Top 10 Shows of 2009: The Best, and the Rest

December 8, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: reviews 

Yet another top 10 shows list this time from the Time and of course Modern Family is in the top:

1. Mad Men
2. Modern Family
3. Breaking Bad
4. Big Love
5. Battlestar Galactica
6. Lost
7. Friday Night Lights
8. Glee
9. Sons of Anarchy
10. The Office / Parks and Recreation (tie)

Read more: in the Time

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Sneak Peeks – Modern Family Episode 10 (1.10) “Undeck the Halls”

December 8, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Episodes 

CHRISTMAS CHEER IS A LITTLE MIXED AS EACH HOUSEHOLD GETS READY FOR THE HOLIDAYS, ON ABC’S “MODERN FAMILY”
Guest starring Fred Willard (“Best in Show,” “Waiting for Guffman”) as Phil’s dad.
“Undeck the Halls” – Christmas is in full swing at the Dunphy house until the kids get in some trouble and Phil and Claire threaten to take away Christmas until one of them fesses up. Meanwhile, Jay struggles with wanting to stick to his holiday traditions while Gloria and Manny want to incorporate some of their Colombian practices, and Mitchell and Cameron take Lily to the mall for her first picture with Santa — but end up with a disgruntled mall Santa on their hands — on “Modern Family,” WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9 (9:00-9:30 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network.
“Modern Family” stars Ed O’Neill as Jay Pritchett, Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy, Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy, Sofía Vergara as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell Pritchett, Eric Stonestreet as Cameron, Sarah Hyland as Haley Dunphy, Nolan Gould as Luke Dunphy, Ariel Winter as Alex Dunphy and Rico Rodriguez as Manny Delgado.
Guest cast include Fred Willard as Phil’s dad, Brian T. Finney as Scott and Jeremy Scott Johnson as Andrew.

Read more: 3 Sneak Peeks – Modern Family 1.10 “Undeck the Halls” « TVOvermind

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Year’s best TV: ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Modern Family’

December 7, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: reviews 

MSNBC says “Modern Family” is one of the year’s best TV shows:

Three households, all unconventional, are blended into this fall’s freshest family comedy. Ed O’Neill and Julie Bowen are among the stars perched on this sitcom family tree.

See the rest of the top shows here.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Q&A – ED O’NEILL from “Modern Family”

December 7, 2009 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Actors 
Ed O'Neill as Al Bundy.
Image via Wikipedia

Ed O’Neill was a hardworking 41-year-old character actor when, in 1987, he was cast as Al Bundy on the Fox TV series Married . . .With Children. The raunchy but hilarious show, featuring the most dysfunctional family on television, lasted 11 seasons and made O’Neill a star. Since then, the likable actor has had a busy TV career, popping up on The West Wing, 8 Simple Rules, John From Cincinnati and as detective Joe Friday in a 2003 remake of Dragnet.

O’Neill, 63, has hit pay dirt again, playing Jay Pritchett, patriarch of the hit ABC series Modern Family. O’Neill was interviewed to dispach.com, here are some of the Q&A:
Q: Modern Family was a hit from the day it made its debut. What attracted you to the project?

A: I liked the fact that there were no jokes, that it was story-driven. I liked the interconnectedness, yet the separateness, of the three families; and I thought there was a lot of room for comedic situations. I liked that it was so ensemble. That’s my theater background.

Q: Your character is an older, successful guy married to Gloria, a Colombian hottie (Sofia Vergara) with a precocious 10-year-old son, Manny (Rico Rodriguez).

One of the things that makes Jay endearing is that he’s really trying to be a father to Manny, right?

A: The fact he wasn’t the greatest dad the first time around, I think a regret is there.

Now that he’s got another chance, even though I think Manny was not part of the bargain originally, now that he’s got him, he’s enjoying it. He’s basically a good guy, anyway.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Behind the Scenes With ‘Modern Family’

December 5, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Modern Family News 

ABC News has an article and a video about their visit to “Modern Family” studio. Here are some highlights from the article:
“We are trying to sort of capture slices of life,” Ferguson says. “The writers really write from their own families, and they are incorporating a lot of our stories as well. And they wanted to feel very real. Not farcical. I think they are doing a pretty good job of balancing that real wackiness with that really subtle sweet humor.”

