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Archive: September 2010 (251-260 of 588)

Sep 17 2010 06:00 PM ET

Ryan Murphy's new procedural: Should it just be one season?

Categories: Television, This Could Be Interesting...

ryan-murphy Image Credit: Insidefoto/PR PhotosRyan Murphy, most recently of Glee and Eat Pray Love fame, is teaming up with 24 producer Howard Gordon for “a high-concept character-driven procedural that deals with making people face their worst fears and phobias,” according to Deadline. The show will also have “supernatural” elements.

This is my big wish for this show: That Fox pick it up as a one-season-only series. Did 24 ever get better than its first season? Hell to the no. Nip/Tuck started strong and had a decent enough second season, but then it fizzled and started repeating itself at every possible juncture. (How many serial killers can one show that’s not really about serial killers have? Way too many.) Popular was showing signs of strain when it got canceled. Glee has an incredibly tough task ahead of it, especially given that even the first season got a little repetitive. (Sue is mean…but deep down, she is okay!)

And yet these are fantastic shows. Fascinating, titillating, exciting, distinctive — hooray for everything. Image all the goodness of these shows jam-packed into 22 episodes; imagine a creative endeavor that never had to “top” itself to stay relevant; imagine it is about a supernatural phobia-curer. Kinda great, right?

Who’s with me, PopWatchers? I’ll probably wind up watching this show no matter what, but a girl can dream, right?

Sep 17 2010 05:40 PM ET

Tim Gunn disses Taylor Momsen on 'Lopez Tonight'

by Breia Brissey

Categories: About Last Night, Bitchery, Celebrity Feuds, Fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion, Gossip Girl, Ooops!, Project Runway, Ridiculata

Oh, Little J. Taylor Momsen, who plays the raccoon-eyed Jenny Humphrey on Gossip Girl, has managed to drum up some real-life drama probably worthy of a Gossip Girl blast. Project Runway‘s mentor-in-residence, Tim Gunn — who will guest star as himself in an October episode of The CW series — has been making the press rounds to promote his new book Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work, and, in the process, he’s taken the opportunity to slam Momsen for her behavior on set.

Earlier this week it was reported that Gunn said Momsen spent too much time on her BlackBerry and not enough time focusing on, you know, her job. (So, in other words, he was saying she should just make it work. Heh.) But instead of ending it there, his rants against Momsen continued on Lopez Tonight last night with George Lopez. Gunn seems truly pissed that he had to work with her, and essentially told the talk show host that the actress is ungrateful for the job she has. ”We were doing a different take for every single line that she had. And she acted annoyed at the crew, and the director, and the producer,” Gunn told Lopez. “I thought, the annoyance is going your way, not the other way.” (See video after the jump.) READ FULL STORY »

Sep 17 2010 05:21 PM ET

New 'Due Date' trailer: Starring Galifianakis, Downey, and that dog

by Mandi Bierly

Categories: Animals, Movie Trailers, Movies, Shenanigans!

A new trailer has been released for Due Date, the comedy that stars Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis (think Planes, Trains and Automobiles and sub in Downey’s character’s wife’s impending labor for Thanksgiving), and reteams the latter with his Hangover director Todd Phillips. What’s promising: There are some new scenes shown, and they’re just as funny as those in the international and teaser trailers. Also, this shot of the guys at the Grand Canyon. We know Phillips finds visual comedy in saddling Galifianakis with things (see: the baby in The Hangover), and even though I get the idea that the dog in this film is like its third star, it still looks like a hidden gem in this shot. Watch the trailer below. The Downey-Galifianakis still all you dreamt it would be? READ FULL STORY »

Sep 17 2010 05:00 PM ET

'RuPaul's Drag U': A pre-season finale update with EW fave Pandora Boxx

by Tanner Stransky

Categories: 100% Pure Cheese, Advance Advancement, Fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion, Gay/Lesbian/Kathy Griffin, Guess Who!, Reality TV, RuPaul, RuPaul's Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag U, Television, Things That Are Awesome!, Things That Are Classy

Image Credit: Beatrice Neumann/LogoWe here at EW have made no secret of our love for Drag Race season 2 contestant Pandora Boxx (at left). Just take a look back at my TV recap of the episode this past March when she was voted off the show, when I called her offing the most “controversial elimination of the season.” Or, in the print magazine, when we wrote on Bullseye: “Pandora Boxx, in our hearts you are America’s Next Drag Superstar… even if RuPaul doesn’t think so.” We love! And, of course, we’ve loved seeing her return to Logo and the RuPaul world with this premiere season of RuPaul’s Drag U, which makes over biological women in drag style. With the finale — which stars Ms. Pandora Boxx — airing this coming Monday at 9 p.m., what better time to check in with her? Here, she talks the finale, how her life has changed since Drag Race, and the possibility of scoring her own show.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So let’s talk about Drag U. You’ve been a mentor this season. How have you liked that?
PANDORA BOXX: The best thing about Drag U to me — and what made me want to sign up right away — is that I knew I couldn’t get eliminated. Even though there was someone who has said in the past that my elimination from Drag Race was the most controversial of the season.

