Most of you won’t even read this copy and will go straight to the video. To those of you who do this: Shame.
To the rest of you (Hey Carl), thank you for your patience. You realize that when something as delightful as Adam Lambert’s “Whataya Want From Me” music video premieres, perhaps its best to savor every moment of anticipation before watching it, like slowly taking off the giant novelty bow on your brand new Mercedes. Especially when that video is beautifully shot, like a living painting, and gives you that angsty Adam you’ve all been waiting for…
Don’t forget to tune into the Critics’ Choice Movie AwardsLive!, tonight at 9 PM on VH1, which will feature an appearance by Lambert and a very special guest presenter… YOU WILL NOT WANT TO MISS IT.
Oh, there’s also a pre-show starting at 8:30, where you’ll catch glimpse of all the fabulous celebrities before the show starts. (By the by,the line-up for the event is sick amazing. And we’re not just saying that because they’re paying us too. It’s real A-list business up in here.)
For Conan, losing The Tonight Show represents a loss of masculinity. To reunite with his missing testicles, Conan must first unite with a new platform and audience.
Letterman's purpose is not to mimic Jay but to emasculate him, retribution for the time Leno emasculated Letterman by beating him in the O.G. battle for The Tonight Show desk. David mocks Jay to resolve the long-term cognitive dissonance associated with a squeaky-voiced interloper taking that which Letterman believed he alone deserved—a jealousy not unlike that of an elder child, when a younger sibling takes his place suckling their mother's breast. (That's totally Freud, btw, I read it in one of the Hannibal Lecter books.) By summoning Jay Mouse's voice through his lips, Letterman exerts virtual control over an imaginary Leno. But the satisfaction is fleeting; Letterman must repeat it to comfort him, a Buddhist monk murmuring mantras or an autistic child, rocking softly back and forth.
Jimmy Kimmel was funnier than ever in his full-body impersonation of Leno on Tuesday (technically Wednesday, since Kimmel occupies the dreaded 12:05AM time slot on ABC)
Kimmel flourishes when allowed to deny the self, suggesting deep-seated insecurities. This psychological profile indicates a toxic level of self-hate—stemming either from long-term emotional abuse (Sarah Silverman, what did you do?) or a major life failure—and kinky-ass role play in the bedroom. Delighting in his corporeal transformation, Kimmel gives out warning signs that he may suffer from body dysmorphia; his own body is not enough. Also, kinda homoerotic to dress up in Jay's clothes, hair, and chin, thereby "entering" a Jay-like body, no?
Summation: Conan O'Brien is an emasculated beta male, David Letterman is an arrogant grudge-holder, and Jimmy Kimmel's psyche is screwed, and ragging on Jay Leno remains a cherished American pastime.
Osama's supple kisser remains thick and youthful, but in his eyes, there is weariness. His hair and beard have gone completely grey; his beard has a brittle, wiry texture due either to old age or a lack of quality hair conditioners in his secret lair.
Bin Laden's westernized mugshot reveals finger waves and a deep crease across his brow suggests many nights spent with his brow deeply knit. One imagines a troubled Osama staring at his reflection in a bathroom mirror. How does this shaving thing work, again? Curse my strict Muslim father. Never taught me this shit.
(AP)
AP - Jimmy Kimmel stepped into NBC's late-night fray on Jay Leno's turf, taking comic aim at him and NBC on "The Jay Leno Show."
Conan O'Brien placed his show on Craigslist last night in an ad that described the celebrated franchise as "designed for 11:35 but... easily moved." Jon Stewart disrupted the "moment of zen" to finally comment on the NBC situation, calling Jeff Zucker the "Cheney of television," while Jay Leno attempted to combat anti-Leno sentiment. David Letterman then spoofed these attempts. Watch our compilation to see what you missed.
UPDATE 4:30AM: It's back! Expect this ad to come and go for a while.
4 SALE: BARELY-USED LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW - MAKE ME AN OFFER!!! (Universal Studios)
Date: 2010-01-13, 3:48PM PST
This is a chance of a lifetime to own your very own late night talk show—guaranteed to last for up to seven months!! Really must see to appreciate.
Information for potential buyers:
- Measures 100' x 100' x 32' — plenty of room for a futon!
- Designed for 11:35 but can be easily moved
- Band can be sold separately
- Buyer must honor Barry Manilow booking next Thursday
MAKE ME YOUR BEST OFFER!!!!!! (Also willing to trade for Coldplay tickets.)
(Reuters)
Reuters - One of the surprises when the Golden Globes nominations were announced in December 2008 was the attention given "The Reader," a Holocaust drama that earned nods for best picture, director, screenplay and actress Kate Winslet.
