Random Items

Some quick housekeeping, as I try my hardest to get through the short February doldrums until baseball springs anew and March Madness gets here:

• I think very few of the very few people who read this blog watch just about anything I watch on TV (which is actually not very much these days). The first of two links from Details magazine, this one about my current second-favorite sitcom and the wacky murals that they often show.
• The second article is an oral history of a great show that I know nobody watched, Party Down. Shame.
• A show people probably do watch is How I Met Your Mother and Monday's episode had a whole hidden scheme working for it. I'm going to go home and sleep with my wife!
• Finally, I neglected to review the seventh of the Best Picture nominees I've seen, The King's Speech. The only word to describe it is "beautiful." So beautiful that it wasn't just the ending that had me near tears, it was random scenes because they are so well done artistically. The acting is beyond superb for the most part, with Colin Firth about to deservedly run away with the Oscar and Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter also nominated for good reason. The "most part" comes in because the actor who plays Churchill is a bit weak, but it's a very small part. The dialogue is wonderful, the art direction is sublime, the subtleties of the direction are great (I particularly loved something that Rush does at the end, a slight tilt of his head that carries a message). Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Easily the best movie of the year.