Image Credit: Colleen Hayes/ABC
It’s the perfect gift to begin to ring in the New Year: The first 10 minutes of the January 4 episode of Revenge are streaming over at ABC.com, and it’s a doozy. Check it out, and meet me after the jump for some spoiler-filled talk. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Daniel Smith
As the holiday season comes to a close, you may still be visiting relatives and wondering how you can fill the time between meals. If you’re not sneaking off for a self-marathon of TV on DVD (or Netflix or iTunes), you may be looking for suggestions for movies that will please multiple generations (or just not embarrass you like, say, taking your parents to see Shame). We, and your fellow PopWatchers, are here to help. I’ll list some of my suggestions, you list some of yours. Here are movies or recent DVDs to watch if you’re with:
• A mother who’s told you she would like to see Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp star in a film together: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Yes, this is Downey and Jude Law, but if your mother wants to see Downey team up with Depp, what she really appreciates is a fun, eccentric take on a character, and Holmes’ many costumes in this sequel will delight her. This film has also proven a hit with dads (or, at least with my colleague Adam Vary’s). READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: MTV
The Sense About Science (SAS) campaign has named Jersey Shore doctor of grain liquor Snooki and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann as two of 2011′s worst offenders of Bad Science. Bachmann went on TV to tell a story of a Tampa woman who claimed her daughter had become “mentally retarded” from an HPV vaccine, and Snooki — well, Snooki’s sort of a science experiment gone wrong in so many (and some delightful) ways that I’d like to give her scientific claim its own paragraph. Let it breathe a little, like seamen amidst a gust of sea air.
“I don’t really like the beach. I hate sharks, and the water’s all whale sperm. That’s why the ocean’s salty.”
The untethered inclusion of “I hate sharks” in there is almost poetic. Think about it for a few seconds. NO, I’m just kidding, don’t hurt yourselves. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: John Paul Filo/CBS
The 34th Annual Kennedy Center Honors aired last night on CBS, and we finally got our answer to why Anne Hathaway ended up in a split honoring her Devil Wears Prada costar Meryl Streep: It was choreography for her performance of “She’s Me Pal,” a tribute to Streep’s rendition of “He’s Me Pal” from Ironweed. Watch Streep’s full tribute below. Hathaway’s song starts around 11:50. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Dennis Plehn/Getty Images
This year’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest (10 p.m. ET, ABC) will mark the 40th anniversary of the iconic holiday show from host and executive producer Dick Clark. Cohosts Clark and Seacrest will be joined by Lady Gaga, Pitbull, Hot Chelle Rae, the Band Perry, blink-182, Christina Perri, Florence + the Machine, Gym Class Heroes, LMFAO, OneRepublic, Nicki Minaj, Taio Cruz, and will.i.am. Whew!
In Friday’s issue of EW, Clark runs down some of his favorite New Year’s Rockin’ Eve memories — like the time his camera crew was, unbeknownst to him, “being entertained by an office full of naked celebrants” in a building high atop Times Square. “When we started in 1972, I was perched on top of a Times Square building accompanied by my wife and a lone cameraman,” Clark writes. It’s certainly grown since then. Look for more from Clark in the new issue of EW, on stands Friday Dec. 30.
Now tune your clock to “ABC Time” and let’s relive a few choice NYRE moments….
One of my favorite entertainment pastimes is imagining what could have been when it came to casting some of Hollywood’s biggest films. Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Julia Roberts as Viola in Shakespeare in Love. Jennifer Hudson as the title character in Precious. So it’s a fun laugh to see ButYoureLikeReallyPretty mock up a series of photos imagining other actresses playing Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Superimposing some famous faces whose names were tossed around for the role of Lisbeth during Dragon Tattoo‘s casting process, the site shows us what Lisbeth could have looked like if she were portrayed by, among others, Scarlett Johansson and Kristen Stewart. I suppose we should be glad director David Fincher didn’t opt for Ellen Page — based on her illustration, homeskillet looks far too sunny(D) to play the tortured hacker. [Via CinemaBlend]
Follow Kate on Twitter @KateWardEW
Read more:
Rooney Mara talks future projects, promoting ‘Dragon Tattoo’: ‘Everyone is like, So, the rape scene. Was that hard?’
‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’: Steven Zaillian on changing the story and ending
‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’: How Enya’s music became the tune of torture
Image Credit: Paul Sakuma/AP Images
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, PopWatchers, is to help me put together a 2011 pop-culture time capsule. It’s been a year of change that swept from the lowest brow (Two and a Half Men) to the highest (the Arab Spring). We saw many great people pass on and many more step into the spotlight. With all this in mind, what cultural relics would you pick to communicate this strange and marvelous year to the future? Check out my picks, then add your own ideas to the mix. READ FULL STORY »
Earlier this month, Michelle and Jim Duggar — stars of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting — announced the sad news that Michelle had lost their 21st child to miscarriage. (She previously lost another child to miscarriage, in her second pregnancy.) Days later, the couple also announced they would hold a memorial for the child, who was to be named Jubilee Shalom Duggar. But the couple continues to remember their late daughter.
Michelle has released an audio letter dedicated to Jubilee, in which she tells her miscarried daughter that she “will not forget you. I will look forward to meeting you one day.” But Michelle also uses the letter as an opportunity to touch upon societal views regarding her large brood: “So often in society, babies are looked upon as a problem trial or responsibility,” she says in the tape. “But God says babies are a blessing. We do not believe that babies are a bother, a headache, or a financial drain or a crareer interrupter. We love babies. Your siblings did not view you as the competition. They are truly saddened and disappointed to not have really known you … You were not loved any less because you were baby No. 21.”
Michelle continues on to speak about the miscarriage itself, “It’s an awesome thought to me that you fulfilled your life’s purpose in such a short time … From now on, when I’m asked how many children I have, the answer will be 21 — 19 here and two in heaven. You are precious to me, Jubilee. Mommy loves you.” Listen to the audio after the jump. READ FULL STORY »
Denis Leary released a radical Islamist parody of A Charlie Brown Christmas several years ago, but that hasn’t stopped several groups from taking issue with it now. Just days after the comedian reposted a video on his WhoSay site in which Charlie copes with his doubts about Christianity by converting to Islam and building a flawed bomb, several have condemned the video, claiming it encourages an Islamophobic attitude. (The video is from a nearly 7-year-old Comedy Central special.)
In the parody, Linus replaces his meaning of Christmas speech with one in which he claims the jihadist goal is to “bring terror” to its enemies. The video ends with the Peanuts crew helping Charlie build a nuclear bomb, which sends him and Linus to a hell filled with 72 Marcies. Though the video might sound familiar to Leary fans, sites like Islamophobia Watch have only recently stumbled upon it: “Just what the world needs,” Islamophobia Watch’s site reads. “A jaw-droppingly Islamophobic video has been posted by Irish-American comedian Denis Leary on WhoSay. Some years ago Leary took a firm stand against Mel Gibson’s antisemitism. But apparently crude anti-Muslim stereotyping is fine with Leary.” (Leary’s reps have yet to respond to EW’s request for comment.)
The video is also getting extra traction via Glenn Bleck’s TheBlaze.com. That site’s readers, however, don’t appear to be offended by the video. See it after the jump. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Everett Collection
Every year, the Library of Congress selects several films to be entered into the National Film Registry for preservation. And, every year, it’s surprising to learn that the selections weren’t already part of the registry. Case in point: Some of 2011′s 25 entries, which include 1921′s The Kid, 1924′s The Iron Horse, 1988′s Stand and Deliver, 1991′s Silence of the Lambs, 1994′s Forrest Gump, and 1942′s Bambi, because if we had to break the news to our kids about the deer’s murdered mother, then, dammit, so will several generations to come. READ FULL STORY »