His partner on television, Eric Stonestreet, agress with the assessment and describes himself in real life as “openly straight.”

“People like to laugh. That resonates first. But I think also we are holding up a little bit of a mirror each week for people to take a look at. Because so oftentimes in life we just breeze past [moments] and don’t acknowledge them, we just sweep them under the rug. … On this set we celebrate them. We celebrate the awkwardness. We celebrate the dysfunction,” Stonestreet says.

“I have been told over and over that no one watches TV anymore, and no one watches comedies. But someone is watching,” Bowen says.

“This show is a lot of fun. And rare,” O’Neill says, knowingly. “They don’t come a long like this often. Now we have to keep this up. That is our job. And [it's] stressful. When you come out of the gate like this you have expectations. Can we keep this up? But it is better to come out like this than to come out limping.”

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

First-year show creators, producers hope for Golden Globe nomination

December 2, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Modern Family News 

“Modern Family,” “Glee,” “Community” and “The Good Wife” are some of the breakout shows that could get a nod.

It’s no wonder the Golden Globes have a reputation for being more fun than the rather stately affairs that usually bring out Hollywood’s A-list. After all, broadcasting live from the Beverly Hilton on Jan. 17 and keeping the Champagne flowing is bound to loosen things up. But the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s biggest night is also known for being ahead of the curve when it comes to honoring first-season TV shows — partly because of being the first TV-related ceremony of the calendar year and partly because of its envelope-pushing attitude.

This season offers a ballroom full of potentials that could strike the fancy of the HFPA’s 83 voting members — among them “Modern Family,” “FlashForward” and “The Good Wife.”

On the comedy side, ABC’s “Modern Family” seems to have put a spring in the steps of critics. Although executive producers Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd are modest about the show’s success, Levitan is happy for the recognition. “One of the reasons that it might be striking a chord is because there’s a sense of optimism,” Levitan says. “We don’t try to dodge emotion.”

Lloyd, who went to many an Emmy ceremony during his years on “Frasier,” says that seeing the show nominated as a whole would be a thrill. “There are lots of individual awards that come and go, and they’re wonderful, but they can have the effect of making people feel just a bit left out. Because [the Globe] recognizes everybody who works on the show, that’s one that you can really rally behind.”

Read the full story at LA Times.

Modern Family

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Modern Family – One of the Top 10 TV series of the decade

November 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: reviews 

Barry Garron from Reuters selected Modern Family as one of the top 10 TV series of the decade:

Every decade has its landmark TV shows, and there will or should never be complete agreement on which 10 series belong at the top of the list.

10. MODERN FAMILY

* ABC, 2009-present

It’s a little risky to pick a new show as one of the best of the decade, even after seeing about a dozen episodes. In the case of “Modern Family,” the risk is minimized by the track record of its creators, Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd. At a time when most new shows are just finding themselves, this one has been so consistently funny, smartly produced and crisply written that it has all the earmarks of a classic in the making.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Modern Family ABC – Laugh tracking

November 28, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: reviews 

Boston.com has a great review of ABC’s Modern Family, here is part of it:
Maybe it was when 10-year-old Manny put down his newspaper to get another cup of espresso, like a little executive Buddha, or maybe it was when he insisted on wearing his traditional Colombian poncho to grade school, that it came to me: “Modern Family’’ is an instantly lived-in and fleshed-out sitcom. The ABC comedy arrived in September fully formed, filled with the rich inner life that usually only exists on a TV series over time. The characters are already indelible.
And that’s a rare thing, especially for a sitcom. Good half-hour comedies usually take many months to find themselves, to define their individuality (see: “Seinfeld’’). ABC’s “Better Off Ted’’ and NBC’s “Parks and Recreation’’ – both series with promise – are currently following that more familiar route, trying to discover their distinctive mojo while they’re on the air, hoping not to become just more brokedown sitcom chassis by the side of the road.

