The Tommy Wi-Show is Even Weirder Than You Expect

Tommy Wiseau, the anti-visionary director behind the cult classic, The Room, has been busy. This time he's tethered to a much smaller screen: your laptop. Growing media giant, Machinma, provided Tommy with a venue to express his various eccentricities. He is the host/subject of a weekly web series called The Tommy Wi-Show.

On the Wi-Show, Tommy generally sticks to playing video games, although he occasionally drifts off into the stranger corners of his mind and viewers are rewarded with comedy gold. His trademark "Ha, Ha, Ha..." laugh makes many appearances as well. The production values aren't excellent, but they're good enough to fully capture the force of nature that is Tommy Wiseau.

I can't tell if I feel sorry or envious of the poor souls that are behind the camera for this one. It is a rare opportunity to be able to film one of the strangest human beings alive, but it's impossible to imagine how absurdly long it takes to make a series of 10-minute episodes. During the filming of one scene in The Room, Tommy reportedly took 33 takes to do a scene in which he had two short lines.

Props to Machinma and their crew for creating this.

Classics: I, Claudius

Has Patrick Stewart aged a day since 1976?

Rupert Grave's best selling novel, I, Claudius, is a triumph in its own right, but the 1976 BBC adaptation more than lives up to its source material. The story, for those not familiar, is an account by one of the less-glamorous members of the Caesarian family, Claudius, of his family history during and afterAugustus's legendary rule over Rome. It is a complex tail of poison, secrecy, poison, assassination, marriage pacts, wars, and did I say poisoning?

The show features a veritable who's who of famous British actors including Brian Blessed (Augustus), Sir Patrick Stewart (Sejanus), John Rhys-Davies (Macro), and John Hurt as the infamously slimy Caligula. Upon release, I, Claudius, was met with a shower of awards and praise. Among these were BAFTAs for Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director. In 2007 Time magazine listed it as "One of the 100 Best TV Shows of All TIME".

Definitely check this one out. Every episode from the first season is on youtube now, so it doesn't even require a streaming device. I, Claudius will give you a new appreciation for classic TV at its best, and you'll get to see some living legends early in their careers.