Archive: July 2010 (121-130 of 583)

Jul 26 2010 12:59 PM ET

'Captain America' and 'Thor': The casts talk about the Marvel Universe, Thor's hammer, and 'The Avengers'

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Filed under: Movies and tagged: , , ,

hemsworth-evans_400.jpg Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesOne of the biggest stories out of Comic-Con was easily the introduction of The Avengers, Marvel Studios’ ambitious plan to tie together its various superhero movies into one omnibus superhero mega-movie. Along with presenting the entire Avengers cast, two major cinematic pieces of Marvel’s larger mythological mosaic also made their debut at Comic-Con: Captain America, starring Chris Evans (pictured, right) as a U.S. super-soldier in WWII; and Thor, starring Chris Hemsworth (pictured, left) as a Nordic god who finds himself (and his iconic hammer) cast down to Earth. Along with The Two Chrises (or is that The Two Chris’s? The Two Chrisers? Or should I go formal with The Two Christophers?), I got a chance to chat with the respective directors of both films, Joe Johnston and Kenneth Branagh – Johnston, who’s only been shooting Captain America for two weeks, even gave EW a pretty cool first look exclusive. As for the other co-stars in the film, all I can say is never hand Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings a chance to make a double entendre, because those ladies will run with it.

Check out all the interviews after the jump! READ FULL STORY »

Jul 26 2010 12:52 PM ET

Lunchtime Poll: Paul Bettany will not rest until Christianity is totally badass again

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When I was young, my local church spent several years trying to make religion “cool” for us modern youth-kids, with our short attention spans and our punk rock music and our Super Mario. Traditional religious hymns were played during church services by a junior-high rock band. Terrifying teen-only “ice cream socials” were held in the Rec center. Turns out, my church had it all wrong. All you have to do to make Christianity cool is add one buff Paul Bettany and one million rounds of  ammunition.

Mr. Bettany proved this in Legion, in which he played a gun-toting Archangel. (That might sound sacrilegious, but most scholars agree that The Adventures of a Gun-Toting Archangel at Earth’s End was the working title of the Book of Revelations.) But Mr. Bettany doesn’t think we got the message. So he’ll be back next summer in Priest, playing a badass warrior-pastor hunting vampires in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. What other roles can Paul Bettany play to pump Christianity full of steroids? Watch the Priest trailer and take the poll after the jump…

READ FULL STORY »

Jul 26 2010 12:26 PM ET

'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' Comic-Con teaser!

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Filed under: Movies and tagged: , , ,

Realistically, I could watch Johnny Depp, alone on-screen, talking in his Capt. Jack Sparrow voice for a good 20 minutes. Three two-minute teasers that played at Comic-Con in which he denies that the fourth installment of the franchise finds Jack recruiting a crew for a voyage to the fountain of youth while facing “varied and substantial dangers along the way, including but not limited to zombies, cutthroats, mermaids, and the vicious and vivacious Penélope Cruz,” has hit the Internet. Watch it below. READ FULL STORY »

Jul 26 2010 11:53 AM ET

'Avengers': Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo are in. Awesome. Now how about some women?

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Pictured left to right are Robert Downey Jr., Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Director Joss Whedon, and Producer and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige.

If Hawkeye were a real person, he would spend Saturday mornings serving soup to the homeless. Then he’d take a drive down to Rosarito to party all night with Colin Farrell. What I’m trying to say is: Jeremy Renner is Hawkeye. (And that’s coming from a founding member of the Committee to Cast Nathan Fillion as Hawkeye.) When I heard over the weekend that Renner was officially playing Clint Barton in The Avengers, I felt instantly happy. Like Downey as Iron Man or Bale as Batman, it’s a just-right piece of comic casting. (Just look at video of the cast’s introduction: Yeesh, Renner looks more excited than A-list franchisees Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans.)

I’m a bit more mixed about Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk. Ruffalo’s certainly a great actor. In fact, he’ll be the third great actor this decade to play Bruce Banner. Eric Bana and Edward Norton played very different versions of the character in their respective movies…and neither of them knocked it out of the park. It’s not their fault — Bruce Banner is a weirdly difficult character to play: Since the Hulk is functionally a different character, played by either expensive CGI or Lou Ferrigno, the actor playing Banner is basically a benchwarmer in his own character arc. Ruffalo definitely has the market cornered on soulful brooding, so let’s mark this as a wait-and-see.

My real gripe, PopWatchers, is much simpler: Where all the superheroines at? READ FULL STORY »

Jul 26 2010 11:30 AM ET

Stephen King, EW columnist: Celebrating seven years with 'Uncle Stevie'

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stephen-kingImage Credit: James Leynse/CorbisStephen King fans, you won’t want to miss this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly (the one with Inception on the cover). As part of EW’s 20th anniversary, we’ve got a must-read feature story called “The Wit and Wisdom of Stephen King,” which excerpts some of the best moments Mr. King has had in his seven years as a monthly columnist for EW. Whether it was his kickoff contention that Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (as well as 70 percent of the material on the fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists) is “dreck” or his tirade against movie-theater advertisements (“I wish every moviegoer in America would stand up in the dark and shout ‘TURN THAT S— OFF! THAT ISN’T WHAT I PAID FOR!TURN IT OFF RIGHT NOW!’”), “Uncle Stevie” has, from the get-go, been a wickedly candid and often hilarious presence in the pages of our magazine. The legendary horror author has weighed in on the serious (recounting his own stint in rehab for a piece on celebrity addiction); the silly (writing about Gilbert Gottfried’s voiceover in the ShoeDini ad, he noted that “you can actually feel tortured brain cells screeching their last as that vocal buzz-saw rips ever deeper into your cerebral cortex”); and even the sad (“It’s a great banquet, all right, but all too often the famous person discovers that he or she is for dessert,” he wrote after the death of Anna Nicole Smith). Be sure to check out the six-page feature in our July 30 issue, and visit our new “Pop of King” hub here on EW.com, where all of the author’s columns and best-of lists are now archived. And don’t forget to let us know your pick for King’s all-time best EW column in the comments section below.

