February is going to pretty great in terms of late night television. Yes, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will be back mid month and that's wonderful—but I'm more excited about what is popping up on TBS. Samantha Bee, who left the Daily Show last year after more than a decade, is getting her own show: Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. 

I recommend you watch all of the previews for the new show, or at the very least go revisit some of her Daily Show highlights.  New York Magazine published a long interview with Bee, beautifully titled "Smirking in the Boy's Room." An excerpt:

To succeed at producing a weekly show that slices headline news to the quick, she must be two things that women are not always embraced for being — very funny and a little angry — and she must be those things while exuding a quality almost never afforded women: authority.It’s quite a bit easier to sound like a hero in a deeper register and like a scold in a higher one, even if you are saying the same kind of words and doing the same kind of job as Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert or John Oliver.

But Bee is perhaps uniquely equipped to give this kind of role a test drive. She’s a news junkie, an unapologetic feminist; she is direct and sincere and also bitingly funny; in her corner office is a large painting of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin riding a bear, a prop taken from The Detour, a half-hour comedy she co-created with her husband, Jason Jones, planned for later this year. The absurdly silly image seems to reflect some of Bee’s comedic DGAF drive to make her point. When Vanity Fair last year published a photo of all-male late-night hosts, she infamously retweeted the image doctored to include her as a tattooed centaur with laser eyes.

As Bee says, we're kinda done with sausage. 

On last night's Late Show, Stephen Colbert declared "the Original Material Girl" was back. And, sure, Sarah Palin and her quotable face are trying to "Make America Great Again," but the person I was most excited to see in last night's segment was sassy Stephen Colbert. 

The Colbert Report was all sass, all the time. Last night, Colbert gave his Late Show audience a taste of his roots when he recapped Palin's Donald Trump endorsement. The entire segment is fantastic but feel free to skip the first four minutes if you're just here to see Colbert in action.

Now, please join me in a celebratory round of the first video game I ever loved, Super Obama World—it's got lipstick on pigs! It's got super-powered pumpkin pie! It's got Sarah Palin on a snowmobile! It's got everything you knew and loved in 2008.

Okay, so I'm a little late to the party on this one. Then again, I wouldn't have found out about this at all if I hadn't been on David Cross' IMDB... so maybe the rest of the internet just forgot to throw a party?

If you don't know: The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret was a silly 2009 show, which you should absolutely watch if you're into David Cross and Will Arnett being ridiculous together (of course you are). It's got everything: overfed cats, North Korea, suggestively named energy drinks. You'll love it. 

Todd Margaret is the new-ish, under-promoted "third season" of the show. It kicks off with (spoiler) David Cross' titular character waking up from the "dream" of seasons one and two. The sassier, harrier, more successful Margaret goes on to revisit jokes and basic plot from the original series. 

Why watch the new season if it's just the old series + wig? I was asking myself that during the few episodes, but the series pulls through—and it's only six episodes, so its not much of a time-suck if you wind up disappointed. If you're a fan of what you've seen of Margaret give it a go... but not before lowering the standards.

You know technology has come a long way when astronauts can now appear on the late-night talk shows while still in space. Stephen Colbert and Scott Kelly, who is spending (nearly) a year in space, had a great chat about life in space, the dangers of space madness and much more. Be sure to pay attention to the captions.

Oh man, is it the weekend already? We've had a busy week with restaurant protests, restrictions on what we can offer Tucson's homeless and new local album releases. 

Get out and do something cool, finish up your holiday shopping (don't worry, we made a list for you) and then maybe pick up a recently released flick to help you come down from fighting those crowds. 

Editor Mari Herreras put it best in this week's gift guide:

Casa Video

2905 E. Speedway Blvd.

casavideo.com

Before you make some comment to your movie lover that it's time for Netflix or lament about the death of the video store, shut your mouth and head over to Casa Video. Are you a movie-watching family during the holiday? Go. Like to drink some good craft brew what you're watching a movie? Go. It's a Tucson institution made for movie lovers and one of the best places to stroll, with popcorn in hand, picking that special movie.

Enough small talk. Here's the list of movies you and everyone else want to pick up from Casa Video this weekend:

Sure, there's a lot of exciting events in Tucson in the next few days. (Seriously, the All Souls Procession and Tucson Comic Con all in one weekend?) Still, if crowds aren't your thing (or if going out all weekend will leave you in desperate need of a night in on Monday) Tucson's Best Video Store has some suggestions.

These were the most popular DVDs at Casa Video last week:


1. Jurassic World

2. Southpaw

3. The Gift

4. San Andreas

5. Pixels

6. Max

7. Tomorrowland

8. Paper Towns

9. Dope

10. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

Is there a better Halloween watch this year than the debut episode of Ash vs. the Evil Dead? I'm personally a little zombied-out right now but if the rest of the Starz's 10-episode series is as good as the first four minutes posted online this week, an army of deadites couldn't stop me from devouring it. 

Den of Geek has more.

Every week, Casa Video is kind enough to send us a list of their top 10 most-rented DVDs. We print the list in the paper's Cinema section, hopefully reminding someone about a film they've been meaning to see.

Here's the thing about newspapers: they run low on space. The internet doesn't. So, while we'll still shoot to get the list in print each week, you'll definitely be able to find it here on our blog.

Basically, here's what you (and everyone else in Tucson) want to watch this weekend:


1.  Furious 7

2.  Mad Max: Fury Road

3.  Cinderella

I don't usually refer to moments in entertainment award shows as "important."

This one was a big deal.

It's still too hot to be outside, but summer is over and that means it's just about time for Stephen Colbert to step back into the spotlight. Colbert will slip into the host's chair on Sept. 8, and CBS just announced who'll be sitting opposite him.

The CBS website hates me, so I'll throw it to the New York Times to give us the details on this one:

Mr. Colbert, who similarly drew from a wide range of influences when he hosted “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, had previously announced that the guests on his debut broadcast of “The Late Show” on Sept. 8 would be George Clooney and Jeb Bush. That episode will also include a performance by Mr. Colbert’s bandleader, Jon Batiste, and his group, Stay Human, as well as some undisclosed “special guests.”

CBS added to that lineup on Monday, announcing that Mr. Colbert’s Sept. 9 show will feature the actress Scarlett Johansson; Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors and SpaceX; and the rapper Kendrick Lamar. The guests on Sept. 10 will be Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, and the country singer Toby Keith; and Sept. 11 will include the comedian Amy Schumer, the author Stephen King and a Paul Simon tribute band called Troubled Waters.