I am one of those people who has always have friends tell me, “You should have been here!  So-and-so from TV/movies was here earlier!”  Not that I much care about spotting them, I have just always found my timing amazing.  Yet, somehow, while here in England I am up to six!

Now, let me preface this by saying I was delayed on the BBC tour when I went there and was held back to join a later tour in the area they call “Stage Door” where all of the celebs arrive to film shows.  Five of my sightings happened there and included:

• Matt Lucas from Little Britain (Who seemed very sour when someone else on the tour dared to say hi to him)
• Len Goodman from Dancing With the Stars and Strictly Come Dancing (They were filming the Christmas special the day)
• Bruno Tonioli from Dancing With the Stars and Strictly Come Dancing
• Some blonde girl From Eastenders that was appearing on the dancing special
• Said blonde girl’s pro dancing partner

Like I said, I was at the BBC itself, so not totally unexpected, but then came the randomness that happened outside 10 Downing Street.

Having missed a turn for somewhere else I was going, I found myself outside of the street that houses the Prime Minister. I had never intended to go there, but I was there, so why not look? As I looked through the gate down the road, I saw someone approaching with shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair, and a huge smile. I just thought, “Oh, what a happy guy.” … and then did a double take.  I turned to one of the policemen on duty, tossed my thumb towards the man and mouthed, “Is that …?”  And he just gave me a big grin and said, “Yeah.”

I couldn’t get a good picture by the time I figured it out, but it was James May, one of the three hosts of the ultra-popular Top Gear.  Why he was at the British equivalent of the White House is beyond me, but what a completely random encounter.

And the police officer who confirmed it was him?  He immediately went in behind the gate to ask May for a picture, which he very cheerfully obliged.

Okay, I have two more days, anyone else want to run into me?

Do you remember back to the days where you would go on vacation and then have to trudge down to the developers and pay an arm and a leg to get all of those pictures developed? Eventually you became more picky with what you shot as you hated the bill.

… I kinda miss those days.

Each night I have come back to my room and popped my memory card into my laptop to import the photos to iPhoto in case anything should happen to the memory card.  Tonight set a new personal record with 240 pictures to import.  Between the Churchill War Museum, the London Museum of Film and Big Ben shot from every conceivable angle (you can click the image on the right for the full-sized one, although I shook a tiny bit in taking this one), I was a picture taking machine today.

Is this a good thing?  True, it really isn’t costing me any money, but five years from now is anyone going to care – myself included – that I took a good chunk of these images?  Who knows, for now it makes me happy knowing I’ve documented so much of this trip I’ve always wanted to go on, and I’ll worry about if anyone cares about the images another day … or possibly never.

I thought when I came to England I would see all sorts of great British shows I haven’t seen yet, and instead I’m finding a wasteland of reality shows. Case in point: Geordie Shore.

I had heard of this copy of the American Jersey Shore trash, but guess what? It’s worse. How is that possible? Easy, you add in unbleeped cursing and nudity.

Yep, nudity. In the five or so minutes of I’ve been watching this – mostly out of shock – I’ve already seen one of the main girls flash her breasts out a group of guys, and, no, they weren’t blurred out.

While I don’t really care about nudity being shown, considering the target crowd for this shore and I’m just … wow.  Really?  And what makes it even better?  Now there’s a Toys R’ Us commercial on during this.  It’s 11:41 PM here on a Monday night and I’m seeing breasts and commercials for toys … just who is this show targeting?!?

Oh, okay, now they’re in a strip club …

To the people of England, I apologize on the behalf of the United States.  This may be the worst thing we have ever done to you.

And just as I finish this post, the preview for the next episode shows one of the girls taking off her bikini top and shaking her breasts … really, I’m sorry.  So, so sorry.

Of all the blog posts I hoped to write while on this trip, this was probably the one I looked forward to the most: Traveling from Manchester to London by train.

I have long been a lover of trains, but my schedule very rarely allows me to take them as a means of transport.I believe the last train ride I took of any length was in the summer of 1993, and that was just an eight hour ride to Chicago.  In this case this ride is slightly under three hours, but it affords me the opportunity to take a look at a country I have seen so much of on TV and in movies.  (Before someone goes, “But Sean, how are you looking at the countryside while typing?”, I have become a pretty good touch typist, thank you, and I’m looking out the window and not at the keyboard as I write this.)

There was another option for gtting down to London, but it was actually more expensive than the train, even with me opting for the first class ticket (£34.50/$53.99).  I figured I could either have the misery of air travel, security checks and so on, or I could take a nice train ride through the countryside, sit at a private table and use free onboard Wi-Fi.  I think you can see the clear winner in this case.

Is it everything we have been shown in the U.S. when it comes to rolling, lush hills?  Judge for yourself.  You can click the image for a larger view, but do remember this was shot from a moving train … and the table lamp in the corner.

By far this is the majority of what I am seeing as I ride along the rails. Sure, there’s industrial areas, cities and so on, but in-between are these lush, rich pockets of land, just as you’ve always heard about and seen in entertainment.

