Dinner with a side of television

tonight's ep of Dinner for Five hosted by Jon Favreau featured an eclectic crowd as usual: Billy Bob Thornton, Peter Berg, Buzz Bissinger and Brian Grazer. Always been a fan of Berg (both as an actor and director), plus Thornton is constantly amusing (he was decked out in full gangsta gear for the diner at LA's Le Meridian). Anyway, the thing that shocked me about the show was how producer Brian Grazer (24, Friday Night Lights) actually won me over. I always thought he was a tool - no particular reason, other than I can't stand his spiky faux-Iggy Pop hair do and the fact that his name is attached to everything under the California sun. But he was actually very down to earth, self-deprecating and humble on the show and spoke with great conviction about making films and television that other people didn't want to look at twice. If you can catch it, do so.

also, on the comic-book-front, I am about 1/2 way through the first volume of Walter Simonson's masterful run on Thor from Marvel back in the 80s. I wasn't a big Marvel-kid growing up, expect for the X-men and the Punisher, so I never caught this on the stands and it took me twenty years and countless articles before I shelled out the cash for the new collected editions of the material. Damn good stuff. I loved Simonson ever since his work on the Detective Comics back-ups of Manhunter from the late 70s, but this surpasses even that. Later in the week I will try to upload some of the mind blowing artwork.