Archive: November 2009 (81-90 of 429)

Nov 24 2009 10:00 AM ET

'True Blood' busts: Bite?

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Finally, I can act out my Eric/Sookie scenes with something marginally more than my imagination: True Blood “busts” are in production and should be available over the summer. You can buy Eric, Bill, or Sookie, plus a Merlotte’s sign. The figures cost $69.99 and the sign costs $89.99, which… seems like a lot? Kind of?

If I’m going to pay $70 for a statuette, I want a full-body option so I can dress it in Barbie clothes so I can make Slezak put it in “Doll Bachelor” so it doesn’t disrupt my careful height-order system for desk dolls because I just do, that just makes more sense, jeeze, get off my back already. They’re limited edition and all, though, so there’s that.

Man, I miss True Blood. Would you shell out for this statues, PopWatchers, or are you biding your time in other ways?

Nov 24 2009 09:30 AM ET

Christmas wish-list alert: Oscilloscope's DVD subscription club

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No matter how much you love Beastie Boy Adam Yauch you’re going to love him even more now. His ultra-cool film distribution company, Oscilloscope, is starting a new DVD club. In very indie fashion, you have to sign up without knowing exactly which DVDs you’re getting — all that’s revealed is that you get 10 DVDs for $150. And you get them a week before the public. But O-scope’s slate is full of great stuff: Oscar shortlisted documentary Burma VJ, Tribeca Film Festival hit The Exploding Girl, Woody Harrelson-starring The Messenger, and a completely unstuffy environmental doc called No Impact Man. And it’s pretty cool that it’s called Circle Of Trust – the company geekily says you “can enter the sacred realm and fulfill your true destiny.” Sounds similar to Film Movement’s DVD of the month club, but I think O-scope’s release slate lines up better with my personal tastes (Dear Zachary, one of their releases, was one of my favorite films of 2008). Santa, are you listening?

Who else is ready to join Yauch’s circle?

Photo: Burma VJ

Nov 24 2009 08:15 AM ET

'Big Bang Theory' recap: Wolowitz takes a bath with Katee Sackhoff

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Barry Kripke, you have made a new enemy. Not only are your bratty antics a permanent thorn in Sheldon Cooper’s side. Not only is your speech impediment transparently designed to make you more annoying, which therefore actually does make you more annoying in a kind of post-modern, meta way. Not only does your mere presence in an episode of The Big Bang Theory certifiably guarantee unremitting lameness. But last night, you almost single-handedly torpedoed the Big Bang episode featuring very special guest star Katee Sackhoff, known to sci-fi geeks everywhere as Kara “Starbuck” Thrace of the late, great Battlestar Galactica. Which is to say, Kripke, that you have sinned against your own kind, and that is something I personally can never forgive. If you could see my face right now, in fact, it would be not all that dissimilar from Alyson Hannigan’s “You’re Dead To Me” stare from last night’s far superior episode of How I Met Your Mother. That’s right, Kripke; my brain is making you go boom.

Granted, before Kripke even showed up, things were headed in an unfortunately meh direction. On the bright side, it turns out Howard’s blind date with Penny’s Cheesecake Factory co-worker Bernadette from a few episodes back wasn’t a one time thing. On the dim side, it turns out she’s actually, well, kinda dim. Then again, she may not get any of Howard’s jokes, but at least she’s sharp enough to know that the third date = sex. You’d think a man who’s as much of a brainy horndog spaz as Howard is would be wise to that particular coital edict, but I guess not. READ FULL STORY »

Nov 24 2009 08:00 AM ET

Charlie Bewley of 'New Moon' on snowboarding, red contact lenses, and close fan encounters in Italy

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After spending two years snowboarding in Whistler, Canada, newcomer Charlie Bewley is launching his acting career in a big way. A British expat—he was raised close to Sherwood Forest in Nottingham—Bewley plays the evil Volturi lieutenant Demetri in New Moon.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Have you been recognized more often?
CHARLIE BEWLEY: I don’t think so. Nothing’s really changed for me—I think it’s more of an online buzz right now. I expect maybe before Christmas that everyone would see this movie and if they keep their eyes peeled, they’ll notice me in it. I don’t expect the same adulation as people like, even Kellan [Lutz] or Ashley [Greene]. I think they got the second wave of everything after Taylor, Rob, and Kristen. But it’s still wonderful to be part of. It’s opened many doors for me.

How did you get the part? READ FULL STORY »

Nov 24 2009 05:59 AM ET

'Heroes' recap: Let's give thanks

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The episode was called “Thanksgiving,” and we had something to be thankful for: an episode that didn’t suck! Nothing really made any sense, and if you think that last night was yet another example of the show’s long spiral down the toilet bowl of badness toward the sewers of TV oblivion, I won’t argue with you. But human existence is nasty, brutish, and short, and you could’ve done much worse than spend an hour (only 42 minutes on DVR!) watching Heroes last night.

