Archive: October 2011 (111-120 of 382)

Oct 24 2011 01:49 AM ET

'Desperate Housewives': Are things just about to get interesting?

Desperate-Housewives

Image Credit: RON TOM/ABC

Little of much interest happened on last night’s new episode of Desperate Housewives, as per usual.

Lynette went to therapy with Tom and then went on the hunt for a man and almost did the nasty with a rather nice dude, just before realizing that she wants to try to resolve things with Tom. (Renee coached her through her return to the dating scene: “Lay off the ice cream. There’s no Photoshop in real life.”) Gaby battled the Mean Girls of the PTA, as she tried to put on an event at Juanita’s school. Susan battled, too — but she was at odds with her art teacher, as he continued to pick at her through the hour. (And she continued to act like a junior high kid, endlessly giggling at the art class model’s penis. I couldn’t agree more with what the art teacher told her later in the episode, when he was trying to convince her to come back to his class: “You’re a bizarre car crash that somehow fascinates me.”) And Bree, well, she — in true Bree fashion — managed to turn a homeless soup kitchen into a hipster bisque hangout.

All pretty much filler, if you ask me, as we soldier on through the series’ final season. Just 17 more episodes until we can put this old timer to sleep! But, okay, yes — I’m staring to write like Mary Alice talks! — there were a few little tidbits that were juicy in the episode.

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Oct 22 2011 04:02 PM ET

TV Leaderboard: 'The Vampire Diaries' takes the lead again in EW.com reader ratings

Vampire-Diaries-Stefan

Image Credit: Bob Mahoney/The CW

With Breaking Bad – and its stranglehold of the EW.com reader rankings — now out of the picture, it should surprise no one that The Vampire Diaries has vaulted back to the top of the pack, thanks to a jam-packed episode that featured Elena getting her Buffy on. Meanwhile, a new addition to the EW recap ranks, ABC’s Happy Endings, makes a happy debut at no. 4. Here are the full standings:  READ FULL STORY »

Oct 22 2011 03:48 PM ET

'Boss' react: Kelsey Grammer runs this town

Categories: Television
Boss-Kelsey-Grammer

Image Credit: Starz

It should seem more bizarre to see Kelsey Grammer grimacing and striding around in such an aggressively dramatic role as Mayor Tom Kane — what with his decades of pretentious buffoonery on Cheers and Frasier — but somehow it just feels natural. Grammer is clearly the heart of Boss, which debuted on Starz last night, and after a string of failed sitcoms, he might have found just where he needed to be. Like bar-buddy Ted Danson, gritty, high-powered television drama becomes him. Now all we need is an FX series starring John Ratzenberger as a merciless drug kingpin. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 22 2011 01:18 PM ET

Think 'American Horror Story' is scary? Feh! Try 'My Extreme Animal Phobia.'

Animal Planet

Three people move into a house where they are forced to grapple with terrifying entities uniquely designed to agitate their worst fears. Yes, that describes the FX fright-fest American Horror Story. But that’s also the new Animal Planet series My Extreme Animal Phobia. In this reality show, people don’t have to worry about the Rubber Man sneaking into their rooms at night. But they do have to sleep with a rubber snake before kissing a real one. The premiere episode (which aired last night) introduced us to Dr. Robin Zasio, a clinical psychologist who runs a treatment center for anxiety disorders out of a modest house in a Sacramento neighborhood. Her first patients: Seth, 46, a fuzzy, frumpy, sad-eyed soul scared of snakes; Marvin, 47, a tatted-up tough guy scared of pit bulls, and Jahara, 27, a mother of two with whimsically colored fingernails who is scared of spiders. Dr. Zasio began her five-day course of “exposure therapy” by asking the trio to watch videos. She began with snake-spooked Seth. “Ladies first!” he protested, trying to defer to Jahara. Nope. “There’s a method to my madness,” quipped Dr. Zasio with a really awkward wink. Then she made them decorate their rooms with photos of their phobia. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 22 2011 09:45 AM ET

Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon let Barbara Walters ogle their babies on '20/20'

2020-Mariah-Carey-twins

Image Credit: Donna Svennevik/ABC

Though they’ve been married for over three years now, it’s still a little bit difficult to believe that Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon are an actual couple. Perhaps it was the lack of public courtship or the sudden nature of their wedding, but there’s still a moment of, “Oh right, they’re married” every time they’re brought up.

