Why it's gorge-worthy: You know the old Hollywood rule that says sitcom couples are required to bicker and kvetch and generally lead lives of resentment and sexual frustration and just-beneath-the-surface hostility? Well the sweet, wonderfully charming Britcom Gavin & Stacey takes those rules and sends them through the shredder. Resisting the charms of titular stars Mathew Horne and Joanna Page is like saying no to a slice (or two) of pie at the end of Thanksgiving dinner. The duo manages to capture the moony-eyed delight of a couple who meet over the phone -- she lives in Barry Island, south Wales, while he's from Billericay, in southeast England -- but discover that nothing can ultimately get in the way of their love for each other. Not their wacky (but not sitcom-gimmicky) families, including Gavin's clingy, high-strung mother Pamela (a scene-stealing Alison Steadman). Not their sparring (but secretly hot-for-each-other) best friends, Smithy and Nessa, played with twisted gusto by series creators James Vorden and Ruth Jones. Not even the distance (cultural and geographic) between them. If you've felt yourself emotionally flatline watching promos for According to Jim or Til Death, this is the Thanksgiving Day sitcom marathon for you.
Must-see Episode: Episode 3, in which Gavin and Stacey's families finally meet, and carnivorous Pamela uproariously pretends to be a vegetarian (see clip below), a ruse that provides terrific punch lines for many episodes to come.
Any other Gavin & Stacey fans out there who want to shout out their favorite moments from the series? Or are you planning on catching some other marathon during this holiday weekend? Either way, feel free to give thanks for your televised distractions in the comments section below!
I got to bask a tiny bit in the Oscar glory of Steven Spielberg's victory at the 1994 Oscars. I had scored an invite to Elton John's Oscar party, and after the ceremony was through, I looked over, and in came Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Bruce Springsteen, along with their wives and their multiple Oscars picked up earlier that evening. They all sat down at a booth together at the restaurant, Oscars on the table like so many extra salt shakers, casting a blinding glow of fame, glamour, and accomplishment, at once casually matter-of-fact and jaw-droppingly impressive.
Spielberg deserved his directing prize for Schindler's List that year (he also won as a producer for Best Picture). You could argue that he was overdue after three previous unsuccessful nominations over the past 16 years, but I still think he won on merit. Aside from being a moving story told bracingly and unsentimentally (until the weepy last five minutes) that found an artful way to address the incomprehensible horror of the Holocaust, it's also a dazzling display of technique, with every tool at the filmmaker's vast arsenal brought to bear, and a tale told with the blazing urgency of a man determined to get off his chest before he dies the story he was born to tell. (It's astonishing that he finished this and Jurassic Park in the same year.)
Good as the other directors were that year, no one really came close to Spielberg's achievement. Robert Altman, hot off The Player, directed another sprawling masterpiece of social satire in Short Cuts, but the movie was lacking in heart, and Altman's nod was its only nomination. Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father, a true-life tale of injustice and imprisonment, was nothing but heart, but it was otherwise a fairly conventional movie. James Ivory's The Remains of the Day was the sort of elegant, literary chamber piece he'd been churning out for decades, finely polished but almost the same movie as Howards End, his film from just one year before. The only other real standout was Jane Campion, who told a unique and bizarre story in her romance The Piano, and who became only the second woman ever nominated for this prize. Her work here was visionary, and had she not been up against Spielberg, she might have won.
Looking back from today's perspective, which of these directors do
you think did the best job? Vote in our poll, and list your comments below.
(For a refresher, watch the clips embedded after the jump, which
may contain some NSFW language.) Remember, we'll be running the Recall the Gold surveys every Tuesday
and Thursday until January, so you may go back at any time and vote in
the other polls (click here
to see them all), reexamining the Oscar races of 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25
years ago. On Tuesday, Dec. 2, we'll look at the 1983 Best Supporting Actor
competition. Watch also for commentary and context throughout EW.com,
including on Dave Karger's Oscar Watch blog.
Kind of a nothing episode last night forensics fans, but it's always great to have Ryan O'Neal back in the house as Brennan's dad. Our murder du jour was a former Marine paratrooper-turned-manny for Mandarin-speaking brats who was blasted with a shotgun, burned, and then blown (courtesy of a Nor'easter) into a tree because he had too many middle-class values. Remind me to avoid rich people, at least on TV.
