One of the biggest challenges we face planning the race is dealing withunpredictable weather. Paragliding is such a fantastic challenge for aplace like Germany, but of course, when you’re dangling from a fewstrings and a big piece of nylon it’s a good idea to make sure you onlylaunch when the experts tell you conditions are absolutely perfect. Iactually had my first solo flight when I was on a shoot in Chile and wehad to wait a couple of days for the right weather…not an option whenyou are running a race in real time.
Archive: February 2009 (111-120 of 448)
Feb 23
2009
05:01 AM ET
Phil Keoghan blogs 'The Amazing Race': episode 2
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Feb 23
2009
01:16 AM ET
Oscars 2009: EW's live blog
We’ve braved the red carpet shows, and we have the ringing in our ears from when Giuliana Rancic spotted nominees Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie — and squealed — to prove it. Can EW senior editor Thom Geier and I match that level of professionalism in our live blog of the 81st Annual Academy Awards? Considering I saw Oscar host Hugh Jackman on Broadway in The Boy From Oz three times, I’m going to say yes! Join us at 8:30 p.m. ET.
(8:27)
Thom: Hey, Mandi, I’m settling in for a loooong night of Oscar glamour and awkward “What, I didn’t win?” reaction shots. And who are you wearing this fine Oscar evening?
Mandi: I’m wearing Pajamas That Don’t Even Match. And you?
Thom: I’m wearing a vintage Snuggie from Valentino. Can’t wait to see what Hugh Jackman is wearing.
Mandi: I hope it’s that muscle shirt he was wearing in that rehearsal footage that popped up on YouTube. LIGHTS!!!
Thom: Camera! Action! It’s started.
Thom: Catcalls from Diane Lane. So cute.
(8:31)
Mandi: Catcalls from a girl sitting on her couch in Pajamas That Don’t Even Match, not cute.
Thom: You’re adorable. But Hugh’s self-deprecating Australia joke didn’t exactly kill.
Thom: Boy, they really didn’t spend money on sets or props, did they?
Mandi: The Craigslist dancers save the show!
Thom: Is this the Tony Awards?
Mandi: I like the idea, but the lyrics aren’t clever. Oh wait, I just heard “pubic hair.”
Thom: At least Brad likes it.
Thom: This may be Anne’s best performance this year.
Thom: Wow, after that note, that really was Anne’s best performance of the year.
Feb 22
2009
10:55 PM ET
Oscars pre-show 2009: EW's live blog
The annual celebrity parade of red carpet amazingness is just getting underway. The ceremony might not start until 8:30, but we all know the show starts now.
Margaret Lyons: Who are you most looking forward to seeing tonight?
Lindsay Soll: Well, since we won’t be seeing the presenters on the carpet, I’m exited to see Kate Winslet (hopefully not in black) and Freida Pinto.
Lindsay: Those two choices are mostly due to fashion reasons.
Margaret: I’m really curious about what Anne Hathaway is going to wear.
Margaret: And really curious about what Mickey Rourke is going to say.
Lindsay: Same! I’m sure Rachel Zoe and her minions picked out something fab
Margaret: Here’s Ryan! Explaining how walking works!
Lindsay: Well you know, it’s quite difficult to walk for those in Hollywood.
Lindsay: I saw recent pics of Mickey and he had a necklace with a pic of his dog on. aww!
Margaret: He … uh … dazzled audiences at the Independent Spirit Awards last night. Homeboy has a potty mouth.
Lindsay: Ooh, I like Giuliana’s red dress.
Margaret: I don’t think the top fits very well.
Lindsay: That’s probably because she doesn’t eat. Unlike me — I’m anxiously awaiting food delivery.
Lindsay: Shocker! Someone’s pregnant in Hollywood!
Feb 22
2009
10:00 PM ET
Oscar pre-show live-blog: Stay tuned!
It’s a wonderful night for Oscar, but Lindsay Soll and I are just as jazzedfor the red carpet as we are for the main event. The gowns! The gossip!The…Seacrest! PopWatchers, we’re all in for a treat. We’ll be tuninginto E!’s coverage of the arrivals from 6–8 p.m. Eastern, and then we’ll beswitching over to ABC’s official preshow from 8–8:30 p.m. So learn howto tie that bow-tie already, and finish memorizing your acceptancespeech. We’ll see you 6.
addCredit(“Todd Wawrychuk/©A.M.P.A.S.”)