While I am spending the majority of my time in cities such as Manchester and London, this is part of what I came here to see, and with that, I close out this blog post that serves but one purpose: To confirm the countryside does indeed exist as you’ve always envisioned it.

It’s hard to describe the feeling one gets when they finally ascend the stairs of a stadium that they have dreamed of going to for years, and then being confronted with the reality of it being right in front of you. Before Manchester United had even hit the field, I was already a happy man.

After more than a decade of following Manchester United, I finally got a chance to see them in their home stadium today against Newcastle United, and even though the final result was 1 – 1 (it really should have been 3 – 1 … that penalty kick and the off-sides call are going to haunt me for some time), it was still worth every penny I spent to get here. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat, but the odds of the chances presenting themselves again are fairly slim. So, even if I never get to do it again, at least I have this one time to remember.

Now, normally this would be where you would assume I would insert a picture of the game or the inside of the stadium, but they actually have extremely clear rules about posting photos from inside the stadium to the Internet, so, instead, I bring you the Wall O’ Scarves from the official store in front of the stadium.

Scarves of your favorite football club is darn near an industry onto itself, and it amazed me just how many they had stocked up.

… I bought four different ones.  Hey, they’re only £10, leave me alone!

This trip was made possible due to several people helping with scheduling and making sure I got here, and while I would love to name them, I know they would rather I didn’t.  They know who they are, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for an amazing day at Old Trafford, also known as The Theater of Dreams.

As trips go … I’ve had better.

After an excruciating seven hour layover in O’Hare, I was able to get a great exit row seat with no chair in front of it, and I was sure I was set.  Sadly, my tailbone totally disagrees as it’s stil hurting almost 17 hours later.  A situation I definitely need to figure out before I return home.

Beyond that, the flight got in nearly an hour early and that meant getting to the hotel way before check-in, but they rushed to get a room ready for me and by 9:30 I was back on the streets and heading over to Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United.

Some shopping (you have to have the right gear for the game … right? That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!) and then off to a mall and … back to the room for sleep. While I’m normally not a fan of taking a nap on the day arrive somewhere, there just wasn’t an option this time. So, four hours later and I was off to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and then an open air Christmas market that was just insanely crowded, and cooked things in open pits that would make me think there is a high number of employee injuries. (and I still don’t get the hats …)

Overall a fun first day, and we’ll see how the game goes against Newcastle United … because I’m sure you’re all desperate to know.

Fun notes:

• Wash clothes are called “first clothes” … at least by the maid staff.
• The people of Manchester are amazingly nice and helpful.
• Some folks have had trouble understanding my accent …

I’m big on holidays; always have been, always will be. There was a time where the idea of spending the holidays away from home was just so foreign to me that I couldn’t comprehend it.

… Greetings from the O’Hare Terminal 3, Concourse K American Airlines Admiral’s Club.  Below is a picture of my cubicle in the business center where I am camped out until my flight to Manchester, England starts boarding at 5:20 PM CST.

When the opportunity for this vacation came up, I was reluctant at first to go at this time of year because it is the holidays, but too many things lined up to make this the nearly perfect trip: I get a few extra days of vacation without using up time from work, I get to see a Manchester United game and I get to see England all decorated for Christmas. It seemed like a pretty winning combination to me.

I still asked my family multiple times if they were okay with me being gone for Thanksgiving, and they assured me that while it wasn’t ideal, they totally understood that it was just too sweet of an arrangement to not do it.

So, that’s how I find myself killing seven hours in O’Hare airport.  (I took an early flight to allow for problems and there would be backup flights.  Note to everyone: Airports are ghost towns on Thanksgiving Day and planes are only about 75% full.)

I wish you all a happy and wonderful Thanksgiving, and thanks to everyone who helped make sure I got out on this much needed vacation.  When next you hear from me I shall be in England for the first time in my life.  (And, yes, I will be blogging every day as I usually would.  I’m not breaking my streak at this point when I’m coming up on my 7th anniversary.)

It would seem that the retooled Alien prequel now known as Prometheus is definitely keeping some of the flavor of its inspiration.

Originally envisioned as a prequel to the original 1979 Alien, Prometheus got turned into an original story earlier this year.  Along the way it was said that some overtones from Alien would be in the “DNA of the film,” but judging from the below pictures that appear in Entertainment Weekly, I have to say this appears to go way beyond “DNA.”

Is it just me, or does this look a lot like the derelict ship in the original film? Yeah, it does. The human face is also very similar to designs from HR Giger, the artist who served as the production designed for the original.  Also notice how much the space suit helmets look a lot like the ones from years ago?  Yep.

The space suits are pretty slick looking, and seems to strike a more “organized” universe than we’ve seen before.

Gee. do those walls remind you of anything?

Not a lot to see in this one, but still interesting to see where the film is going from a design aspect.

All will be revealed on June 8, 2012.

[via Shock til You Drop]

Color fans of the Chris Nolan Batman movie series surprised when we learned that The Dark Knight Rises will take place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight.

