Archive: June 2009 (201-210 of 438)

Jun 15 2009 11:12 PM ET

'So You Think You Can Dance': Predicting who'll go home is, like, hard!

Sytycd-paris_l It has been five days since the Top 20 on this season’s So You Think You Can Dance first strut their stuff, and I gotta say, I’m pretty stoked: Other than couples Asuka & Vitolio, Jonathan & Karla, and Tony & Paris — i.e. last week’s bottom three couples — the rest of the dancers were all effin’ terrific. But I have to admit, I’m also pretty worried, since it’s clear that given the high caliber of dancing this season, figuring out which high-steppers are going home is going to become really hard, really fast, and I’m supposed to be the “expert” on EW.com’s SYTYCD Prediction Challenge. Instead, I’m just 303rd out of 2,196-and-counting players, and although I think that’s in something like the 85th percentile (stat geeks, help me out here with the math), I really ought to be doing better.

In fact, I was doing a bit better — in 268th place, in fact — but, well, I kinda messed up. Beyond predicting who you think is going home, you also answer a series of tie-breaker-y questions, like Who will cry during the results show? My answer: No one, and to my buck-stops-here eye last Thursday, no one indeed cried any on-camera tears, ergo no one is crying, ergo point to ABV. But here’s the thing: Kicked-off dancer Paris (pictured, with host Cat Deeley) was all with the welling up with tears, if not the all with the letting those tears tumble forth for the TV cameras to drink up their sweet, sweet nectar. (Because when it comes to reality TV, we all know tears are second to none.) Since there were tears produced (if not visibly shed), some players on the SYTYCD Prediction Challenge who had predicted that “the kicked-off female dancer” would cry on Thursday’s show rightly called shenanigans. And so, today, we awarded one point to those players too, hence my downgraded standing in the ranks. The lesson in all this? Don’t include any questions that would be easily open to interpretation, like if a dancer is indeed crying, or whether judge Nigel Lythgoe’s hair is a 21st century mullet or a Florence Henderson circa The Brady Bunch bob.

After the jump, you can get a look at which unfortunate dancers are currently leading the pack of gonna-get-sent-home predictions. You should also check out SYTYCD host Cat Deeley’s inaugural PopWatch blog post letting us see the show from her wily eyes. And, of course, if you’ve read this far, you might as well sign up for the SYTYCD Challenge and see what all the heated controversy is about for yourself!

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Jun 15 2009 11:00 PM ET

'Chess in Concert' is finally going to air: From square one, we'll be watching!

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"Oh I'm the arbiter, I know the score! / From square one he'll be watching all 64!" That's my favorite line from Chess, which should tell you a few things about me: One, I love wordplay, and two, I like Chess enough to have a favorite line. It's almost tough to believe I'm convinced I'm going to die alone excited to watch Glee. Anyway, good news, fellow dorkus brethren: The 2008 Chess in Concert, starring Josh Groban and Idina Menzel, is finally coming to PBS! June 17! Check local listings!

If you hate checking local listings, the DVD and CDs come out June 16, and the rest of the cast includes Rent's Adam Pascal and Jerry Springer: The Opera's David Bedella. Aaagh, it's like the inside of my iPod is having a party.

PopWatchers, tell me some of you know the words to "Someone Else's Story." There are other Chessnuts out there, right?

Jun 15 2009 10:33 PM ET

'It's On With Alexa Chung': Will MTV's Twitter-friendly host be your new BFF?

Filed under: Television and tagged: , ,

Alexa-Chung-MTV_l Hey guys, how about that Internet! Am I right? I'm all for Facebook (and I'm warming to Twitter), but I'm not sure it needed to be incorporated into EVERY SINGLE SEGMENT of the premiere of MTV's It's On With Alexa Chung. Seriously: A show-long contest implored viewers to Tweet photos of themselveswatching the episode with stuff on their heads, an entire segment wasdedicated to ''It's complicated'' relationships on Facebook, another focused on a YouTube star beatboxer, musical guest Soulja Boy admitted tomeeting the ladies via Twitter, and he even shouted out the site at the endof his performance of ''Turn My Swag On.'' Those near-constant Internet references, combined with the model-turned-TV host's painstakingly quirky but actually totally calculated MTV.com bio (like when you spent two hours perfecting your first MySpace profile so it had that ''I threw this together in five minutes, look how effortlessly funny I am'' vibe), make it clear that the show's producers are trying desperately to be hip and now, and they really want Alexa to be your new BFF.

The problem is, I'm still not sure why I'm supposed to like her. She seemed witty enough, throwing in one-liners between scripted banter, but her hosting style was too abrupt (girlfriend needs to learn how to work a transition better than ''moving on''). Then again, she's British (sweet) and she blatantly mocked surprise guests Heidi and Spencer Pratt to their faces (''Spencer, I'm very excited about your rap career''; on Heidi's ''classy'' nude photos: ''If I want a classy photo, I go to Playboy''). So I can't help but love her for that.

