Archive: July 2009 (171-180 of 444)

Jul 22 2009 03:11 PM ET

'America's Got Talent' recap: Tnx 4 The Add! (MySpace Edition)

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With each new episode of America's Got Talent, our vision of this season's planning meetings becomes clearer and clearer.

Executive: "We want America's Got Talent to really…capture the youth movement. You know? What are kids into these days?"
His Assistant: "Sir, I'm 46 years old and have no children."
Executive: "But you're young-ish. You've got all your original hair. What's the last album you bought?"
Assistant: "I don't know. Adele? I don't really buy music, I just –"
Executive: "Who's that? What does she sound like?"
Assistant: "Umm…I guess she's got kind of a Mariah Carey-ish vibe. Sort of."
Executive: "Charles, get Mariah Carey on the show."
Assistant: "But she hasn't done much these past few –"
Executive: "DAMMIT, I said GET MARIAH CAREY."
Assistant: (returns after speaking with Mariah's people) "Sir, they say Mariah won't perform…unless you give her husband a job."
Executive: "Tommy Mottola will not be working for NBC. I hate that man."
Assistant: "No, no. Nick Cannon."
Executive: "Dyan Cannon?"
Assistant: "NICK Cannon. From…well, Nickelodeon."
Executive: "Whatever. Let him host. Springer is gone, we need a replacement."
Assistant: "Very good."
Executive: "So that's settled. NOW, how do we tackle this whole Internet fad? Get these bloggerers and orcs and so forth to latch on to the show?"
Assistant: "Facebook, maybe? That's very popular. I also read a Time magazine article about this 'Twitter' service. Could be big for us."
Executive: "You're speaking Jupiterian again, Charles. Does this have anything to do with MySpace?"
Assistant: "I mean, sort of. MySpace is still around, though admittedly not as popular as it once was, and the number of pedophi –"
Executive: "So they're cheaper."
Assistant: "Well, ye –"
Executive: "Done. Now, what do you think about an all-children Biggest Loser?"

I'd bet dollars to donuts that I'm at least 80 percent on-target. Oh, and people performed this week, too, including Ishaara, embedded below. A look at some of the more dynamic acts after the jump!

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Jul 22 2009 02:57 PM ET

'Ruby & the Rockits': Four questions about David Cassidy's new show

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Filed under: Television and tagged: ,

Ruby-Rockits_l ABC Family’s new show, Ruby & the Rockits, starring David Cassidy, is already years ahead of the traditional sitcom curve: They added a new child to spice up a stale family dynamic in their very first episode. Please, I kid. I kid because I love you. (So what am I so afraid of?)

In truth, Ruby & the Rockits is harmless fun, and it doesn’t deserve a serious grilling. So, with that in mind, here are four not-necessarily-well-thought-out questions that crossed my mind during last night’s premiere, in which aging hipster David Gallagher learned he had a teenage daughter named Ruby. Awww:

1.    Do the filmmakers behind Music & Lyrics share in the residuals if Ruby reaches syndication? The Rockits’ cheesy 1980s music video was a total rip-off of Hugh Grant’s “Pop! Goes My Heart.”

2.    Did Patrick Cassidy’s family move into the Golden Girls’ house and simply bump up the roof?

3.    Will hot-mom Audie (Katie Amanda Keane) continue to dress like a sexy mall mannequin? Meredith Baxter would not approve.

4.    When do you think hunky Patrick and Audie will tell pudgy Ben he’s adopted? Do you think he already knows? Is that why he defaced the long-lost Hanson-brother’s music video?

Did you tune in to last night’s premiere, PopWatchers? Are you still humming Ruby’s upbeat number? Did you giggle just a little when Patrick made fun of his brother’s height?

