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Archive: October 2011 (41-50 of 382)

Oct 27 2011 02:18 PM ET

Kristen Wiig to star opposite Robert De Niro in Sean Penn movie

by Mandi Bierly

Categories: Casting, Kristen Wiig, Movies, Saturday Night Live

Image Credit: Andrew Evans/PR Photos

Want to know how big a hit Bridesmaids was? Read that headline again. Kristen Wiig will co-star with Robert De Niro in the drama The Comedian, to be directed by Sean Penn. According to a synopsis by FilmNation, which will handle international sales, De Niro will play Jackie Burke, a comic who once had a beloved TV character but is now past his prime and trying to revive his career. “After being sentenced to community service for hitting an audience member in the head with his microphone, Jackie meets Harmony (Wiig), a dazzling and defiant redhead who turns his life sideways.” Cameras are expected to roll in Spring 2012, presumably after Wiig wraps the current season of Saturday Night Live.

What do you think? It’s strange, but in an interesting way (as opposed to a “how did De Niro end up in New Year’s Eve?” way). I can picture Wiig as a woman who likes to poke at De Niro and shake him up, but this being a drama, it also sounds like she’ll get to stretch. Are you hoping this will be a great story for what she did on her summer vacation from SNL and she’ll return next fall, or do you think this is a sign that she’s risen above the show and should only return to host SNL to coincide with the movie’s release? (Either way, I hope De Niro hits SNL and they play Password.)

Oct 27 2011 02:00 PM ET

If 'It's Always Sunny' star Glenn Howerton were to cut one gang member, who would he replace him/her with?

by Kate Ward

Categories: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Television

Image Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/ FX

Tonight on FX, the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia gang create a board game, Chardee MacDennis (also the name of the episode), to quell their boredom from the rainy outdoors. But the series’ star Glenn Howerton, who portrays the horrendously self-involved Dennis, has made these even more competitive for the members of Paddy’s Pub. Though it’s difficult to imagine Sunny without Dennis, neurotic Dee, argumentative Mac, belchy Frank, or the Day Man himself, Charlie, we asked Howerton to select one character (or characters) to eliminate from the gang. And since we already know Smitty isn’t a fit replacement, what classic TV character would he choose to replace the ousted member(s)? So who’s “useless” in Paddy’s Pub? Read on to find out! READ FULL STORY »

Oct 27 2011 01:35 PM ET

'South Park' skewers Broadway: Too late or right on the money?

by Aly Semigran

Categories: About Last Night, Animation, Book of Mormon, Have You Seen This?, Music + Comedy = Good Thing?, South Park, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Stage/Theater, Television, That Was Way Harsh, Tai, Won't somebody please think of the children?!

Image Credit: Comedy Central

Before their brilliantly un-PC musical Book of Mormon opened on Broadway and transformed them into Tony winners, co-authors Trey Parker and Matt Stone paid a visit to The Late Show with David Letterman. While there, Letterman joked to the duo about their show, “I think I just heard Eugene O’Neill turn over in his grave.” (Funnily enough, that sound bite has been used as a selling point in ads for the sold-out-until-the-end-of-time show.)

Of course, if their deliriously offensive musical didn’t make O’Neill do that yet, last night’s South Park probably did. The Broadway-themed episode — titled “Broadway Bro-Down,” which was co-written by Parker and Stone’s Book of Mormon collaborator Robert Lopez — suggested that not only do the toe-tapping shows we all know and love have subtext that makes women, er, perform for their dates, but that said shows are written by a bunch of high-fiving, beer-guzzling chauvinists. Those chauvinists being Broadway legends like Stephen Sondheim, Elton John, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 27 2011 12:45 PM ET

Bernie Madoff and wife attempted suicide, but now, he's 'happier in prison'

by Jeff Labrecque

Categories: Hell to the No!, The Bad Man Scares Me!, Things That Are Criminal, Things That Make Me Die Inside

Bernie Madoff is going to die in prison. But for many people, that’s not enough for the man who swindled billions in an unprecedented Ponzi scheme that shocked the world at the height of the financial meltdown. Three years later, the Madoff family is now talking. In an interview on this Sunday’s 60 Minutes, his now-estranged wife Ruth says that she and Bernie attempted suicide on Christmas Eve after his arrest. “I don’t know whose idea it was, but we decided to kill ourselves because it was so horrendous what was happening,” she told Morley Safer. “We had terrible phone calls, hate mail … and I said I just can’t go on anymore.”

The couple downed handfulls of pills and then… woke up in the morning. “It was very impulsive, and I’m glad we woke up,” she concluded. Watch below: READ FULL STORY »

Oct 27 2011 12:25 PM ET

'Slumdog Millionaire' comes to life for Sushil Kumar

by Lanford Beard

Categories: Best & Worst of 2008, Réalité, Reality TV, Television, Things That Are Awesome!, Water Cooler

Image Credit: AP Images

Government clerk Sushil Kumar’s life imitated art (Slumdog Millionaire specifically) when he became the first person to win $1 million on India’s Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, reports the AP. Amitabh Bachchan, Indian movie legend and the host of Millionaire, told Kumar, “You have created history. Your grit and determination has made you come so far in this show.”

Kumar couldn’t afford a TV to watch Millionaire but visited friends’ home and wowed them as he answered one question after another. At their encouragement, he took his first plane ride to Tuesday’s taping in Mumbai. Earning $120 a month in government work, which he supplemented with a tutoring gig, Kumar would have been perfectly happy to get a few questions right. Instead, he went for the gusto and used his final lifeline to take home the show’s highest prize. He plans to use his windfall to pay for a prep course so he can secure a job in the Indian civil service, help his family members financially, build a library for the children of his hometown, Motihari, and buy a new home — and, presumably, a TV to watch his favorite show. His winning episode will air next week.

