Ah, Twitter memes; they come and go so quickly. This week's big hit was #1stdraftmovielines, in which the Twitterverse took iconic lines and wondered what they could have been if not for a trusty rewrite. Some were hilarious, some were confusing, and a lot tackled the same lines. Still, from the chaos emerged stars, and these are some of our favorites:
The pictured tweet is from @kentremendous (aka Office writer Michael Schur).
Flex those muscles, PopWatchers! Hit us with your best first-draft movie lines either here in the comments or at ye olde Twitter stream. You're following @EWPopWatch, right?
It's not quite the Sticky Note Experiment, but this student-made ad for HP is mesmerizing:
Beyond the coolness factor, I totally agree with Gizmodo: The truly amazing thing here is that Matt and Tom got that many printers to work for that long. What?! There's nary a PC load letter in sight? Well done, sirs!
Chrome sweet chrome?* That's what Google is hoping. The company announced that they'll release a new OS come 2010: The Chrome browser is getting beefed up into a full-fledged operating system. Somewhere, someone at Microsoft is curled in the fetal position, gently sobbing.
According to Google's release, the Chrome OS will be "open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks." Fancy!
The major difference between the Chrome OS and the current OS you're probably using is that Chrome will be more Web-oriented, rather than desktop oriented.
I'm excited to see Chrome's development because in the last few years, like a lot of peeps, I too have shifted to be more Web-oriented. I type stories in Google Docs, not Word. I edit photos using Picnik, not Photoshop. I play Web-based games, not downloaded ones, and I listen to more music via websites than I do in iTunes. In other words, there are a lot of ways I'm using a browser as a sort of OS already; if there's an OS designed for that, so much the better. Minus a crystal ball, we can't know exactly what Chrome will be like, but so far I've been almost stupidly satisfied with the ways Google has taken over my life so far -- would you ever go back to non-Gmail e-mail? I wouldn't. If Chrome can capture a shred of that, it will instantly become my browser of choice.
What about you, PopWatchers? Will you be saying hasta la Vista and heading to Chrome?
* If there had been a way to get "Chrome on the range," "there's no place like Chrome," "Chrome decorating," "Chrome alone," "Chrome sick," "hold the Chrome," or "Chromoerotic" into this post, I would have. Oh, well.
I recently bonded with a colleague over our shared admiration for the blog F--- You, Penguin. In a nutshell, the writer finds the cutest animal pictures he can, then proceeds to trash them with lots of comic vitriol. (A sample aimed at the pictured flying squirrel: “I know you think your curled up little tail is going to melt hearts everywhere, but it just looks to me like you're trying to make us forget you can't actually fly. STOP TRYING TO GET AWAY WITH AN INFLATED SENSE OF SELF.”) Aside from the liberal swearing, the site's content is actually kind of tame -- rated PG-13, I'd say -- but sometimes I hesitate sharing the site because the blaring profanity of the title makes it sound worse than it really is. The same goes for another site I go to, Look at This F---ing Hipster. It got me thinking: I’m sure there are lots of sites or blogs out there with NSFW titles, but relatively SFW content. They don't even have to have the f-word in the title. What are your favorites?
No one knows better than EW that this week that, as Jon Stewart said on last night's Daily Show, anyone who ever meant anything to anyone is dead. Or at least it seems that way. The inevitable effect in the Internet age? Crazy death hoaxes! The most recent: Rick Astley, who, for the record, is alive and well.
Are people always trying to start these rumors, but simply succeeding thanks to this celebrity-death-filled week? I don't know, but that makes sense: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays...like any truly random combination of celebrities, their juxtaposition makes it feel all that more surreal. The combination of true legend and pitchman, of beauty icon and early-TV fixture, of tragic tabloid targets (Fawcett and Jackson) and onetime punchlines (Jackson and Mays)...it all seems like a crazy celebrity Mad Lib and makes it feel like hey, if those four people can go in the same week, anything's possible. If you'd showed us, say, this week's forthcoming issue of EW two weeks ago, we'd have thought it was some sick joke. So naturally, this has all made fertile ground for, well, sick jokes.
Presumably born of people's dark musings as they watch endless hours of Fawcett/Jackson coverage -- can you imagine if George Clooney died now, too? could Natalie Portman be dead? -- and the rumor power of the blogosphere, the death hoaxes have been coming fast and furious this week. The first, from what I can tell, was Jeff Goldblum -- whose rumored death hit while news outlets were only just reporting Jackson's shocking demise. That choice of celebrity seemed almost eerily well-planned: He's just the right level of fame (Madonna or Britney Spears at that moment would've seemed too big to be true). And because we don't follow his every move so religiously in the gossip pages, anything happening to him without much warning seemed plausible, from a movie-set accident to an unforeseen illness. For the record, we are thrilled and relieved and grateful to report that all of these talented, rumored-dead folks are still with us.
What do you think, PopWatchers? Why so many rumored deaths to go along with our devastatingly real ones this week? Have any of the rumors upset you more than the others? Will we ever figure out a way to control the Internet's growing rumor mill?
