Consider the clip below a public service announcement: Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have created a robot that can put itself right back together after they kick it to pieces. Don’t say PopWatch didn’t warn you when Skynet rises up to enslave the human race, okay?
More on robots:
Countdown! 20 Hotshot Movie Robots
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles‘ Summer Glau is one of 25 Butt-kicking Babes
A little yellow robot grooves to Spoon
Is Burn-E 2008′s third-most adorable robot?
I’ll be watching my very first Super Bowl this Sunday for one reason only: Bruce Springsteen is playing the halftime show. No offense, I’ve just never been a football person. Neither, turns out, has Springsteen. Take it from the Boss himself yesterday: "If there’s going to be any questions about football, then this is going to be the shortest press conference in history." And: "When I think Steelers, I think Terry Bradshaw." (Wikipediatells me this is funny because Terry Bradshaw retired from the Steelersaround the time Born in the U.S.A. came out. Ah!)
Yesterday’s press conference — Springsteen’s first in over 20 years, he claimed — had plenty of other E Street hijinks. You can listen to the whole thing here (warning: audio will autoplay). So, any other football-ignorant folks planning on tuning in to see Bruce’s set on Sunday? Any major NFL fans looking forward to seeing the Boss play in spite of his lack of pigskin-related enthusiasm? Don’t forget to check back here at PopWatch on Sunday night for my take on how the E Street Band’s 12-minute showcase goes.
More on Springsteen and the Super Bowl:
Ken Tucker mulls over whether Springsteen should "go rogue" at the halftime show
Mandi Bierly goes over your best Super Bowl counter-programming options
Oscars snub Springsteen: WTF?
Rob Brunner can’t wait for Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town reissue
EW Gallery: Rare Springsteen Photos Unveiled
Lost’s Nestor Carbonell told Sci-Fi Wire he understands why everyone thinks he’s into "guyliner," but that it’s simply a myth. "I could see why some people would thinkI have eyeliner on because [my eyelashes] are dark. Especially thebottom row, they’re pretty dark. I’ve been dealing with it since I wasa little kid, and so to me it’s very funny when it comes up," explained Carbonell while batting his lashes without even meaning to. "My brother told me to look online and sort of Google somethingabout that, and my name came up as a couple things. One of them wasMaybelline Man. I’ve been dubbed by some people as Guyliner. It’s veryamusing."
Certainly. And so is a Lostpedia forum I just found, entitled "The importance of Alpert’s eyeliner" — which contains this speculative gem: "Aside from the theory that Richard Alpert is a vain metrosexual stuckon a permanent vacation, I think that Alpert’s eyeliner relates to hisimmortality…like a pharoah or something…I’ve been researching allday, but can’t find a conclusive connection to the ancient world,immortality and the wearing of eyeliner."
Thanks to Carbonell’s brave speaking out on this important topic, we can stop all this wondering/researching and instead just be insanely jealous of the actor’s natural gifts. So, moving on: What is the connection between Richard Alpert’s occasional shadow-produced "smoky eye" (pictured) and Smokey the monster? WHOA.
Michael Ausiello isn’t the only one who loves Lauren Graham. ABC will shoot a pilot for the Gilmore Girls star’s (hopeful) return to TV. Read about the latest orders (more procedurals, CBS?), copy and paste our title cheat sheet at the end of the item into the comments section, and add your own TAGs (Totally Arbitrary Grades).
• Let it Go: Lauren Graham will play a self-help guru who fails to follow her own advice when she’s dumped. As she told Ausiello recently, it’s a dark comedy, more Arrested Development than Men in Trees. The script is from Will & Grace vet Alex Herschlag, and Arrested‘s Mitch Hurwitz is among the exec producers. It sounds just safe enough to make it. And I mean that in a good way. TAG: B+
• Back: According to The Hollywood Reporter, this CBS drama follows a man who "returns home, only to discover he had been reported missing eight years earlier, after Sept. 11. He must learn how to reconnect with his family and a world that moved on without him." Interesting. Do I want to know why and to where he disappeared? Yes. Do I want it to be a season-long mystery, which is never solved because the show gets canceled? No. Also, I’m 50-50 on the title. TAG: B-
• Washington Field CBS turns to its Criminal Minds exec producer Ed Bernero for this procedural, which The Hollywood Reporter says, is "named after [the] FBI’s Washington Field Office that houses the National Capital Response Squad, a unit comprising elite experts in different areas who travel around the world, responding to events that concern the U.S. national interest." It sounds expensive if done right; standard-issue if done as expected. I’ll bump it up half a grade because it has the FBI’s cooperation.TAG: C
• Untitled Frank Military pilot: Variety doesn’t give much detail on this CBS drama from The Unit‘s Military, so it’s almost too cruel to TAG… It "involves a team of federal prosecutors in Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney’s office." I wonder if Variety didn’t know more, knew more but didn’t have the space to write it, or knew more but didn’t waste the time writing it because unless all you care about is ratings, CBS DOESN’T NEED ANOTHER PROCEDURAL? (And, unless they’re trying to save us from a particularly bad reality show…) TAG: D
In his exit interview with People.com, Top Chef contestant Jeff McInnis said he thinks the show used him as "some kind of sex object." (Huh? Isn’t that Fabio?) "Every single showthat I’ve ever seen, they have me with my shirt off in the beginning —which is kind of strange. I don’t run around the house naked half thetime like they portrayed me," said Jeff. "It seems like a camera was alwaysfollowing me around trying to find me whenever I’m taking my clothesoff to change in the morning or at night. So, to be used like that isalways fun." Dude! You’re on a reality show where 99% of the wardrobe is boxy white coats. The next-best thing to you with your shirt off seems to be copious shots of Leah toweling off her wet hair. (Seriously, quit showing that. It makes me shiver.)