That was us, wasn’t it? That was me!
It was!

We are big fans of you over here, Pandora, just so you know.
Entertainment Weekly is part of my act.

READ FULL STORY »

Sep 17 2010 04:35 PM ET

Diaspora is the new Facebook (at least, it would like to be)

by Frank Shyong

Categories: Facebook, Have You Seen This?, Tech

Earlier this year, four NYU students set out to create an alternative to Facebook that would restore control of personal information to the users. Their Twitter account, JoinDiaspora, acquired over 2,000 followers in just a few weeks, and they raised $10,000 in 12 days through crowd-sourced fundraising.

Their crusade was covered in The New York Times, and the project is nearing completion. The developer version was released on the Diaspora blog today, along with screenshots of the early build.

The alpha release in October will include Facebook integration, internationalization, and data portability, whatever that means. However, still no word about the fate of Farmville and Restaurant City on the new social networking platform, which is, let’s be honest, the only things any of you care about. READ FULL STORY »

Sep 17 2010 04:15 PM ET

'Community': Alison Brie on her appreciation for Annie Adderall and why her character should hook up with Professor Duncan

by Sandra Gonzalez

Categories: Community, Shenanigans!, Television, Things That Are Awesome!

Image Credit: Mitchell Haaseth/NBCThe season premiere of Community is less than a week away, and I’m krumping with excitement, PopWatchers. And you should know that I krump almost as well as Alison Brie does the robot — a move she broke out twice while visiting EW’s offices last week. In this interview with the bubbly star, who pulls double duty with a recurring role in Mad Men, Brie opens up about the upcoming season and its guest stars. (Betty White, Drew Carey, John Oliver, oh my!) Spoiler phobes beware.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Can you tease anything about the upcoming season of Community?
ALISON BRIE: What I can say — I want the premiere to still be exciting for people — but what I can say is that everything that happened in the finale is addressed in the premiere. So we’re not going to leave viewers hanging. It’s not going to be this long, drawn-out season of romance. We deal with it right away, and then we have our fun. And that’s in terms of Jeff [Joel McHale], Britta [Gillian Jacobs], and Annie and all those things. Jeff and Annie, when they come back, what I’d say about the two of them is that they just might not be on the same page about what happened. So that’s a little issue when we come back. They each have different ideas about where it’s going to go. So that gets interesting fast.

I know you also said in an interview with Ausiello that there have been a few dynamic changes in the group. What can you tell me about those?
Well, when I spoke before, we had shot maybe one episode, and now we’ve shot more. So the truth is, I don’t think the dynamic in the group has changed so dramatically, but we’re just all so much closer. Last season, you watched the characters getting to know each other. Now they come back and already know each other. You’ll see a lot of Troy and Abed stuff, because they’re not solidified as this duo now, and you’ll see other friendships pop up and evolve. And Jeff has sort of been through it with both of the girls now, so that dynamic is going to change, as well.

He’s really making his way through them…
He works fast, yeah. [Laughs] READ FULL STORY »

Sep 17 2010 03:37 PM ET

I hope George Lucas appears on Ricky Gervais and Warwick Davis' new comedy

by Margaret Lyons

Categories: British Things, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Television, The Office

Image Credit: Nicola Dove/HBO; Inset: Dave Hogan/Getty ImagesIt’s official: BBC2 greenlit Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s in-the-works comedy Life’s Too Short. Rejoice, comedy geeks! Rejoice. According to Broadcast, the show will start filming next summer…which gives us plenty of time to create a wish-list of guest stars.

Life’s Too Short stars Harry Potter actor Warwick Davis as, roughly, himself, along with Merchant and Gervais. I feel like Daniel Radcliffe’s kind of a gimme for at least a cameo, but I’m really crossing my fingers for Steve Carell. There’s been so much hoopla around his Office exit, and the (zero percent) chance that Gervais would step in that it seems like a natural fit for an episode. (It’d be like their amazing Emmy bit, but better.)