Speaking with Empire magazine, Christopher Nolan finally gave us some details of when exactly the third Batman film – The Dark Knight Rises – will take place time wise in relation to the hugely successful second film:

It’s really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne’s story. We left him in a very precarious place. Perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after ‘The Dark Knight.’ So he’s an older Bruce Wayne; he’s not in a great state. With Bane, we’re looking to give Batman a challenge he hasn’t had before. With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we’re testing Batman both physically as well as mentally.

This comes as quite a surprise considering where the last film left off with the police chasing Batman through the streets of Gotham as they now believe he killed multiple people.  Many suspected that the last film in the series would pick up shortly after the second film, continuing the events we were left with.  An eight year jump would normally scare the heck out of me, but my faith in Nolan is high enough that I’m willing to follow along and see what he has up his sleeve with this time jump for the series.

The Dark Knight Rises will hit theaters on July 20, 2012.

The first part of the final Twilight film easily won the box office this weekend, surprising no one.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 raked in $139.5 million this weekend, falling short of the second film’s (New Moon) $142.7 million, but still an impressive hall none the less.  There really isn’t much else to say except … one more film to go and then we can forget this garbage series.  (yeah, I said it)

Coming in second was the animated Happy Feet Two with a somewhat disappointing $22 million compared to the original’s $41.5 million opening weekend.

Immortals fell a worrisome 62.5% from its opening weekend, bringing in only $12.25 million. This brings its 10 day domestic total to $53 million off of a $98 million budget.

Landing in fourth was Jack & Jill with a 52% drop to $12 million, and shows a definite weakening in the former gold standard of Adam Sandler films. Perhaps the audience has finally realized what Sandler himself has said that he just plays the same character over and over?

Puss in Boots rounded out the top five with $10.7 million, bringing its total to a pretty disappointing $122 million.

This week’s big releases include Arthur Christmas, The Muppets and Hugo, so it’s all family driven productions as we head into the Thanksgiving weekend.

On a side note, I will be in England next week on vacation, but I do still plan to bring you the weekly box office report because, well, it fascinated me week after week.

While you were enjoying the child actors in the recent hit movie Super 8, it seems that a convicted sex offender was the one responsible for putting them on screen.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Jason James Murphy spent five years in prison after kidnapping an 8-year-old boy in Seattle 15 years ago and molesting him.  After serving his sentence he moved to Hollywood and started working as a casting director under the name “Jason James,” and has climbed the ladder of success to where he has been working as a casting assistant on films such as the afore mentioned Super 8 and the upcoming Three Stooges, both of which feature child actors that he was responsible for hiring.

It was J.J. Abrams production company, Bad Robot, that put two and two together this week that they were the same person and notified authorities of the situation.  ”It’s shocking and it’s devastating, not just as a filmmaker but as a father and someone who is entrusted to make sure that everyone I work with, especially children, are safe,” Abrams told the paper. “To think that someone like this was among us is unthinkable.”

Under California state law, a registered sex offender must notify the authorities of any aliases they work under so that those names can be added to the database.  It appears that Murphy never did this, and the name Jason James did not appear in any databases as a known offender.  Under these laws he is never supposed to be “working directly and in an unaccompanied setting with minor children on more than an incidental and occasional basis or have supervision or disciplinary power over minor children.”

Murphy was originally captured in 1996 after he was shown on America’s Most Wanted and was recognized by a hotel clerk as a guest.  Authorities found him, the boy and $8,000 in cash when they raided the room.

At this time, authorities say he is cooperating with their investigation into the matter.

I actually don’t blame anyone in the casting departments or the films he worked on.  If he never informed the authorities of the name he was working under, there would be no way for anyone to find him in the database, and this goes to show some disturbing lapses in the system.

Apparently the rumors were true and Arrested Development really is coming back to TV … via Netflix.

Last month it was rumored that new Arrested Development episodes were coming, but after so many false starts on the movie, it was hard to put in faith in this report.  Luckily I was very, very wrong this time.

Netflix announced yesterday that it had struck a deal with Twentieth Century Fox and Imagine TV for new episodes of the cult series to air exclusively on its Watch Instantly service.  The new season is scheduled to air in early 2013, and while the movie wasn’t mentioned, this fits in with the previous rumor, so that too may still be on the table.

By the time this airs it will have been nearly seven years since the series was canceled, and anyone who remembers the show knows we were left with several cliffhangers.  As the two youngest actors have aged – Michael Cera as George Michael and Alia Shawkat as Maeby – one has to suspect they will have to say at least some time has passed, and they will probably just tell us the resolutions to those cliffhangers in flashbacks where they can avoid showing those two.

Of course, this is all assuming that the entire original cast returns, but that seems pretty likely as all of them, with the exception of Cera, have been saying for years they would come back at a moments notice.  (Cera has softened as of late, but that’s what happens when your movie career has become a bad joke.)

With such a long break in production it is natural to wonder if they will be able to capture the same magic they had for the three seasons they were on, but I’m fairly confident that they can.  Because, just like there was always money in the Banana Stand, there will also be a million jokes you can do about the Bluths.