We’re getting another Underworld movie and there’s no way around it.  I dropped out after the first movie, but it did teach me a valuable lesson: Kate Beckinsale in black leather spandex wielding two guns does not a good movie make.  Also (and I fail to understand this in New Moon as well), why are werewolves and vampires fighting?  I know that there’s some back story explaining it but what makes these two groups inherently in conflict as opposed to any other monster?

Maybe John Hlavin, a writer on The Shield, which is one of my all-time favorite shows, can explain it to me, or at least bring me back to the series.  Thankfully, Hlavin says he aims to do just that (while not alienating the precious fans who must be appeased lest the world suffer their wrath).  Hit the jump for details and wonder if you can include a note on every page saying “Please do not shoot this with a blue filter.”

If you’ve ever watched an episode of The Shield, The Unit, or Lie to Me, you’ve enjoyed the work of Shawn Ryan.  That’s because he created The Shield and The Unit, and he’s currently the showrunner on Lie to Me.  As you can see by his resume, the guy knows how to make shows people like.  So with The Shield getting a new DVD box set that includes all the episodes ever produced, I recently spoke with Ryan about his work on the show.  Of course we also talked about Lie to Me and the pilot script he’s currently writing called Ride Along.  If you were a fan of The Shield, or just curious what’s up with Lie to Me, you’ll really enjoy our conversation.  You can either read or listen to it after the jump:

Imagine if the same six or seven movies and their actors, writers, directors, etc. kept getting nominated for Oscars every year.  There would be slight deviations but for the most part, Academy members would just take their ballot from last year, peruse a couple of For Your Consideration ads, maybe read a critic’s list or two as a second source to make sure they weren’t making any selection deemed interesting, and you’d wonder if they just showed a repeat except they somehow replaced Jon Stewart with Hugh Jackman.

“TV’s Finest Night” is always a repeat and you cherish just about anyone who hasn’t won an Emmy in the past no matter the quality of the show.  Yes, “Mad Men” and “30 Rock” are excellent shows but barring a steep decline in quality, I already know who’s going to win next year because the Emmys are a bunch of lazy wimps who don’t watch anything outside the ten shows they already love.  Hit the jump for a list of tonight’s winners and only grumbling since this farce isn’t worth the energy of a blinding rage.

After making over $225 million at the US box office and another $396 million overseas, the Will Smith superhero flick “Hancock” was going to get a sequel.  That wasn’t even a question.  Instead, the question was: where will the sequel find John Hancock: reluctant crusader?  For the time being plot details for director Peter Berg’s “Hancock 2″ are still unknown, but at least we now know who will be crafting the action this time around - and the news is good if you are a fan of FX’s late, great, cop drama “The Shield”.  Details after the jump.

If The Shield made any mistakes in its seven season run, it’s that as it headed into the final stretch (really Seasons five, six and seven, which fits as five and six were really one season split apart), is that it put Vic Mackie (Michael Chiklis) and Shane Vandrell (Walton Goggins) front and center, and the supporting cast from the Barn - the show’s station for the Los Angeles cops who made up most of the cast - were put into the margins. Sure “Dutch” Wagenbach (Jay Karnes) gets to break a case or two, and Claudette Wimms (CCH Pounder) gets some moments, but they are the lucky ones compared to Michael Jace’s officer Julien, or Catherine Dent’s Danni Sofer. There wasn’t much to do, and they were sacrificed for momentum. Who did benefit? David Rees Snell, as his Detective Ronnie Gardocki went from a feature player who maybe got a line or two, to one of the show’s aces in the hole.

More after the jump: