Excited about the eliminated contestants’ return to The Biggest Loser ranch tonight? ME TOO. I can’t wait. Especially since I spent some time a couple weeks ago with eliminated players Damien Gurganious and Nicole Brewer of the red team (all of the contestants are in the at-home stage of the competition right now, and they’re pretty great at keeping secrets, so I have absolutely no spoilers for you). The engaged couple from Brooklyn works out at the same New York city gym as I do, and after a couple of weeks of open-mouthed staring every time I saw them ellipticizing (ellipticaling? ellipping? Or…on the elliptical?), I finally introduced myself. As a gym newbie, I must’ve seemed in a little over my head because the couple took pity on me and began giving me tips and exercises each time I saw them. Finally, I asked them to do their worst: Give me the full first-day Biggest Loser ranch experience. They laughed. Was I sure? Well, no, but I wanted to do it anyway. See how I fared, after the jump…
Archive: March 2009 (11-20 of 518)
'The Biggest Loser: Couples': My workout with Damien Gurganious and Nicole Brewer
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Russell Crowe, poet
Word (in every sense) comes from The Guardian that Russell Crowe composed a poem to read at Sunday night’s EmpireFilm Awards ceremony. After receiving an "actor of our lifetime" award(!) (wouldn’t that describe any actor during our, ah, lifetime?), Crowewhipped out this bit of verse:
I am celebrating my love for you with a pint of beer and a new tattoo.
Imagine there’s no heaven.
Idon’t know if you’re loving somebody. To be a poet and not know thetrade, to be a lover and repel all women. Twin ironies by which greatsaints are made, the agonising pincer-jaws of heaven.
If you canwalk with crowds and keep your virtue, walk with kings but not lose thecommon touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If allmen count with you, but none too much;
yours is the earth and everything that’s in it and what’s more, you’ll be a man.
It’s only words, and words are all I have, to take your breath away.
Hmm… (This is me back again, not Russell Crowe.) John Lennon,Kipling, and the Bee Gees as quotations; the you/tattoo rhyme, those "pincer-jaws of heaven"… It’s only words, and The Guardian wasn’t letting on whether they took the audience’s collective breath away.
Colleague Viggo Mortensen made reference to Crowe"s "unfathomableliteray aspirations." Everyone’s a critic, right? But hey, if Michael Madsen can publish a book of poetry, who’s going to tell The 3:10 To Yuma Man not to write a bit of verse every once in a while?
Pseudo-'Adventures in Babysitting' remake needs a male 'Sitter'
We don’t know what happened to the official remake of 1987′s Adventures in Babysitting that Raven-Symone was going to star in for Disney, but Fox Atomic has set in motion a film that feels like a redo. The Wackness writer-director Jonathan Levine has been tapped to direct The Sitter, which, according to The Hollywood Reporter, revolves around a suspended male college student who returns home to live withhis single mother and spends one memorable evening babysitting the two"eccentric" boys and "wild" 8-year-old girl next door. Who should inherit the Elisabeth Shue role? At first, I was thinking they needed someone like Zac Efron, but then I realized, no, THEY NEED JONAH HILL. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to watch him babysit children that aren’t your own? The only way this pseudo-remake isn’t going to piss people off is if it’s that irreverent. Who seconds the proposed Jonah Hill casting? Who else would you like to nominate, even though you’re wrong?
'Star Trek' sequel: Premature ekirkulation?
The question is, How soon is too soon? More than a month before J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek hits theaters — and either delights audiences or splats on the windshield of fan discontent — Paramount has already locked in writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Lost‘s Damon Lindelof to work on the sequel. I guess that’s a good sign: Would they be moving ahead with Star Trek 12: The Dirtiest Dozen (not the official title) if Paramount wasn’t positively giddy at the way Abrams’ reboot turned out? Probably not. And it’s not like they’re rolling cameras tomorrow — hiring writers is, in Hollywood, the equivalent of meeting for coffee, not picking out china patterns.
But it does smack a bit of overconfidence. This is an announcement that could easily have been made once the opening weekend box-office numbers came in. Right now, though…it feels like hubris. And that rarely ends well.
