This commercial starts weird, and then 15 seconds in goes from “haha, strange” to “ah! why is that dog walking around with a crotch face/why can’t the world ever make sense?” Impressive.
My life will never go back to normal, and I am glad. Where’s your giant human ear, even though you’re a dog, PopWatchers?
To get pulses racing over the release of New Moon on DVD tomorrow, Walmart has opened Twilight Saga-themed pop-up shops inside stores around the country. In addition to the chain’s exclusive New Moon: Ulimate Fan Edition DVD, which features a seven-minute sneak peek at Eclipse, the shops are hawking Twilight Saga merch including messenger bags, clothing, blood-red candles, trivia games, wolf- and vampire-themed jewelry, and even “New Moon Nacho Doritos.”
Excessive? Yes. But excessive (more like obsessive) is pretty much what the franchise is all about, so who are we to stop you from indulging? In fact, as someone who wore cheap costume jewelry (and, possibly, a tiara — I’ve blocked it out) for her home Oscars viewing party the year Titanic took Best Picture, I can’t even judge you. Be in it to win it, I always say.
For EW’s complete Twilight Saga coverage, visit our Twilight Central site special.
*In case you’re wondering, Walmart didn’t pay us for this post. We just know how … um … enthusiastic we Twilight fans are, and we figured we’d take them up on their offer to pass along some free stuff.
You know how the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday because it’s the frenzied shopping day when all the department stores get into the black for the year? Can we all agree that St. Patty’s Day slash NCAA Tournament week is a drinking establishment’s equivalent? Walking through Manhattan last night, I simply assumed the city had extended the Irish holiday another 24 hours. Bars were packed with people watching TV with mouths agape, as 19-year-olds in long shorts shot prayers at the basket as the clock expired. Never have so many felt so invested in something they know so little about. Northern Iowa? Yes! Ohio? Boo!
Last night wasn’t pretty for a few heavy favorites, like Georgetown and Vanderbilt, and I’m sure it’s not pretty either for many night-owls whose figurative candle has officially burned their fingers from both ends. What’s the limit for how many consecutive days you can tell your boss your train got stuck in the tunnel? Comic Nick Swardson urges you to be creative in this March Madness themed VitaminWater ad.
To be honest, I think the sight of him in that Cinderella dress actually gave me Hepatitis Z. So thank you, Mr. Swardson, I now have a legitimate excuse to go home and “rest.” In totally unrelated news, Morgan State and West Virginia tip-off at 12:15.
Your turn, PopWatchers: What events caused YOU to shirk responsibility for a day in front of the TV set?
Jon Stewart’s 14-minute-long impersonation of Glenn Beck on last night’s Daily Show was a dramatic performance of epic proportion. He had “TOTAL CONTROL!” of the role, breaking character only occasionally to act as the voice of reason with lines like, “In my America, nobody tells people when they can masturbate.” Press play below and follow him, America. Jon Stewart is gonna show you something that will BLOW YOUR MIND.
UPDATE: Glenn Beck’s reaction “It was hilarious. But even Jon Stewart can’t make fun of me as well as I can make fun of me,” Beck’s rep told EW.
Annie on Twitter: @EWAnnieBarrett
At noon EST on March 25, the official opening date of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter will finally be revealed. Even though it seems kind of silly for Universal Orlando Resort to have kept a detail as simple as that a secret for this long, its plan to slowly release information about the theme park has worked: This is now the fourth PopWatch post I’ve written on it. They’re calling it “The Most Incredible Theme Park Experience Ever” so there is a lot of pressure to live up to the hype. I think we’ll know whether they’ve succeeded when details about the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey attraction are also disclosed on the official site Thursday. That’s the part of the park that lets you walk through the halls of Hogwarts, and probably laugh at people recreating scenes in Dumbledore’s office, the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, the Room of Requirement, and the Gryffindor common room — until you realize you just corrected their line reading in your head and have already decided to buy two remote control Golden Snitches in case one breaks. There’s also a ride that will use “groundbreaking, state-of-the-art technology (and a little magic)” to send us soaring above the castle grounds as we accompany Harry and friends on “an unforgettably thrilling adventure.” Again, no pressure!
Image Credit: Ali Goldstein/NBCIf there’s something more magnificent than being frozen in carbonite á la Han Solo, I don’t know what it is. A terrific 30 Rock? Well… maybe porn for women, fidelity complexes, and Wesley Snipes. No, a different Wesley Snipes. These were the 10 best lines from “Don Geiss, America, and Hope.”