Feb 22
2009
07:25 PM ET
Oscar changes: Nominees share their thoughts about tonight's show
With the 2009 Oscar telecast just hours away, and with so many questions about the format still unanswered (will Hugh Jackman really start the show with a musical number? Will presenters really not walk the red carpet? Will Mickey Rourke need to be bleeped if he wins?), EW.com chatted up some of this year’s nominees to ask them what was on their minds about tonight’s show — Reported by Carrie Bell
"I hope Zac Efronis presenting my category. I saw him at a party Friday night and he isso adorable, and if he presents my category and I win, I will have anexcuse to hug him. You know how the winner always hugs the person whopresents the award? I want that."– Dustin Lance Black, nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Milk
"I have never been to the Oscars so I don’t really know what to expect.Life is good all around, so I am just trying to soak it all in and enjoythe moment because it may never happen again. I am willing to sitthrough musical numbers and montages and monologues. They can prettymuch subject me to anything right now, because I am on cloud nine." — Richard Jenkins, nominated for Best Actor, The Visitor
"I think not announcing the presenters willdrum up the mystery and will probably help the viewership. That’s a shame [that many presenters won't be walking the red carpet, though]. Walking the red carpet,flaunting the dress and the body, pimping the designer, is all part ofthe majesty and the spectacle. That’s not to say I couldn’t skip it. Iwould be perfectly fine with not having to show my back fat on nationalTV. My husband likes it more than me. He likes to get all dressed upand he looks so cute that I encourage it." — Viola Davis, nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Doubt
"I have never been to the Oscarsbefore so I wasn’t really sure what to expect anyway. I will be as surprised as the rest of the world to see whopresents my category. But that is a littlesad that they aren’t going to let them walk the carpet, if that is true.People put so much into their look that day and fans love watching allthat red carpet reporting. If they aren’t on the carpet, how are theygoing to tell the world who was nice enough to lend them a fancy dressand shiny baubles and do their hair?" — Melissa Leo, nominated for Best Actress for Frozen River
Feb 22
2009
02:22 PM ET
Oscars: Gearing up for huge amounts of change, host Hugh Jackman, and EW.com coverage
The office pools are closing. The party preparations have begun. And the folks at E! are trying to figure out how to fill six hours on the red carpet. Yes, the Oscars are tonight! If you need to play catch up, check out all of our Oscar-related links below. If you want to weigh in on what you’re hoping to see unfold (changes to the telecast, a Mickey Rourke acceptance speech, host Hugh Jackman performing with Beyoncé and Zac Efron?), head to the comments section. And if you want to know what kind of fun you’ll be having on EW.com, just continue reading.
• Red carpet live blog: Margaret Lyons and Lindsay Soll will brave two hours of E!’s coverage (6 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET), before switching to ABC’s official half-hour pre-show hosted by Tim Gunn, Robin Roberts, and EW managing editor Jess Cagle.
• Ceremony live blog: EW senior editor Thom Geier and I will have the honors for the Oscars telecast, which will allegedly air from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
• Breaking news: EW will have reporters stationed on the red carpet, in the press room, and in the seats (lobby, and probably bathrooms) at the Kodak Theatre. Then, they’ll hit the parties. We’ll post their dispatches in our Hollywood Insider blog and on our Twitter stream.
• Best and Worst Galleries: EW Couture Correspondent Meeta Agrawal returns to critique the fashion, while EW senior writer Missy Schwartz judges the night’s most memorable moments.
• Morning-after reactions: Dave Karger’s OscarWatch will look at the winners and losers. Ken Tucker will have watched the broadcast and reviewed it.
More on the Oscars:
EW’s Oscars Central
The complete list of nominees
Oscar news roundup: Pattinson, M.I.A., and more
Dave Karger’s Oscar picks
Dave Karger’s video interviews (including Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle and Doubt stars)
Oscar Dresses: All-Time Best (and Worst)
Oscars: 15 Best TV Moments Ever
Kate Winslet: Maybe it’s better if she doesn’t win an Oscar
Beyoncé, Zac Efron to perform with Hugh Jackman at the Oscars: Am I dreaming?!
Oscar Panic! Who else is cramming for the big night?
