Wanna know how I knew this Kathy/Woz liaison was doomed? The only adjectives our funny lady could ever muster to describe her billionaire bear were "smart" and "genius." Throw in a "he's got a great personality" and you've got the perfect trifecta for a fizzle rather than a sizzle. My friend Tara always says you've got to be able to imagine jumping a guy's bones or it will never work. And in this case, it was truly as simple as that. But before the duo parted ways, they must have inked a deal with the Segway devil to product-place the crap out of this completely frivolous gizmo, because it truly was the star of the episode.
I'm not embarrassed to admit that the Personal Transporter (as it's deemed on Segway's web site) scares me in much the same way skis scare me. Neither one has brakes! The Segway actually frightens me more because of the way you stop--by leaning backward. It's one step away from a team-building trust fall with only the pavement to temper your crash landing. It seemed Kathy felt the same way trying to maneuver the Segway around her downhill driveway, and it couldn't have helped having "Debbie Downer" Wozniak there to tell her all about the people who crack their heads open on the sidewalk (and he was talking about the ones on foot). After Kathy cheated death several times. the pair headed to the mathematically sublime (all those perfect Bs!) restaurant, Bob's Big Boy of Burbank, for a fancy meal.
A couple nights ago, I heard Stevie B's "Because I Love You (The Postman Song)" and remembered wearing out my cassingle in high school. I don't think the ballad, embedded below, is as good as I thought it was. (I also don't think I ever knew that he had a dance track called "Party Your Body," embedded after the jump.)
So what ballads have you second-guessed in recent years? (If your jury was hung, name the tune and I'm sure someone will give you a verdict.) I just did a sound-check on Babyface's "When Can I See You," the song I listened to on repeat for eight hours the night I wrote a college history paper titled "Medieval and Renaissance European Women (and the Men Who Loved Them)" — A-! — and I deem it worthy.
Now that we've talked about movie franchises we'd like to see rebooted (or not), let's bring the discussion to the small screen. Because whether we like it or not, TV keeps going back to the rerun graveyard to remake old shows; this season, we'll see new takes on 90210, Knight Rider, Cupid, and maybe The Streets of San Francisco. Such remakes have a poor track record, notes TV Week columnist Josef Adalian, citing such second-time's-not-the-charm flops as Bionic Woman, Night Stalker, Family Affair, and Fantasy Island. Still, hope must spring eternal in the heart of every TV exec whose seen the rapturous fan response to the reinvented Battlestar Galactica (pictured), so as long as they're going to keep trying, Adalian offers his list of shows actually ripe for a revival, including Married With Children, Quantum Leap, Eight Is Enough, and Good Times.
I find it hard to add to Adalian's list because it's difficult to imagine contemporary actors improving on the iconic roles we associate with earlier stars' indelible performances. (How could you watch, say, a new M*A*S*H without constantly comparing the new stars unfavorably to Alan Alda, Jamie Farr, and Gary Burghoff?) The way to do it, I think, is to do what Galactica's creators did: take a second-tier show to which viewers have much less of an emotional attachment, add first-tier writers, and reimagine it radically. A show like Buck Rogers in the 25th Century might benefit from this approach. Or One Day at a Time; let Valerie Bertinelli play Barbara Cooper again, now all grown up, only now, she's the one who's a divorced mother of two teenage girls.
Your turn, PopWatchers: Which shows are ripe for reinvention as new TV series? And which should the networks keep their grubby paws off of?
It’s still mighty toasty outside, but the fall movie season is already revving up with trailers for Oscar bait (Rachel Getting Married, starring Anne Hathaway, pictured), prestige pics (The Informers), and box-office hopefuls (Quarantine andRole Models, starring Paul Rudd, pictured). Check out the clips and let us know if any of them will get you in the theaters.
THE INFORMERS (Warning: NSFW trailer) November
Plot:
You tell me. Judging by the loosely connected scenes of sex, drugs, and
self-hatred, my guess is it’s a pitch-black ensemble drama. Lookslike:I Loathe the 80’s, Brett Easton Ellis-style. Verdict: It might be set during the Reagan administration, but Informers’
cast is straight out of 1994, with Billy Bob Thornton, Winona Ryder,
Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, and Brad Renfro all sharing the screen.
(My colleague Sean Howe points out that even Chris “Wicked Game”
Isaak has a part, so fingers crossed for an uncredited Heather Graham
cameo). Even so, the promise of bad hair and great New Order tunes is
almost enough to get me in the theater. Almost.
The thing that most interested me about N.E.R.D.'s "Everybody Nose" video was the weird way MTV chose to censor it. Not a bad clip — just a little boring. Luckily, the video they just dropped for the "Everybody Nose" remix (below) is far superior on every level. Let me count the ways:
Hot guest verses from Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco (which makes this a semi-official CRS reunion!), plus a particularly excellent cameo from the Clipse's Pusha T. Everybody's in top form, making this poppy club track double as a serious lyrical clinic.
So, anyone else feeling this video? All the PopWatchers standing in the line for the comments section, pipe up!