It would be difficult to sum up Michael Jackson's life in 600 words alone, but the editors of SMITH magazine are inviting readers to write epitaphs for the late singer in just six words. The magazine -- which has won fans for its six-word memoir compilations -- is holding a contest for the three readers who can compose the best "Jackson 6." My personal favorite thus far? Mary Elizabeth Williams' "From ABC to PYT to RIP."
So PopWatchers, we want to know: What will you be submitting to SMITH magazine? What six words do you feel represent Jackson's life? Do you think it's even possible to sum up a life in six words? And what's your favorite tribute to the singer that you've seen so far?
Look, I want to crap on this as much as anyone -- Facebook movie?! Waaaah, only in an unjust universe, etc., etc. -- but holy moly, I would freaking love to see these two team up on something. They're both known for being a bit intense, something of perfectionists, and for taking perhaps more time than they were supposed to to complete things. (No judgment!)
Sorkin's distinctive prose style lends itself to ambitious and equally distinctive direction -- I can spot a Tommy Schlamme-directed episode a mile a way, for example -- and Fincher's best film, Zodiac, is also his most cerebral and wordy. They're an unlikely pair, I guess; Fincher's work, minus Benjamin Button, tends to capture the clash between order and chaos, while Sorkin's work, minus Malice, tends to capture small groups of dedicated people. Maybe it's my post-lunch Diet Coke talking, but I think the pairing could be good for both.
That said...blerg x ∞ on their collaboration being for a movie about Facebook. Maybe down the road they'll reteam for a story about a crumbling dictatorship or something. Ah, a girl can dream.
Thoughts, PopWatchers? Are you updating your status about this?
We all know that Lisa Kudrow's Webby Award-winning series Web Therapyis back tonight for a second season, but pretty soon it'll also give viewers a rare opportunity to see two of America's best "friends" reunite: Courteney Cox Arquette is slated to guest star on the online program. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cox Arquette will appear on July 6 as a psychic who used to get her visions through dreams. The visions no longer come to her, so she seeks out Kudrow, who dispenses advice via webcam. The pair hasn't appeared together since the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Friends wrapped in 2004.
One of the funnier moments between the two includes Cox Arquette's mention -- in character -- of her husband David Arquette's family. “Good God, how many of them are there really?” she asks about the famous acting clan. But don't take our word for it -- take a look at the video below and judge for yourself.
What do you think, PopWatchers? What other Friends stars would you want to see cross paths again on the smallest screen? A Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry reunion, perhaps?
Twitter exploded today. Ha! You wish. A Twitter trending topic (or "hashtag," I guess? execute me) called "nicerfilmtitles" exploded today. Thousands of people attempted to improve, or "make nicer," the title of a film. Slezak and I racked our brains for a good few seconds and came up with Drag Me To Health and Black Snack Moan (pictured). You can't go wrong with a delicious apple or strong-as-chains spool of black licorice. Though now I'm thinking my more recent idea, Nachos Libre, is way better. The nachos would cost zero money.
Some of our favorite nicer movie titles from the day:Dude, There's My Car, Sleeping in Seattle, Two Lion Kings(because why not), Diet Hard, Lady and the Homeless Dog, and Who's Afraid of Virgin Wool?
Hey guys, how about that Internet! Am I right? I'm all for Facebook (and I'm warming to Twitter), but I'm not sure it needed to be incorporated into EVERY SINGLE SEGMENT of the premiere of MTV's It's On With Alexa Chung. Seriously: A show-long contest implored viewers to Tweet photos of themselves
watching the episode with stuff on their heads, an entire segment was
dedicated to ''It's complicated'' relationships on Facebook, another focused on a YouTube star beatboxer, musical guest Soulja Boy admitted to
meeting the ladies via Twitter, and he even shouted out the site at the end
of his performance of ''Turn My Swag On.'' Those near-constant Internet references, combined with the model-turned-TV host's painstakingly quirky but actually totally calculated MTV.com bio (like when you spent two hours perfecting your first MySpace profile so it had that ''I threw this together in five minutes, look how effortlessly funny I am'' vibe), make it clear that the show's producers are trying desperately to be hip and now, and they really want Alexa to be your new BFF.
The problem is, I'm still not sure why I'm supposed to like her. She seemed witty enough, throwing in one-liners between scripted banter, but her hosting style was too abrupt (girlfriend needs to learn how to work a transition better than ''moving on''). Then again, she's British (sweet) and she blatantly mocked surprise guests Heidi and Spencer Pratt to their faces (''Spencer, I'm very excited about your rap career''; on Heidi's ''classy'' nude photos: ''If I want a classy photo, I go to Playboy''). So I can't help but love her for that.
In the end, I just wish we got to know a little more about Alexa before being thrust into her ''world.'' Moody rock music over montage of New York City sites as opening credits + loft apartment set does not = a rapport. If the producers could quit it with the forced hipness, tone down the technology references (we get it, you're totally down with what the kids are up to these days), and save some segments for later shows so the interviews don't need to be conducted at such a rapid-fire pace, I could find myself tuning in. As it is, I need to see a bit more unscripted personality before I can fully get on board with her Chelsea Handler-for-the-Millennials shtick. It's only her first show, though, so I'll definitely give her some time to work out the kinks.
Did anyone else catch the premiere of It's On With Alexa Chung? Were you as overloaded with the web references as I was? What was your favorite segment? Do you think the series shows promise, or are you already over it?