PopWatch’s running Oscar commentary
Dave Karger’s OscarWatch blog
100 Worst Oscar Snubs Ever
Oscar Do-overs: The Results of EW’s ‘Recall the Gold’ Project
addCredit(“Frank Micelotta/Getty Images”)
Feb 22
2009
04:07 AM ET
Spirit Awards: Mickey Rourke gives props to Eric Roberts in acceptance speech
If Hollywood gave out awards for most entertaining acceptance speech, Mickey Rourke would dust the competition. Jack Palance with his one-armed push-ups has nothing on Rourke’s verbal eruptions, which manage to be simultaneously tender, funny, profane, sincere, and obviously staged. He did not disappoint when Philip Seymour Hoffman handed him the Best Actor award for The Wrestler at Saturday’s Independent Spirit Awards.
After planting a big, wet kiss on director Darren Aronofsky, he spent the first few minutes of his speech imploring the movers and shakers in the room to hire Eric Roberts and give him a shot at career resuscitation. Rourke vowed that Roberts will bring the goods to any decent part that comes his way, finishing up with a cryptic nod to Roberts’ dark past: "Eric deserves to be forgiven for whatever happened 15 years ago." Of course, there was also the requisite teary moment over Rourke’s recently deceased chihuahua, Loki, and a profane reference to the women he has courted on the Oscar campaign trail.
But even after Rourke left the stage, it was hard to stop thinking about his comments about Roberts. Julia’s older brother was damn good as the creepy husband in 1983′s Star 80 and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing an escaped con in 1985′s Runaway Train. But for much of the past two decades he’s been relegated to straight-to-DVD schlock and best known for a tumultuous personal life and assorted run-ins with the law. Maybe Rourke is right: Roberts (who had a supporting role as a mobster in The Dark Knight) seems overdue for a major career-reviving part as a captivating low-life in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
What do you think, PopWatchers? Would you like to see Roberts follow Rourke on the comeback trail? And are you pulling for Rourke to win the Oscar, if only to see what kind of speech he gives?
Feb 22
2009
01:52 AM ET
Oscars: 'Everyone would tune in if they thought Angelina Jolie's breast might fall out'
On the eve of the Academy Awards, with the promise of big changes to the show from Dreamgirls producer Laurence Mark and director Bill Condon, EW.com asked nominees and other stars to weigh in on how they would improve the Oscar telecast. Highlights: — Reported by Carrie Bell
“The Oscars can be a little too stuffy for my liking. I’m for outlawing the sticky tape for women [to keep revealing dresses in place] because an errant boob would do wonders for the ratings. Everyone would tune in if they thought they might see Angelina Jolie’s breast fall out of her dress.” – Nia Vardalos, 2002 screenplay nominee for My Big Fat Greek Wedding
"I loved the streaker and I think it is time we brought that back. Anofficial streaker. I would designate somebody who, after their name iscalled, would start taking their clothes off on the way to the podium,That would be fun. They should also take a lesson from the Spirits andthe Globes and let the booze flow freely. It loosens people up andmakes for looser speeches." – director John Waters, never nominated, for the original (non-musical) Hairspray.
"I feel like knowing how to rap would totally come in handy if you were a winner. They are always cutting people off but if you were a fast rapper you could squeeze all your thank-yous into 30 seconds and that instrumental kickoff music would never catch you." – Viola Davis, Supporting Actress nominee for Doubt
"No teleprompters. We’re actors. We are supposed to be flying by the seat of our pants. There are too many safeties in place. It is those unplanned moments and the raw real emotions that are always the best part of the show. I’d also be excited with no tuxes, no gowns, and thongs for all." – Vardalos
acceptance speeches because those are the moments that people really enjoy. The stress of not wanting that music to start playing makes people rush and forget people, like when Hilary Swank didn’t thank her husband. Cut other stuff: shorten the production numbers or don’t make presenters walk from one end of the stage to the other. We don’t need to see the accountants. I am all for shortening the songs if it means people have a little longer to relish the win at the podium." – Christine Lahti, 1984 supporting actress nominee for Swing Shift
I love that moment between the name of the winner being called, the walk up and the speeches. I like to hear the 30 seconds where the winner is full of emotion and often crying and they are thanking their spouse for understanding why they didn’t see them for three months. In the excitement of a win, people often speak more candidly than they normally do." – Melissa Leo, Best Actress nominee for Frozen River
Feb 21
2009
09:32 PM ET
'Dollhouse': Things are looking up
What a big improvement from last week’s premiere, which I didn’t love the way I wanted to. The dialogue and pacing just worked better in this episode ("The Target") than it did in the first — even with the timeline jumping back and forth. (Never mind the special thrill of seeing Matt Keesler (The Middleman) playing it dark as the villain.) We got some juicy back story on Alpha, a human doll who went crazy after his memory failed to be wiped clean and killed a bunch of people back at the dollhouse. But he spared our girl Echo. We also saw Langdon (Harry Lennix) begin his time as Echo’s handler. Lennix sold his progression from having barely-contained disdain for Echo to something akin to care and concern. And he got to break off some of the best lines. (Topher explaining Alpha’s meltdown: "Still working out the kinkies." Langdon: "Like the blood? The screaming? The dying?")