But the heart of the matter this evening was the relationship between Bones and Max, which has always been testy—thanks to his life as a fugitive bank robber and killer—and hasn't gotten any easier despite the fact that Tempe spent most of last season trying to get the guy acquitted. When Cam hired him on as a kiddie science teacher (um, the Jeffersonian has a junior varsity?), Bones got all riled up and immediately demanded he be fired. According to Sweets, this had to do with abandonment issues. According to Max, that was crap. According to me, it was just an excuse for unnecessary bickering.
Why you should gobble up eight hours of Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Ethel: It has been more 50 years since I Love Lucy aired on CBS, but the
black-and-white sitcom (and its endless loop of quips about our
heroine's henna'ed hair) will never grow tiresome. True, not everything about
the Lucille Ball comedy would fly today if someone tried to reboot the series: Imagine if a contemporary comedy featured a wife who ridiculed her husband's
Cuban accent. But classic moments -- like when Lucy inadvertently cements a costume beard to her face -- remain irresistible.
Must-see episode: Nothing says Thanksgiving more than that unforgettable scene from "Job Switching" (a.k.a. "The Candy Factory") in which Lucy and Ethel shove gobs of bon-bons down their pie holes. It still makes us
bust a gut.
How about you, PopWatchers? Planning on a Turkey Day ass plant courtesy of I Love Lucy? Does watching that clip give you a stomach ache or make you hungrier? And come on back after you
wolf down a few hours and share any thoughts/dreams/new observations
you may may have stumbled upon during your TV gluttony.
"There's no way on earth we're gonna get outta here tonight. We'd
have more luck playing Pick-Up Sticks with our butt cheeks than we will
getting a flight out of here before daybreak." -- Del Griffin (John Candy) in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. (Fast-forward to 0:37 in the embedded clip to watch the late, great Candy in action. PS: Shouldn't this movie be shown on a 24-hour loop every Thanksgiving holiday, a la A Christmas Story? It's an underrated holiday classic.)
'Tis the season for entertainment publicists to send all sorts of holiday-themed swag to PopWatch HQ, and today's blue-ribbon winner comes courtesy of Showtime, which sent giant, rock-hard sugar cookies emblazoned with edible logos for a dozen or so of their current series. This, of course, may lead to some peculiar (and possibly misleading) ad copy popping up in Showtime ads in the coming weeks. Let us imagine the possibilties!
- "The United States of Tara…it's surprisingly sweet!"*
- "Tracy Takes On...stale and not terribly appetizing."
- "Dexter...it'll ruin your appetite for lunch."
- "Weeds...perfectly baked."
*As you can see from the photo, I did indeed take a bite of the USOT confection, though truth be told, two thirds of the cookie now sits at the bottom of my trashcan. The yumyum-to-calories ratio was not acceptable.
A meteor hurtling out of the sky, as captured by the dashboard camera of a police car in Edmonton, Canada. I think this looks cooler than anything a Hollywood f/x shop could've produced.
The Rock n' Roll Means Well tour pulled in to L.A. last night, marking the final evening of an earth-shaking, booze-guzzling road match between the Hold Steady and the Drive-By Truckers, two bands born of disparate geographical landscapes yet inextricably linked by their commitment to the art of the amp attack. This marked the third straight Thanksgiving week I've had the pleasure of consuming way too much whiskey while pumping my fist in the air to Craig Finn and his Brooklyn brothers -- if they're not on tour next fall, I fully expect them to come play at my house -- and the third time in two months I've seen DBT do their Southern thing. But it wasn't until Finn told a new Hold Steady origin myth that I understood the connection I was missing: After Lifter Puller closed up shop, Finn moved to NYC from Minnesota hoping to do "comedy, writing, some New York s---." Instead, "turns out I just started drinking." Then he saw DBT at the Bowery Ballroom, and thought, "Wait a minute. That looks fun." Insert rhapsodical statement about the transformative powers of great music here.