Photo Credit: ABC Family

Jul 22 2009 01:30 PM ET

Michael Ian Black & Michael Showalter have issues that they debate for EW

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Filed under: Television and tagged: , , ,

Michael-and-michael_l We asked Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, the stars of Comedy Central’s new show-about-a-sketch-show Michael & Michael Have Issues, to debate three real issues that have crept up in their long friendship. Read their arguments, choose your side, and don’t forget to watch their second episode, which premieres tonight at 10:30 p.m. ET.

ISSUE #1
Bravo reality television: good entertainment or brain cell depleting?

SHO: Bravo reality is NOT good entertainment — it’s GREAT entertainment. It’s also brain cell depleting but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Cheech and Chong have none left and they seem fine. It’s real-fake drama! It’s way better than fake-fake drama! Next I’d like to see some cross-pollination between reality shows: Next Top New Jersey Housewife, or Flip Tim Gunn’s House; or Project Haircuts of Orange County. Okay that last one needs work.

BLACK: Bravo is the final destination for those for whom “regular TV” is too intellectual. There was a time, and it seems like a very long time ago indeed, when Bravo used to stand for arts and culture programming, not wannabe cooks attempting to figure out how to incorporate chorizo into their flan. It’s a ludicrous channel featuring ludicrous people doing ludicrous things. I understand how that might appeal to some people, particularly the kind of people who find it entertaining to watch housewives bitch about other housewives, but I am not those people. Bravo, you suck.

[style-poll http://webcenter.polls.aol.com/modular.jsp?template=1291&view=172676&pollId=172964&channel=aol_us_entertainment_weekly]

ISSUE #2
The Twilight franchise: who cares less?

BLACK: This is a tough one because I really don’t care about Twilight. Oddly enough, I usually enjoy things that teenage girls like: unicorns for example. And lip gloss that tastes like Dr. Pepper (but just because I like Dr. Pepper, not because I like lip gloss). But for some reason I can’t care about these Abercrombie & Fitch models running around biting each other’s necks. Nor do I want to read 1,200 pages about said teenagers. It would be hard to care less about this nonsense than me.

SHO: I think I win this one. I rented Interview with a Vampire seven years ago on VHS. I still haven’t seen it. So how can I skip ahead and watch a movie with teenage vampires? At this point, I owe Blockbuster thousands of dollars in late fees. It’s sitting there on my shelf just waiting to be watched — I’ll watch this weekend. I swear.

addCredit(“Martin Crook”)

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Jul 22 2009 01:00 PM ET

Guest Editor Kevin Smith: The five coolest people I've met at the San Diego Comic-Con (Part 1)

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Kevin-Smith-Robert-Downey_l Robert Downey Jr.
Comic-Con 2007: The Con the Iron Man trailer debuted (the July before its May 2008 opening). RDJ was in town, big pimpin’ his Starkness. He and the Iron Man entourage emerged from a freight elevator onto a loading dock at the back of the venue, where I was smoking a cigarette, waiting for a ride. We made brief eye contact, but I’m the guy who never says “hi” to anybody for fear they’ll be like “I hate your stuff.” Proving he’s the bigger man, Downey stepped over, extended his hand, and introduced himself. Class act. We exchanged pleasantries and moved on, but that was always the classiest Con move I’ve ever seen.

Neil Gaiman(author of the Sandman comic series and the novella Coraline, among others)
At last year’s Comic-Con, backstage. I’ve always loved Neil’s writing, so what a delight and relief it was to discover him a sweetheart. He’s now a Tweep on Twitter (@neilhimself).

Joe Quesada & Jimmy Palmiotti
Comic-Con ’95. Then, the rock stars of the comics world, with their Event Comics label, I met Jimmy and Joe at an early Mallrats sneak screening. Afterward, they offered to do artwork for the opening credits, and our friendship began. The boys gave me instant access into a world I’d been interested in even longer than cinema, and years later, they invited me to play in their sandbox.