I just read InTouch's latest gossip about possible casting choices for Dancing With the Stars' upcoming seventh season -- an official announcement is supposed to be made August 25 on Good Morning America -- and all I can say is "Waaah waaah waaahn." I stopped religiously watching DWTS midway through season 4, but seriously, doesn't it seem like it's time to break out of the former boy-bander/burly male athlete/all-grown-up teen-series alumnus/yadda yadda yadda doldrums? Alleged contenders for the Disco Ball Trophy include Toni Braxton, Kim Kardashian (ick!), Ty Murray, Dan Marino, Lance Bass and Florence Henderson, but I say j'enough!
Here's my (partial) dream lineup for Season 7:
Mo'Nique (pictured, top left): Let's see Louis van Amstel try to boss around this lady!
Mischa Barton: Someone has to get voted out first.
Eartha Kitt (pictured, bottom right, and already favoring sequins): I recently saw the octogenarian's live set at New York's Café Carlyle, and eighty is officially the new forty. Lita Ford: And just like that, leather shakes up the sequins vs. fringe rivalry.
Alexandre Despatie (pictured, top right): I googled "hot Olympians" and look who I came up with! Macaulay Culkin: [Place hands on cheeks; scream.]
Andrew Shue (pictured, bottom left): Do something, Andrew!
Erik Estrada: Let's see what the DWTS costume crew can do with a motorcycle-cop inspiration!
Who else should be on the DWTS season 7 lineup? Ready, set, cast!
Hey, remember that political ad spoof Paris Hilton did for FunnyorDie.com less than 72 hours ago (watch it below if not)? Kinda great! And yet, perhaps also kinda five or six Internet buzz cycles in the past already. But before we move on to our next shiny distraction, let's take a moment to set the record straight. Some, including myself, have been wondering about how exactly Paris pulled off all that wonky energy-policy talk for the ad. I mean, that kind of jargon regularly trips up John McCain when he tries to talk about it. Was Paris using cue cards? A teleprompter? Honestly, to me it looked like someone might have Photoshopped her mouth moving and dubbed in the words. BUT! The Funny or Die crew have revealed that Paris needed no such technological aid to shoot the ad. She memorized thewhole speech, people. All minute and fifty seconds of it. Shame on any of us who suspected otherwise. Please join me in registering your apologies to Ms. Hilton below. (Furthermore, Funny or Die claims she didn't even ask to be paid for the skit. And people call her materialistic!)
While I can recognize the uniquely American mythology of the Western film—that and jazz are our two great contributions to pop culture, almost enough to make up for Carrot Top—I've never been a crazy Western fan. Sure, there are oaters that I love (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Unforgiven, The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, to name a few) but they've never really floated my boat. Never enough gratuitous nudity, explosions, or lasers to suit my tastes. But I just might go see this new flick from director-star Ed Harris:
For one, it's got Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen, two men I will watch in just about anything. (It continues to astonish me that Harris has never won an Oscar. There's just something fundamentally wrong with that.) The last of the finest, these guys are: Men who read as men on screen. And Harris seems to be a heck of a director, too. Judging by this trailer, he's got the sweep and the scope of a Western down pat.
Two old friends hired to bring law to the lawless, one of whom has ridiculously awesome facial hair? Sign me the hell up. What about you?
I don't know how I missed this in the midst of all our Comic-Con coverage (hey, did you notice we covered Comic-Con?), but one of my favorite websites, Garfield Minus Garfield, scored a book deal! Every day, the site's creator, Dan Walsh, simply removes Garfield from the comic strip. That's it. But it's enough -- alongside the fat cat, Jon Arbuckle used to be just a boring guy; now he's like some sort of existential antihero. If the image at left hasn't moved you to tears and made you question life, love, and why you wore that janky top this morning, you're probably not looking hard enough. I love the part where Jon widens his eyes. It is so powerful.
Anyway, Garfield creator Jim Davis approves of the project and the upcoming book. "I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield," he says.
"Some of the strips he chose were slappers: 'Oh, I could have left that
out.' It would have been funnier." Yeah, that's probably the understatement of the century. That, or "Sometimes Tyra likes to talk about herself." You make the call.
Home
Wanna know how I knew this Kathy/Woz liaison was doomed? The only adjectives our funny lady could ever muster to describe her billionaire bear were "smart" and "genius." Throw in a "he's got a great personality" and you've got the perfect trifecta for a fizzle rather than a sizzle. My friend Tara always says you've got to be able to imagine jumping a guy's bones or it will never work. And in this case, it was truly as simple as that. But before the duo parted ways, they must have inked a deal with the Segway devil to product-place the crap out of this completely frivolous gizmo, because it truly was the star of the episode. 
Now that we've talked about 
It’s still mighty toasty outside, but the fall movie season is already revving up with trailers for Oscar bait (Rachel Getting Married, starring Anne Hathaway, pictured), prestige pics (The Informers), and box-office hopefuls (Quarantine and Role Models, starring Paul Rudd, pictured). Check out the clips and let us know if any of them will get you in the theaters.
I just read 
