Pushing Daisies

Watching Pushing Daisies is taking a short hiatus… I’m actually off to spend the holidays somewhere else, with friends and family. See you back in the new year!

Leaving you for awhile with these lovely fan-made video I found off YouTube:

As fans of Pushing Daisies very well know, Anna Friel has been working in a movie with Will Ferrell called Land of the Lost, which is a remake. Here is the poster for it. The movie opens in June 2009.

As we have made mention in a previous entry, the soundtrack for Pushing Daisies will be released this week.

We’ve listed the track lists over here, and today we finally have the artwork and even some photos behind the making of this musical treat. Like this one with Ellen Greene (Aunt Vivian) who lends her singing voice in the album. She is standing next to Jim Dooley, of course, the man behind the magnificent songs you hear on Pushing Daisies.

The composer recently won his first Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition. He also became the very first recipient of the Hollywood Music Award (Best Original Score - Television).

This photo below is just an image of how the songs are translated into the series, with its big orchestra and Jim Dooley conducting the musicians. This is a peak to how a stellar show makes beautiful music, thanks to these very talented people —-

Below you’ll find some of the artwork for the soundtrack CD, which you can get at iTunes and at Amazon.Com.Click on the thumbnails to see the full image:

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Emerson: This is one of the need-to-know cases. And you do not need, therefore you shall not know.

Emerson: Well, then allow me to put this to you delicately. You see, men are dogs. They come, you know, sniffin’ around, barking up your tree. But if they don’t see a kitty cat up in that tree, pretty soon they stop barking. Dwight’s not missing. He’s barking up somebody else’s tree.

Chuck: Poor Vivian. She’s carrying a torch for a flame I extinguished.
Ned: With my finger.

Nils Nilsen: You and Dwight hobnobbed in the same circles.
Emerson: The Hell I did. We didn’t nob no hobs. And certainly not in no damned circle.

Olive: But I don’t need protection. That’s what I have several longstanding restraining orders for.

Vivian: They came highly recommended. In their home county, they’re the most decorated figures since Thor Bjorklund–inventor of the hand-held cheese slicer.

Olive: This gives me pause.
Vivian: A manicure might help.
Olive: No, “pause,” like one step past “play” and not quite to “stop.”

Vivian: There may have been involvement with a criminal element in his past, but that’s behind him now.
Lily: It ain’t behind him. It’s right on top of him, if not inside him.

Nils Nilsen: The DNA analysis that I performed on your hair told us everything we needed to know.
Olive: Oh. I was under the impression that penicillin would clear that up.

Emerson: Detective work is a lot like money. It don’t really come with instructions.

Emerson: There’s a time for callous braggadocio and a time for sensitivity. To the Norwegians, that time is never.
Vivian: I suppose it’s a holdover from their Viking ancestry. It would be difficult to rape and pillage with the subtlety of a humanist.

Olive: Did he die of natural causes?
Chuck and Ned: Yes!
Olive: Are either of you referring to “murder” as a natural cause?

Olive: Then they beat me with a blue-and-yellow stock as they got high on Abba and tiny little meatballs.
Nils and Magnus: Swedes!

Emerson: Listen, we’re all professionals, people. This doesn’t have to get ugly.
Nils Nilsen: Your shirt suggests otherwise.

That is, David E. Kelley has picked her to star in his upcoming series, Legally Mad.

The new show is described as a quirky legal drama about a woman who begins working at her father’s law firm . Kelley is making this show for NBC, in partnership with Warner Bros TV.

Kristin’s character is named Skippy Pylon, who is described as a cheery lady often mistaken for a teenage girl. Skippy every so often has flashes of psychosis. When Kelley was writing this series, he had Kristin in mind for the role. Kelley says, “I’ve wanted to work with her for a long time and can’t wait to reveal her as someone who’s completely mad.”

If things go well with this upcoming series and with David E. Kelley’s penchant for having musical numbers in his shows, the idea of Kristin singing in this legal drama, might not be farfetched, right?

Source

Once again, this episode was so packed with everything that’s great about Pushing Daisies. I kind of knew about the surprise guest at the end, based on what I have read of the episode earlier. But I did not expect Ned’s daddy to be none other than —- George Hamilton!

His name wasn’t in the press releases that came out in recent weeks. They really kept this a big secret!

