Archive: December 2011 (41-50 of 380)

Dec 27 2011 08:40 PM ET

Cheeta, chimpanzee and Tarzan movie star, dies at 'roughly 80'

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Filed under: Movies and tagged: , , , , , ,
Tarzan-Cheeta-monkey

Image Credit: Everett Collection

Cheeta the chimpanzee, who starred in Tarzan movies alongside Olympic swimmer-turned-actor Johnny Weissmuller in the 1930s and ranked #1 on EW.com’s list of the 10 Best Monkeys at the Movies, died of kidney failure Saturday. According to the Suncoast Primary Sanctuary’s outrach director, Cheeta was “roughly 80 years old, loved fingerpainting and football and was soothed by nondenominational Christian music.”

Roughly 80?! Way to live, chimp! That’s amazing! (Cheeta was an anomaly; the average zoo chimp dies around age 35-45.) I sure hope my favorite chimp lives that long.

The similarities between Cheeta the chimp and your average human don’t stop there: Cheeta loved to see people laugh, abandoned art projects as soon as he got bored with them, enjoyed standing up nice and tall, and “when he didn’t like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them.”

Primates: They’re just like us!

RIP, Cheeta.

Read more:
10 Best Monkeys at the Movies (PHOTO GALLERY)
PopWatch poll: What’s your favorite primate movie?

Dec 27 2011 06:46 PM ET

Van Halen and other returns you'll welcome in 2012

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Filed under: Movies, Television and tagged: , , ,
THE-VOW

Image Credit: Kerry Hayes

The news of Van Halen hitting the road again in 2012 got me thinking about the other comebacks I’m eagerly awaiting. Next year, I’ll happily welcome the return of:

• Sappy Rachel McAdams: The Vow, costarring Channing Tatum, is the closest we’ll get to her doing a sequel to The Notebook.

• Sappy Nicholas Sparks novel adaptation: Something was missing in 2011, and it was me dragging friends to see one of these. Zac Efron’s biceps are making The Lucky One a surprisingly easy sell.  READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2011 06:00 PM ET

Contrarian Corner: I've had it with video stores!

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Filed under: Movies, To Care or Not to Care and tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
ROMY-MICHELE

Image Credit: Everett Collection

I am very disappointed in myself right now for many reasons (intense cold-weather reclusion, strong identification with Charlize Theron’s character in Young Adult, weight gain), but at the top of the list is confirmation of my recent aversion to video stores.

I’m supposed to appreciate these relics, the sprawling box-like storefronts that just seem to bleed out smaller and smaller rectangles — 99-cent outdated movie posters, clunky VHS tapes the stores will practically pay you to remove, DVDs-for-purchase that no one will ever open again. Every few days during the late ’90s, I moped around the Garden Market Blockbuster (now out of business, though my mom just told me it became a costume warehouse for two weeks this October; so tragic) and Video 66 on Joliet Rd. (still there! possibly due to Honey Fluff Donuts next store?) (Update: just drove by and I was wrong; it’s now a vacant-again storefront that says FUN TAN, ugh) — because what else would I do with my life? And then whenever I was back home over the holidays or the summers throughout the late 2000s, I would mope around the same stores again, just in different sweatpants. I’m sure the Video 66 guy appreciated my upgrade from “flannel” to “yoga.” READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2011 02:39 PM ET

Most 2012 Republican presidential candidates want to be Superman

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The Republican presidential candidates have been vocal about their desire to save America, so it’s only fitting that 9-year-old Ari Garnick asked each one whose superhero tights they’d like to climb into. Meeting with the candidates during their visits to New Hampshire, the preteen — whose father is journalist and documentary producer Darren Garnick — inquired, “If you were a superhero, who would you be, and why?”

Their answers were telling, though some were a bit flawed. Mitt Romney had the most logical response, expressing a desire to be a fellow square-jawed, vanilla, and personality-challenged man, Superman. Jon Huntsman enjoyed the thought of being able to “swing from building to building” as Spider-Man, appropriate for someone who supposedly swings from one idea to another. And though former candidate Herman Cain claimed he’d most like to also be Superman, he also claimed he’s “into Kryptonite,” which I suppose explains how he managed to implode his own campaign. Of course, he would also have been much better off choosing one of these superheroes.

Watch the video after the jump to see young Ari flip-flop answering his own question, and which superheroes Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum chose. (Ron Paul, apparently, simply didn’t know how to answer the question and walked away. So… this guy?) But I buried the lede here: Rick Perry might have just admitted he’s from another planet. [The Atlantic] READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2011 02:07 PM ET

Kennedy Center Honors air tonight, and Anne Hathaway doing a split to honor Meryl Streep isn't even the best part

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Filed under: Movies, Music and tagged: , , , , , ,

The Oscars may be entertainment’s most glamorous night, but no awards show is more entertaining than the Kennedy Center Honors. Taped earlier this month, they finally air tonight at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.This year’s honorees include Meryl Streep, Neil Diamond, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins, and singer and Tony winner Barbara Cook. If finding out how Anne Hathaway ends up in a split while honoring her Devil Wears Prada costar Streep (who is also feted by Robert De Niro, Mike Nichols, Kevin Kline, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and Tracey Ullman) isn’t enough of a reason to tune in, below are a few others. (Update: Watch the Meryl Streep tribute here and read our recap.) READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2011 11:35 AM ET

'War Horse' poll: Did you cry?

