In an All-Star season of Survivor, everyone is a target for one reason or another, but among the contestants playing in Heroes Vs. Villains, Cirie Fields is among the biggest. In my conversations in Samoa with the participants just before the game began, several (including Amanda, Danielle, J.T., and Stephenie) named Cirie as one of the players they wanted to get rid of first. And who can blame them? While Cirie poses no physical threat whatsoever, she has twice (in Panama and Micronesia) proven herself to be a savvy social player and crafty manipulator. The problem for Cirie is that everyone knows it, and such cerebral players are usually targeted early in all-star seasons (witness Rob Cesternino in All-Stars and Yau-Man in Micronesia). [Intel on whom Cirie is targeting as well as exclusive on location video after the jump] READ FULL STORY »
Archive: January 2010 (341-350 of 461)
'Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains': Cirie says she'll win because 'I'm a gangsta in an Oprah suit'
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'Brothers & Sisters' recap: Bond, Nora Bond
During the final minutes of last night’s Brothers & Sisters, my jaw dropped as low as Kevin’s in this photo. When I realized Nora was turning a lunch date with Simon into a sting operation, I literally chanted “No-ra! No-ra! No-ra!” on my sofa. I may also have yelled “Suck it, Simon!” at some point, too. Not proud, just honest.
So, six weeks after skipping Justin and Rebecca’s wedding, Simon wanted back in Nora’s life. Even though Sarah told Nora the only reason Simon never cashed her check was because she canceled it, Nora was willing to hear him out. I was done with Simon by this point, so I only half-listened to his explanation, but apparently, there was a guy stealing from him. After a stop in Florida, Simon went to Guatemala, turned the guy into the authorities, then went into the jungle to check on his “projects” and caught Bone Break Fever from a mosquito bite. By the time he had the strength to call Nora, he thought it would be better if he waited to explain his long absence in person. Even if that BS were true, that “make you worry even longer plan” would have been grounds to smack him. READ FULL STORY »
'How I Met Your Mother': Tonight's 100th episode will be legendary
Tonight’s How I Met Your Mother is the show’s 100th episode — it’s a major milestone for any show, but the episode is particularly special for a few reasons. One, it features Rachel Bilson (as maybe, gasp, the mother?), and two, it includes a musical number for Neil Patrick Harris’s Barney Stinson. Eeeee!
Who's excited for tonight's episode, PopWatchers? Are you suiting up?
More How I Met Your Mother from EW:
How I Met Your Mother: The stars pick their favorite episodes
How I Met Your Mother: 20 of YOUR favorite episodes
New 'Big Love' opening credits: Was it time?
Whoa! I’d seen and lovingly spazzed out to the gorgeous Free Fall Like You’re in ‘Mad Men’ promo set to Interpol’s “Untitled” for HBO’s Big Love that came out in November, but totally didn’t expect it be the basis for an entirely new opening sequence during last night’s season 4 premiere. At first, I was all “Sensory overload Nicki and a wind machine I can’t process this I have to watch the show just start it stop this let’s go swap meet those birds!”
After a post-episode rewind, though, the opener ended up growing on me. The closeups of outstretched hands next to the titles (as well as the general “suspension” theme) reminded me of another favorite show ever, Six Feet Under, so God only knows what my night’d be without that. The visual experience was beautiful — just not what I’d associate with Big Love. You know, like figure skating.
Did you love the new opening sequence or should Big Love have stuck with “God Only Knows”?
Follow Annie on Twitter: @EWAnnieBarrett
Willem Dafoe in 'Daybreakers': Any other kitschy good performances in kinda crappy movies?
Every now and then you get a memorable performance in a forgettable film. Willem Dafoe’s in the gory new vampire flick Daybreakers is one of them.
SPOILER ALERT! The year is 2019, and most humans have turned into vampires. Slight problem: That means the blood supply is about to go extinct. A decent, chain-smoking vampire hematologist (Ethan Hawke) at a greedy corporation that farms humans for their plasma, needs to find a blood substitute to save both the human race and his toothy brethren. (Starvation degenerates the latter into naked, screeching, winged, bats— crazy beasts.) After a not-clandestine-enough meeting with Dafoe’s Elvis, a former vampire/gruff mechanic who became human again and rolled his jeans following a daytime car accident that involved burning and water, he learns there’s something better: A cure. Together — along with a woman you thought for sure would let a pointy-eared Hawke feed on her during sex but who only ended up cutting her wrist and bleeding into a cup (boo!) — they go on the run until they can recreate the conditions necessary to get Hawke a heartbeat. The situation gives a deadpan Dafoe the opportunity to deliver awesomely bad lines like the one he utters when Hawke asks him if the humans’ hideout is safe: Being human in a world of vampires is “about as safe as barebackin’ a $5 whore,” he says. Dafoe’s response when the human-hunting vampire army has zeroed in on their location, and Hawke wants to stay behind to finish the experiment while the others flee to a new place: “F— it, I do love a good barbecue.” READ FULL STORY »
Weekend wisdom from the Hallmark Channel: Women, flee the city!
Really, how was I supposed to resist Wishing Well, a made-for-TV movie about a hardened New York entertainment journalist (uh oh!) who gets demoted from Celeb magazine to the slow poke human interest beat of Great Housekeeping (!)? Her crummy new assignment—what is with that once-magical wishing well in Slow Creek, Illinois?—lands her in one of those cute small towns with picket fences and handsome wooden benches that aren’t chained to immovable objects. Jordan Ladd, she of Maxim‘s top 100 Babes of Horror, plays the city girl and she’s in Slow Creek mere minutes before she bumps into a London brother (the one from the Man in the Moon, not Party of Five). We all know how this is going to end. We knew it from the opening scene when Ladd and her brittle buddy gab in their shiny, immaculate high-rise apartment about how enviable their lives are. “We have exciting careers, live in great apartments, go to great parties, make a lot of money,” brags her friend. Cue our heroine’s slow awakening to the fact that her so-called successful life in the city is in fact tragically empty. Prescription: One small town with a sassy older waitress at the diner and a cute fella in adorably rumpled khakis!