Let’s take a look at the three Thanksgiving dinners that formed the bulk of the episode:

The Family Bennet (with friends)
Claire wants to be normal! But everyone thinks she’s weird! Etcetera. Noah listened patiently to his daughter whining about her sole character trait for the millionth time, but there was a glimmer in his eyes and a spring in his step. Claire Bear, he explained, I’m planning a Thanksgiving Dinner! One of those divorced-family dinners where Mommy brings her new boyfriend and your little brother doesn’t show up because he’s hasn’t been important since season one! So cheer up, emo kid! READ FULL STORY »

Nov 23 2009 10:08 PM ET

'Dancing With the Stars': Thoughts on the performance finale?

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Tonight, Mya, Kelly Osbourne, and Donny Osmond danced a final standard or Latin, barely kept up during a daunting “Megamix Challenge,” and attempted to wow us with the dreaded/revered freestyle round. Check back here in the morning to read my recap of the performance finale — UPDATE: My full recap is now liiiiive! — and in the meantime, read through our photo gallery of The Final 3′s Best/Worst Dances over the season. I picked two “lights” and two “shades” for each Star, most of which were highlighted by the contestants themselves during their retrospectives. Do you think any of the dances tonight overruled their previous personal Bests? I’m thinking Donny and Kym’s freestyle did, for sure. “Oh!” grunted Mr. Vegas to close out the show. He cannot help himself. EVERY SINGLE TIME! (Except when he’s sad.)

Did Dmitry lowball Mya with that Hairspray routine? Did anyone else get a Jock Jams vibe from the “Megamix Challenge”? Talk amongst yourselves while I apply another coat of spray tan to my laptop and dry my tears re: not getting to see the DANCMSTR vanity plate. Come on.

Nov 23 2009 10:07 PM ET

This Week's Issue: 'New Moon"s record-breaking opening and where Hollywood goes from here

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Call it battle of the abs. Or the teen screams heard round the world. Either way, Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon did more business on its opening weekend than any other movie this year. Now that it’s the biggest fall opening ever at $142.8 million and its opening day number of $72.7 million outgrossed The Dark Knight’s first-day figure, Hollywood should finally accept that women drive the box office in a big way. “It’s great that the greenlighters in town have realized that little girls go to the movies,” says MGM’s president of marketing Michael Vollman. “But this genre has worked forever. To Sir With Love was an angsty girl movie.”

So what will this fickle, yet incredibly devoted audience turn to next? Disney thinks it could be…fairies. The studio has scooped up Aprilynne Pike’s best-selling young adult novel Wings and cast Miley Cyrus in an adaptation. New Regency is banking on a new novel from Ann Brashares (author of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) called My Name is Memory, while Lionsgate hopes tweens line up for an adaptation of author Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. “Some will work and some won’t,” Summit’s co-chairman and CEO Rob Friedman says of the girl-driven projects. No matter what, “It won’t be The Twilight Saga. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

For more on New Moon and its impact on Hollywood, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, on stands November 27.

Nov 23 2009 09:18 PM ET

What did you think of last scene in 'New Moon'?

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At the screening I attended of New Moon this weekend, there were gasps of shock at the way the film ended. It certainly got my attention and left me wanting to see the third film immediately. But I wondered what Twihards would think of the ending, which didn’t quite match up with New Moon, the book. READ FULL STORY »

Nov 23 2009 08:28 PM ET

Ben Stiller taps into his inner slacker in 'Greenberg' trailer

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Noah Baumbach is an indie writer-director known for wry, literate, darkly comic arthouse meditations on Gen-X angst like Kicking & Screaming and The Squid and the Whale. Ben Stiller is … Ben Stiller. What do you get when you put the two together? Judging from the just-released trailer for Greenberg, which opens in March, you get Stiller as a 40-something slacker who’s at loose ends in his life and busying himself building a doghouse, writing angry letters to Starbucks, and fumbling into a romance with another lost soul (Greta Gerwig). We haven’t seen Stiller go for this kind of minor-key, emotionally vulnerable performance since The Royal Tenenbaums—and while it’s tough to get a clear read on Greenberg from the trailer, the results look pretty intriguing to me in a laughing-quietly-to-yourself kind of way. It would be easy to write this off as just the latest case of a giant comedy star trying to burnish his artistic cred by doing a movie aimed at hoodie-wearing hipsters and NPR listeners, like Jim Carrey did so well with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Then again, Stiller made his directorial debut 15 years ago with his own darkly comic meditation on Gen-X angst, Reality Bites, so you could argue the guy is actually going back to his roots.

Watch the trailer at Apple and tell us what you think. Does the idea of Stiller as a scruffy malcontent who just wants to “do nothing” do anything for you? Or is Greenberg just an odd detour on the way to Little Fockers?

Nov 23 2009 07:47 PM ET

Who should fill in for Regis?

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Regis Philbin has to take some recovery time in December and January — and while I’ll certainly miss Reeg and his special kind of crankiness, Kelly Ripa has welcomed some great guest hosts in the past. Who should replace Regis this time? A returning visitor (Anderson Cooper gets my vote – only if he dances this time!) or someone completely new? Would you watch Kelly on her own?

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