So consider these two bands sonic soulmates, sharing a taste for massive guitar glory -- DBT's patented three-axe assault howling like air brakes on the highway, or Tad Kubler of the HS whipping out the double-necker -- along with a tendency to revisit themes, locations, and characters in their songs. (The gods of DBT's Alabama no doubt had a horrid influence on the HS's Holly, provided she was ever sober enough to know what she was listening to.) There was plenty of physical crossover last night, too: DBT guitarist John Neff lent pedal steel to the HS on "Cheyenne Sunrise," DBT singer Patterson Hood (pictured above, with Finn) contracted some of the HS frontman's pleading, outstretched energy on "The Company I Keep," and both bands collided for an encore that started with covers of the Minutemen's "History Lesson (Part II)," AC/DC's "Ride On," and the Band's "Look Out Cleveland," then motored home with DBT's "Let There Be Rock" and HS's "Killer Parties." At some point, I believe there was a man in a gorilla suit on stage. I wish I'd been more focused toward the end, but HS played the calf-shredding duo of "Stuck Between Stations" and "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" back to back mid-set and everything beyond that got a little blurry.
After the jump, I stop typing and just put up some of the photos I took last night while trying to control my excitement long enough to, if you'll pardon the phrase, hold the camera steady. Yes, Craig Finn: There is so much joy in what you do. Happy Thanksgiving, PopWatchers...
You may have heard the news last week that Taco Bell slapped 50 Cent with a countersuit over the trademark-infringement case brought by the rapper last summer; the initial lawsuit involved the fast-food restaurant chain's promotional letter suggesting Fitty change his name to "79 Cent," "89 Cent," or "99 Cent," in an effort to promote Taco Bell's delicious/nauseating Value Menu.
And while I can certainly understand the outrage prompted by Taco Bell using a line like "We encourage you to 'Think Outside the Bun' and hope you accept our offer" in its initial note, wouldn't it be better if the legal combatants set aside their differences in a spirit of cooperation, mutual self-promotion, and financial gain?
To that end, I have penned a little rap ditty to the tune of Fitty's 2002 smash "In Da Club." (Original track embedded after the jump, should you want to sing along.) I only wrote an intro and a first pass at the chorus, but by all means, feel free to suggest lines for the verse in the comments section below. If you can find a good rhyme for Crunchwrap Supreme, you're a better wordsmith than me.
Go, go, go, go Go, go, go Taco
It's your birthday
We'll dance with señoritas like it's your birthday
We gon' eat Gorditas like it's your birthday
And grab a Steak Grilled Taquito
Even if it's not your birthday!
[Chorus] You can find me at the Bell, 'cause I like what they sell
We'll trade our Glocks for guac, join the Chalupa cartel
I'm into hard tacos, I ain't into the soft shells
Reduced-fat sour cream? Oh I'll tell you "go to hell"
You won't find me at Chipolt, their menu is revolt...
Fast food's better super-processed, if the truth be told
I'm into Prevacid, I ain't into poppin' Tums
So come give me a hug. And a 7-Layer Stuft...
Not quite everything about the ladies of The Real Housewives of Atlanta was revealed during last night's get-together. Namely, we still don't know who that effing elusive Big Poppa is! But we learned loads more about this rabble-rousing bunch of crazy ladies from the South. And gloriously enough, the episode focused mostly on NeNe and Kim's bad blood. Here, I give you a quick primer the five most important (thus, exclamation-pointed!) points from the evening:
1. BOMBSHELL: That is NOT Kim's real hair! You needn't be a stylist to know this, but Kim finally revealed that she does, in fact, wear a weave. But the reason isn't so funny: She was sick. I'm not about to begrudge a person for losing their hair to unavoidable illness, but it seems like all the speculation about her tresses (and her age — she still claims to be 29!!) could have been solved simply by being honest about it in the first place. Finally, Kim was truthful — you can watch her emotional breakdown about the whole sitch here:
I got to bask a tiny bit in the Oscar glory of Steven Spielberg's victory at the 1994 Oscars. I had scored an invite to Elton John's Oscar party, and after the ceremony was through, I looked over, and in came Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Bruce Springsteen, along with their wives and their multiple Oscars picked up earlier that evening. They all sat down at a booth together at the restaurant, Oscars on the table like so many extra salt shakers, casting a blinding glow of fame, glamour, and accomplishment, at once casually matter-of-fact and jaw-droppingly impressive.
'Tis the season for entertainment publicists to send all sorts of holiday-themed swag to PopWatch HQ, and today's blue-ribbon winner comes courtesy of Showtime, which sent giant, rock-hard sugar cookies emblazoned with edible logos for a dozen or so of their current series. This, of course, may lead to some peculiar (and possibly misleading) ad copy popping up in Showtime ads in the coming weeks. Let us imagine the possibilties!
You may have heard the news last week that 