“Not Seinfeld, Friends, ER exciting, more like 3-D episodes of Merlin exciting…” — Jack, who just whipped a battery at Liz
“He built GE into the greatest company on Earth, and the Earth into one of the top three planets in the universe!” — Jack, who knows Legoland is no match for the Bruins READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Mitchell Haaseth/BravoOf course Jill has a psychic she’s been seeing for years. This comes as no real surprise. And of course, when she arranged for LuAnn to meet said psychic LuAnn must unnecessarily demand a kiss on each cheek. And of course, there is then spouting of a bogus revelation when the psychic wonders about the possibility of a new soulmate for LuAnn — someone whose first name begins with the letter “J” perhaps. Turns out LuAnn is seeing someone whose name begins with J. (Let’s all indulge for a second and pretend LuAnn’s new paramour is Bethenny’s original Jason, and that he’ll turn the knife by gleefully moving into LuAnn’s Hamptons beach house. No fear of commitment when it comes to royalty!)
Oh LuAnn. How her ego did swell when her startlingly lovely daughter Victoria mentioned that her guy friends thought she was hot. LuAnn, acting 14 years old herself, pumped her daughter for more information like a teenager would ferret out the details of a sighting of a crush at the mall. LuAnn is a goof, and a vulnerable one. I give her points though. At the fashion show, attempting to explain Jill’s case to Bethenny, I found her rather diplomatic and restrained. She wasn’t out to make trouble, and she looked great in her jeans. Good on you, LuAnn. For your efforts, Bethenny called you a snake next week!
The first thing you notice in the trailer for Predators is the lack of muscle. The original Reagan-era film boasted Arnold Schwartzenegger, Carl Weathers, and Jesse Ventura at the height of their buffness. Twentieth Century Fox’s upcoming reboot stars Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, and Topher Grace. “You can’t compete with Arnold,” says producer/cowriter Robert Rodriguez, “so it’s much better to go the other direction and do something the audience isn’t expecting.”
Maybe. We’ll see. What I do like about the new film is how they’ve put our heroes in enemy territory, on a hostile planet rather than Earth. “This planet is a game reserve,” says Brody’s character. “And we’re the game.” It’s almost like some Predator and Alien DNA got mixed up during the two crossover hybrids of the two franchises.
But the trailer delivers one important quality all of the sequels lacked: chills. Does the Predator rattle still make the hairs on your arm stand up?
Image Credit: ZoCo Produtions, LLC / Sam JonesThis week, Mehmet Oz celebrated the six-month anniversary of his hit syndicated talker, The Dr. Oz Show. He might have recently been named one of Cosmo‘s 2010 Fun Fearless Males, but he took our assignment — diagnosing five of his all-time favorite TV and movie characters — seriously:
Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason)/The Honeymooners
“One of these days, Alice!” was clearly a sign of hypertension and uncontrolled anger, which is unhealthy for one’s heart, not to mention one’s marriage. Ralph was also obese, leading a sedentary life as a bus driver and probably had all the complications that routinely go along with those circumstances. His hot temper was probably one of the greatest threats though, causing a surge in cortisol, a stress hormone linked to obesity and heart disease. The adrenaline of the constant emotion also aggravates high blood pressure. Ralph would have done well to exercise more and practice meditation to calm him down a bit. Alice would have been better off, and he would have lived a long and healthier life.
Rod Serling/The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone wouldn’t have been a success without Rod Serling’s hair-raising introductions and outros. His calm, creepy unaffected demeanor has become iconic in our culture for any circumstance where anticipation of weirdness is warranted. Yet Serling frequently appeared in his monologues chain-smoking cigarettes, which would have quickened his heart rate, damaged his lungs, clogged his arteries, and increased his risk of pancreatic cancer. The brilliant and pioneering author of one of my favorite television series suffered several heart attacks before a final fatal one at age 50. The cigarettes certainly did not help, and there were many places my imagination would still have loved to have gone with Rod Serling. READ FULL STORY »
Last night’s Community was some kind of magical oddity. The episode was punctuated with Charlie Kaufman-esque moments of ordinary-life surrealism and kooky flashbacks of the subconscious. For some Community fans (and most likely the majority of television viewers), “Beginner Pottery” may have been too out there. But for me, it was an absolute wonder. I found myself leaning forward, exhilarated by the show’s willingness to indulge in its strange fetishes, which I’ll get to later in this post. But first, hats off to the episode’s writer, Hilary Winston, who also penned Community‘s first slam dunk, “Football, Feminism, and You.” Also, kudos to whomever wrote the epic cinematic score, which managed to simultaneously poke fun at the preposterousness of our gang’s adventures while also supporting the action on screen. When those violin strings kicked in as Jeff tirelessly struggled to perfect the art of pottery (and, in effect, maintain his own concept of self-worth), it became one of those scenes that, against all reason, simply worked.
Now on to the show’s highlights: READ FULL STORY »
