Archive: August 2009 (321-330 of 386)

Aug 6 2009 03:43 PM ET

Louis C.K. joining 'Parks and Recreation'

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Louis-c-k_lI got an e-mail last night with the subject line “!!!!”, which could have meant anything: Spam? Love connection? Recipes for alcoholic popsicles? It turned out to be better than that: Louis C.K. is going to be on Parks and Recreation. Four exclamation points indeed!

According to Variety, Louis C. K. “will portray a Pawnee police officer and potential love interest for the character played by star Amy Poehler. Louis will first appear in the second episode of the Parks season and appear in several segments thereafter.”

I’ve been a big Louis C.K. fan for a while, particularly his stand-up, and when I saw him perform a few months ago, I was struck by how emotional his routine can be. He’s often pegged as sort of an bitter comedian (well…), but that’s not the whole story: He’s intense, certainly, but his set covers moments of profound disappointment and self-doubt, of helplessness and bafflement, and also elation and unexpected victory. Most of the punchlines are a little blue for a family blog, but amid the R- and X-rated material, there’s a lot of, dare I say it, heart. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 6 2009 02:45 PM ET

Jim and Pam's 'Office' wedding: How do you see it?

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Filed under: Television and tagged: , ,

SPOILER ALERT! The Office‘s Mindy Kaling revealed yesterday on her Twitter feed that she was currently writing Jim and Pam’s wedding episode with executive producer Greg Daniels, but somehow, I thought it too good to be true. In the video below, however, Kaling confirms the news to EW’s Michael Ausiello, saying it’s the season’s fourth episode, that Pam (Jenna Fischer) is about four-and-a-half months pregnant in it, and that she’s feeling some pressure knowing that fans have a very specific idea of how they would like the big day to go down. So, let’s add to it: What’s your vision for the wedding?

Clearly, Michael (Steve Carell) has to suggest that they do a “Forever”-style dance entrance so they’ll become a YouTube sensation. I will need him to act this out before they shoot it down. Then, he surprises everyone by choreographing his own walk down the aisle anyway. Other than that, I just require that Jim (John Krasinski) flash Pam that smile that says no matter what these idiots around us do, all I see is you.

I love TV.

Your turn.

More Ausiello Press Tour coverage


Aug 6 2009 02:30 PM ET

Giada De Laurentiis saves 'Entourage,' food coma style

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Filed under: Food and Drink and tagged: ,

Giada-De-Laurentiis_lKudos to the music staff of HBO’s Entourage. That song played at the end of each episode during the credits seems to be the only thing worth looking forward to on that show these days. As our TV critic Ken Tucker agrees, the once sharply written series, which has been on a pretty steady decline since its third season, has had a particularly snooze-worthy sixth season with few laughs, boring plot lines (i.e. Turtle’s decision to go back to school), and distracting sub-plots, like Andrew Klein’s workplace affair and Lloyd’s attempt at a promotion.

So what are we to do when our Sunday night hopes are suddenly dashed? If you ask Food Network darling Giada De Laurentiis, her not-so-surprising answer is food. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 6 2009 02:15 PM ET

Fred Armisen's 'Intervention' intervention

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This is both a funny/silly video and an incredibly accurate depiction of what it’s like to be obsessed with Intervention. Seriously, why wouldn’t that lady buy one big bottle?! (The video contains some salty language.)

Fun fact: Amy Heckerling, who will always be dear to my heart for writing and directing Clueless, wrote and directed this masterpiece, too. Call me, Amy!

Aug 6 2009 01:59 PM ET

'The Biggest Loser' season preview: I'm gaining interest (har!)

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PopWatch confession: There is nothing I love better than watching weight-loss-slash-makeover-slash-total-holistic-and-physical-transformation shows — The Biggest Loser,What Not to Wear , even that super creepy one for a while where renewed self-esteem = massive amounts of possibly life-threatening plastic and dental surgery (The Swan?).

The confessional part is how I like to watch them: disheveled, avec tragique hair-bun, couch-prone in my most elastic-waistbandy house pants — and always, always eating (Trader Joe’s jalapeno olives from the jar! Tofutti Cuties! Indiscriminate bowls of carbs! I don’t care!).

That’s why, when the new sneak preview for The Biggest Loser — which bows Tuesday, Sept. 16 — debuted today on NBC’s website (and embedded below), visions of gloriously wasted, semi-horizontal hours to come danced in my head. Honestly, I don’t have TiVo, so the two-hour runtime sometimes exhausts me (eating that many olives is hard) and I just end up tuning in for bits here and there until the final-episode skinny-payoff bonanza. But I’m definitely intrigued by this “Second Chances” theme; sweet house pants, I heed your call!

But you tell me, readers — will you be tuning in? And what delicious polyblend ensemble will you be using as a giant lap-napkin for your Fiddle Faddle- crumbed fingers while you do?

Aug 6 2009 01:45 PM ET

'Final Destination': Could a car wash kill you?

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I recently used the outer-right 20% of my peripheral vision to watch a commercial for The Final Destination, and when this shot came up, I assumed the thing about to potentially decapitate Haley Webb must definitely be a chainsaw. But no, it’s just a giant revolving ShamWow. Time for an important PopWatch poll.

Aug 6 2009 01:26 PM ET

'Fraggle Rock' movie on the way: Let the music play!

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There’s a Fraggle Rock movie in the works according to none other than Brian Henson. Let the music play — clap clap!

Henson told MTV that Fraggle Rock “has a very strong script” and “It’ll have a strong musical component….It’ll be expanded to an older audience. Fraggle Rock [the TV show] was presented…for a pretty exclusively children’s audience. The feature film does expand it to be more accessible to a wider audience.”

