Categories
Television

Love Scrubs. LOVE IT!!

Donald Faison reveals what it would take for a ‘Scrubs’ reboot

Donald Faison is back donning scrubs for his current partnership with Cigna, but it would take a lot more to get him back in them for good.

“It would have to take everybody to come back to do the [“Scrubs”] reboot,” the 43-year-old told Page Six in an interview Thursday. “Not just the cast, but also the producers and the writers to make it work, in my opinion. So I’m not saying it’s not going to happen, but I’m not saying it is either.”

Despite the hit medical comedy ending over seven years ago, Faison says teens still come up to him yelling, “Turk!,” his character’s name. One guy once even jumped on his back, hoping to recreate an ongoing joke on the show where Zach Braff‘s character gets on his back and yells, “Eagle!”

“I was in London and some dude jumped on my back and I flipped him off of me and ran because I thought I was being attacked, but he jumped on my back and yelled, ‘Eaaaaagggglleee’ and by the time he got to ‘G’ I had thrown him off my back and was running,” he said, adding, “Not everybody gets to eagle. It’s a special thing.”

In fact, Faison has only let three people jump on his back and do the iconic scene from the show, and that includes Braff. Faison once let Sara Gilbert do “Eagle” while he was appearing on “The Talk,” and another fan did it when he went on Wanda Sykes’ talk show.

These days, the “Clueless” actor is working with Cigna to help people realize the importance of preventive healthcare and annual checkups.

“When you get ahead of something or catch something early, you have a way better chance of defeating it,” he told us. “A lot of people are afraid to hear what their status is and only want to know how they’re doing when they’re really sick and that’s a dangerous game to play.”

He added, “People can go to Cigna.com and all the information they need about preventive care is there.”

Categories
Music

The website is amazing…and! It’s free for now!! ENJOY!!

Neil Young’s Huge Online Archival Project Is Now Open

Something truly wild and crazy has come to the Internet, at least if you’re a serious Neil Young fan. The legendary singer-songwriter has, after years of development, unleashed the Neil Young Archives, a sprawling website and streaming platform featuring everything Young has recorded as a soloist and bandleader, as well as with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and listings regarding Young-related films and books. Unreleased Young albums and recordings such as Chrome Dreams, Homegrown, and Freedom Live are listed but not yet available to stream, as Pitchfork notes.

The kitschy interface of the site is designed to look like a combination of an old stereo and a filing cabinet; the net result is reminiscent of a late-’90s Carmen Sandiego computer game. That being said, the site, under ideal conditions, will allow you to systematically work your way through Young’s entire recorded catalogue, in high quality audio provided by Young’s own Xstream streaming plugin. (Should the higher quality audio be too much to handle, there’s a toggle switch at the top of the page to get it down to 320kbs).

Parts of the site are very confusing (the practical use of the filing cabinet section, mostly), but that seems to be in the interest of promoting spontaneous discovery. If you’re confused, there’s a video tutorial by Young available on the home page, as well as a written explanation of the purpose and methodology of the Archives. A good way to start: go to the “Timeline” section and scroll through the 50-year-plus run of Young’s career, and click around the albums linked there. Fans can also look forward to updates from Young in the “NYA News” section of the site. Again, this is all free if you give an email address.

Categories
Movies

I was hoping to see THE DISASTER ARTIST this weekend but didn’t find the time. Soon!!

Coco delivers box office encore on quiet weekend

On a quiet weekend with no new wide releases from the major studios, Disney and Pixar’s Coco is still managing to make some noise. The Día de los Muertos-themed animated musical is on track to top the box office for the second week in a row, grossing about $26.1 million from 3,987 theaters in the U.S. and Canada. Meanwhile, James Franco’s moviemaking comedy The Disaster Artist and Guillermo del Toro’s sci-fi romance The Shape of Water are both off to strong starts in limited release.

Bolstered by glowing reviews from critics and an A-plus CinemaScore from moviegoers, Coco is poised to drop off 49 percent in its sophomore weekend, a solid figure that puts its estimated domestic total at $108.7 million after 12 days in theaters. The film is also set to take in about $69 million overseas, which would bring its international total to $171.3 million.

Directed by Lee Unkrich and co-directed by Adrian Molina, Coco centers on a 12-year-old Mexican boy (voiced by newcomer Anthony Gonzalez) who confronts his family’s ancestral ban on music. The cast includes Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, and Alanna Ubach.

The rest of the weekend top five are also repeats. Warner Bros’. superhero tentpole Justice League will take second place with about $16.6 million, bringing its 17-day domestic total to $197.3 million and its worldwide total to $567.4 million. The film, which is directed by Zack Snyder (with additional work by Joss Whedon) and stars Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, and Henry Cavill, received mixed reviews and a B-plus CinemaScore.

Lionsgate’s family film Wonder is No. 3, with about $12.5 million; Disney’s superhero sequel Thor: Ragnarok is No. 4, with about $9.7 million; and Paramount’s paternal comedy Daddy’s Home 2 is No. 5, with about $7.5 million.

On the specialty front, A24’s The Disaster Artist is poised to take in an estimated $1.2 million from 19 locations, for a robust per-theater average of $64,254.

Directed by and starring Franco, and based on Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell’s book of the same name, The Disaster Artist chronicles the making of Tommy Wiseau’s notorious 2003 independent film The Room, which has been called “the Citizen Kane of bad movies.” Critics have lauded Franco’s film, which also stars brother Dave Franco (as Sestero), Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, and Ari Graynor. It expands to 800 theaters next week.

Scoring the best per-theater average of the weekend, and one of the best of the year, is Fox Searchlight’s The Shape of Water. It’s on pace to earn about $167,000 from two locations, which works out to $83,400 per theater.

Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, Del Toro’s film centers on a mute woman (played by Sally Hawkins) who works a janitor at a government research center and forms an unlikely bond with a captured amphibious humanoid known as the Asset (Doug Jones). The film has also received glowing reviews.

Also opening in limited release, though to less impressive numbers and reviews, is Woody Allen’s latest, Wonder Wheel. The Amazon release is set to take in about $140,555 from five locations, for a per-theater average of $28,111.

According to ComScore, overall box office is down 3.9 percent year-to-date. Check out the Dec. 1-3 figures below.

1. Coco — $26.1 million
2. Justice League — $16.6 million
3. Wonder — $12.5 million
4. Thor: Ragnarok — $9.7 million
5. Daddy’s Home 2 — $7.5 million
6. Murder on the Orient Express — $6.7 million
7. Lady Bird — $4.5 million
8. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri — $4.5 million
9. The Star — $4 million
10. A Bad Moms Christmas — $3.5 million