Reuters - One of the surprises when the Golden Globes nominations were announced in December 2008 was the attention given "The Reader," a Holocaust drama that earned nods for best picture, director, screenplay and actress Kate Winslet.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - One of the surprises when the Golden Globes nominations were announced in December 2008 was the attention given "The Reader," a Holocaust drama that... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:52 am
Cheating Heart:Jenna Fischer is in talks to join Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis in the Farrelly Brothers's comedy Hall Pass. The story focuses on a wife (Fischer) who gives her husband (Wilson) a "hall pass" to sleep with other women. Sudeikis plays Wilson's best friend who also gets a "hall pass" from his wife. The whole arrangement begins to fall apart when the women try to use "hall passes" of their own. In the end, everything is patched up on the school bus ride home. [THR]
Sister Sister: ABC has picked up an untitled sitcom project form Friends alum Shana Goldberg-Meehan. Formerly known as Leap Frogs, the show will focus on two sisters, one of whom is unmarried but in a long-term relationship, while the other gets pregnant and marries a guy she barely knows. No word yet on casting but we're hoping Lisa Kudrow plays both sisters. [THR]
If You Rebuild It, They Will Film:Steven Spielberg plans to team up with the Science Channel to produce a documentary about the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site. Rebuilding Ground Zero, which will be shot in 3D, will focus on the construction of the Freedom Tower along with the park, museum and memorial attached to it. The show will air in six different episodes, ensuring maximum bummers. [Variety]
New Men: After airing only five episodes, TNT's Men of a Certain Age has been picked up for a second season with a 10-episode order. The show, which stars Ray Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula, explores the friendships of three middle age men. So far the show is averaging 4.4 million viewers, most of whom are disappointed when Bakula doesn't travel through time. [THR]
Five Years After the Levees Broke:Spike Lee is planning a follow-up documentary to When the Levees Broke for HBO. The untitled sequel, which will debut this summer, will focus on the hurricane's aftermath. Buy some tissues. [THR]
•Forget late-night for a minute. NBC does good things, too. Like produce "The Office," starring Jenna Fischer. Now, Fischer is in negotiations to star as Owen Wilson's wife in the new Farrelly brother's film "Hall Pass." Also starring Jason Sudeikis. The only other movie she starred in that we we can think of is the Will Ferrell film "Blades of Glory," which we thought was actually pretty funny. [THR]
•Curse you, Hollywood Reporter, for using the headline "Holy Ship!" for your story about how "Avatar" is closing in on "Titanic" as the number one boxoffice grosser ever. What the hell were you thinking? Are you the New York Post reporting on the Pope's cruise down the Hudson in a glassed-in speedboat? Because that is the only way this is excusable. [THR]
•Weirdest idea for a book adaptation since Woody Allen did Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex. Lionsgate has acquired the screen adaptation rights to pregnancy bible What to Expect When You're Expecting. Yes: A pregnancy guide is going to be a movie. Natalie Portman is in talks to play the table of contents. [The Wrap]
•So, Magnolia Pictures was able to score a PG-13 rating for the upcoming Colin Farrell mermaid fantasy flick "Ondine." But they had to cut out a "racy" and "operatic" sex scene to do it. At what price PG-13!? [The Wrap]
•SPOILER ALERT: That "30 Rock" Jamba Juice episode you just watched? Totally not product placement! Jamba paid zilch. [The Wrap]
•Stephen Spielberg is producing a six-part documentary about the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site for the Discovery Channel. It will be shot in 3-D, which is the only reason we're including it in the roundup. Anything in 3-D makes it; that's the rule. [Variety]
(AP)
AP - Jimmy Kimmel stepped into NBC's late-night fray on Jay Leno's turf, taking comic aim at him and NBC on "The Jay Leno Show."
The legendary soap opera "All My Children" will feature two Los Angeles politicos playing themselves to celebrate the show's return to shooting in California. ABC said Thursday that... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:04 pm
AP - The legendary soap opera "All My Children" will feature two Los Angeles politicos playing themselves to celebrate the show's return to shooting in California. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:04 pm
Congressional Democrats and labor leaders reached an agreement on taxing expensive health insurance policies yesterday, inching Washington a step closer to actually making health care reform happen. The negotiations raised the threshold at which the high-cost polices will be taxed ($8,900 instead of $8,500) and pushed back the date when the tax takes effect (2015 instead of 2013).
So now labor unions are appeased, but Democrats have new problems to deal with.
First, there's money. As it stood in the Senate bill, the tax would have generated $149 billion over 10 years and the new version brings in just $90 billion. Democrats are going to have to figure out a way to make that up. The deal has also opened Democrats up to more criticism about the party's willingness to cut deals with supporters. Expect to hear more quotes like this one from Minnesota Rep. john Kline in coming days: “This latest back-room maneuver is another example of how administration officials and their enablers in Congress will cut deals with their special-interest allies to impose a government takeover of health care."