'Big Bang Theory' and 'How I Met Your Mother': I still have the giggles
CBS sitcoms had a good night last night, with both The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother bending their traditional styles a little: Big Bang went with a more Penny-focused episode that included slightly more emotion and warmth than usual, while HIMYM went in the other direction, with more gags and a little less sentimentality than it often has. While I wouldn’t want either show to make these changes permanent really, these episodes were both terrific.
Pluses: Awwwww
BBT: I’m really into the developing affection between Penny and Sheldon. I don’t want them to get together or anything, but for a show that’s obsessed with people being set in their ways, it was nice to see a little break from that — especially from Penny, who’s had less to do than any other character.
HIMYM: The unmentioned transfer of power from Lily being the Slap Bet Commissioner to Robin being the…I don’t know, officiant of Ted and Barney’s "gentlemen’s agreement (huzzah!)" brought out something I love about this show. One of HIMYM‘s most important strengths is that we can credibly believe that the characters do and say things we haven’t seen — that we’re only witness to segments of the characters’ lives.
Minuses: Deja vu
BBT: The Guys Are Horndogs / Women Have Breasts set-up has been done to death on this show.
HIMYM: There was some well-worn territory here. Didn’t we already know that Marshall is a crazy-intense competitor after Lily watched him play BaskIceball? Haven’t we known Ted to be prematurely geezerish? Also, boo, not enough Robin.
Points of reference
BBT: Sheldon’s "impression" of Admiral Ackbar was just him "It’s a trap!" Amazing.
HIMYM: The extended Lethal Weapon riff — the episode was called "Murtaugh," after the classic character who’s "too old for this [stuff]" — was a classic example of the show’s pop-infused exploration of adulthood. (And the hilarious Teen Wolf segments didn’t hurt, either.)
The best moments
Wolowitz screaming "girl fight!":
And Barney gagging while trying to do a beer bong:
What’d you think, PopWatchers?
Ice Cube plays the race card in 'Ride Along'
There’s an article in today’s Variety about Ice Cube signing on to star in an upcoming action comedy flick called Ride Along in which he’ll play a cop who seeks to ruin his engaged sister’s relationship with an affluent white psychiatrist by inviting her fiancé on an ill-advised ride-along. My first reaction? Here we go again.
Am I the only one who is not amused by this film’s bigoted premise? It’s 2009, for crying out loud! When is Hollywood going to stop playing up old-school racial stereotypes and prejudices and embrace the multicultural melting pot that is contemporary America? And why can’t a black actress be in love with a white guy on screen without their "taboo" romance being the central issue of the film?
From Monster’s Ball and Guess Who to Something New and Lakeview Terrace, this tired storyline has been done every which way from drama to comedy to thriller, and frankly, I’m sick of it. Is it too much to ask for a cute romantic comedy like You, Me and Dupree, starring, say, Taraji Henson and Matt Dillon? Casting the fabulous Rashida Jones as Paul Rudd’s love interest in I Love You, Man is a good start, but we’ve still got a long way to go. Who’s with me on this?
Remembering 'Angel' costar Andy Hallett
Andy Hallett – best known for playing Angel‘s suave, friendly green demon Lorne with the ability to read people when they sang (most often at his violence-free karaoke club) — passed away March 29 following a five-year battle with congestive heart disease. He was 33. Fans will remember his voice (watch the clips below), his impeccable comedic timing ("Is there a Gepetto in the house?"), and his gift for making you see past layers of prosthetics and makeup. ("They have no music there. It doesn’t exist. Do you know what that’slike? No lullabies, no love songs. All my life I thought I was crazy,that I had ghosts in my head or something… simply because I couldhear music. Of course, I didn’t know it was music. All I knew was thatit was something… beautiful and… and painful and right. And I wasthe only one who could hear it. Then I wound up here and heard Arethafor the first time…")
Share your favorite memories below.
'Idolatry': Can Lil and Danny regain their momentum on 'Top Downloads' night?
This just in: At the moment I write this sentence, Danny Gokey and Lil Rounds are running fifth and eighth respectively in EW.com’s American Idol Power List reader poll, and that’s something of a shock, considering the strong push from the producers and judges that the pair of early front-runners have received this season. My co-host Annie "Dancing in the Street" Barrett and I offer some Top Dowloads Week advice for Lil and Danny (as well as Kris Allen, Anoop Desai, and Megan Joy Corkrey) in a Very Special Episode of Idolatry that features riveting choreography, plenty of bleeped profanity, a menacing Japanese robot, and my first (and last) attempt to sex up the show. Press play below and enjoy!