I’m not convinced that the old Rock was strictly kid-oriented. It had themes of environmentalism, a nature-oriented pan-spirituality; it’s deeply egalitarian (“Fraggles don’t have any bosses! We each lead ourselves and we all lead each other”) and often sounds like a long-lost John Denver song. Kid-friendly, sure, but also…just kind of hippie-friendly.

Anyhow, I am psyched. Every time I see a pile of leaves, I’m tempted to approach it a la Marjory the Trash Heap, plus I can’t wait so see what Uncle Traveling Matt has been up to all these years.

What’s your favorite Fraggle Rock episode, PopWatchers? Do you think a new movie can live up to that standard?

Aug 6 2009 12:55 PM ET

'Texas Chainsaw Massacre': The template for modern horror

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uwu_logo1[1]Take your seats, class: Movie critic Owen Gleiberman continues his exploration of horror movies for week 6 of EW University. Check out our gallery of the 20 Top Horror Films of the Last 20 Years and yesterday’s class on legendary horror flick Psycho. Stick around all summer long for future EW University courses on Quentin Tarantino, vampires, and more.

‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’: Vengeance verite
In the early-to-mid-’70s, scuzzy dark horror movies played in scuzzy dark places. There were no megaplexes, and even if there had been, they wouldn’t have programmed any of the grimy B-movie bloodbaths that had begun to spring up in America like garden weeds. Films like Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes were off the radar of respectability. (If you’d been told back then that a movie like Saw 3 would one day open on 2,500 screens, it would have sounded about as unlikely as a porn film playing on network television.) The fact that you had to seek these movies out — in a drive-in theater, say, or a run-down, sticky-floored grindhouse converted from some crumbling ’50s movie palace — only added to their forbidden aura. By the ’70s, exploitation horror had become, in effect, a kind of underground culture that trafficked in underground things: Satanism, dismemberment, cannibalism, and — in one unforgettable instance — death by power tools.

The mystique of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper’s terrifying 1974 masterpiece of redneck-gothic fear and slaughter, begins with one word: chainsaw. You hardly have to see the movie to conjure up a pretty sick image of the damage that could be inflicted by that particular piece of machinery. The movie, in hindsight, was rather restrained; mostly, it suggested what today’s slasher movies show. (How many graphic closeups do you need to communicate the dramatic concept of Death By Meat Hook?) Yet it made you feel as if you were seeing … everything. Not just the gore, but the evil. Here’s the scary original trailer:

READ FULL STORY »

Aug 6 2009 12:45 PM ET

The cast of 'Glee': Coming soon to a mall near you!

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Filed under: Those Crazy Kids! and tagged: ,

Attention, Gleeks: You may have to wait another long, painful month to see the second episode of the much-anticipated, EW-approved high-school glee club musical-comedy series Glee, but, if you live in one of many major metropolitan U.S. markets, you’ll be able to soothe the ache (Don’t Stop Believin’, kids!) with an in-person meet-up with the cast — including a Q&A and even promised sneak peeks at the upcoming season.

Cory Monteith (dreamy jock Finn Hudson), Lea Michele (type-A hyper-achiever Rachel Berry), Amber Riley (saucy Mercedes Jones), Chris Colfer (adorable outcast Kurt Hummel), Jenna Ushkowitz (bad-ass Tina Cohen-Chang), Kevin McHale (wheelchair-bound crooner Artie Abrams), Dianna Agron (virtuous cheerleader Quinn Fabray) and Mark Salling (fauxhawked Puck) will be making exclusive appearances at a number of Hot Topic stores nationwide, beginning Monday, August 17.

Complete Glee appearance dates and info are available here; tell us, readers, if you’ll be turning up and tuning in — and whether the four-minute season-peeker below still gets you going:

Aug 6 2009 12:10 PM ET

Peter Berg is directing a new 'Dune' movie? Good luck! You'll need it.

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I read with interest this morning actor-director Peter Berg’s ruminations on his in-development movie version of Dune, science fiction author Frank Herbert’s epic, complex, and fairly endless tale of interstellar politicking and giant sandworms. I’m going to put my cards on the table here and say that I love the story of Dune. Not the actual book, you understand, though I have read it as well as several of the tome’s sequels. No, I refer to the fraught and complicated story of how Hollywood keeps trying, and failing, to turn Dune into box office gold.

During the ’70s a host of directors were involved in various attempts to bring Herbert’s work to the big screen including Chilean auteur and semi-professional madman Alejandro Jodorowsky whose fantastically odd planned cast included Orson Welles, Mick Jagger and Salvador Dali. Legend has it that the project’s script would have resulted in a 14 hour movie and, according to Herbert himself, was “the size of a phonebook,” though as the same could almost be said of the original book I’m not sure whether he meant that as a compliment or a complaint. Ridley Scott was also attached to the film for a while but it was David Lynch who eventually oversaw a completed adaptation which premiered in 1984. The result was a box office bomb that Roger Ebert described as an “incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.” It also boasted the sight of Sting wearing what appeared to be futuristic diaper.

A few years back the SyFy Channel did attract a big audience for a miniseries version of Dune and a sequel, Children of Dune. Berg, meanwhile, says that his interpretation will be “significantly” different from both Lynch’s movie and the latter TV show. Part of me wishes him luck. But I’m ashamed to say that part of me also hopes the project adds another fiasco-filled chapter to this twisted tale.

What about you? Do you hope Berg finally manages to do justice to Herbert’s vision? Or are you secretly wishing the whole thing ill?

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