Archive: February 2010 (201-210 of 489)

Feb 16 2010 05:23 PM ET

Best reason to watch men's figure skating tonight? The outfits!

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Categories: Fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion, Olympics, PopWatch on Ice, Things That Are Awesome!

I know that women’s figure skating is supposed to be the must-see event at the Winter Olympics, but I can’t help but prefer the men’s competition. And that’s not just because the men perform feats of flexibility that utterly baffle me (see this). Nope, I’ll admit that one of the main reasons I tune into men’s figure skating is for…the fashion.

Now, I know that we here on PopWatch on Ice have already discussed figure skating attire after the pairs short program on Sunday. But I feel that we haven’t completely exhausted the topic, since Tatyana Volosozhar and Stanislav Morozov’s neon blue spandex get-ups certainly deserve a whole dissertation of their own. But let’s focus on the men’s competition here: Really, who isn’t in awe of athletes perfectly willing to don outfits like this and this on the ice?

So now I ask you: What was your favorite men’s figure skating outfit of all time? My vote goes to Philippe Candeloro for this D’Artagnan-inspired ensemble (pictured). Rudy Galindo, however, gets my runner-up vote for wearing the Seinfeld puffy shirt during the 1996 Nationals. What say you, PopWatchers?

Photo Credit: Luca Bruno/AP Images

Feb 16 2010 04:30 PM ET

'American Idol' Power List: Which season 9 contestants deserve a spot in the top 24?

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Categories: American Idol, Reality TV

Tonight, American Idol will begin revealing its season 9 semifinalists as part of a two-night extravaganza of singing, stressing, and sobbing. But while I’m celebrating the fact that I only need to avoid all those hideously tempting “top 24 spoiler lists” for another 30 hours or so, I figured I’d do one final ranking of the contestants who’ve been singing their hearts out for our entertainment over the last five weeks. After you’ve finished reading, vote for your own pet contestant, then hit the comments section to share your reasons why. (Oh, and now that the voting portion of the competition is almost upon us, be sure to get up-to-the minute links to my coverage by following me on Twitter @EWMichaelSlezak!)

20. Michael ‘Big Mike’ Lynche (New this week): Dial 1-800-TMI-Alert regarding that Hollywood Week segment focusing on his wife’s cervix! Still, while his group rendition of “Get Ready” wasn’t exactly riveting, likable everydoods often go a long way in this competition. (Just ask season 8 finalist Michael Sarver.)

19. Jeff Goldford (New this week): Admittedly, half of his total 30 seconds of screen time featured him getting dressed down for interrupting vocal coach Debra Byrd, but that snippet of “Carry On Wayward Son” (in a group performance with team “Phoenix”) showed off an interest-piquing rasp. Whether or not he cracks the top 24, here’s hoping we see his solo this week. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 16 2010 04:07 PM ET

In praise of a robot named Vicki -- 'Small Wonder' comes to DVD today!

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Categories: 100% Pure Cheese, DVD/Video, Television, Things That Are Awesome!, Who Else Remembers This?

If the ’60s was the time when everyone was stoned out of their gourds and the ’70s was the decade of bad taste, the ’80s will be remembered as the decade when those two impulses collided head-on, giving us some of the strangest TV shows ever made. After all, what can you say about a decade that kicked off with Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari getting tarted up in drag in Bosom Buddies and then proceded on to Manimal, Knight Rider, Webster, and Alf? Still, maybe the most jaw-droppingly bizarre show of the Reagan era was Small Wonder — the surreal saga of Vicki, a robot that looks like a 10-year-old girl.

In case you’re not hip to the pleasures of this show, let me start by saying that the most remarkable thing about it is that it somehow managed to run for five seasons. It was there that we met a nutty engineer dad (Dick Christie), his chipper, put-upon wife (Marla Pennington), and their little moon-faced son (Jerry Supiran). Then one day, into their lives comes the father’s latest creation a pint-sized Voice Input Child Identicant (Vicki, get it?) with an emotionless monotone voice, a bow in her hair, and a high-tech motherboard sticking out of her back. Oh, and the mischief she could get into! Especially with the nosy neighbors, the Brindles, looking on!

