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Archive: December 2010 (31-40 of 304)

Dec 28 2010 01:27 PM ET

'Empire Strikes Back' joins 'Star Wars' in National Film Registry: Is there any hope for 'Jedi'?

by Keith Staskiewicz

Categories: Geekery, Movies, Star Wars

Image Credit: Lucasfilm

Not bad for a gang of scruffy-looking nerf herders. The Empire Strikes Back — perhaps the greatest sequel of all time, unless Michael Corleone decides to take it out for some late-night boating — has been inducted into the National Film Registry along with the 24 other films chosen by the Library of Congress. George Lucas fared particularly well this year: Both Empire and his student film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB will join American Graffiti and the first Star Wars as part of the collection of culturally significant films marked for preservation.

Beyond Empire, this year’s list is a strong one, spanning over a century and including classics from a whole slew of genres, including comedy (Airplane!, It’s a Gift), horror (The Exorcist), documentary (Grey Gardens), biopic (Malcolm X, All the President’s Men), and Western (McCabe and Mrs. Miller.) It’s also nice to see Empire and Airplane! receive the honor not long after Irvin Kershner and Leslie Nielsen’s respective deaths. Check out the full list below: READ FULL STORY »

Dec 28 2010 12:44 PM ET

Lunchtime Poll: Can Hugh Jackman make a crotch adjustment look good?

by Annie Barrett

Categories: EWWWWWWWWWW.com, Hell to the No!, Horrifying But Hypnotic, Hugh Jackman, Lunchtime Poll, Ridiculata, Sexytimes, Sports, Television, Things That Are Classy

What’s fascinating about this video of Hugh Jackman suffering a Blow to the Crotch in a game of cricket is the number of times he gratuitously rubs his “area” after the fact. Even in the post-throw interview! Knock it off, Wolverwine! Not including replays, the final tally is EIGHT TIMES. Even if you discount the initial area-rub (because that’s really more like a mandatory “check”), seven area-rubs within one minute is intense. The incident begs the devastatingly important week-after-Christmas question: Is Hugh Jackman proving the age-old maxim, “No one can make a crotch adjustment look good?” Vote and watch the video after the (ball-) break. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2010 03:27 PM ET

Out gay actor Richard Chamberlain says he 'wouldn't advise' closeted gay actors to come out. Didn't seem to hurt his career.

by Adam B. Vary

Categories: Brothers & Sisters, Gay/Lesbian/Kathy Griffin, Movies, Television

Image Credit: Adam Taylor/ABC In an interview with The Advocate promoting his upcoming role as an HIV-positive love interest for Uncle Saul (Ron Rifkin) on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters, out gay actor Richard Chamberlain says he “wouldn’t advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.” In an era when the President of the United States signed a bill repealing a law banning gay soldiers from serving openly in the military, the same month out actor Neil Patrick Harris hosted a video game awards show on Spike, Chamberlain’s words gave me more than a bit of pause.

Until he came out in his 2003 memoir Shattered Love, Chamberlain, now 76, was himself a closeted gay leading man-type actor. His career was launched with his role as the dashing title character on NBC’s 1960s drama Dr. Kildare, and it spiked again thanks to the 1983 ABC miniseries The Thorn Birds. He even once played Jason Bourne in a 1988 ABC movie of The Bourne Identity. But his resume through the 1990s was light on hits and heavy on forgettable TV movies. Since Chamberlain came out, though, he’s guest starred on Will & Grace, Nip/Tuck, Desperate Housewives, Leverage, Chuck, and now Brothers & Sisters. He played gay characters in some of those roles, and straight ones in others. But as The Advocate‘s writer implies when he asks Chamberlain, “When can a leading man come out — when he’s 69 and promoting a memoir?” it feels like telling the world he’s gay was the best thing that’s happened to Chamberlain’s career in 20 years.

That said, do you think he has a point? READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2010 01:17 PM ET

Things that annoy me about the commemorative William and Kate engagement coins

by Kristen Baldwin

Categories: Apropos of Nothing, Celebrity Weddings, Off With Her Head!, Ridiculata, Snap Judgment, This Really Only Needs One Sentence

I am all about the royal wedding. If I could set my DVR now for April 29, 2011, I would. But these Royal Engagement coins from the Royal Mint annoy me in many ways. Let’s count them.

