Archive: February 2010 (111-120 of 489)

Feb 22 2010 02:16 PM ET

Famke Janssen returns to 'Nip/Tuck': Who's psyched to see transsexual Ava again?

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Filed under: Television and tagged: , , ,

While I’m very sad that FX’s Nip/Tuck is winding down its run with only two episodes left, I cannot wait for Wednesday night’s return of Ava Moore, the crazypants transexxual life coach played by the fabulous Famke Janssen. Ava is definitely one of the best characters ever to pop up in the Nip/Tuck universe and she’s been sorely missed since her dramatic season 2 arc. Season 2 was when I really became a hardcore fan of the plastic surgery drama and that’s due, in large part, to Janssen’s diabolical character. Frankly, I don’t think Janssen has every played a character so complex and interesting. And I love that, in true Ava form, she returns as glammed-out as ever!

Are you excited for Ava’s return to Nip/Tuck, PopWatchers? What kind of drama do you think she’ll cause?

Feb 22 2010 02:00 PM ET

National Margarita Day: It's never too cold for tequila

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Filed under: Food and Drink and tagged: ,

margarita-dayImage Credit: Photographer's Choice/Getty ImagesSo today, Feb. 22, is National Margarita Day (thanks, Crispy!). That it falls on a Monday, the worst day of the week to get drunk (though the most in need of a holiday providing an excuse to do so) is just an unfortunate result of the 2010 calendar. However, it’s a wonder that a cold, fruity, summery drink such as the margarita is commemorated in February — ya know, the dead of winter. Personally, I’d be more likely to celebrate if it were June. But maybe that’s because I live in New York, where the sidewalks are currently covered in dog-soiled snow that sort of resembles a foul frozen cocktail.

Maybe it doesn’t matter, though. Americans on average drink 185,000 margaritas per hour, making it almost our patriotic duty to imbibe. And the truth is, in the time it took me to bang out this post, I planned my evening commute around a stop at the store for a bag of limes so I can head home and whip up a batch of traditional margaritas, on-the-rocks with salt (frozen mango/pomegranate-type margaritas are only okay on cruise ships and/or from slushie machines). Yes, my apartment is drafty and cold, but tequila is fun and there are no good hot drinks. So to hell with it. Happy holidays…

Feb 22 2010 01:30 PM ET

NBC's tape delays are definitely not medal-worthy

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Yesterday afternoon I read about Bode Miller’s triumphant gold medal in the Super Combined. And then I watched the medal ceremony on TV several hours later. The hockey game that suddenly everyone cared about? That was on MSNBC. And when I went to NBC.com to look for a clip, I had to install Silverlight before I could watch anything. Is it really supposed to be this hard? You know things are bad when your own employees are tweeting that they’re ashamed to work for you.

Tape-delays may be a necessary evil when there’s this much to cover, but there’s so much instant access to the results that not having a chance to see any of the action live and unedited seems bizarre. I was surprised to see only the last 30 seconds of the hockey game make it to NBC last night; let nothing interrupt the bizarre cultural appropriation-fest known as folk ice dancing.

Neither rain nor sleet nor lousy coverage and inane banter can keep me from watching the games, but boy oh boy is it driving me crazy. What about you, PopWatchers? Are the tape delays and cable/network decisions robbing you of the thrill of victory?

Image credit: Steve Freeman/NBC

Feb 22 2010 01:29 PM ET

Olympic Stud of the Day: Chris Del Bosco

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No offense to Bode Miller, but did you watch Ski Cross? The sport (which makes its Olympic debut this year) is a full-crazy mash-up of skiing style, snowboarding rules, speed skating ethics, and gladiator bloodshed. It’s like the downhill version of BaskIceBall, and although it may be impossible to look graceful or refined in Ski Cross, our hearts were stolen yesterday by one semi-crazy practitioner of this curious pastime: Chris Del Bosco, onetime drug addict, carpetbagging dual citizen, and a man who would not settle for bronze, even at the cost of his own redemption.

