Sometimes, the best defense against the Dark Arts is to care. If you can rap, you can cast spells! Yet another installment in our ongoing efforts to compile all amazing Harry Potter ephemera:

As someone who has seen the movie Dangerous Minds literally dozens of times (I’ve even read My Darling, My Hamburger), this makes me outrageously happy. The soundtrack might not top “Amish Paradise,” but what does?

Accio comments and reactions, PopWatchers!

Good news, Anglophiles. BBC America has picked up the third season of my favorite British comedy Gavin & Stacey. The season is already airing across the pond and is now slated to run in the US in the second quarter of 2010. As an early present, we get to see the Christmas Special on Dec. 24. Here’s a teaser of season three’s first episode, as Gavin starts a new job in Wales and has a slag-off conversation with Smithy. Also in this series, we get to meet Nessa and Smithy’s baby and see Uncle Bryn start a singalong in church. Tidy!

Who else loves this show?

Toniiiiight, toniiiiight…is the season finale of The Biggest Loser. I’m so excited I could burst into show tunes! Who’s going to make it to the final weigh-in — America’s Choice Amanda or old-lady underdog Liz? (Don’t hate, she’s been harping on those things all season.) And how will the chosen lady fare against powerhouses Rudy and Danny in the final three?

I’m a proponent of girl power and all that, but I am firmly on Team Rudy-or-Danny going into tonight’s final episode rumble weigh-in. One thing that could sway my vote firmly into the Danny camp: Danny performance. Tonight. Make it happen, NBC! As season 8 recapper extraordinaire Darren put it, Thin Danny the High School Rock Star needs to make a triumphant return, stat. READ FULL STORY »

Okay, I’ll say it upfront, I’m not a big fan Christmas movies, so the thought of sitting through Debbie Macomber’s Mrs. Miracle wasn’t exactly my idea of a perfect night in. The Hallmark Channel film, which premiere Saturday night, starred James Van Der Beek as a widowed father of twins desperately seeking nanny, while Doris Roberts played the geriatric version of Mary Poppins. (She didn’t crinkle her nose or snap her fingers to make magic happen, the sound mix took care of that.) You could predict the formulaic plot line of this special ten minutes in. The 6-year-old boys redefined over-acting and the bad fake snow, crappy camera work and baby-doll-substituting-for-infant reaffirmed this was a movie-of-the-week.

Yet. It wasn’t horrible. Van Der Beek, all these years after Dawson’s Creek, is still pretty cute. His love interest, played by Erin Karpluk, sported a fantastic wardrobe and I coveted her hair. And Doris Roberts is still charming, though I was looking for a little more bite after loving her for years on Everybody Loves Raymond. Maybe the moral of the story is that — during Christmastime, at least — TV movies don’t have to be very good. Mrs. Miracle did its job. It made me nostalgic for the holidays, kept me interested for its two-hour run-time and, in the end, I was rooting for the lovebirds. What do you think? Did any of you watch this? Do you lower your standards when it comes to Christmas movies-on-tv?

Today it’s a festive holiday dance number. Tomorrow, they enslave our species.

I leave in fear of the robot take-over, PopWatchers.

ABC has taped an interview Chris Brown for 20/20, according to the AP. GMA anchor Robin Roberts conducted the interview, which is scheduled to air Dec. 11. Yes, Brown does indeed have a new album coming out right around then.

Last week on the Music Mix, we wondered if Chris Brown’s career rehab was working — and the answer seemed to be a tentative yes. I guess it makes sense that 20/20 would be on his image rehab tour, but I wonder if there’s actually anything Brown could do or say that would alter the public perception at this point. Are there really people whose minds could conceivably be changed by an interview?

I seriously doubt it, PopWatchers, but maybe you feel differently: Could a candid interview affect how you feel about Chris Brown — or change how likely you’d be to buy one of his albums?

Happy Turkey Day, PopWatchers! This year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade had a few new balloons, a revamped Santa float, and more NBC promos and placements than I can wrap my head around.

Highlights

Broadway! I’m a sucker for a show tune, and it was kind of nuts to see Hair being performed outside Macy’s. My conflicting cultural institutions, let me show you them! John Stamos’ Bye Bye Birdie performance, while, yeah, horribly lip-synced, was still charismatic and cute, and Billy Elliot and Shrek were completely serviceable. Fun times.

Cream-colored coats Jane Krakowski, Andrea Bocelli, Katharine McPhee — you heard it here first, PopWatchers. Winter whites are in!

Jimmy Fallon Was anyone having more fun than Jimmy Fallon? His medley was so goofy and enthusiastic, but I really wished it had included that stupid Christmas song from SNL back in the day.

Lowlights READ FULL STORY »

Do you approach the so-called “holiday” season with a wary eye and a crate of Pepto Bismol? Then you’ll probably enjoy the History Channel’s Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black, which debuted yesterday and is being shown again this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Why? Because Surviving… finds the Daily Show comedian and a host of other gagmeisters (including Craig Ferguson and Bob Saget) ripping apart the festive spirit with the enthusiasm of a fat kid tearing into a Thanksgiving turkey that’s been stuffed with chocolate (which has itself been stuffed with more turkey).

Yes, much like the holidays themselves, this two-hour show is twice as long as any sane person would wish and the sight of the famously Scrooge-ish (and Jewish!) Black dressed as Santa Claus is only half as amusing as the show’s makers seem think. But Surviving the Holidays is packed with chucklesome bon mots including Ferguson’s assertion that, “My favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal is sweet potatoes, because it sounds like a dancer I once knew,” and comedian Joe Mande’s suggestion that the traditional Thanksgiving Day football match should feature, “the Patriots defeating the Redskins and then taking their stadium.” However, my favorite moment came when brainiac humorist Sarah Vowell shamefacedly admitted that the only reason she had heard of “Chrismukkah” was because she used to watch The O.C.

Did you see Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black? Or do you intend to do so at some point this week between tryptophan-induced food comas? Let us know!

Regis Philbin has to take some recovery time in December and January — and while I’ll certainly miss Reeg and his special kind of crankiness, Kelly Ripa has welcomed some great guest hosts in the past. Who should replace Regis this time? A returning visitor (Anderson Cooper gets my vote – only if he dances this time!) or someone completely new? Would you watch Kelly on her own?

If the fireworks in this clip are any indication, movie star James Franco kicks off his two-month arc on General Hospital with a bang tomorrow. His character, Franco, seems to be the mysterious voyeur who’s been watching the mob activities in Port Charles, including Claudia Zachara’s murder/cover-up. This time it looks like he’s witness to a shoot-out involving the town’s premier hit man and his boss, Jason Morgan and Sonny Corinthos. And he’s making sure he gets noticed.

Franco is likely also an artist in town for an exhibit. The mysterious woman giving Franco a shave in the second clip  (played by Lost‘s Marsha Thomason) may be the agent-type heard in an earlier episode on an answering machine cryptically cautioning the artist to avoid any problems.

Check back tomorrow for Ken Tucker’s take on Franco’s first day.