1. I don’t know who that ugly chick on the coin is supposed to be, but it is in no way Kate Middleton. Did Camilla order the Royal Mint people to make Kate look homely because she’s jealous of the future queen? (And pissed that she needs to curtsy to Kate in certain situations?)

2. They gave William too much hair. Also, his adam’s apple looks weirdly bulgy.

3. For some reason this £5 coin (about $7.65) costs anywhere from $15 to $2,371. I’m no numismatic expert, but that seems excessive to me.

4. Not to go all Annie Barrett on you, but what is up with those ratty tendrils of hair under Kate’s chin?

5. That ugly girl who is supposed to be Kate is looking lovingly at Prince William, but he’s staring off into the distance, like he can’t be bothered. Yes, according to a statement from The Mint, Wills is pictured in profile to allude to his “Royal status,” but again, I suspect this slight to Kate is Camilla’s doing.

I could go on and on, but I should probably get some work done today. So I’ll turn it over to you, PopWatchers. What royal annoyances did I miss?

Dec 27 2010 11:21 AM ET

'Holiday' poll: Who'd you like to show up at your cottage door -- Daniel Craig or Jude Law?

by Mandi Bierly

Categories: Apropos of Nothing, Happy Holidays, Made Us Think

Image Credit: Dave Hogan/Getty Images; Janet Mayer/PR Photos Have the photos of Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, costars of the upcoming drama Dream House, walking hand-in-hand over the holidays in the snowy English countryside as they reportedly shared a “cottage hideaway” made anyone else think of Jude Law and Cameron Diaz in the movie The Holiday, then spend a good 60 seconds debating whether you’d prefer to open your English cottage door and find Craig or Law standing there? No? Just me? Well, do it now. PopWatch poll! (The New York Office is Snowed In Edition!) It’s a tough call: I know how luminous Law looks in Holiday lighting, but cuddling with Craig in front of a fire, I imagine, would keep one warmer. As my friend Sheila just reasoned over IM, “He’s hardier. Could chop firewood and stuff.”

Dec 27 2010 09:57 AM ET

Conan apologizes to Kimmel for similar Palin-Rudolph bit (but not for not watching his show)

by Mandi Bierly

Categories: Conan O'Brien, Double Vision, Happy Holidays, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night, Ooops!, Television

In case you missed it amidst your holiday preparations, Conan O’Brien took to the Internet last week to apologize for his TBS show doing a video bit about Sarah Palin shooting Rudolph two weeks after ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live added audio of Palin hunting caribou with her father from her TLC reality show over the animated holiday classic. “So, of course, we apologize for that, we weren’t aware,” O’Brien says of discovering the joke was a popular one only the morning after Conan‘s aired. “The staff member responsible for the piece has been fired, and, I hear, has been immediately rehired at Jimmy Kimmel. So I think everything worked out,” he deadpans. He then cites three other examples of his show playing copycat. (Did you know his sidekick Andy Richter was once a sidekick on another show?! ”I mean that show was such a piece of crap, I didn’t feel it was worth mentioning,” Richter cracks after a picture from their early days together flashes.) Watch the mea culpa below. Classy move, Coco. The video of Conan‘s bit also appears to have been removed from the show’s site.

READ FULL STORY »

Dec 26 2010 11:45 AM ET

Which TV reruns are keeping you cozy this holiday weekend?

by Archana Ram

Categories: Camp Classics, Happy Holidays, Television

With TV schedules being as bleak as they are right — seriously, who actually needs 24 hours of A Christmas Story? — it’s hard to find anything to watch when all you want to do is clock in some much-needed couch-potato time. But that’s why, when the holidays roll around, I turn to the warmth of reruns. Sure, I can predict the punchlines and I already know whodunnit, but there’s even in the abyss of next-to-nothing TV options, there are friendly, familiar faces a few channels away.

This holiday season, perhaps in an effort to gear up for its Jan. 20 premiere, I’ve looked to Parks and Recreation on my parent’s On Demand, and, let me just say, “The Beauty Pageant” episode is just as funny the second time around. And not to neglect an oldie but goodie, I’ve also turned to a perennial favorite, Friends — the era of “The Rachel” haircut and Tom Selleck, natch.