In the end, I just wish we got to know a little more about Alexa before being thrust into her ''world.'' Moody rock music over montage of New York City sites as opening credits + loft apartment set does not = a rapport. If the producers could quit it with the forced hipness, tone down the technology references (we get it, you're totally down with what the kids are up to these days), and save some segments for later shows so the interviews don't need to be conducted at such a rapid-fire pace, I could find myself tuning in. As it is, I need to see a bit more unscripted personality before I can fully get on board with her Chelsea Handler-for-the-Millennials shtick. It's only her first show, though, so I'll definitely give her some time to work out the kinks.

Did anyone else catch the premiere of It's On With Alexa Chung? Were you as overloaded with the web references as I was? What was your favorite segment? Do you think the series shows promise, or are you already over it?

Jun 15 2009 10:02 PM ET

No more cable snow: Welcome to the future!

Poltergeist_l Amid the hubbub about the switch to digital TV, one aspect of the shift escaped my notice: The death of cable snow.I didn't even think of it, but Paul Saffo, a "futurist"* at the San Francisco Chronicle, pointed it out in a column recently.

The jittery static is something special, Saffo argues. "The universe started out very small and very hot, and has been expanding and cooling ever since. As it cools, the Big Bang's fossil radiation sheds radio energy in the same way a cake on a cooling rack gives up heat. And when those indescribably ancient radio waves run down the rabbit ears and into your analog TV, the TV's circuitry interprets it as an image, and voila! — Snow."That is indeed cool.

But this is irking me because: Ugh, someday I'm going to have to explain this to my kids, the way my parents had to explain to me what network sign-offs were. I don't remember ever seeing a sign-off in actual life, but I remember asking about it when it came up in movies we were watching. So when I show my future tykes Poltergeist, it's going to have to come with TWO warnings: One, this movie is pretend, so don't be too freaked (except in real life, the film was tooootes cursed, so be a little freaked, haha), and two, that used to happen to old-fashioned TVs.

Who's aboard the nostalgia train with me, PopWatchers?

*Best job title ever?

Jun 15 2009 09:53 PM ET

Bruno is back (again): Is he in or auf?

Sacha-Baron-Cohen-bruno_l Here he is again, Bruno (Sacha Baron Cohen), getting his, uh, face out there to pump up grosses for his July 10 movie premiere. Earlier this month, he planted his rump in Eminem's face at the MTV Movie Awards and popped up on the cover of the British version of Marie Claire. This time it's an outing in France (the photo originally appeared on TMZ). What do y'all think, PopWatchers? Is Bruno hyping you up for the flick, or are we seeing a touch too much of the Austrian fashionista?

addCredit("Eric Ryan/Getty Images")

Jun 15 2009 08:44 PM ET

Mary Jo Buttafuoco's book 'Getting It Through My Thick Skull': Do we still care about this?

Mary-jo-buttafuoco_l Mary Jo Buttafuoco, who in 1992 was shot in the head by her then-husband's teen lover, Amy Fisher, but stood by her man anyway up until 2000, has written a book due out next month titled Getting It Through My Thick Skull: Why I Stayed, What I Learned, and What Millions of People Involved with Sociopaths Need to Know. (We're already reserving it a place in our Awful Titles for Celeb Memoirs gallery.) Now this was a horrible, sexy scandal that captivated the country enough to spawn a trio of TV movies in its day, but am I wrong to think that we're not dying to revisit it in 2009? I don't really care what life was like with Joey Buttafuoco, or why it took Mary Jo all those years to have the potentially libelous revelation that begins the book's introduction: "Joey Buttafuoco is a sociopath. There, I said it." I'm happy that she overcame an addiction to pain killers and found a new love and is wearing a lot of jewelry and a pretty pedicure on the cover, but I'm not going to read further. Is this book — which will include a 16-page color insert from the Buttafuoco family album — on anyone's wish list?

Jun 15 2009 08:33 PM ET

'The Wild Things': Dave Eggers' awesome-sounding tie-in book

Filed under: Movies and tagged: , ,

Wild-things_l As if my excitement for this fall's Where the Wild Things Are couldn't get any higher, Amazon.com has gone and unveiled the pre-order page for Dave Egger's tie-in novel, The Wild Things. The book, which releases Oct. 1, is "loosely based" on Maurice Sendak's classic children's book and Egger's own screenplay co-written with director Spike Jonze. The best part? The Wild Things will supposedly clock in at a massive 300 pages. (That must be where the "loosely" part comes in.) The souped-up novel looks like it will be kid-friendly but likely cater toward adults as well, given the man behind it.