Doesn’t news like this put a smile on your face, PopWatchers? What else do you think Kumar should do with his winnings?

Oct 27 2011 12:00 PM ET

Steven Tyler explains his fall on 'Today' -- VIDEO

by Aly Semigran

Categories: Music, Now That's What I Call a Face!, Ooops!, Television

Despite looking like, as Today host Matt Lauer described it, “the wrong guy in a fight,” Steven Tyler assured fans via a phone interview from Argentina that he’s going just fine. In fact, it wasn’t a fight or falling off the wagon that did Tyler in, the Aerosmith singer insisted. Rather he took a spill in the shower after a bout with food poisoning.

Tyler, who is currently on tour with his band, had to postpone a show in Paraguay after falling in a hotel bathroom, which he explained to Lauer this morning. “I started to get sick, and I just fell on my face. I just passed out,” Tyler said about the fall that caused him to wind up getting four stitches in his eye and plastic surgery to get a tooth fixed.

The American Idol judge insisted it was the repercussions of food poisoning, not his ongoing recovery from drug and alcohol abuse, that made him pass out. “I get that people think that,” he said of the assumption that it was from the latter, adding, “It still bothers me a little, but it’s something that I have to deal with for the rest of my life.”

Watch the full clip below, in which Tyler explains why he got back on stage so soon after the incident (“I looked at myself in the mirror and just thought, ‘We should go on with the show tonight,’ and we did”) and then shouts “You can’t handle the truth!” at Lauer: READ FULL STORY »

Oct 27 2011 11:35 AM ET

Justin Timberlake explains to David Letterman why he hasn't done a musical: Watch!

by Mandi Bierly

Categories: David Letterman, Justin Timberlake, Late Night, Movies, Music + Comedy = Good Thing?, Television

On last night’s Late Show, David Letterman asked guest Justin Timberlake why, if he idolizes Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Gene Kelly, he hasn’t done a musical. Turns out, it’s because he doesn’t like spontaneously bursting into song, which, of course, he and Dave then did. Sort of. Watch the clip below. Check out the full interview here. It ends with more singing. Timberlake is promoting his new film In Time, and, together with Dave, he also explained how characters in that futuristic world transfer time to one another by physically grasping forearms. “If I’m on top, I’m taking time, and if your on top, you’re taking time,” Timberlake said. The audience giggled inappropriately. “You know, I have found it to be true that if you’re top, you better take your time,” Letterman cracked. Love these two together.

READ FULL STORY »

Oct 27 2011 11:10 AM ET

98 Degrees member Justin Jeffre stays true to his (political) heart, gets arrested at an Occupy protest

by Aly Semigran

Categories: Music, News You Can Use, Politics as Entertainment, You Go Glen Coco!

Image Credit: The Cincinnati Enquirer/Carrie Cochran/AP Images

What do Arlo Guthrie, Sean Lennon and Justin Jeffre all have in common? Besides, of course, their rich musical history, all three have taken part in the ongoing Occupy movement. But only Jeffre, who you’ll remember as the other other guy from the 90′s boy band 98 Degrees, has been arrested for taking a stand with the grassroots uprising.

According to the Associated Press, Jeffre “pleaded not guilty to trespassing after being arrested in the Occupy Cincinnati protest.” Jeffre, who has become a political activist in Cincinnati (he is a political blogger for The Cincinnati Beacon), was arrested with 11 others over the weekend for “unlawful use” of the city’s Fountain Square after closing time. On Monday, Jeffre’s lawyer entered a not guilty plea for him. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 27 2011 10:50 AM ET

EW's Bite of the Night for Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011

by Lanford Beard

Categories: America's Next Top Model, Bite of the Night, Bits and Bobs, Channel Surfing, Réalité, Real Housewives, Reality TV, Ridiculata, Television

We at EW scoured the TV line-up last night to find the best one-liners from your favorite shows. Since American Horror Story‘s Rubber Man remains terrifyingly silent and Revenge is a dish best served with a cold shoulder, we had to look elsewhere. Leave it to an America’s Next Top Model All-Stars photo shoot inspired by Snooki and Real Housewives of Atlanta‘s NeNe Leakes to provide some of the most hilarious critiques of the evening. Which model’s attempt at homage prompted our Bite of the Night? See for yourself below…

Image credit: Mike Ruiz

Oct 27 2011 10:00 AM ET

Carrie Ann Inaba sticks up for her fellow 'Dancing With the Stars' judges, talks Chaz Bono elimination -- VIDEO

by Aly Semigran

Categories: Dancing With the Stars, Have You Seen This?, Reality TV, You Go Glen Coco!

Who could have guessed going into this season of Dancing With the Stars that all the major talk would turn to the judges? At least, that’s the case this week as the judges, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli in particular, have come under fire from Maksim Chmerkovskiy and eliminated contestant Chaz Bono.

While fellow judge Carrie Ann Inaba isn’t catching as much flak, she defended the others during a visit to Access Hollywood on Wednesday. On the subject of Bono — who told Good Morning America during a post-elimination interview that he took offense to Tonioli’s referred to him as “a basketball, a penguin, an Ewok,” and thinks the show treats overweight men differently — Inaba said, “The scoring has to do with what they’re doing dance-wise. We are able to separate the two.” Watch the full clip below: READ FULL STORY »