First, last week’s Monty Python homage; now, a 10-second claymation ad (embedded below). I love Conan and look forward to the new show, so instead of “boring” or ”silly” I’ll just say it’s “cute.” Aww, he’s clay.
I can’t promose I’ll be as gracious if a 10-second Lego version pops up in the next 72 hours. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Karen BallardLast week in the magazine, I put together a smackdown bracket game to try to figure out who was the biggest real-life badass in the cast of The Expendables. Round one consisted of a dozen he-men from the action flick, round two narrowed it down to six, then down to two, and then one final winner. The winner that I picked was Mickey Rourke. I was pretty clear about my criteria — I knew that guys like mixed martial artist Randy Couture could eat his lunch — but there’s something about Rourke’s crazy-eyed, unpredictable, wild card loco-ness that gave him the edge in a bar fight. Plus, he’d also been a professional boxer, so my choice wasn’t totally out of left field. At least to me. But ever since I put this game together, I’ve heard nothing but bellyaching from action movie fans: How can you say Rourke is more of a badass than Jason Statham? Or Stallone? Or Schwarzenegger? I even got a call from a guy at Ultimate Fighting who was ticked off that Couture wasn’t our biggest badass, as if this was somehow real science we were dealing in.
Anyway, all of this has made me think that it’s time to get the EW.com community involved in the debate. Below you will find the 12 toughest guys from The Expendables with a few words about each. Give them all a quick look-see, then at the end in the comments section tell us who you think is the biggest badass in the cast. Just to clarify: do not vote for who was the biggest badass in the film, vote for who in the cast would beat all the others in a no-rules bar fight in real life. Got it? Good.
1. Sylvester Stallone: Sure he’s 64, but the ringleader of The Expendables was also Rocky Balboa and Rambo — two of the biggest badasses in cinema history. Guys who not only knew how to dish it out, but also knew how to get beaten to a bloody pulp in the ring or tortured in a jungle camp and come back for more. Plus, do you know any other 64 year old who’s got muscles like his? The dude’s ripped! Bonus item to consider: in high school he was voted the student most likely to end up in the electric chair. That’s pretty badass!
2. Jason Statham: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Karen BallardThe cast of The Expendables — Sylvester Stallone (who also co-wrote and directed), Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Dolph Lundgren, and Terry Crews — may not have been the most obvious fit for the Comic-Con crowd when they visited the mega-convention last month. Their movie isn’t so much designed for spindly geeks (like me) as it is, in the inimitable words of our critic Owen Gleiberman, “a real meathead jamboree.” But when I sat down with them at our EW.com studio in the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego, they could not have been more charming and easy to talk to. We discussed what it’s like to get a call from “Sly” Stallone, talked about the friendly competition over who was the most stacked, and noted what they geek out about in pop-culture. (You will never guess Dolph Lundgren’s answer.) Check out the video after the jump. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Martin AnsinOkay, so I haven’t yet seen Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, nor was I planning to between now and Sunday (because, honestly, I kind of loathe seeing movies on opening weekends, thanks to cell-phone talkers, savory-stew eaters, and youths). But I just got sent a link to this extremely cool limited-edition poster for the movie, which was created in conjunction with a special Scott Pilgrim screening last night at the Alamo Drafthouse theater in Austin, TX. READ FULL STORY »
Diane Farr has never had a problem hanging with the boys, whether that be on Loveline, The Job, Rescue Me, or Californication. So it’s somehow fitting that she’s brought AssCastles to Funny or Die. For each installment, she takes a tour of a real “AssCastle” — that’s any home with three or more bedrooms that a man resides in without a wife or children and maintains for the sole purpose of “pulling down ass.” She walks through the house with the owner, who takes her through his rap (which room he starts in, which room he puts his best shine on, which room he closes). She then scripts the video based on the highlights of that experience and returns to the AssCastle to recreate them with an actor, who assumes the role of the bachelor. The first installment, embedded below, begins with the claim that Farr and her team added only one thing to the mix. Guesses? It’s the wardrobe rack upon which “Troy” keeps the extensive bikini collection (up to size 6) for guests who choose to join him for a dip in his living room swimming pool, which he fills with a garden hose. “The bathing suits actually existed in the house, but they were hung over the top of the glass that surrounds the pool in gigantic piles. It was like a bad Filene’s Basement moment gone wrong,” Farr says. “There is no subtlety in the AssCastle, it’s all like, ‘We want you to get down into this size bathing suit within the first 20 minutes of being in our house.” But did “Troy” really have the scale there? “He really had the scale there,” Farr says, “but I don’t think he really used it to weigh people. This is Art Deco for these guys. This is as artistic as it gets. It wasn’t right there next to the pool, it was actually right behind the pile of bathing suits, which made it all the more scary to me.”