Someone whose personal-stats chyron (pictured) tricks the eyes into wondering "Does that say DILDO?" can’t be too surprised at this "sex object" association. Jeff, the only contestant to wink at the camera during the opening credits, needs some perspective. After all, he has yet to be featured in a promo while pretending to use a laptop propped up on his upper thigh, like Padma. That’s how you know Top Chef really thinks you’re sexy. You decide: Was Jeff being used inappropriately?
Read more: ‘Top Chef’
Yesterday’s ‘Top Chef’ TV Watch: Touchdown!
Padma and Tom are SUPER CHILL about technology
Ohhhhh Fabio, you’re just the dreamiest
It’s officially Friday afternoon (at least here on the east coast), which most likely means that your body is stuck at work, while your mind has left the building to relax on the couch, catch up on its DVR backlog, and plan jaunty outfits for the weekend’s social gatherings. So in that spirit, I present to you the first four episodes of EW.com’s new series The Doll Bachelor. We’ve been embedding it every Tuesday in Kristen Baldwin’s ingenious Bachelor recap — if you haven’t been reading her column (blasphemy!), skip directly to this week’s edition without passing "Go" or collecting $200 — but figured we’d start doing encore viewings on Fridays. Word of warning: The Doll Bachelor is Rated VVW (Very Very Wrong) for doll nudity, doll Frenching, and doll profanity. Yes, that was my way of enticing you to press play. Because I know you’re a little bit twisted. (Yes, I meant you.) Enjoy!
More ‘Bachelor’ goodness:
‘The Bachelor’ recap: Jason pitches a tent
‘The Bachelor’ recap: The naked truth
‘Bachelor/Bachelorette’ Photo Album: What Happened Next?
‘America’s Next Top Doll’: Fire walk with me! (Yes, a season finale is due this spring)
She’s been at the top of Billboard‘s all-genre album chart for two months and was 2008′s top-selling artist, so it’s no surprise that Taylor Swift has plans to headline her own tour in 2009. Her 50-city Fearless Tour officially kicks off April 23 in Evansville, Ind., with special guest and BFF Kellie Pickler. (Click here for dates.) "My favorite thing when Igo to a concert is having lots of changing things to look at, so I’vebeen working really hard to make this show as multi-dimensional aspossible," Swift says in the announcement. According to the release, it will "feature anincredibly theatrical presentation of graphics, sets and visualelements designed by Taylor herself. During each show, Taylor will playfive different guitars, as well as the piano. Multiple costume changesand a fairy-tale castle illuminated by more than a million lumens oflight are just some of the highlights of the three-act show."
What do you folks think? One on hand, I love to see a young woman take that kind of creative control, on the other, the phrase "designed by Taylor herself" makes me nervous. I don’t expect her to just stand there and tap her right foot like George Strait, but I do want to know that her focus is on singing and not changing costumes mid-song (which she loves to do). Not that spectacle and sound quality have to be mutually exclusive — see Keith Urban, who combines them perfectly — but what’s more important to you?P.S. The castle does sound dreamy. I just hope it’s not like a strand of Christmas lights. If one bulb breaks….P.P.S. Anyone else teetering on Taylor overload? I love the album. I just don’t need to see her everywhere: New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. SNL. An upcoming episode of CSI (at least, she’s a fan).
More on Taylor Swift:
2009 Grammy Nominations Concert: Non-nominees perform old songs!
On a scale of 1 to 10: Taylor Swift + Def Leppard = ?