Following last episode’s story…when Vivian becomes suspicious of gentleman caller, Dwight Dixon’s whereabouts, she comes to Emerson for help. But the latter jolts her back to reality and insisted there was no case, prompting Vivian to seek the help of Emerson’s competitors, the Norwegian investigators, instead.

Soon, the trail leads the Norwegians to the Pie Hole. And everything that the three of them have done in the last few weeks snowballed and spilled over. Chuck blames herself for keeping her dad alive. Ned blames himself and his magic fingers. Emerson blames himself for not keeping a lid on all this, since it was his job to keep cases from becoming sloppy. Meanwhile, Olive blames no one but feels mighty left out from the group.

But when it appeared like she has jumped shipped and sided with the Norwegians to find out what really happened to Dwight, I knew that Olive was up to something else. The three couldn’t tell her, they couldn’t say they had something to do with it, so she’s finding the truth for herself. And in the process, helping the PI palooza. If there was one thing Olive Snook does not have in her, it’s disloyalty.

Following some twists and turns, and a jittery trio who think that their secret may soon be discovered…Dwight Dixon’s body reappears in his motel room, as if dying in his sleep. This finally gives the Norwegian’s case some closure, keeping everyone’s secret safe.

But it didn’t make it all better for Aunt Vivian and Aunt Lily, who learned that it seems Dwight Dixon stole the bodies of Charlotte and Charles Charles from the grave.

But the truth is, someone was covering up for Ned and his friends. And that someone was revealed in the last few seconds of the episode. Yup, Ned….it was your father!

Some notes:

• Mother, the Norwegian’s hot crime lab/RV, is short for: Mobile Investigative Lab Facility. Hah!
• Ned feels a little something for Olive! It’s not as if there was nothing there and he didn’t look at her that way. He said so himself. Which is sad and cruel. Way to do that to a girl, dude!
• Vivian and Lily’s scenes together were priceless.
• Vivian’s meekness makes me cry and sympathize for her. Watching her with Emerson, and then later with Lily, just breaks my heart. Ellen Greene is so good an actress!
• Olive is so sharp, she really can have a second career as a PI. And I enjoyed her Q & A scenes with Ned.
• I’m running out of superlatives for Chi McBride and Emerson. He was great this episode, as usual.
• So what do you suppose is Ned’s dad’s name? Charles Charles, Dwight Dixson. Could Ned’s dad be EE? And will we finally know Ned’s complete real name before this series is done?
• This is probably the second best episode of the season…I’m not yet so sure because I also liked Oh, Oh, Oh it’s Magic a lot.

I’m told there haven’t been any promos running for the show’s final episode of the year, which is why some viewers may be wondering if there will be Pushing Daisies this week.

Yes, there will be one! And it’s possibly the last episode of the year.

Episode 10th
Episode Title: The Norwegian
Episode Summary: When Emerson turns down her offer of employment, Vivian hires a team of Norwegian detectives to locate the missing Dwight Dixon. However, the trail of clues leads to Ned and Chuck, and their secrets. Ned, Chuck, and Emerson finally meet their match when three rival Norwegian detectives start to get in their way.
uest Stars: Nicholas Khayyat as Eugene, Stephen Root as Dwight Dixon, Michael Weaver (1) as Nils Nilsen, Ivana Milicevic as Hedda Lillihammer, Orlando Jones as Magnus Olsdatter
Director: Tricia Brock
Writer: Scott Nimerfro

Following this episode, Pushing Daisies has three more left. It’s not yet known when these will air but according to reports, fans will be getting the closure they need when it finally is off the air, permanently. (As in, dead again…forever….*sigh*).

We know now what Anna Friel’s next project is going to be! After Pushing Daisies, she will still be very busy with her movie obligations.

The actress is wrapping up her film with Will Ferrel, Land of the Lost, and up next for her (that is, if a studio buys the movie rights) is this romantic comedy film helmed by Jason Reitman (Juno) called, The Wedding.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, it’s a film that “visits the perils and peccadilloes of young love.”

Anna will star opposite Jesse Eisenberg, who will play the role of a young man who crashes at the weding and becomes infatuated with Friel’s character. Friel is the bride in this movie.

Max Winkler is writing the script.

The project is just waiting for a studio to back it up.

I had the pleasure of watching The Fall on DVD yesterday. This is one of those films I’d be delighted to share to children over and over, or recommend it to friends who are looking to watch something different.

There are no complex storylines to this, so if you’re looking for a depth you will be disappointed by it. But growing up, The Fall has that kind of story my great grandfather use to tell to me and my cousins. Someone who is very open and has a wild imagination will understand the heart of this.