I’m not really a fan of NBC’s montage-flashback approach to the Olympics – cue the sad music and the sob story about the dead relative – but Del Bosco’s troubled backstory (A broken neck! A doping scandal!) provided a completely sensible introduction to his performance on the slopes. To a mere mortal like myself, it seems like only two types of people do Ski Cross: extreme-sport masochists auditioning for their own version of Raging Bull, and monolithic warrior-men like Michael Schmid, a Swiss colossus (6’4”, 231 pounds) who eats sasquatch for breakfast. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 22 2010 01:17 PM ET

PopWatch on Ice: Culture clash on Original Dance night

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The “folk/country dance” theme for ice dancing’s second night of competition was just asking for trouble. Teams not wanting to play it safe by doing a style representative of their own country — or mainstream, like Spanish Flamenco or Indian — were going to get “creative.” The best they could hope for was viewers tuning in and thinking they were watching that scene in The Cutting Edge when the pairs team got tripped up in the lederhosen; the worst would be if viewers stumbled upon the “aboriginal” original dance from Russia’s reigning world champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin (pictured, left) and vowed never to watch the sport again. Not because of any perceived cultural insensitivity, mind you, but simply because that was arguably the worst concept for a program on ice ever and the crazy smiles they flashed throughout it made ice dancing seem like a joke. (Watch.)

How do you look at those costumes (faux foliage?!) and think this will translate? At least they did away with the face paint they’d worn in previous performances. They also lightened the skin tone of his body suit and toned down the white and size of the drawings on their backs. (Watch them at the European Championships.) Even with my anthropology degree, I don’t know enough to debate the authenticity of it all. According to NBC commentator Tom Hammond, groups have also complained that the music wasn’t authentic and that a woman could never wear red for a ceremonial dance. Shabalin has said they did do research for this program (and regardless, we know Domnina looks good in red from their compulsory tango). Hammond had the quote of the night: “Aside from looking ridiculous, does it affect the judges?” Analyst Tracy Wilson said they’d be focusing on the technique and character not the controversy. The duo, which had been in first, dropped to third heading into tonight’s medal-deciding free dance (NBC, 8 p.m. ET). READ FULL STORY »

Feb 22 2010 11:56 AM ET

'60 Minutes': Will America eventually run on Bloom Box? (Instead of Dunkin?)

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Filed under: Gadgets, Television and tagged: , , , , , , ,

Last night’s 60 Minutes featured a segment on the Bloom Box, a block of fuel cells you can fit in your hand that Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar says could power your whole house. (Or two European houses, or four Asian houses, you silly, consumptive American!) The “unusually secretive” company’s been around for eight years, and Google has been powering a data center on four Bloom Boxes for 18 months. After the jump — because we are so pathetic at science we can’t get the video to stop auto-playing — watch as Lesley Stahl becomes the first non-insider to peer into a refrigerator-size Bloom Box and emit a slightly hilarious, disappointed “Oh.” And tell us if you see yourself investing $2,000 for an energy innovation that might very well save the world…or at least contain the answers to Lost. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 22 2010 10:36 AM ET

'Brothers & Sisters' recap: Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

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Filed under: Television and tagged: , ,

It was a night of unexpected twists on Brothers & Sisters, save the whole Luc and Sarah ending, which I’d scripted in my head the second we found out that the painting Sarah and Kevin were ogling at some anonymous art charity event was his. That kiss, however, was worth any eye-rolling it took to get there. (“I missed you.” “Oh my god.” What she said!) But let’s back up…

Surprise No. 1: Rebecca had a miscarriage while Nora was teaching her how to make Justin’s favorite brownies for him for Valentine’s Day. I’d been waiting for this to happen since she first found out she was pregnant, but all those weeks off lured me into a false sense of security. Rebecca and Justin are understandably devastated, and they’re dealing with it in different ways: He cried on Kitty’s shoulder at the hospital, then got Rebecca all of her favorite foods and tried to play nurse; she wants to forget it ever happened and insisted on standing and making those brownies so at least something turned out the way she’d planned. Obviously, this is going to shake up their relationship, because these two can’t be happy: Odds are, she’ll blame him for not wanting the baby as much as she did. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 22 2010 09:56 AM ET

Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight photographed together: Your Monday morning 'Awww'

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voight-jolieImage Credit: Laurent Despois/Splash NewsAngelina Jolie and her father, Jon Voight, were photographed together for the first time in years on Sunday. Voight joined the Jolie-Pitt clan for a ride down Venice’s Grand Canal, where she’s prepping for the film The Tourist with Johnny Depp, People reports. At first, we weren’t sure whether we cared, but seeing the picture, we stopped, looked, and smiled: Any father and daughter reportedly reconciling is heartwarming. As for The Tourist, which has us even more intrigued, Depp plays an American tourist lured into a nefarious plot of intrigue by a female Interpol agent (Jolie) as she attempts to locate a criminal. We look forward to those paparazzi shots as well.

Feb 22 2010 12:01 AM ET

'Idolatry': Jason Castro performs his single and dishes his new EP

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Filed under: American Idol and tagged: , ,

American Idol season 7 troubadour Jason Castro is currently on the road promoting his 2010 Love Uncompromised EP and winning great reviews in the process; he even managed to turn a New York Times music critic into a fledgling Idoloonie! If you haven’t been able to catch him live yet, though, fret not: During a trip to New York City late last month, Jason stopped by Hudson Terrace and graced Idolatry with an acoustic performance of his single “Let’s Just Fall in Love Again.” I also managed to grill the laid-back newlywed about the unabashedly romantic direction of some of his new songs and discuss why he infuses his music with a sense of humor. Press play below for the two-part interview (followed by jaunty performance). And to experience my full Idol-related hootenanny, follow me on Twitter @EWMichaelSlezak.

Feb 21 2010 09:52 PM ET

'Lost': Terry O'Quinn will take you behind the smoke and UnLocke a few secrets about his character

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Filed under: Lost, Television and tagged: ,

Hello??? Are you in there??? C’mon, it’s time to get out of the cave. I agree—it was fun and educational to spend a few minutes in another one of Jacob’s lairs, courtesy of UnLocke (Terry O’Quinn), but you’ve got to start preparing for Tuesday’s episode of Lost, titled “Lighthouse.” To get the scoop on what to expect in the show‘s final season, skedaddle over to your nearest newsstand and pick up the latest copy of Entertainment Weekly, which features stars Matthew Fox and Emilie de Ravin on the cover. Inside, Jeff Jensen and I whisk you to the show’s set in Hawaii and satisfy your thirst for knowledge with juicy quotes from the show’s stars and producers. And we don’t come to this post empty-handed: Here’s a bonus mini-Q&A with man-of-the-hour O’Quinn, who shares his thoughts about playing the Man in Black and the Smoke Monster. After you read it, use the space below to spill your thoughts—and theories—about UnLocke.

EW: Any hints you can provide about where we’re headed in the next chunk of episodes?

TO: My guy—Smokey, as I call him—has a plan and he has an objective, and he’s working toward it. The question is, ‘Is it for his own good or for the good of everyone?’ That’s still up for debate.

EW: The Man in Black/Locke/Smokey revelation was a major advancement of the Lost mythology. How did you feel about that twist?

TO: I thought it was one of the biggest leaps that people were going to have to take, in terms of suspension of disbelief. Like, “Okay. All right then.” But they’d already been set up because you knew Christian, Jack’s dad, was walking around and things like that. Somebody said, “Did Lost jump the shark?” and I said, “Either they always have or they didn’t.” You know? It’s just one more giant leap. People seem to have taken it in stride. I was afraid that it might be asking too much of an audience to accept that, but everybody seems to be dealing with it all right, so I’m real happy with that.

EW: Is it an honor to be the Smoke Monster? READ FULL STORY »

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