Each a member of the sitcom class of 2009 and each a single-camera show, “Modern Family,’’ “Better Off Ted,’’ and “Parks and Recreation’’ actually stand a chance of joining the likes of “Scrubs’’ and “Extras’’ in the canon. “Better Off Ted,’’ which returns for season 2 on Dec. 8, is a solid setup crying out for tweaks; “Parks and Recreation,’’ now in season 2, has just been nicely tweaked; and “Modern Family’’ is in need of no tweaks whatsoever. It is just right. They represent three marks on the map to sitcom excellence, with “Modern Family’’ already having reached the destination point.

Created by Steven Levitan (“Just Shoot Me’’) and Christopher Lloyd (“Frasier’’), “Modern Family’’ is a rare pleasure. The family dynamic among the large collection of characters feels thoroughly established, as if their histories are genuinely interwoven. Ed O’Neill’s Jay is the father – of Claire, who’s married to Phil and has three kids, and of Mitchell, who’s living with Cameron and has an infant daughter. Jay has a second family, too, with a much-younger wife, Gloria, from Colombia and a stepson, the inimitable Manny. When the three families interact, you can see all the casual intimacy, resentment, stubbornness, and forgiveness of an extended family in play.

Within the group chemistry, each character is finely etched. Among the most vivid are Cameron (Eric Stonestreet), a queeny gay man who once played football, and Gloria (Sofia Vergara), who unwittingly torments her husband with stories of her early sex life. And, of course, there’s Manny (Rico Rodriguez), the little guy who swoons over older girls and fences like a royal prince. These characters are already beautifully established, and yet you can detect the actors’ pleasure as they discover more and more about their roles with each episode.

Read the rest of the review at Boston.com

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Modern Family Episode 11

November 27, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Episodes 
PASADENA, CA - AUGUST 3: (L-R) Actors Jesse Ty...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

‘Modern Family,’ it will be Christmas to “Undeck the Halls”

CHRISTMAS CHEER IS A LITTLE MIXED AS EACH HOUSEHOLD GETS READY FOR THE HOLIDAYS, ON ABC’S “MODERN FAMILY”

“Undeck the Halls” – Christmas is in full swing at the Dunphy house until the kids get in some trouble and Phil and Claire threaten to take away Christmas until one of them fesses up.

Meanwhile, Jay struggles with wanting to stick to his holiday traditions while Gloria and Manny want to incorporate some of their Colombian practices, and Mitchell and Cameron take Lily to the mall for her first picture with Santa — but end up with a disgruntled mall Santa on their hands.

Look for “Modern Family,” TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15 (8:00-8:30 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network. (Rebroadcast: OAD: 12/9/09)

“Modern Family” stars Ed O’Neill as Jay Pritchett, Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy, Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy, Sofía Vergara as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell Pritchett, Eric Stonestreet as Cameron, Sarah Hyland as Haley Dunphy, Nolan Gould as Luke Dunphy, Ariel Winter as Alex Dunphy and Rico Rodriguez as Manny Delgado.

Guest cast include Fred Willard as Phil’s dad, Brian T. Finney as Scott and Jeremy Scott Johnson as Andrew.

“Undeck the Halls” was written by Dan O’Shannon and directed by Randall Einhorn.

[Source: RBR]

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Eric Stonestreet Tree

November 27, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Actors, Modern Family News 

The annual Kansas City Mayor’s Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony will be held on Friday, November 27, 2009 at 5:30 p.m.

Kansas City native Eric Stonestreet, star of ABC’sModern Family, will be on hand for the festivities. The 100-foot-tall Mayor’s Christmas Tree is one of the tallest in the United States, and is the centerpiece for this holiday celebration.

The Mayor’s Christmas Tree Ceremony is located in Crown Center Square.

[source: Kansas City on the cheap ]

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

« Previous PageNext Page »