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Filed under: Movies and tagged: , , , ,
war-horse

Image Credit: David Appleby

Considering the War Horse trailer made some people misty, I assume the answer is “yes,” the majority of moviegoers did cry when seeing the actual film. But let’s make it official with the PopWatch poll below. You’ll notice there is an option for those who, like myself, want to see it but haven’t yet because the relatives they’re visiting and assumed would go won’t. My mother has always cared more about the fate of animals than humans in movies. (See: the dog in Independence Day.) My sister, who owns two quarter horses, shielded her eyes for the length of the War Horse trailer that played before our showing of The Descendants.  READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2011 10:30 AM ET

Which 2011 TV episodes are still on your DVR?

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Filed under: Television, TV and tagged: , , , ,
Justified-Martindale

Image Credit: Prashant Gupta/FX

If you have a DVR, odds are you know the pain of returning from a vacation and discovering that it didn’t have enough space to record all your shows (especially if you tape HD channels, which take up more room). Once you’ve been burned, you become a lot more selective with the episodes you save after watching them.

So, which previously viewed 2011 episodes made your cut? I’m still holding on to Justified‘s May season 2 finale “Bloody Harlan.” (I’ve also still got its June 2010 season 1 finale “Bulletville” saved, incidentally.) In addition, I haven’t yet been able to part with Parks and Recreation‘s “The Trial of Leslie Knope” because of the recounts of Ben’s meeting with Chris (“That was beautiful, I’m literally crying and jumping” — so much funnier than if we’d actually seen him doing it) and Leslie annoyingly reopening the official record (’tis the season for a romantic snow scene).

Your turn.  READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2011 10:03 AM ET

Victoria Jackson claims 'Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated ... our goverment' in new webisode

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Filed under: Those Crazy Kids! and tagged: ,

With her famous high-pitched voice, ridiculously large bow, and assertion that “Islamic law has infiltrated your community, your country, and your life,” Victoria Jackson seems like she’s joking with her latest episode of PolitiChicks. In fact, the set-up even looks like one of the comedienne’s former Saturday Night Live sketches. But it’s decidedly unfunny how serious Jackson is. The SNL vet, who has spent the past few months speaking out against homosexuals and slamming protesters at Occupy Wall Street, claims on her web series that she attended a congressional hearing in Washington D.C., that proved that “the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated our highest positions in our government.”

That includes, of course, the president, said Jackson, who believes his policies have aligned with Muslim interests. Other assertions made by Jackson during the webisode: “Islam is not a religion of peace,” the media insists on defending Muslims and attacking the extreme religious right, and cries of Islamophobia will only lead to more unfair hate crime prosecution. After the jump, watch the video, in which Jackson insists that “You gotta get educated here, people,” after double-checking Hillary Clinton’s title as Secretary of State. [HuffPo] READ FULL STORY »

Dec 27 2011 09:30 AM ET

The Best TV Character Deaths of 2011

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Filed under: TV, Two and a Half Men and tagged: , , , ,
2010-deaths

Image Credit: 20892342

Few things are more beautiful in a TV series than the death of a main character. TV shows used to be created out of static component parts, with casts of characters that would only evolve very gradually, if at all. But that’s all changed in the last 10 years, first with the advent of death-happy cable networks — farewell, Big Pussy — and then with the mid-decade rise of serialized dramas that merrily killed off cast members in an effort to perpetually raise the narrative stakes. Nowadays, it’s practically essential for any remotely violent drama to kill off a main character in the season finale. Still, in the crowded TV graveyard of this blood-soaked 2011, 10 deaths stood out. Here are the 10 Best TV Character Deaths of 2011. (Spoilers, natch.) READ FULL STORY »

Dec 26 2011 08:11 PM ET

Bill Maher taking heat for Tebow tweet

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Filed under: News and tagged: ,

Comedian Bill Maher sparked a Twitter war this week with a post he wrote skewering quarterback Tim Tebow and his fervent religious beliefs following the Denver Bronco’s Christmas Eve loss to the Buffalo Bills. “Wow, Jesus just f—d #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler “Hey, Buffalo’s killing them,” Maher tweeted.

Tebowing – getting down on one knee to pray in a crowd no matter what else is going on – has been an easy target for ridicule, sparking an Internet meme and becoming part of a Saturday Night Live sketch. Tebow was even immortalized in song by some creative ESPN editors. READ FULL STORY »

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