More on ‘American Idol’
‘American Idol’ Style: All-time Best and Worst
‘American Idol’ Recap: Oil’s Well That Ends Well
‘American Idol’: On the scene for Top 10 results night
Michael Sarver Q&A: ‘When It Ended I Could Smile’
Reviewing American Idol’s Top 10 Motown Recordings on iTunes
‘American Idol’: Yep, the group performances are lip-synched. But WHY?
‘American Idol’ Recap: The Mo(town), the Merrier
‘American Idol’: The Poetry of Paula Abdul
‘Idol’ Cheat Sheet: The season so far…
EW’s ‘Idol’ Headquarters
Predict who goes home on ‘Idol’ next week!
Elmore Leonard's new book: An EW exclusive!
Attention, Elmore Leonard fans! Road Dogs, the new novel by the modern master of the hardboiled crime caper, goes on sale on May 12, but you can read the first eight chapters right now, only on EW.com.
Road Dogs marks the return of small-time hood Jack Foley, the protagonist of Leonard’s 1996 novel Out of Sight. (The 1998 film adaptation, starring George Clooney as Foley and Jennifer Lopez as the U.S. Marshall on his trail, earned the top spot on our list of the Sexiest Movies Ever.)
To build buzz for the book’s debut, publisher HarperCollins is inviting fans to create the book’s official trailer. (Never heard of a book trailer? We hadn’t either, but a quick Google search turned up this one for Nora Roberts’ Tribute and another for Stephen King’s Duma Key.)
The creator of the winning clip, to be chosen by Leonard, will win an autographed copy of the book and a Kindle stocked with the author’s entire catalog.
Feeling inspired by the our exclusive sneak peek? Read up on the rules and find out how to submit your clip on the official Road Dogs site.
More on Elmore Leonard:
Photo gallery: The Sexiest Movies Ever
Movie review: Out of Sight
Book review: Get Shorty
Movie review: The Big Bounce
Movie review: Jackie Brown
'My Boys' stars Jordana Spiro and Kyle Howard on TV's Five Best Love Triangles: PopWatch Duel
With tonight’s return of TBS’ comedy My Boys (10:30 p.m. ET) comes the return of the PopWatch Duel. We asked stars Jordana Spiro (P.J.) and Kyle Howard (Bobby, last seen the night before his wedding telling P.J. that he might be marrying the wrong woman…) to each list TV’s Five Best Love Triangles. You decide whose list is better by voting in the poll. (Then feel free to comment on their picks or submit your own.) They try to tell themselves that they don’t care who wins.
Jordana Spiro’s Five Best TV Love Triangles:
1. Katie Couric, Sarah Palin, Tina Fey: I’m hoping Katie keeps the right one.
2. Flavor of Love: Flavor Flav, New York, and the spit girl. One of the few guilty pleasures I’ll admit to in print.
3. Who’s the Boss: Mona, Tony, and Angela. She hung around a lot for a grandmother.
4. The Facts of Life: All the girls from The Facts of Life. You know something was going on.
5. Friends: Ross, Rachel, and his monkey.
Kyle Howard’s Five Best TV Love Triangles:
1. Lost: Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. Yet another brilliant element of one of TV’s most brilliant shows.
2. Friends: Rachel, Ross, and Emily. How could Rachel and Ross’ 10 years of beating around the bush not go down in history as one of TV’s greatest love fests?!
3. The Office: Jim, Pam, and Roy. From episode 1 of The Office we thought how can Jim and Pam NOT be together. Now all is right in the world, but they had to make us wait for it!
4. Dawson’s Creek: Dawson, Joey, and Pacey. When it comes to TV, I’m a pretty contemporary man, so we’ll consider this my "throwback."
5. Sex and the City: Carrie, Big, and Aidan. I’m slightly embarrassed to reference this show but EVERY girlfriend I’ve EVER had has loved them some SATC.
Vote now! After the jump, catch up on My Boys in four minutes.
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