Tag: Californication (1-8 of 8)

Jan 9 2011 01:58 PM ET

'Californication,' 'Shameless,' and 'Episodes': Are you excited for men behaving badly?

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showtimeImage Credit: Jordin Althaus; Colin Hutton; Cliff Lipson/ShowtimeSunday, Suuuuunday, Sunday! Tonight brings us two series premieres and one season premiere of dysfunctional-dude shows on Showtime: Californication returns for its fourth season, and Shameless and Episodes both premiere. It’s really hard being a middle-aged white guy.

The shows, of course, have absolutely nothing in common. Californication is about a mostly washed-up writer, Episodes about a mostly washed-up actor, and Shameless is about a totally washed-out schlub of a dad. Californication and Shameless both feature questionable, rarely sober parenting and highly sexualized young women played by actresses who made names for themselves in more prim roles –  Madeline Zima rose to fame on The Nanny; Emmy Rossum in The Phantom of the Opera. And lest we forget, there is of course the disapproving but occasionally enabling couple, like Californication‘s (divorcing) Charlie and Marcy, and Episodes‘ Sean and Beverly.

As much as I’m teasing, I’m actually pretty pumped for tonight: I can’t be the only person who craves non-football programming on Sundays, right? I was obsessed with the British Shameless, so I’m really looking forward to this adaptation, and the previews for Episodes looked really promising. This season of Californication includes Rob Lowe looking pretty gnarly, and that alone is worth tuning in. (Lowe’s not in tonight’s ep. But still!)

Which show are you looking forward to, PopWatchers?

Dec 2 2010 03:50 PM ET

'Parks and Rec'? 'Big Love'? 'Idol'? What January season premiere are you most looking forward to?

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2011-showsImage Credit: Danny Feld/ABC Family; Isabella Vosmikova/HBO; Patrick Harbron/USA NetworkRerun season — a.k.a. “most of December” — is upon us after tonight, so my sights are already set on January, when tons of my beloved shows return after months and months away. I’m most excited for Parks and Recreation, but there’s a Big Love-shaped hole in my heart right now as well. I can’t get enough of Greek — it’s a hybrid of Felicity and Undeclared, you guys — and I admit to a raging obsession with Pretty Little Liars, too. Plus Southland, my favorite current cop show, and Archer, the tragically under-appreciated but wildly hilarious cartoon on FX? Oh hell yes.

There’s plenty of other stuff coming back, too. Royal Pains, White Collar, Californication — is there nothing chic, handsome men can’t do? — all start back up, plus a little show called American Idol returns as well.

What January return are you most looking forward to, PopWatchers?

Jul 9 2010 04:08 PM ET

This is the week of Despicable Me

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despicable-weekImage Credit: Universal; David Studarus/Showtime ; Mark Brendel /ABC; Bob Luckey/Greenwich Times/AP ImagesImagine our surprise to receive this doomsday iPhone missive from Doc Jensen during his summer vacation: “A DARK CLOUD OF DESPICABLE ME-NESS HAS DESCENDED UPON US! RUN FOR OUR LIVES!” We honestly had no idea he was camping in the middle of the jungle on The Island from Lost. But as usual, Doc is correct! This week’s main source of entertainment has come from people behaving badly. READ FULL STORY »

May 26 2010 03:47 PM ET

Should Rob Lowe be allowed to look this bad?

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Rob Lowe is Brad Pitting it out with a grizzly beard and hobo hat for his three-episode stint as “Eddie Nero” on Showtime’s Californication. Mandi Bierly and I are a bit hypnotized but mostly horrified. “I want him looking his best on a show about sex,” she says, whereas I am digging the scruff but wish it didn’t extend more than an inch below the natural slope of his chinny chin chin. We both agree that if Rob Lowe looked like this in his real life as Rob Lowe, instead of in his fictional life as a TV character, our minds would explode. “The scruffiest he should look is in About Last Night,” Mandi says, “wearing sweat pants playing baseball in the park.” Wow, she’s so cool. [E! Online]

Annie on Twitter: @EWAnnieBarrett

Image credit: Jordin Althaus/Showtime

Apr 26 2010 05:23 PM ET

Rob Lowe to guest on 'Californication': Another reason to be happy he's leaving 'Brothers & Sisters'

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Rob-LoweImage Credit: John M. Heller/Getty ImagesI am already a huge fan of Rob Lowe’s post-Brothers & Sisters career. First, he booked a recurring role on NBC’s Parks and Recreation to showcase his comedic side (his first episode airs May 13, and he plays a state auditor); now, The Wrap reports he’ll guest star on the fourth season of Showtime’s Californication. He’ll play “Eddie Nero, an imbalanced yet charismatic, award-winning movie star who finds himself in contention to play Hank Moody (David Duchovny) in the film version of [F---ing & Punching].” It’s a one-episode gig that could be expanded, and I’m already confident saying it needs to be. How delicious is seeing Lowe, no stranger to a sex scandal, guest star on Californication period, let alone as an actor who could be cast as Hank in the adaptation of the book based on his dalliance with then 16-year-old Mia? I’m picturing Duchovny and Lowe (channeling his St. Elmo’s Fire and About Last Night… days) trying to out cool one another, and I like it. A lot.

Both Californication and Parks and Recreation sound so much more fun than Brothers & Sisters these days. That show is refusing to let anyone be happy for longer than 15 minutes. (Justin wants to drop out of med school and re-enlist after all the academic woes we’ve sat through this season? No.) Lowe’s lame duck Sen. McCallister just found out that he was blocked from some kind of top-secret intelligence job because another group wants him for a position that he can’t talk about. I’m still hoping he gets a dramatic death scene, as were 48 percent of readers in a recent PopWatch poll. He’s leaving the Walkers at just the right time. Run, save yourself, Rob! Go toward the light (comedy)!