Jul 26 2010 10:02 AM ET

'Next Food Network Star' recap: 'O sole no-no!

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Filed under: Food and Drink, Television, TV and tagged: , , ,

next-food-network-star“Aarti, Aarti, Aarti!” You could practically hear that Jan Brady-style whine last night from the five Next Food Network Star contestants whose names don’t rhyme with “party.” And who could blame them? Whether she’s winning over the judges by combining such barf-inducing ingredients as quinoa and All-Bran or dazzling a crowd of foodies by not completely losing her nerve and/or serving them garbage on a plate, Aarti continues to dominate the competition like a rottweiler against a pack of teacup poodles. If she’d just stop serving those massive wedges of I’m-so-humble pie — this week’s gasping exhalation of “oh thank God!” after Bobby said he liked her green chicken curry was particularly irksome — I’d design a Team Aarti t-shirt and sell it over at cafepress.

Then again, if not Aarti, who else is there left to root for? READ FULL STORY »

Jul 26 2010 09:25 AM ET

'Deadliest Catch' recap: Even the behind-the-scenes episode was a tearjerker

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Filed under: Television, TV and tagged: , , ,

phil-harris-deadliest-catchImage Credit: Blair Bunting/Getty ImagesFoolishly, I thought the toughest episodes of Deadliest Catch were behind us, but watching last night’s behind-the-scenes look at the filming of season 6, I actually beat my sofa with a pillow and shouted, “[Creative expletive that it's a shame I can't share] I. Cannot. Take it. I Cannot. Take it.” — on two separate occasions. The first: When we actually saw Capt. Phil Harris write the note to Todd Stanley, the cameraman assigned to the Cornelia Marie, that said, “Got to have the ending to the story.” (In a voiceover at the end of the hour, Stanley admitted that he’d assumed Phil meant to film his miraculous recovery from the stroke, but later realized he wanted him to document the end of his life.) The second: When Stanley returned to the Cornelia Marie to grieve with the crew and absolutely sobbed as he told deckhand Freddie that just that morning, Phil had told him to tell Freddie that he loved him. READ FULL STORY »

Jul 26 2010 08:52 AM ET

Barack Obama to appear on 'The View' Thursday

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Filed under: Television, TV and tagged: , , ,

view-obama-hasselbeckImage Credit: Roger L. Wollenberg-Pool/Getty Images; Jeffrey Neira.ABCPresident Obama will appear on ABC’s The View this Thursday, it was announced today. The AP says the show’s producers are touting this as “the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited a daytime talk show.”

What do you think the vibe will be like on such an historic occasion? Obama has been on The View before, when he was still a senator, so he knows what he’s getting into. Good luck catching him off-guard with one of your piercing insights, Hasselbeck.

Will you tune in on Thursday? What do you hope they’ll talk about?

Jul 26 2010 08:40 AM ET

N.J. Governor Christie says 'Jersey Shore' is bad for his state

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Filed under: Jersey Shore, Reality TV, Television and tagged: , , ,

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is not a Jersey Shore fan. As noted by the New York Times, ABC’s Jake Tapper asked Christie on The Week yesterday whether Situation, Snooki, and the gang are “positive for New Jersey or negative.” Christie answered “negative” without batting an eyelash. “What it does is it takes a bunch of New Yorkers — most of the people on Jersey Shore are New Yorkers — drops them at the Jersey Shore and tries to make America feel like this is New Jersey,” he complained.

First, kudos to Tapper for not being afraid to pose the important questions. Second, wow, Gov. Christie. Say what you like about the show, but calling those kids New Yorkers? Harsh.

Take a look at their exchange on YouTube. They get to Jersey Shore around the 9:30 mark, after all the tax and budget talk. What do you think — is Jersey Shore bad for Jersey? Has the show changed your opinion of the state? And would you take Gov. Christie up on his offer to visit the real Jersey Shore this summer and see what it’s all about?

Jul 26 2010 12:01 AM ET

Our ultimate Sexy Beast bracket game continues! (Top 64, Part 6) Vote now!

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Filed under: The Vampire Diaries and tagged: , , , ,

sexy-beast-july-26-aImage Credit: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Mick, Stefan, Cherry, Leeloo) Adam Taylor/CBS; Quantrell Colbert/The CW; McGowan: Rico TorresAs the philosopher Timbaland once instructed: “Get your sexy on.” And here at EW.com, that’s exactly what we’re doing on Day 6 of our Sexy Beasts single-elimination tournament. Today’s showdowns include characters from Moonlight, The Vampire Diaries, Grindhouse/Planet Terror, The Fifth Element, Beauty and the Beast, Beastly, Blade, and Interview With the Vampire. As you may know by now, out of the 64 contenders chosen by a team of EW editors, only 32 will advance to Round 2. So click here to see the entire bracket (then click again on the image for a zoomed-in view) and after the jump, vote for your favorites in four sexy showdowns, plus get a look at lists of the 16 seeded players (and the actors who portray ‘em) in all four of our beastly divisions. Polls are open for 84 hours only, so support your favorites in battle, lest they pay the ultimate price for our entertainment. [Related: Polls are still open for Part 5, so ch-ch-check 'em out; to get updates on every Sexy Beast bracket, follow me on Twitter @EWMichaelSlezak!] READ FULL STORY »

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