My other big hope? George Lucas. Davis got his start in show business playing Wicket the Ewok in Return of the Jedi, and Lucas is way overdue for an Extras-style send-up.

Who are you hoping to see, PopWatchers?

Sep 17 2010 03:22 PM ET

'All-Star Superman' will get animated. Does this mean we're finally done with gritty superheroes?

by Darren Franich

Categories: Avengers, Comic Books, Geekery, Iron Man 2, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 3, The Dark Knight, X-Men

Image Credit: Stephen Vaughan; DC ComicsThe formula for superhero movies hasn’t really changed that much since Bryan Singer’s X-Men ten years ago. Make it grim and gritty. Remove all primary colors. Tell the actors to scowl. Don’t put anyone in a costume unless you have to. The post-Matrix vogue for bleakly dystopian action movies merged with the post-Frank Miller trend of “realism” in comic books, and the result was Batman’s Alec-Baldwin-with-strep-throat voice.

Friends, there is another way. Look no further than Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s epic All-Star Superman, a miniseries that supercharges all the hokiest elements of an unabashedly hokey character – Bizarro talking funny! Time-traveling Superman from the future! Kryptonite in every color! Jimmy Olsen! – and becomes a funny, sad, world-beating epic. According to The Hollywood Reporter, All-Star Superman is next in line for DC’s well-regarded series of direct-to-DVD animated movies. (Christina Hendricks is voicing Lois Lane, and I’m already sweating.) A DVD-movie intended for kids ain’t exactly a blockbuster, but could we be witnessing the end of the Grim Superhero era? READ FULL STORY »

Sep 17 2010 03:00 PM ET

PopWatch Rewind Week 5: 'Dick Tracy'

by Darren Franich and Keith Staskiewicz

Categories: Madonna, Now That's What I Call a Face!, PopWatch Rewind

Sure, he was dating Madonna, but Warren Beatty’s life wasn’t perfect. The year was 1990. Beatty was coming off of Ishtar, a mega-flop and a rare misstep in a glorious career. The famous ladies’ man was still the portrait of Hollywood glamour — again, dating Madonna — but before Ishtar, he hadn’t made a film since 1981′s epic Reds. He turned to a curious labor of love: an adaptation of Dick Tracy, a 60-year-old comic strip about a lantern-jawed detective who fights magnificently ugly criminals. The timing was perfect: Tim Burton’s Batman came out the year before Tracy, and set a gold standard for comic book adaptations, merchandising, blockbuster promotion, and generally making a boatload of money off of comic-based movie with a tweaked approach to set design. Lest you doubt the connection, the two movies share a nearly identical Danny Elfman score. (Seriously, the dude just Xeroxed his Batman sheet music and made a couple changes.) With all this in mind, and in honor of this week’s release of two other movies directed by actors (Ben Affleck’s The Town and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Jack Goes Boating), we discuss that crime-busting, yellow-coated man with the two-way radio watch, Dick Tracy.

Darren Franich: This might be the most Oscar-heavy cast ever assembled for a comic film. There’s Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, and Kathy Bates as a stenographer. The film’s shot by Vittorio Storaro, who won Oscars for Apocalypse Now, Reds, and The Last Emperor. Throw in Dick Van Dyke, Madonna, and the original songs by Stephen Sondheim, and Dick Tracy officially has a team EGOT.

Keith Staskiewicz: And for the first time, Al Pacino really plays an outsize caricature of himself, which he then carried with him throughout the following 20 years. All of the mannerisms are there: sudden outbursts, table slapping, a permanent scowl. It’s like he’s wearing a Halloween mask of himself, which ended up melding to his face and becoming the real Al Pacino. READ FULL STORY »

Sep 17 2010 02:21 PM ET

'Fantasia for Real' new trailer: Too real?

by Sandra Gonzalez

Categories: American Idol, Reality TV, Television

Image Credit: VH1The new season for Fantasia for Real premieres Sunday, and in the new four-minute trailer for the season, released today, we see exactly how much of her attempted suicide via overdose was filmed by cameras. Answer: a lot. (Watch the video after the jump)

It always makes me uncomfortable to see (what are supposed to be) very personal moments on television. You could argue that any sex shown on reality TV — even the censored kind — is a “personal moment,” but I hate to say, I’ve become desensitized to that. (Thanks, Jersey Shore.) No, I’m talking about very personal moments. The ones that are about hitting rock bottom. I can watch Intervention for some reason, and I think that’s because I’m expecting to see folks in a bad place while tuning in. I’ve signed up for the ride. The same goes for Shore and old-school Real World. READ FULL STORY »