Here, Farr explains the very personal inspiration for what she hopes becomes a late night talk show. READ FULL STORY »
Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi’s application to trademark her nickname for “printed matter, mainly books” was rejected by government officials. Turns out a children’s book called Adventures of Snooky obtained the trademark in 2004. Snooky is a cat who fell off a boat into the ocean and makes some great new friends underwater. The Jersey Shore kids might shrivel up and die if they ever actually set one toe in a natural body of water, but the MTV series is strikingly similar to Adventures of Snooky in that if you try to explain the plot to another human, he or she will definitely assume you are tripping on ‘shrooms.
When I first clicked on this story, I was hoping it involved Snooky the Cat approaching Snooki the Brat in real life and having a heated argument about who’s who. They are the same height so this would work. But I guess life is not a storybook, and lawyers are inevitable. Good luck, Snooks! [The Smoking Gun]
Image Credit: Sonja Flemmimg/CBSOur obsessive, 360-degree coverage of Big Brother—an instant reaction, full recap, and Julie Chen react have already been posted here on EW.com in the last 24 hours—continues with the Best. Thing. Ever.: A video interview I did with last night’s evictee Rachel! In the most exciting and anticipated eviction of the season so far, Rachel got shown the door. As you all probably realize, that’s two weeks in a row that a showmance got the axe. (Thank goodness! Last week, you’ll remember, Kristen left her dear, dear love Hayden behind.) But Rachel’s eviction was certainly more significant, mostly because she was so universally reviled in the house. Plus, this is important to note: Rachel is the first evicted House Guest to head to the Jury House. But before she stepped into her new home to wait out the rest of the season (and possibly return to the Big Brother house?), we here at EW got a chance to catch-up with her. She talks about her relationship with Brendon, why she screams in the Diary Room, and her infamous “floaters grab a life vest” line. And bonus: She utters (or, rather, screams?) “me and my maaaaaaan!” at least twice during the interview. Yes. Yes! Yes, you can go into the weekend happy. Watch the video here:
Image Credit: Lynn Goldsmith/CorbisBruce Springsteen fans are already awaiting the deluxe reissue his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town this fall, but even better news may be the documentary about the making of the album that will premiere on HBO in October. Called The Promise, it will screen at the Toronto Film Festival in September. Rolling Stone reported some details about the doc after speaking to Thom Powers, the Toronto fest’s documentary programmer. Powers told the magazine, “The strength of this movie is that it just concentrates on the making of just one album. There’s not even much concert footage.”
What it does have, it seems, is plenty of rare vintage studio footage, original studio recordings, and extensive new interviews with, among others, the Boss himself, Patti Smith (who co-wrote “Because the Night”), and members of the E Street Band, including the late organist Danny Federici. After reading the news, I scrolled through Life.com’s gallery of vintage Springsteen shots and was reminded again just how much I love looking at pictures from ’70s-era E Street Band. A whole movie about that time sounds like just the ticket for me. Are you tuning in? And do you agree — as many do — that Darkness is Springsteen at his best?
Thirty-one years ago this week, Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War masterpiece, Apocalypse Now, hit theaters. Over the decades, the pricey 1979 epic, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards and stars Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Dennis Hopper, and Robert “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning” Duvall, has become downright infamous thanks to colorfully crazy stories about its runaway bizarro production, Brando’s on-set eccentricities, and Coppola’s own heart-of-darkness journey to get it made before he flipped out.
To help celebrate the celluloid milestone, EW has gotten its hands on an exclusive trailer for the upcoming Special Edition Blu-ray of the film, which comes out on Oct. 19. The multi-disc set (there’s a two-disc and a three-disc version) will have nine hours of special features, including never-before-seen interviews with the filmmakers and audition footage, plus both the original version of the film and the restored Apocalypse Now Redux. And for DVD nerds who care about things like technical specs, it will be the first time the film is released in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Take a look at tell us what you think… READ FULL STORY »
We’ve seen super-creative parodies of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s Telephone music video before. (This one from Key of Awesome is my personal fave.) And now, another one! I know, I know—yet another one? But seriously, this one is funny stuff because it’s got a fresh new spin on Gaga’s totally whacked-out going-to-jail-then-breaking-out-and-poisoning-people concept. With this latest parody, the people at Company Quad have strained the Telephone craziness through an Office-like lens: cubicles are jail cells, pencils replace the cigarettes on those crazy sunglasses from the video, “Gaga” takes a break with a co-worker’s birthday cake, that kind of thing. They even have a Beyoncé stand-in: “All my bosses Post-It notes won’t make me type no faster!” she screams (in that particular Beyoncé cadence from the original song) at the beginning of her appearance. “Gaga” shimmies with a headset perfect for conference calls! And, course, there are several references to Office-y things like Michael Scott and Dunder-Mifflin. (In case you don’t get it, it really resonates because, you know, an office can feel like a jail sometimes. Not the EW offices, of course, but you know…) Watch the video here: READ FULL STORY »