Alright, this is starting to sound like a gay awakening (which was years later). Lemme dial it back…

Joe and Jimmy asked me to write an arc on Daredevil. That arc was called “Guardian Devil” — later deemed “a modern masterpiece” by respected critic “A. Customer” on Amazon.com. This led to me doing a bunch of comics for a while, most of them late, all of them fun to do. Thanks to Joe and Jimmy, I’ve been featured in the pages of Wizard Magazine something like 19,842 times.

Check back later today for Smith's final two coolest encounters from Comic-Con's past, including Leslie Mann…

Jul 22 2009 10:43 AM ET

'Hell's Kitchen' recap: The best/most shocking/most talented/most life-threatening season yet?

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Filed under: About Last Night, Food and Drink, Television and tagged: , , ,

The 6th season of Hell’s Kitchen premiered last night to the usual superlative-laden hyperbole — this season is promised to be ”the most shocking ever” with ”the most dedicated competitors yet” who will ”risk life and limb” to win the competition! Well, we’ll see about that, because yesterday’s two-hour episode yielded a bunch of crybabies and only a couple of standout competitors.

Of the 16 men and women vying for a job as head chef of Araxi restaurant in Whistler, British Columbia, home of the 2010 Olympics, only a few made a good first impression on Screamin’ Gordon Ramsay. Suzanne, who disappointed in the “cook your signature dish” challenge, proved levelheaded in the kitchen and managed to slice and de-vein her shrimp properly during the second hour. And though the spacey Amanda didn’t impress S.G.R. with her margarita French toast or by putting the salmon in the freezer instead of the fridge, she proved a competent shrimp peeler and could turn out to be the kooky girl who actually knows her stuff. Or, you know, she could get kicked off next week. Either way.

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Jul 22 2009 10:20 AM ET

Quote of the day: Rufus Wainwright edition

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"I will take my coffee black / never snack / hang with the wolves who are sheepish." — Rufus Wainwright, who celebrates his 36th birthday today

Jul 22 2009 07:45 AM ET

'The Notebook' becomes a musical, and I'm sorta okay with that

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The-notebook_l The Nicholas Sparks novel The Notebook, adapted to a big-screen tearjerker in 2004, is now headed to the stage. In Wilmington, NC. Actress/singer Bethany Joy Galeotti (Haley on The CW's One Tree Hill) and music producer Ron Aniello (Lifehouse's "Hanging By a Moment") have joined forces to compose the songs for the first-ever live theatrical workshop of the production, which will hold auditions in Wilmington in early August. (Actors will not be paid, but their public performances in October may help Galeotti & Aniello secure funding for a trip to New York.)

I doubt have no idea if the duo is up to the challenge of creating a musical — let alone one that apparently features General Patton giving his famous WWII speech in Act II and asks those interested in auditioning for the role to prepare a musical theater standard — but in theory, I'm okay with someone turning The Notebook into a stage extravaganza. It's an epic love story, set in a time of great music and fashion, and judging by the number of male country singers who've admitted to me that they've cried watching the movie, universally heartwarming/breaking.

Would you go see a musical production of The Notebook? Even if it's by Galeotti & Aniello, who, presumably, won't have the budget for a rain machine?

Jul 22 2009 05:00 AM ET

'Lost': The cult of 'cult TV' (part 2)

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Filed under: Lost, Television and tagged: , ,

Uwu_logo

Take your seats, class: We're picking up the second class in week 4 of EW University, as Doc Jensen continues to explore the cultural influences in Lost. Check out our gallery of 15 Must-Answer 'Lost' Mysteries, or jump ahead and test your knowledge with our final exam on season 5. Stick around all summer long for future EW University courses on Quentin Tarantino and more.