While some might worry about tampering with a beloved childhood favorite, everything I have seen so far from this project has been spot-on in capturing the tone and imagination of Sendak's book. And judging by its hilarious poster, fantastic trailer, funny viral videos, and Spike Jonze's random-musings blog, it looks like Warner Bros. is convinced the film is something special. I, too, think it has all the makings of a big hit. Unless, of course, the wild things prove to be too scary for youngsters. (They are a little freaky, huh?)

Is anyone else uber-excited about anything and everything to do with Where the Wild Things Are? Will you also be pre-ordering Dave Eggers' book? After his astonishing Sudanese refugee story What is the What, that man has earned my undying devotion.

Jun 15 2009 08:24 PM ET

Piers Morgan's Burger King ad: Shove this down your gob!

Piers-morgan-bk-ad_l Sexy stars who bite into juicy hunks of meat never cease in making us salivate. Case in point: Paris Hilton, Padma Lankshmi, and most recently, Audrina Patridge, who all starred in succulent Carl's Jr. commercials in the past years. The ads have the celebs seductively lick their fingers and playfully bite into giant-sized Six Dollar Burgers while unabashedly tussling their hair. Yum.

Apparently, this over-sexualization of fast food has given new meaning to the term heart-stopping, as rival chain, Burger King, has released their own cheeky (and dare I say sexy) ad starring none other than America's/Britain's Got Talent judge, Piers Morgan. The ad, which Morgan swears on SuBo's life is his own body, has the former Celebrity Apprentice winner laying in the nude with a BK gold chain dangling around his neck, and only a royal blanket shielding his manhood. Surprisingly, the ad is flattering — we expected a Simon Cowell-esque body, moobs and all — and we'll admit to taking a second glance at the former British tabloid editor. 

So, fellow PopWatchers, maybe you can help with this intense quandary this ad has put me in.
Did BK really believe that Piers Morgan's body and hidden sex appeal alone could seriously sell more burgers? Was it that the 'have it your way' company wanted to passive aggressively jab at Carl's Jr. ads, making a statement on how ludicrous the idea of selling burgers with scantily clad bodies really is? Or was it that they simply ran out of any good ideas and said screw it, a half naked man's hairy body will suffice in whetting the general public's appetite?

Jun 15 2009 06:29 PM ET

Happy birthday, Neil Patrick Harris!

Neil Patrick Harris — recent smash-hit Tony Awards host and portrayer of medical professionals both horrible and preteen — turns 36 today. The following How I Met Your Mother spoof of Doogie Howser, M.D. is actually a pretty accurate art-imitates-life send-up to the actor himself. Everything But The Girl, that is.

Awwww. You are awesome. We are all awesome. Congratulations, everyone, on being so awesome.

If you missed this, watch it: NPH's hilarious interview with non-sexy vegetarian Michael Ausiello

Jun 15 2009 06:05 PM ET

Can 'Time Traveler's Wife' reestablish Rachel McAdams as Hollywood's 'it' girl?

Filed under: Movies and tagged: , , ,

Rachel-mcadams_l The trailer for the long-delayed Rachel McAdams-Eric Bana weepie The TimeTraveler's Wife has finally surfaced, and it essentially looks like The Notebook crossed with Benjamin Button. Something else about it struck me as well: This is the first time Rachel McAdams has been front-and-center in a movie in forever.

It wasn't that long ago (2005, to be exact) when it seemed McAdams was destined to be one of the biggest stars on the planet. She had back-to-back mega-successes Mean Girls, The Notebook, and Wedding Crashers. Even her lower-profile flicks like Red Eye and The Family Stone found sizable audiences. So what did she do to capitalize on that momentum? Well…not a whole lot. She took two years off, and then returned for smaller parts in two little-seen, lukewarmly reviewed indies (Married Life and The Lucky Ones). She was in State of Play earlier this year, but in more of a supporting role. 

I understand and respect her decision to shy away from the spotlight and take time off. But I also wonder if by doing so she let her moment pass her by. Hollywood is fickle. Actresses are deemed to be "the next big thing" every day. When that happens, there really has to be a sense of urgency to strike while the iron is hot and land those high-profile roles. So McAdams didn't want to be the next Julia Roberts or Reese Witherspoon. Fine. She could have at least found an interesting and challenging lead role in a smaller indie film, like what Anne Hathaway did (superbly) with Rachel Getting Married.

That said, McAdams is just 30 years old. She's got plenty of time ahead of her. And in a day and age when overexposure stalls/kills careers left and right (look no further than her Sherlock Holmes costar Jude Law), I am glad she is something of a mystery. I just hope her career is still on the incline. Much seems to be riding on the success of The Time Traveler's Wife. (She's also got Sherlock Holmes this Christmas, but that's not necessarily her movie, either.)

What are your feelings on Rachel McAdams, PopWatchers? Are you ready to welcome her back? Do you also wish her career had turned out a little differently? And are you planning on The Time Traveler's Wife? Watch the trailer and share your thoughts on all accounts.

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