Apr 15 2010 12:53 PM ET

Carla Gugino joins 'Californication'

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carla-guginoImage Credit: Ethan Miller/WireImage.comCarla Gugino will have a season four-long arc on Showtime’s Californication, Deadline Hollywood reports. She’ll play a “likeable corporate attorney” and new love interest for David Duchovny’s Hank Moody. Hank was arrested in the season three finale after physically assaulting Mia’s boyfriend/manager, who’d suggested Hank and Mia come clean about having sex when she was 16 — and her blackmailing him into letting the world think she wrote his novel about their affair — on Oprah. (Hank finally had to tell Karen about the secret — on the eve of them moving back to New York together as a family — and, well, that didn’t go well.)

What do you think? If anyone could make a corporate attorney “likeable,” it would be Gugino. She has that sweet face, and the rare ability to see-saw between family-friendly fare (the Spy Kids trilogy, Night at the Museum, Race to Witch Mountain) and decidedly-adult offerings (Entourage, Watchmen, Women in Trouble). I think she’ll be an interesting match for Moody — she’s someone the audience will feel protective of, and yet trust to take care of herself.

Cashmere Mafia‘s Addison Timlin has also been cast in a recurring role.

Sep 26 2009 10:00 AM ET

'Californication' season 3 preview: Kathleen Turner, Ed Westwick, and an homage to 'Shampoo'

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californication_lCalifornication returns to Showtime Sunday (10 p.m. ET) for a new season in which David Duchovny’s Hank is effectively a single dad, and, less effectively, a creative writing professor at a local university. While Karen (Natascha McElhone) is away working in New York, Hank will play with three women in what show creator Tom Kapinos calls an homage to Shampoo: He’ll juggle relationships with a talented twentysomething student/stripper (Saved!‘s Eva Amurri); his level-headed thirtysomething TA (Numb3rs‘ Diane Farr); and the fortysomething chair of the English department (Bridget Jones’s Diary‘s Embeth Davidtz), who happens to be the mother of his daughter’s best friend and the wife of the college’s dean (Peter Gallagher).

Other guests this season include Gossip Girl‘s Ed Westwick, who stops by Hank’s classroom for episode 2. “He’s this gay, creative writing student who has a crush on Hank and he wants to know what Hank thinks of his writing,” Kapinos says. ”Hank gives him the brutal truth, as only Hank can, and of course, the kid tries to commit suicide.” Rick Springfield will appear as a twisted version of himself in four episodes, beginning Oct. 11. He’ll become one of Charlie’s clients, as Mr. Runkle (Evan Handler) gets back in the agent business. Charlie and his wife, Marcy (Pamela Adlon), will end up living together in their home as they go through a divorce à la War of the Roses, which inspired our favorite bit of casting: Kathleen Turner plays Charlie’s razor-tongued boss, Sue Collini, who sticks around all season. “It seemed like such a long shot,” Kapinos says of nabbing Turner, “but we went out to her, and literally, the deal closed within a day. Sue’s just this ballsy, sexually free woman who’s still hanging on to the Easy Rider, Raging Bull view of Hollywood. Charlie essentially, in a very pleasant sort of way, ends up sexually harassed by her. There’s nothing evil about it — it’s not Demi Moore in Disclosure or something like that. He just haplessly becomes a victim of sexual harassment.” To quote Sue, “Oh, you can play hard to get all you like Runkle. But Sue Collini always gets the weenie.” That, for the record, is just about the only thing that she says that we can actually quote on this blog. It’s going to be a fun season.

Who’s psyched for the new season now?

Photo credit: Jordin Althaus/Showtime

Sep 23 2009 04:54 PM ET

Rick Springfield writing autobiography that we suddenly want to read...

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Rick-Springfield_lRick Springfield phoned us this week to chat about his upcoming four-episode guest arc on Showtime’s Californication. (The David Duchovny sex romp returns this Sunday at 10 p.m. ET; Springfield makes his grand entrance on Oct. 11, playing a twisted version of himself. We’ll tell you more in the issue of EW on-stands Oct. 2.) At the end of the call, he dropped the news that he’s currently shopping his autobiography. He sent the prologue and opening chapter around town last week. Though (hopefully) not as explosive as Mackenzie Phillips, Springfield assured us he’ll be “brutally honest about anything other than the things that will put me in prison.” Nice start! Asked for a sample anecdote, he gave us a pretty great one:

“Well, I went to Vietnam in 1969, with a band when I was 17 or 18, and we toured Vietnam for three months. I almost killed the band, blew us up with a hand grenade. And we basically lived off the good grace of the hookers there and bought dope off the little kids. I look back on that and I think, I’m lucky I’m not dead from it. The only way girls could make money back then was to be a prostitute. I was a young man, and we were all pretty cute, and they would give us freebies. I went home with this one, and I said, ‘Okay, I got to go back to the barracks now,’ because we stayed with all the soldiers in tents. It was pretty rough, it wasn’t like a USO tour at all. It was just this private guy that brought Australian bands over because we’re the closest occidental country to Vietnam. She threatened me, ‘She said, if you leave tonight I’ll kill you.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll stay.’ [Laughs] You never knew who had an AK-47 under their bed in Vietnam back then….” READ FULL STORY »

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