It’s very charming and captivating, this film. Although the character of Lee Pace is one wallowing in depression, it’s poignant and very fitting for children to watch it. I watched The Fall with my 11 year old and he was equally enchanted by it, although there are parts to this he has a hard time understanding.

The little girl who stars opposite Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, is so adorable even Lee Pace is enamored by her…it obviously shows on screen. She is wonderful and I know that for the most part, her lines were unrehearsed so all of her reactions are genuine.

The kind of friendship they share is very moving. Pace does shine in this film and I can now truly say the actor has a lot of range in him.

The imagery is also breathtaking. The DVD film also comes out in BluRay, so those with Plasma screens and HDTV will find this film so worthy of the investment!

The Family Entertainment Awards is a yearly event that pays tribute to quality programming that’s fit for very generation. The event aired as a one hour special at The CW last Friday, with Pushing Daisies as one of its honorees.

The event was hosted by Tyler James Williams from Everybody Hates Chris and he highlighted some of 2008’s most family friendly content in the entertainment (movies, television and gaming).

The honorees were chosen by the Association of National Advertisers, which supports the development of family centered content in the entertainment media.

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Lily: Damn it! And we are spittin’ pissed at being served up a steaming plate of door!
Vivian: I don’t get pissed. A gypsy once told me it brings on hemorrhoids.

Chuck: I’ll let you breathe in a minute, I promise.
Ned: I’m good.

Ned: Are we together?
Chuck: Mmm. We’re so gethered, electrons couldn’t get between us.

Emerson: Well, hate to be a bitch, but ain’t no way in the world I’m taking this case.
Emerson: So, make it look like an accident. Trip over an Ottoman and Dick Van Dyke that ass.
Emerson: Mrs. McQuoddy? Present conditions are cold, rainy, with a 100% chance that “you’re dead.”
Emerson: Oh, Hell, we got a melty mouth.
Emerson: Bunch of blond-over-blue children of the corn.
Emerson: Shut the a capella up.

Olive: You were getting down with the diorama dame.
Gus: I damned that dame every time she made an advance.
Gus: Such a depressing word, “diorama.” It has “die” in it. I like “rama.”

Annabelle: One can never add enough glitter to a husband’s memory.

Annabelle: Life… you can’t make this crap up.

Chuck: But it’s just a normal father/daughter/daughter’s boyfriend dynamic.
Ned: It’s not.
Chuck: Why not? Because he’s been dead for 20 years? Just pretend he’s been in a coma.

Charles: Come with me, Button. Pie is simple. It’s limited. Just a bit of pastry and filling. Cake is complex. Layered with treasures waiting to be discovered.

Ned: Hate to break it to you, Charles, but no one cared about Dr. Frankenstein. They were after his monster.

Photos from Pushing Daisies TV

First of all — better and better and better…that’s what this show is becoming, which makes it all the more bad. *sigh*.

This week, the relationship between Chuck and Ned encounters a major hiccup in the presence of Chuck’s undead father…who has become this overprotective, selfish father. He has expressed to Ned to stop seeing his daughter again, even went and tussled him for it. If this was intended to be one of the story arcs Pushing Daisies was going into in the future, it would have been a very interesting one.

Part of Charles Charles’ animosity breeds from the fact that it was Ned who accidentally unintentionally killed him. Another part of it is because he’s going through the process of his little girl having a boyfriend for the first time. He is being a typical father to a daughter he sees so precious.

Also going through the process for the first time? Chuck and Ned had their first major fight because of him.  You think keeping a relationship where they can’t touch each other is hard? Dealing with a difficult dad is probably harder.

Charles Charles rationalizes with his daughter that there are still so many things, so many adventures, she has yet to do, than be kept in the kind of life she has now. He asks his daughter to choose any place they can go together, but she chose to stay with Ned. Her dad meanwhile chose to be somewhere else. Is this the last we’ll see of him? Will Ned have the chance to touch Charles Charles again?

Meanwhile, because Ned and Chuck are dealing with this personal issue, Emerson is working with his new Junior Assistant, Olive, in helping solve the case of the week — the murder of the lighthouse keeper in Papen County. It wasn’t an especially confusing case to solve but the scenes between Olive and Emerson were so right on the money. It’s a very interesting partnership I would love to see go on and on (chest bumping and all!), if only…

And for a detective just starting out, Olive Snook has the nose for it! She also has the right wardrobe to go the occasion. Those raincoats she got for them were hilarious! I wonder where one gets something like it for real?