Crushing on Taylor Swift’s "Love Story" video
Taylor Swift: A Date With Grammy?
Getting to Know Taylor Swift
Any product named "Flex" — especially one that promotes itself via lush, fire-colored digital squiggles and presumably hip people making the healthy choice to eat sushi — invokes something more along the lines of "hot new exercise equipment" than "car I should think about buying." But mark my words: Michael Slezak will purchase a sexy new Ford Flex automobile by the end of American Idol, season 8. Why? Because Poe’s "Hey Pretty" is the most amazing/appropriate song to be used in a car commercial ever.
Slezak and I both admit to having rewound our DVRs to watch this commercial. That is so not the point of DVRs. This is huge. "Hey Pretty" even makes the featured merry band of diverse yuppies seem only semi-lame by association! It’s a marvel. Winner of the Week: POE.
It seems to this movie fan like the previously announced Black Widow role in Iron Man 2 is the no-brainer choice, but maybe there’s a Gulliver’s Travels fan out there who can get me excited about this news she may instead play a Lilliputian princess in 20th Century Fox’s reimagined version of the Jonathan Swift story. It’s still possible she can do both movies, but the scheduling is tight — Iron Man starts shooting in California in early April; Gulliver in the U.K. in late March — and according to Variety, Fox can invoke a contract clause leftover from Blunt’s The Devil Wears Prada agreement that forces her to do Gulliver. Blunt is a solid choice for superspy Black Widow (her Prada character’s attitude and swagger would wear the skin-tight Widow suit well), but should she head to Lilliput instead, I’m sure Marvel could find another fine option. And I will say, the Gulliver project has caught my eye now that they’re also adding Jason Segel to star alongside Jack Black, who will play the title character, a reporter who is washed up on an island inhabited by little people. But given the trouble Iron Man 2 has already had with casting (Terrence Howard replaced by Don Cheadle, reportedly a money dispute; Samuel L. Jackson backed away, saying Marvel is being cheap; Mickey Rourke also reportedly being low-balled, may not sign on), I’m worried that switching up this late in the game will further muddy a movie I’m pretty excited about, so I’m definitely hoping Gulliver doesn’t derail Marvel and director Jon Favreau’s first choice for Black Widow.
What do you think about Blunt and Segel joining Black in a Gulliver’s Travels movie? Would you prefer she does Black Widow in Iron Man 2? Vote in the poll below and then let us know what you’re thinking in the comments.
More ‘Iron Man 2′:
‘Iron Man 2′: Terrence Howard’s out, Don Cheadle’s in
Comic-Con 2008: What’s next for the Iron Man franchise
‘Iron Man 2′: Samuel Jackson says he may not play Nick Fury
Director Jon Favreau talks about Iron Man‘s success and the sequel plans
PopWatch: How soon do you want another Iron Man movie?
Release dates for Iron Man 2 and other upcoming Marvel movies
Hollywood Insider: Justin Theroux to write Iron Man 2
First Look: Robert Downey Jr. in an extra from the Iron Man DVD
The love affair between Dalton Ross PopWatch and Connie Britton continues. Come back at 1 a.m. ET tonight/tomorrow morning and read her recap of this evening’s new episode of Friday Night Lights (NBC, 9 p.m. ET). A tease: "Next up is a scene with me and Kyle my-TV-husband Chandler. Any scene that starts with, ‘I don’t give two farts about the booster’s anxiety’ is okay by me. And we had a good time shooting this scene, because Kyle thought he was soooo funny putting one over on me (Tami) about the booster BBQ by saying, ‘I promise that maybe we’ll have it somewhere else’ when I ask if we can not have it at our house next year. He thought his ‘maybe’ promise, followed by a big smooch was hilarious." Look for Gaius Charles (Smash), Zach Gilford (Saracen), and Scott Porter (Jason Street) to guest blog in future weeks. In the meantime, relive Dalton Ross’ recent interview with the awesome Ms. Britton below.
More ‘Friday Night Lights’:
‘Friday Night Lights’ star Connie Britton to field your questions!
Review: ‘Friday Night Lights’
‘Friday Night Lights’ recap: A solid season 3 premiere
Friday Night Lights season 3 preview
Austin City Limits report: FNL’s Gaius Charles blogs about Erykah Badu
Austin City Limits report: FNL’s Connie Britton blogs about Beck, the Raconteurs, and chaos
Austin City Limits report: FNL’s Jesse Plemons blogs about the Black Keys
Austin City Limits report: FNL’s Adrianne Palicki blogs about Blues Traveler
Austin City Limits report: FNL’s Scott Porter blogs about N.E.R.D and the Swell Season