On top of that, they’ve procreated! In fact, twins Morocco and Monroe (who are nicknamed, no joke, “Rock” and “Roe”) made their television debut last night on ABC’s 20/20. Barbara Walters sat the couple down and tilted her head just so for a gauzy chat that touched on Carey’s extremely difficult pregnancy (a high-risk one that featured a number of false labors and the development of gestational diabetes), what the babies heard while they were in utero (Carey described a special device that she wrapped around her abdomen so her twin fetuses could hear Stevie Wonder songs and “Hero”). READ FULL STORY »

Oct 22 2011 12:23 AM ET

'Supernatural' react: Spike saves the Winchesters -- twice! Was the 'Buffy' reunion everything you'd hoped it'd be?

Supernatural

Image Credit: Marcel Williams/The CW

What struck me most about the anticipation around tonight’s episode of Supernatural — which featured an on-screen reunion between Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel alums James Marsters and Charisma Carpenter — was the number of people who claimed they were going to watch Supernatural tonight specifically for these very special guest stars.

But now that the episode has aired, I have to ask, regular and visiting viewers, was the episode worth the hype? READ FULL STORY »

Oct 21 2011 08:00 PM ET

Harold Camping schedules Rapture for today. Ten reasons it might still happen.

Harold_Camping

Image Credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Images

Remember back in May when Harold Camping predicted the world would end… but it didn’t and God cruelly made us stick around long enough to see this? Well, Camping admitted he was wrong and rescheduled the Rapture for today, Oct. 21. I’ve been stuck in my windowless office all day, so I can’t tell whether or not lava is flowing, lightning is striking, and monkeys with wings are flying in the skies. (Isn’t that what happens during the Rapture? No? That’s just Wizard of Oz?) But, still, I believe. Mostly because I want to hang out with a cute terrier. (That’s still Wizard of Oz? God, I should have gone to church more often.) But here, I give you, 10 reasons I think the Rapture might actually happen today. Hold tight: READ FULL STORY »

Oct 21 2011 07:17 PM ET

'Grand Theft Auto III' turns 10 years old: Rockstar Games' Dan Houser discusses the 'GTA' decade

Categories: Nostalgia, Videogames

On October 22, 2001, everything we ever thought we understood about videogames changed. Gamers were looking ahead to the oncoming arrival of the next generation of consoles. Nintendo was one month away from the North American release of the GameCube, an adorable candy-colored travesty that would usher in a half-decade in the cultural wilderness. Microsoft — still the Evil Empire in those simpler, bygone days — was going to release its own system the same week: A brutal tank-like abomination called the Xbox, which came equipped with a controller that looked like a blunt instrument used by cavemen to crush mammoth skulls.

Sony had already released its own next-generation console one year earlier. The device was called the PlayStation 2. It would become the best-selling videogame console in history. It would initiate a massive shift in how the culture thought about videogames, and how videogame players thought about themselves. And if you want to pinpoint a specific moment when the industry began that massive shift, you could do worse than pointing to October 22, 2001, when Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto III into stores.  READ FULL STORY »

Oct 21 2011 07:15 PM ET

'Paranormal Activity': Still scary midday, in your office, with the lights on and door open?

Paranormal Activity 3 has arrived in theaters to a glowing A- review from EW. An A- is impressive for any sequel, let alone a third film in a horror franchise. The last non-vampire horror movie I saw in theaters was Scream 3 in 2000. As a single woman who lives alone, enjoys sleep, has an active imagination and a history of needing to move the VHS copy of The Exorcist to her roommate’s side of the room after watching it in college, I just don’t need to risk it. But again, the latest review intrigued me, and so, in the safety of my office, in midday, with the lights on and the door open, I decided to watch the first film on Netflix. Is it still scary?  READ FULL STORY »

Oct 21 2011 06:28 PM ET

Jason Reitman gathers Jennifer Garner, Aaron Paul and more for star-studded reading of 'The Breakfast Club'

Vivien Killilea/Film Independent/WireImage.com

Last night, a crowd of industry insiders and excited film enthusiasts gathered at the Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for a live table-read of John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club. This time, instead of Molly Ringwald and the gang, Up in the Air director Jason Reitman gathered an equally eclectic group of actors to reimagine the diverse sterotypes portrayed in the film. A lovely and very pregnant Jennifer Garner was beauty queen Claire (Molly Ringwald), James Van Der Beek was Andy the jock (Emilio Estevez), Mindy Kaling was basket case Allison (Ally Sheedy), Patton Oswalt was Brian the geek (Anthony Michael Hall), and, probably best of all, Breaking Bad‘s Aaron Paul was the criminal Bender (Judd Nelson). Rounding up the cast as those ever-meddling adults (cue eye-roll) were J.K. Simmons as Carl the janitor, and Michael Chiklis as Mr. Vernon. Reitman himself called out the directions on stage, while images from the film flashed on stage to signal a change of scene.

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