And there was more insight into the extent of Agent Ballard (TahmohPenikett)’s obsession with finding out about the dollhouse. All thewhile, Echo was seeing images of previous implanted personalities and that can’t be good. Andthen there was the overarching conspiracy that seems to involve Alphaand Echo. All good stuff that I have to believe will tie togethersatisfyingly because…well because I’m a Whedonite.
I really enjoyed Echo’s up-for-anything, outdoorsy-girl personality thisweek but it made me realize that I like Elisha Dushku best when she’skind of a badass (like the clip below). The wounded-or-scared-girl act doesn’t always ring truefor me, mostly because it’s just her looking confused. While I hate tocall into question Dushku’s acting chops, I have to agree with MarcBernardin’s comment last week: Asking more of her than badassness"might not go as smoothly."
Still, I’ll be back to watch it next week. How about you?
Feb 21
2009
07:00 PM ET
'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' author talks about his literary monster mash-up
I’ve always said the problem with Jane Austen’s novels is that there simply aren’t enough zombies. But — finally! — that situation has been resolved. On April 1, Quirk Books will publish Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an updated, and much buzzed-about, version of Austen’s classic novel, which injects her tale of mannered aristocratic Brits with great gory gobbets of undead mayhem. We spoke to PaPaZ author Seth Grahame-Smith — well, technically, PaPaZ coauthor, along with Ms. Austen — about why Pride and Prejudice is perfect for the zombie treatment.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did the book come about?
SETH GRAHAME-SMITH: I’m an aspiring screenwriter living in L.A. At the moment, I’m executive producing a pilot for MTV that I wrote which is a sort of updated Wonder Years-meets-Superbad. But I also wrote a book called How to Survive a Horror Movie and another called Pardon My President, which was letters of apology from George Bush to all the people that he had wronged. My editor at Quirk had wanted to do a mash-up of some type for a long time. He had all these lists of public domain titles and lists of modern literary devices. The robot phenomenon. The vampire phenomenon. And zombies. And we arrived at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because, when you take a look at the original book, it’s almost as if, subconsciously, Jane Austen is laying out the perfect groundwork for an ultraviolent bone-crushing zombie massacre to take place. For instance, there’s a regiment of soldiers camped out near the Bennett household. In the book, they’re just there for characters to flirt with. But it’s not that big a leap to say, Okay, they’re there because the countryside has been overrun with what they call the "unmentionable menace."
The what, now?
"The unmentionable menace." They call zombies "unmentionables" because it’s a very polite society and the word "zombie" is kind of like a curse word. These aristocrats are trying to get on with their lives as best they can, despite the fact that the country is being devoured around them. They still have their balls and their teas and their manners. It was terrific fun to write, in the style of Jane Austen, describing horrific deaths and entire villages being slaughtered and burned to the ground.
Just this week it was announced that that Elton John is executive producing a movie called Pride and Predator in which an alien butchers an Austen-esque bunch of characters. Were you aware of that?
I’m very aware of Pride and Predator. After I had turned in the book, I was having a meeting with someone and described Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and he said, "You know, I think there’s a script out there called Pride and Predator." It had been languishing in development for years or something. And then, of course, we’re all excited about the heat and the Internet buzz about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and, lo and behold, Sir Elton swoops in. But I don’t feel it lessens our chances. For every Dante’s Peak there’s a Volcano. For every Step Up there’s a Stomp the Yard. I say the more mangling of literary classics the merrier. And it does sound very different. In theirs an alien crash lands and starts picking people off. In ours, there’s this zombie onslaught that’s been going on for years and Elizabeth Bennett has spent her whole life training to become a highly efficient killer of the undead, as has Darcy. It’s more about a love story between two headstrong independent zombie slayers.
It couldn’t be more different!
[Laughs] Well, on paper, it may not sound different. But it really is!
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