The main recurring gag was how stiff Vicki was — made all the easier thanks to the less-than-memorable actress (Tiffany Brissette) playing her. Every week, she would try harder and harder to pass as a real girl like some distaff version of Pinocchio and manage to pull it off…just barely. It was kinda creepy and totally preposterous — I mean, over the show’s five-season run Brissette actually grew several inches, pretty much throwing the whole premise of her being a robot out the window. But it was also pure pop culture Velveeta that made Alf look like The Sopranos. Don’t believe me?Check it out for yourself because today is the day Small Wonder finally makes its DVD debut in a four-disc box set. You may not think you need four discs — that’s 540 minutes — of a bad ’80s TV show. But I’d take it over a Webster marathon any day of the week.

Are you a Small Wonder fan? What’s your favorite bad TV show?

Feb 16 2010 03:30 PM ET

'Lost' eyes, they're watchin' you, they see your every moooove

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Categories: Clip du Jour, Lost, Viral Video!!!

Lost‘s signature eyeball close-up gets the requisite supercut treatment, and lo, it is lovely:

Some of the eyes are instantly recognizable — Locke, anyone? — but others are a lot harder to pin down. Were you able to ID (or should I say eye D, ho ho!) everyone, PopWatchers?

More Lost videos:
What if ‘Lost’ were a ’60s pulp movie?
A side-by-side comparison of scenes from the pilot and from “LAX”
Lost as seen through the confused eyes of non-watchers
The awesome Spanish trailer
And some fantastic fan videos

Feb 16 2010 03:00 PM ET

How are you celebrating Fat Tuesday at your desk?

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Categories: 100% Pure Cheese, Animation, Food and Drink, Happy Holidays, Is This a Rhetorical Question?, Ridiculata, Who Else Remembers This?

Since my life is sadly not the “Mardi Gras” episode of Jem and an animated pirate named Pierre Larroquette is probably not going to invite me to lunch, I’m gonna go ahead and celebrate Mardi Gras at my desk with some mediocre supermarket crab cakes, macaroni salad, and — coming up! — an entire box of Lilly’s Homestyle rainbow cookies (pictured, the kind that, like black and white cookies, are more like cake than cookies). I hear I’m missing out on a Fat Tuesday Okra and Pearl Onions tray in the Time Inc. cafeteria, but I’ll live. Tell me how you’ll be celebrating Mardi Gras in the comments, and help me come up with a holiday for tomorrow because God forbid we end the three-day streak. Oh wait, you don’t need to because this ridiculous website tells me tomorrow is Ash Wednesday (whoops), National PTA Founders Day, My Way Day, and World Human Spirit Day. Those sound too serious, so I unofficially declare tomorrow to also be Lindsey Vonn & Shaun White Day and Taco Wednesday.

Annie on Twitter: @EWAnnieBarrett

Feb 16 2010 02:14 PM ET

Clip du jour: Prince's rocking out in 1984

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Categories: Clip du Jour, Music

This is what it sounds like when doves cry, PopWatchers, because this rehearsal footage is from 25 years ago.

And there a lot more where that came from, including “All Day, All Night” and “Erotic City.”

I particularly enjoyed the dance moves, PopWatchers. Did you?

Feb 16 2010 01:40 PM ET

Barbara Walters' Oscar special: Who should take over?

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Categories: Current Affairs, Oscars, Television

Barbara Walters just announced that she’s ending her Oscars special after this year. Hubbawha? That show is an institution! A rickety, kinda hokey institution! But as much as I enjoy a good old couch-and-cry with Barbara Walters, the truth is, by the time her special airs we’ve seen the nominees on Oprah, Ellen, The View, and the late-night shows; we’ve seen them do red carpet interviews at the 900 non-Oscar awards shows. It’s time to shake things up a little.

That’s why I’d love to see James Lipton host an Inside the Actors Studio pre-Oscars special from here on out. Come for the effusive praise, stay for the crazyeyes! People say the darndest things on that show, plus Lipton often asks to “speak” to characters, which always blows my mind. I wouldn’t mind a Conan O’Brien-hosted special, either: Walters’ interviews lack any sense of irony and mischief, which is fine because she’s a newswoman, but it makes for some stale-ass television. O’Brien’s heart pretty much pumps goofiness.

