know the poster art featuring Aly, Vanessa and Gaelan Connell proudly on stage? Doesn't really happen in the movie. Plus the movie's official UK website doesn't help reduce any High School Musical connotations, although the movie itself is overall better written (by Josh A. Cagan and director Todd Graff, from the former's story) and more filled with what's called "real" music in some corners. The trouble with the movie is that it's more interesting with its story and characters than with... you know... the music. Relationship between Aly and Gaelan's characters? Yes. Vanessa's edgy persona (a nice change of pace for her, really)? Yes. The whole "Dewey" thing? Yes. The actual musical numbers? Not really that rousing - even in the climax. (Also, when they're in CBGB's and the hero says there wouldn't have been U2 or The Killers without it... so it was them!)

Can't fault the singing, though, or most of the acting. And it passes the time well enough - too bad David Bowie still can't act. And too bad Aly's character is ultimately more interesting than Vanessa's. And too bad it had to come in the wake of the passing of John Hughes... but it still deserved to do a little better than it did.

The Panettiere And Crawford On Friday Post.

It's only fair that the birthday babe come first, really (today Hayden turns 20, the same day as I Love You, Beth Cooper opens in the UK to not particularly good reviews - but she's moved on).

Cindy here is for her new line of shoes for the German company Deichmann, called 5th Avenue. Not expensive, and not available in the UK. Fortunately it's not about the shoes, it's about who's wearing them...

The I'm Back Post.

Upside: Cindy in St. Tropez again! More Vanessa Hudgens nudity! JoAnna Garcia in Privileged every Sunday evening!

Downside: Spending a week off work because of illness. And John Hughes.

The With Sincere Regrets... Post.

William Gaines swore that he'd never run advertisements in Mad magazine (other than the fake kind) and he kept his word. Now that he's passed on, it's a whole 'nother story. Running colour stories is a good change, mind, but still.

Like the late Bill, I don't want to do something I said I'd never do - but unlike Bill I'll have to go back on my word. To free up disc space, I'll have to delete downloaded-and-saved pictures. So farewell to Aria Giovanni, Erica Campbell, the Krupa sisters and Katharine McPhee... but Jessica Alba is forever safe. So are Mariah Carey, Monica Bellucci, Laetitia Casta and Hayden Panettiere.

And yes, so is Cindy. Seen here in Argentina on Remington-related business, looking all soft and luscious in blue. I wish I could get more on here. Fortunately lots more here.

The Give Danny Elfman A Break Dammit Post.

A few moments ago I was taping the end credits of Wanted, featuring Danny Elfman scoring plus the man singing in rock song form for the first time in a movie in years (and also, unfortunately, featuring Claire "World's Most Annoying Continuity Announcer" Sturgess talking over the front of it - hence the existence of soundtrack albums). Several hours ago I was in a cinema watching Terminator Salvation, which also features Danny Elfman scoring. And it doesn't have much in the way of his usual tropes (other than being a fine composer) - the two don't sound much like each other, which sort of spits in the face of those who insist all his stuff sounds the same. In fact Wanted has more Elfmanisms than the T-Whatevernumberitis stuff; no children's choir but heavy marching strings and a bit of eccentric percussion. Both are ones to get in their own right, though.

Not that Terminator Salvation is a good movie, mind.

The A Lot More Than 35 People Agree Post.

In a 1991 Pepsi commercial, supermodel Cindy Crawford steps out of a red Lamborghini at a remote roadside rest stop. Wearing a white tank top and denim cut-off shorts, she flicks her hair and saunters over to a vending machine, where she buys--and drinks--a can of ice-cold Pepsi. She's oblivious to the two young boys who are watching, spellbound.

The Pepsi commercial, which was created by Omnicom agency BBDO and last aired during the Super Bowl 17 years ago, was rated as the sexiest TV commercial among 35 viewed by eight judges from the advertising industry.

So sayeth Forbes.com (also making the cut: ads for Levi's with Daniela Pestova, Calvin Klein with Brooke Shields - yes, that one - and, of course, beer and perfume spots). The complete article is here.