I always find it so amusing when Hollywood gets ripped one in the culture wars for devaluing lives not lived on a coast. Who are we kidding? The entertainment biz loves shipping urban women characters off to their caricatured versions of one-stoplight towns! (Usually Harry Connick, Jr. is waiting for them, and let’s all agree that that man makes a fine welcome wagon.) Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama, Renee Zellweger in New in Town, Diane Keaton in the delightful Baby Boom, Sandra Bullock in the ubiquitous Hope Floats—they all got their heads right once they bid adieu to their fancy shoes and demanding careers. In Wishing Well, Jordan Ladd—after a goofy time travel twist—finds her closet of suits replaced by Rory Gilmore’s wardrobe. Only in peasant blouses and ponytails can a woman finally relax!
'The A-Team' trailer: A-okay?
This trailer for The A-Team contains every possible action-movie cliche you could cram into one coming attraction. (Of course, this is an A-Team movie, and diehard fans wouldn’t have it any other way.) Plenty of quick cuts, a lame joke, over-the-top orchestration, explosions, a tiny pause to startle you into paying attention, and of course, an awesomely awful tagline. “There is no plan B,” PopWatchers! I assume they mean emergency contraception.
Yep, that’s District 9‘s Sharlto Copley rocking a drawl as Murdock.
Okay, wrongly convicted PopWatchers, are you on Team A-Team? Or is the lack of Mr. T a deal-breaker?
'Youth in Revolt' and navigating the rom-com world if you're a young male actor
Over on our Movie Critics blog, Lisa Schwarzbaum is pondering Michael Cera’s future: How he’ll go from someone who, in her words, knows how to “convey hormonal frenzy and accompanying romantic confusion as well as he does, just by standing still and speaking in a soft, clear voice,” to someone who’s tasked with playing a man in his 20s who’s “Done It” and has to find the humor in sustaining a relationship.
When I watched his new film Youth in Revolt, an R-rated male-driven romantic comedy at heart, the question that popped into my mind was would I rather keep seeing Cera play the same kind of closeted-cool virgin over and over again, or get cast as the love interest in a traditional rom-com? Were those my only two options — and with films like (500) Days of Summer out there, they shouldn’t be — I’d prefer he keep wearing his hoodie. (So would, I dare say, the college-aged crowd that applauded at the end of my opening night showing.) In those roles, he’s at least a fully fleshed-out character. They might be a cliché at this point, too — “the Michael Cera type” — but at least you get to know them. In most female-driven rom-coms, the man is known only as the trophy. READ FULL STORY »
Amy Adams' 'Leap Year': What Hollywood gets wrong about women and marriage
The new Amy Adams-tumbles-down-an-Irish-hillside romantic comedy has racked up a slew of groaning reviews. The New York Times went so far as to call it the worst movie of our barely week-old year. (Our Owen Gleiberman gave it a B-). I went to the movie last night, and must confess that I found it rather endearing. Amy Adams, after playing such a churlish character (bloggers, right?!) in Julie & Julia, is the requisite role of uptight control freak who wants her stiff boyfriend to propose already after four years of dating. When he leaves on a business trip to Ireland, she chases after him to take advantage of an olde country tradition whereby a lass is granted the right to pop the question to her man on the titular day of leap year. I know, awful. (The thing is the movie itself, when approached with dangerously low expectations, is kind of winning. Adams’ character quickly finds herself sidelined with a surly yet stand-up bartender played by Matthew Goode and despite myself I was charmed by their predictable series of misadventures on the road to Dublin. I blame the cough syrup, and Goode’s fisherman’s sweater.)
But the premise itself of the movie should not be forgiven, or at least not its wretched trailer in which Adams practices her getting proposed face or screams on a turbulence-wracked airplane that “I am not going to die without getting engaged!” When will Hollywood drop this strangely clung-to cliche that a grown woman will always be reduced to needy brat when she gets a whiff of wedding cake? You want to know what was cute about Kimberly Williams in the movie Father of the Bride? Her character was a 22-year-old and she acted like one. Maybe young women her age still get silly and feverish about their fairy tale notions of weddings and marriage. Grown women don’t.
This Week on Stage: NYC's 'Our Town' becomes show's longest-running version
In December, David Cromer’s production of the Off Broadway play Our Town (pictured at left) became the longest running version of the show ever, so we here at EW urge you to take a look at our just-posted review of the production—and consider heading to downtown NYC to give it a gander. It’s worth it, as EW’s Tanner Stransky gave the production an A- and called it “incredibly moving.”
Because of the recent holidays, few new shows have been opening on the boards in NYC. But if you’re looking for some live theater, check out the EW.com Stage hub for up-to-date news and reviews; or consult this handy guide below, which includes links to all of our stage reviews of current shows. (Note: The reviews are typically of the show’s original casts.)
BROADWAY
The Addams Family — Musical; opens 4/8/2010
All About Me — Musical Revue starring Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein; opens 3/18/10
American Idiot — Musical; opens 4/20/2010
A Behanding in Spokane — Comedy starring Christopher Walken; opens 3/4/10
Billy Elliot — Musical; opened 11/13/08; EW grade: B+
Burn the Floor — Musical; opened 8/3/09 – 1/10/2010; EW grade: A-
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