Anyway, love the developing dynamics between the Cod and Olive. It’s touching to see their final scenes together — Emerson offering her a place to go in case this love and pining for Ned is too much for Olive to bear. Watching this and knowing it’s going to end soon — that’s also too hard to bear!

We briefly see Aunts Lily and Vivian in the beginning. They almost catch Charles and Chuck camping at Ned’s house. Will this also have closure by the end of the series?

And lastly — what are you by the way, a pie person or a cake person? I have been having cake all my life… Cake, I can get anywhere. Pies, on the other hand? Not so much. Which is why I want it more.

Those who have been following Pushing Daisies from the beginning know that the show was inspired and created by Bryan Fuller while he was busy with his former series Dead Like Me.

Like Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, wasn’t able to stick around after the second season. But a movie was eventually done about a year or so ago. Without further delay, that movie is coming straight to DVD in February. It will also have a rerelease of its complete season, which will already include the movie.

The details of this is outlined in this press release after the cut.

Is this where Pushing Daisies is heading, too?

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The Hollywood Reporter the other day announced ABC is going to adapt DC Comics’ “Fables” series into a TV show. The way the concept is described reflects, in many ways, a post-Pushing Daisies setting.

“Fables” is about fairy tale characters living in modern day New York. Think about the movie Enchanted and you basically get the idea….although this one is definitely not as sweet and sappy as that. The premise of the story even starts with a murder of Snow White’s sister, Rose Red.

The report goes on to say that the show will be handled, written and produced by Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner, who’ve previously done “Six Degrees” for ABC.

The characters are described as “real people in the real world who live and breathe and look just like you and me” and in order to define the physical characterization, the Big Bad Wolf, for instance, would have to look like someone with a four-day shadow or facial hair.

Does this sound like a show you would want Lee Pace or any of the Pushing Daisies cast be part of?

Charles Charles: I hate to look in the gift horse’s mouth, but I’m not gonna start craving human flesh, am I?
Chuck: No. Although everything does taste better.

Chuck: I need your help.
Emerson Friend help or pay help? See that? That’s the kind of body language you never hear with pay help.

Chuck: You’re not mad at me?
Emerson: Hell yeah I’m mad! I’m steamed, furious, red-hot and don’t think I ain’t gonna yell at you later! But for now let’s just put our heads together and try to figure out what to do.

Emerson: Ah. Don’t be pecking me, woman. That’s the peck of cahoots, which we are definitely not in.

Chuck: Dwight might not have been the nicest man, but everybody deserves a burial with dignity.
Emerson: Fine, I got buttloads of dignity to sprinkle on the ground. Come on. Get holy.
Chuck: Thank you.
Emerson: Here lies Dwight. Here lies his gun. He was bad. Now he’s done. Let’s go.

Emerson: What’s with the shotgun?
Lily: Military salute.
Emerson: For Dwight Dixon?
Lily: For Charles. But if I happen to miss and blow Dwight’s head off, purely by accident, well, that’s something my lawyers can pretty much sort out later.

Marianne: And you remember, now–losing doesn’t make you a loser. Oh wait–it does.

Olive: I’m going to win that blue ribbon, wrap it around her neck, and strangle her with it.
Ned: Olive. You’re baking with hate.
Olive: Ah. Rich, buttery, high-in-carbohydrate hate. You know what no one tells you about cooking with the dark side? The food is really good.
Ned: Revenge is a dish best served cold. We’re baking pie–warm, delicious, happy-making pie.
Olive: Okay, help cook or get out of the kitchen, short-pants.

Ned: He’s not just dead. He’s extra-crispy

Colonel Likkin: I hate to go, but at least I’m going delicious.

Olive: I know it’s a tragedy, obviously, but you know what they say, when God closes a door, he opens an oven.
Ned: They don’t say that, and if they do they don’t have much compassion for a dead colonel.

Olive: You’ve never solved a murder mystery alone before.
Ned: I’m not alone.
Olive: Me? Oh. I just got all tingly. And not just in the nether regions.

Olive: Okay, how do we go about this… this whole P.I. thing? Do we just jam the gun in the suspect’s mouth and say, “Sing, canary, or I’m gonna decorate this wallpaper with your guts”?
Ned: Neither. Technically, I don’t believe you can blow someone’s guts out their mouth.
Olive: Wuss.