The original...



...and the remake.

Sure they were looking at the Pepsi can, in either version. Sure they were.

The Cindy In Florida And Canada Post.

Not at the same time, obviously.

First at the opening of the W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale:


Then up in Quebec for her successful Cindy Crawford Home line:

Busy lady, and such a foxy one! Maxim calling again, please? Or another men's magazine?

The Play That Truncated Music, White Boy Post.

Jon Burlingame in Variety:

Nearly 35 years ago, producers Thomas Miller and Edward Milkis put together a 20-minute presentation to convince ABC that two guest stars on Happy Days could be spun off into their own series.

They shot just a few new scenes of Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams as Laverne & Shirley but, recalls composer Charles Fox, they insisted on a 75-second main-title sequence with a fully produced song, "so, right from the beginning, people would know what it was about."

Fox and lyricist Norman Gimbel came up with "Making Our Dreams Come True." It became a top-25 hit -- one of many TV theme hits for Fox, who won an Emmy for Love, American Style and wrote themes for Happy Days, The Love Boat, Angie and others.

Today a composer is happy to get 10 seconds on a broadcast skein, and hit TV themes are rare.

Over the past 15 years, the broadcast networks have demanded shorter main-title sequences, preferring to jump into the action faster and thus reduce the chance that viewers will flip to another channel. Emmy's Main Title Theme Music category, however, disallows themes under 15 seconds, so many network shows are ineligible.

Last year's theme-music Emmy winner, Russ Landau (Pirate Master), says, "It's getting tougher and tougher to convince (decisionmakers) to spend the time that they would normally be making on advertising dollars.

But some producers like music -- Mark Burnett (Survivor) likes a good, long-line theme. It sets the tone for the show."

Jeff Beal, who scores ABC's Ugly Betty, gets 12 seconds -- so short a time that the music can't really be called a theme.

"It's a little sonic signature that says a lot about the style of the show and who the character is," he explains, its prominent marimba suggesting Betty's Mexican heritage.

For USA's Monk, Beal got 45 seconds (and won one of his three Emmys), and for HBO's Rome he got a minute and a half. Longer openings offer a chance "to tell more of a musical story," he says.

Heroes, by contrast, gave composers Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin just 10 seconds. "You have to think in terms of 'stings,'" says Coleman, referring to the film-music tradition of brief but impactful musical statements. "We knew it had to be big and somewhat supernatural sounding. It didn't need to be terribly melodic, just atmospheric."

This year, PBS producer David Horn wanted to reinvigorate the opening sequence of Great Performances for the high-def era and called five-time Oscar winner John Williams to compose new theme music. Williams' piece debuted March 25 and is only his third primetime series signature in 25 years.

"It is elegant, and it sneaks up on you," says Horn, who previously had commissioned Oscar winners John Corigliano and Maurice Jarre to write Great Performances themes.

"I wanted to use a full symphonic orchestra, to invite the viewer to come in to a series that we like to think is classy," says Horn -- "one week the Metropolitan Opera, next week Carnegie Hall, then a musical theater piece, Shakespearean drama, a lot of different things."

In contrast, say many observers, the commercial networks are missing a bet by ignoring the power of a good theme.

"Quickening the pace, getting into storylines faster, all conspire against the theme," says Cleveland Plain Dealer TV critic Mark Dawidziak. "But on cable, the name of the game is people knowing who you are -- FX viewers, USA viewers, HBO viewers -- and this is where that old-fashioned network thinking comes into play. They hear that music and they remember that opening."

However, even some cable shows suffer from Tiny Open Syndrome, like USA's Burn Notice. Anyway, carry on.

"Eighty years from now," he adds, "today's kids, sitting in their wheelchairs in the nursing home, will be humming the SpongeBob SquarePants theme in much the same way that we know the theme songs of our youth. It's more than just a TV theme. It becomes a communal thing, a shared cultural point among your friends, your community."