My pie-in-the-sky wish, though, is for a Colbert Report special: Stephen Colbert‘s ability to satirize self-importance and ceremony is usually applied to political grandeur, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be aimed at Hollywood.

Get out your wish-o-trons, PopWatchers: What would make a perfect pre-Oscars show? A moderated panel in which the gilded celebs are forced to talk near each other? A Festivus-influenced feats of strength demonstration? Or should we just let Elisabeth Hasselbeck take over the special?

Image credit: Craig Sjodin/ABC

Feb 16 2010 01:21 PM ET

Christina Hendricks: Something else to obsess about

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Categories: Mad Men, Sexytimes, Why Am I Crying?

I don’t think any able-eyed person on the planet would not like to gaze at the art for New York‘s Christina Hendricks cover story, “Woman of the Hourglass.” If you are reading this to the blind, go ahead and describe her signature slightly parted lips as well as the throbbing python of auburn weave gently snaking its way around right breast and left thigh in a manner a billion times sexier than an actual reptile did in Wayne’s World or on Britney Spears, and your audience could not help but be tickled, too. The article claims Hendricks should be recognized just as much for her acting ability as for her curves, and duh, I love that! But I’ve recently been worrying that we’re selling ourselves short if we aren’t also devoting a proper amount of attention to….

CHRISTINA HENDRICKS’ CAPTIVATING EYES. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 16 2010 01:00 PM ET

'RuPaul's Drag Race' recap: See who did her last splits

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Categories: About Last Night, Fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion, Genres, Mini TV Watch, People & Bands, Ridiculata, RuPaul, RuPaul's Drag Race, Television, Things That Are Awesome!, Things That Are Classy, TV Recap, TV Shows

When RuPaul appeared at the beginning of last night’s episode of Drag Race, she told the queens that in her early years she had no money and “would eat anything.” And now, she continued, “that’s what you’re going to do.” Dun, dun, dun! Commence the (rather inventive) game of “Chicken or What?” Where—you guessed it!—the ladies had to put on a blindfold and eat a nibblet of a fried morsel that could be chicken, then decide whether it was indeed chicken or, alternatively, “what.” “What” being, of course, something totally disgusting—bull’s testicles, soy chicken, etc.—and completely not white meat from our feathered friends.

I think Pandora Boxx best summed up the odd situation with her epithet: “I did not know that this was going to be Drag Survivor.” Hello, she said what we were all thinking! I think this particular mini challenge was actually a bit more Fear Factor than Survivor, but the sentiment remains: When did Drag Race go all…gross?

Alas, what was grosser than the actual mini challenge, though, was the egregious pandering the contest seemed to have toward giving one contestant a chance to be on top. Maybe it wasn’t intentional on the producers’ parts (as I’m nearly sure things were planned before the contestants were chosen), but it seemed that the food fest was built specifically for none other than resident big-girl Mystique Summers Madison. And natch, she did win, using her cringe-inducing strategy: “Chew halfway,” she explained, “Fill your mouth with water. Swallow.” Cutie-pie Morgan McMichaels came in right behind her, which pitted the two against each other as team captains for the main challenge.

READ FULL STORY »

Feb 16 2010 12:42 PM ET

'Tim and Eric' Season Cinco promo: The sickness that's good for what ails ya

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Categories: Television, Things That Are Awesome!

To put it mildly, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s comedy is not everyone’s cup of tea. That is to say, not everyone likes pink shrimp-and-white-wine vomit in their tea. So I won’t waste time trying to explain why their Adult Swim series Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (which returns for season 5 on Feb. 28) is nothing short of brilliant — demented, gross, and disturbing, but brilliant. Instead, I will simply state that A) They were down with Zach Galifianakis WAY before you were B) there’s no way John C. Reilly’s Dr. Steve Brule went to medical school and C) spaghetti and meatballs.

I my gawd, I can’t waaaaaaaait. I’m definitely getting a crate of child clowns and throwing a Tim and Eric premiere party. Somebody pass the Wait Mates. Who’s with me?

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