Which reruns have you guys been tuning into this weekend?

Photo: Paul Drinkwater/NBC; Everett Collection

Dec 24 2010 10:45 AM ET

'Inception' clip to hit theaters just as Oscar fever peaks

by Jeff Labrecque

Categories: Inception, Movies, Oscars

That Inception deserves some Academy Award love is not an idea that needs to be planted into your subconscious, but Warner Bros. is taking no chances. Beginning Dec. 31, a trailer-length behind-the-scenes featurette of director Christopher Nolan’s mind-blowing adventure will be sent to key movie theaters around the country and will also become available online.

It’s smart timing. Many people, including Academy voters, will be at multiplexes that weekend checking out the season’s critical darlings: Black Swan, The King’s Speech, The Fighter. It can’t hurt to remind folks that one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters, which has been available on video for three weeks, is every bit the artistic achievement that its rivals are, and that it deserves to be part of the Oscar conversation.

In the clip, embedded below, the surreal images that entranced you all summer come crashing back — the runaway train, the zero-gravity hotel fight, the wobbly totem — heightened by Hans Zimmer’s pulsating score. The actors take turns raving about Nolan’s gifts, and then the director returns the favor for his leading man. Nolan appears to be a shoo-in for a Best Director nomination, but the Inception refresher course can only boost Leonardo DiCaprio’s deserving but long-shot candidacy. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 23 2010 06:25 PM ET

PopWatch Confessional: What's the best reaction you've ever had to a Christmas gift?

by Sandra Gonzalez

Categories: Animation, Happy Holidays, HeadScratcher, Inappropriate Crushes, Merchandising, Nostalgia, Off With Her Head!, PopWatch Confessional, Television, Those Crazy Kids!, Toys, Who Else Remembers This?

In attempt to get my mind off the video of the little boy who hates books the other day, I started thinking about my own reaction to Christmas presents as a kid. I recall wide, gap-tooth grins aplenty — especially when I’d unwrap a Fisher Price play food item or a new addition to my Playmobil collection — but I couldn’t remember ever witnessing or experiencing an especially strong positive or negative reaction to any present.

My dad, who I posed this question to, had a different story — and the best part was that it wasn’t about me. It was about my sister, Lucy (who I wish I could tell you was named after the Peanuts character, but she wasn’t). “Mija had heart attacks. I was always afraid of giving her something and killing her,” dad quipped.

The best reaction, he claims, was to her purple-haired Rio doll she got Christmas in ’86. My sister, the biggest Jem fan of the era, had begged and pleaded for the powerfully ugly doll for a while, so she blew my parents’ ears out with excited shrieks (by dad’s recount) when the plastic love of her life was revealed under the tree, ’80s sportscoat and all.

She subsequently lost her wits again a few months later, when Rio’s head unceremoniously popped off and couldn’t be fixed. Luckily, my ridiculously dedicated parents, victims of the pre-eBay era, packed up their station wagon the next weekend and drove the family (then minus me) two hours to Corpus Christi, Texas to get her a new one from an out-of-the-way toy store rumored to be carrying them. Now, that’s love.

Your turn, PopWatchers. What is the best reaction to a toy you’ve seen on Christmas? And most importantly, what toy was it?

Last but not least, a PopWatch PSA: Remember to donate one toy for every evil deed you’ve done this year. The $100 I just dropped at Target says my slate is clean until Jan. 1. Well, it’s at least half-way clean, which is good enough for me.

Dec 23 2010 06:12 PM ET

Excess Hollywood: 'Water for Elephants' trudges to later release date

by Kate Ward

Categories: Casting, Excess Hollywood, Movies

Your thirst for Water for Elephants will have to be quenched one week later: Fox has changed the release date for the film — starring Reese Witherspoon and Rob Pattinson — from April 15 to the 22. Also shifted in the studio’s schedule: The 3-D Rio, whose release date has moved from April 5 to April 15. [THR]
Cate Blanchett will star in Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young, which co-stars James Franco and Ben Stiller. In the dramedy, about a 20-something couple that drives a documentary filmmaker and his wife to become more spirited, Blanchett will play the wife, a role written for Baumbach’s ex Jennifer Jason Leigh before they split. And that’s some nice awkward holiday news for you all. [IndieWIRE]