'Lost': Balancing the scales
Throughout the 1990s, cult TV began morphing into something more than just a category of brilliant-but-canceled-yet-fondly-recalled programs. "Cult" became a sensibility, made sexy by the rise of "alternative culture" and made marketable by a paradigm shift toward demo-targeted niche marketing. David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (1990-1991) quickly went from phenomenon to joke, yet nonetheless proved that mainstream audiences were game if not hungry for adventurous, idiosyncratic visions — provided there was genuine vision involved. Chris Carter’s The X-Files (1993-2002) formalized the modern model of cult TV: a hard genre show anchored by accessible characters goes from a critics' darling watched by a devoted few to being embraced by many, although the show’s new big tent audience may not all agree on which elements are most compelling or should be emphasized by the show. Indeed, the phenomenal success of The X-Files introduced a new tension into the cult-TV conversation: finding and maintaining the proper balance of "mythology" (mysteries, historical backstory, big picture plot — the geeky, cerebral stuff) and the emotional human drama, which conventional wisdom says is usually favored by the late-adopting mainstream. Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) found the perfect equilibrium, although to be clear, the exceedingly talented Joss Whedon never had the pressure of delivering a broad audience, as Buffy was produced for youth-targeting weblets The Wb and UPN. On the other hand, J.J. Abrams’ Alias (2001-2006) taxed the patience of its faithful and decidedly geeky constituents with incessant tweaking and rebooting designed to draw a larger audience that never came, resulting in a mixed creative legacy for the show that made Abrams a brand-name escapist auteur.

After the jump: Find out why having an end date is so important

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Jul 21 2009 11:00 PM ET

Guest Editor Olivia Munn: My Comic-Con readiness kit

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Olivia-Munn_l You can’t go to Comic-Con with just one thing in your emergency go-bag. You need at least 9:

1. The Dagger of Razadeen: It glows when Shia LeBeouf is near. Maybe the best invention since Diet Dr Pepper — it tastes like the real thing!

2. GuyFi: Wireless Internet that increases signals when more guys are around.

3. Dead squirrels: When I need a quick protein boost. Don’t judge.

4. My mini-lightsaber: For cutting fruit…okay, it’s for cutting pie.

5. My iDontTouch: It’s new from Apple and allows fans to look but not touch.

6. My Stormtrooper bikini: It’s plastic and can deflect laser blasts.

7. My “Han Solo”: I can’t tell you what it is but it’s something I use when I’m solo.

8. My Munn-y: It’s my own currency with my face on it and everything. Totally worthless but occasionally fools some comic book vendors who are too busy checking out Megan Fox.

addCredit(“Jen Lowery/Startraksphoto.com”)

Jul 21 2009 10:00 PM ET

President Barack Obama on his dad jeans: 'I am a little frumpy'

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Filed under: Television and tagged: , , ,

Last week, we weighed in on the "dad jeans" President Barack Obama wore when throwing the first pitch at the All-Star Game with a short post on PopWatch that got tongues wagging. My musings even got picked up in a Politico.com round-up asking whether President Obama had lost his cool. (Hi, again, Dad! Frank Stransky is loving the attention.)

Now, the always jovial commander-in-chief has responded in an interview this morning on Today! These are pressing times with pressing issues, folks. In a chat this a.m., Today host Meredith Viera hilariously asked Obama: "Do you want to defend the pants?"

Here's what Obama had to say:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The fact that such a matter is paired in an interview mostly about the president's health care efforts is simply classic. Completely ridiculous, but classic. And his good-natured response is even better: “I am a little frumpy," he admitted. "Those jeans are comfortable, and for those of you who want your president to look great in his tight jeans, I’m sorry — I’m not the guy. It just doesn’t fit me. I’m not 20.”

Simply put, I love this guy. Even more now, if that's possible. But still, I'd love to see him in some tight jeans. (Let's just be honest.) PopWatchers, what say you? Amused by the President's response? Dismayed that such a topic is on the table during the turbulent times we live in? If you had to pick, what brand of jeans would you like to see him in? Sound off in the comments section below!

More on President Obama from EW:
President Obama's All-Star Game Pitch: Dad jeans on display
Denzel Washington: Would he make a good Obama?
Jonas Brothers: Nick Jonas talks Miley, Obama, and his favorite new band
Obama vs. McCain: The Great Presidential Pop-Culture Debate

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