Brandon's Buzz

6:38 pm: Got a bowl of tomato soup and some goldfish crackers before me, and anticipation is building.  T-minus 22 minutes and counting, people!

6:41 pm:  The terrific Sherry Ann is the world’s leading 9021-ologist — quite seriously, she knows everything — so it feels odd to be doing this without her at my side.  However, I’ve invited her to send along her thoughts (and I know damn well she’ll have some!) via text message.

6:44 pm:  Sherry Ann just alerted me she’s gonna miss the first thirty minutes of the episode, because she and the chillins are at soccer practice.  My response:  “Hurry home!”

6:47 pm:  Anybody else catch my literary hero Jay McInerney on the “Gossip Girl” season premiere last night?  Whoa!  Sherry Ann had texted to warn me it was coming — I had to miss the first half, so I watched it on videotape later — but even though I was prepared for it, I still almost choked on my Rice Krispies!

6:50 pm:  A quote from Sherry Ann last night:  “New ‘90210’ and new NKOTB… it’s like the ’90s all over again!”

6:51 pm:  Umm, yeah!

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Going to the movies may never be the same again.

“Entertainment Tonight” is reporting that Don LaFontaine has died in Los Angeles at age 68.  Even if you don’t immediately recognize his name, it’s a sure bet you know his voice:  the self-professed “King of the Movie Trailer,” it was LaFontaine’s rich, booming baritone that narrated most of the coming attractions which have played before the feature presentation at your local multiplex for the past three decades.  (To say nothing of the thousands of commercials and television promos he has voiced throughout that same span of time.)

In a cruel twist of fate, word has it that the man whose singular voice made him a millionaire many times over was felled by complications from a collapsed lung.  LaFontaine is survived by his wife and their three churren.

Here’s what I know:  as many times as I’ve gone to the movies and paid money for an experience in which the previews were times better than the films they preceded, I find this loss to be devastating beyond expression.  Fare thee well, Don.  You’ll be missed.

September opens with a bang, courtesy of a marvelously likable freshman television series and a hotly-anticipated reunion album from one of the most memorable (and missed) relics of the ’90s.  No sense in wastin’ time on pleasantries; let’s dive right in:

One of network television’s most pleasant diversions from this past strike-crippled spring, The thirteen-episode Complete First Season of ABC’s light-hearted charmer Eli Stone makes a most welcome arrival on DVD this week.  Starring the ridiculously adorable Jonny Lee Miller as a noble lawyer who, thanks to a pesky brain aneurysm, begins experiencing ill-timed hallucinations — many of which involve pop singer George Michael (who makes numerous appearances throughout the course of the season, including a terrific outing in which he is sued for promoting promiscuity through his music) — Stone is bolstered by a fabulously eccentric supporting cast, including Victor Garber and the priceless Loretta Devine, whose superbly-rendered sarcastic line delivery goes miles toward grounding the series through a great many of its outlandish flights of fancy.

The series returns for a second season in mid-October, and since it’s not yet clear whether or not King George will continue to be involved — don’t let me ruin anything here, but let’s just say the first season finale gave all the storylines a good bit of closure — it’ll be interesting to see if (and how) Stone is able to reinvent itself.  My beloved A, who finds television to be the root of all evil, fell head over heels for this show — go figya, that! — and if you’re able to get past its Ally-McBeal-with-a-penis premise (which, at times, can become unbearably cutesy), chances are you will as well.

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To celebrate the CW’s super-anticipated remake of the series that definitively put the then-fledgling Fox network on the pop culture map — Aaron Spelling’s earnest classic “Beverly Hills, 90210” (or, as we prefer to refer to it, “Sherry Ann’s and my teenage years”) — Brandon’s Buzz is going live tomorrow evening to blog the megahyped two-hour season premiere.  If, like me, you can’t wait to see Lori Loughlin in Cindy Walsh mode, or to see how Kelly Taylor has held up as she moves into middle age, be here at 7pm CDT (that’s 8 Eastern and 5 Pacific, for all you far-flung folks) and join in the fun.

“When Volume One sells five million copies, your next record is called Volume Two.”

— legendary music mogul Clive Davis, simplifying for Rolling Stone his decision to send Rod Stewart spelunking into the great American songbook