Image Credit: Steve Wilkie/USA
After last season’s agonizing cliffhanger — is Ben Mercer alive or dead? — the opening shot of season 2 doesn’t quite answer any questions other than “Does Piper Perabo look good in a bikini?” (You know the answer to that one). CIA trainee Annie Walker emerges from the sea in a picturesque tropical setting to plant a lingering kiss on … you guessed it, Ben — but is this all a dream? [SPOILER ALERT] READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Joan Marcus
South Carolina native Patina Miller has always been a Sister Act fan. Now, thanks to the film’s recent stage adaptation, she is Sister Act‘s star — playing the role made famous by Whoopi Goldberg — as well as an Olivier winner and Tony nominee. The 26-year-old actress called EW recently to chat about taking the show from London to New York and competing with Broadway darling Sutton Foster.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You once said that you and your siblings used to act out the Sister Act films. Truth?
PATINA MILLER: We didn’t really act them out; we just knew all the words. We knew the films by heart. My sister and I used to sing “His Eye is on the Sparrow” from Sister Act 2 together.
This may be your Broadway debut, but you’ve been with this particular show for quite a long time.
I started out as the understudy in 2006 after graduating. That was my first job right out of school. I moved to the city in 2007 and did Hair in Central Park. Then, in 2008, I was asked to come to London to do a reading of the show. I’ve been the lead from then on. READ FULL STORY »
Jimmy Fallon goofed on the disgraced Weiner’s handling of his staff on yesterday’s Late Night… a funny bit, though he does beat it to death. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Myles Aronowitz/USA Network White Collar
So much of what I love about White Collar is the duo’s relationship. In fact, I’d say that’s appeal factor No. 1. There’s always been a somewhat playful distrust on both of their parts, but overall, there had been so much progress over the series, I sometime forgot the nature of their arrangement (Fed and con).
But in the premiere, there was no confusion: Peter and Neal are in a battle of wits like we’ve never seen them before. READ FULL STORY »
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PopWatch recently pondered the unfortunate absence of dear Prince Poppycock from our everyday lives, but thankfully, not one to deny his loyal poppies, the avant-garde performer himself called up EW to fill us in on his happenings. READ FULL STORY »
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I’d go on record saying that Abed is, in fact, the smartest member of the Greendale study group. (Sorry, Annie!) But even I was really surprised how much sense Abed made when he made his prediction that The Big C will walk away with the award for Outstanding Comedy, after narrowing it down to the aforementioned show, Parks and Recreation (which he says, “a magazine” called the “smartest comedy on TV”), Modern Family, The Office, 30 Rock, and the Big Bang Theory.
“We’ll give it to The Big C this year, because we know it’s their only chance to get it. By next year, Laura Linney’s character will either have died, or the ‘Fonz’ of her diagnosis will have ‘grown the beard’ of remission,” he wrote. (Yes, Abed, not Danny Pudi, penned this exposé for Variety. How method.) Abed comes to this conclusion after introducing us to his ABBA theory, which I’ll let you read about there. (But it’s called the “ABBA theory.” Need you know anything more to declare it instantly valid?)
Image Credit: Photofest NYC
In the current age of remakes and sequels and prequels and reboots and preboots, resurrecting a classic film from the viewpoint of the original’s villain sometimes qualifies as “outside the box” thinking. For example, there’s Malificent, Disney’s plan to tell the Sleeping Beauty tale from the point of view of the sorceress; and Pan, in which Aaron Eckhart’s Captain Hook will be a hero detective on the trail of child killer. (Heck, the entire Star Wars prequels were about getting to the heart of Darth Vader!)
Now Fox Animation is planning an animated version of King Kong, told from the ape’s point of view, according to Deadline. READ FULL STORY »
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All those PopWatchers out there who think blogs about politics have no place on an entertainment website obviously haven’t been watching cable TV news this week. There’s been comedy. There’s been pathos. There’s been Anthony Weiner’s underpants. Even Republican candidate for president Rick Santorum couldn’t help mixing a little pop culture into his campaign, launching his candidacy at a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday with Randy Jackson’s catchphrase from American Idol 2011, “We’re in it to win it.” Of course, a little later that morning, Santorum had a new catchphrase — “humina humina” — when he appeared onGood Morning America and was grilled by George Stephanopoulos over his assertion that America’s enemies didn’t fear President Obama. “Where’s the evidence of that?” Stephanopoulos pressed him. “The al-Qaeda leadership has been decimated, Osama bin Laden is dead, no significant attack against the United States has been successful. Where is that evidence?”
Fortunately for Santorum, Sarah Palin continues her scene-stealing tour. READ FULL STORY »
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Scott Pelley made his debut as anchor of the CBS Evening News Monday night. He may have inherited the desk from Katie Couric, but you could tell from the replica of the Walter Cronkite-era world map that formed Pelley’s backdrop that he would be doing things a bit differently. Critics, by and large, praised his decision not to lead with Rep. Anthony Weiner — in fact, Pelley didn’t even mention the story in his opening tease. Instead, he opened with correspondent’s Mandy Clark embedded report on what the fight is like for U.S. troops trying to stop the enemy from crossing into Afghanistan from their hideouts in Pakistan and updated us on what’s next in the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Only after a report on a promising new cancer treatment was it time for Pelley to ask a colleague, “Help us understand why Congressmen Weiner matters.” It was a smart move. He established that his 60 Minutes news judgment made the jump with him and avoided any of the heat that Couric took on her first night — Sept. 5, 2006 — when, during the course of the telecast, she showed a first look at the Vanity Fair cover with the first photo of Suri Cruise.
It’s interesting to read the reviews that greeted Pelley, and realize that if you didn’t know that the star-powered, yet accessible and conversational Couric experiment had failed, and this was a purposeful return to CBS’ traditional delivery, you might not know whether they were positive or negative. Maybe you still don’t know… READ FULL STORY »
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Just as the internet rumor mill predicted a couple of months ago, Japanese gaming giant Nintendo revealed its follow-up to the remarkably successful Wii home console Tuesday morning at their E3 conference at the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Its name? Wii U. Let the pronoun wordplay marinate in your mind for a sec. …Yeah, I’m not sure if I like the name either. But it’s the Big N’s way of building off a console that’s attracted millions of people who were traditionally apathetic toward video games, like septuagenarian school principals. Wii titles top the list of best-selling games of all time, and the system’s Grandma-accessible, motion-sensing gameplay has left Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 kissing Mario’s brown, Goomba-bopping clogs, at least in terms of sales numbers. So, what went down at Nintendo’s presser, and what did we learn about their new hardware? READ FULL STORY »