Accord Reached on Insurance Tax for Costly Plans [NYT]
AFP - Editor & Publisher, a magazine which has chronicled the US newspaper industry for over a century, was sold, exactly two weeks after being shut down by its owner, the Nielsen Co.
Late-night hosts have talked about late-night more than anything else this week, so it only makes sense that Jay Leno had Jimmy Kimmel on his show last night for the "10 at 10" segment. Bad idea Jay. After asking Kimmel a few boring questions and getting equally boring answers, Leno asked him to describe the best prank he ever pulled. Kimmel answered: "I told a guy that five years from now, I'm going to give you my show. Then when the five years came, I took it back almost instantly." Yikes! Leno reacted with as much embarrassment as his cold heart would allow and moved quickly to the next question, which Kimmel answered with the next dig. Go ahead, try to make it to the end without cringing.
AP - Rosie O'Donnell said Thursday that it's time for Jay Leno to step aside for Conan O'Brien and "not try to flatten his tires before he even gets going."
MIAMI (Reuters) - Haiti's devastating earthquake has moved Hollywood and pop music stars to lead a rally for disaster relief donations and open their own wallets. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 10:06 pm
Two can play at this game. (Well, really, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, George Lopez, et al., it's been more like eight, but...)
Jay Leno had a few choice words for Conan...
Here's some free advice: Quit your job and find work on Wall Street, because according to the Wall Street Journal, America's largest banks and securities firms will pay their employees $145 billion for 2009, breaking a record set in 2007. The number comes from an analysis of the compensation to "executives, traders, investment bankers, money managers and others at 38 top financial companies." The sum of $145 billion represents an 18 percent increase over the $123.4 billion paid out in 2008 and a six percent increase over the $137.23 billion Wall Streeters made in 2007. This puts the average salary of employees at these companies at $149,192.
Turns out Bank of America spokesman Robert Stickler was right to get all pissy about people saying bonuses would be at a 2007 level. They're actually higher.
Banks Set for Record Pay [WSJ]
What doesn't sound fun about a "festival of dumbasses"?
Aka, what Chelsea Handler called Jersey Shore before actually sitting down and getting to know the charmingly...
Reuters - The subtitle of new film "The Sun Behind the Clouds" -- "Tibet's Struggle for Freedom" -- refers not only to the half-century dispute between Tibet and China but also to the divisions that have arisen among Tibetans around their beloved leader. The film is essential viewing for anyone who cares about the fate of the mountain region and the legacy of the Dalai Lama. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 14 Jan 2010 | 9:17 pm
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The four-day Martin Luther King Day weekend features a box office smackdown between "Avatar" and the tag-team pairing of two new pictures. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 9:09 pm
If you've been on the Internet at all today, then you likely know everything there is to know about the incredible General Larry Platt and his anti-sagging rap "Pants on the Ground." The guy is everywhere! The New York Times has written about him three times, his life story (which is pretty impressive) has been dug up, and the YouTube versions of "Pants on the Ground" are increasing at an exponential rate. Now Neil Young's cover is here. Earlier today at the taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, the legendary singer-songwriter delivered a heart breaking rendition of "Pants on the Ground." It's stirring.
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - When the catastrophic earthquake rumbled through Haiti before dinnertime Tuesday, it set in motion a response among the networks molded in part by the South... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 8:59 pm
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Admit it: You experienced a jolt upon seeing that first billboard for "Edge of Darkness" right after New Year's. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 8:56 pm
The secret to being a rocket scientist has been revealed—cocaine! NASA is currently investigating the origins of a bag containing cocaine residue that was discovered in the hanger of the space shuttle Discovery in Cape Canaveral. "There are no obvious indications of anyone acting oddly or under the influence," a NASA spokesman said. Really, astronauts always stay awake for 50 hours at a time. [MSNBC]
Warner Brothers might have pressured Kevin Smith into changing the name of his upcoming buddy-cop movie from A Couple of Dicks to Cop Out, but the director gets the last laugh (or maybe it's just a grin) with the films tagline: "Rock out with your glock out." See what he did there? [Cinematical]
One tricky point: Lera and Steve—her husband of six years—have to actually be in love! This is so important! THEY MUST SAY THEY ARE IN LOVE:
OK, they were a little sketchy on the whole 'love' thing. But we'll clean it up in post-production.
The way we see it, Lera, you've got about a week to convert your 'Oprah' appearance into TOTAL MEDIA DOMINATION. We know you're good at seizing opportunities! And though you've got some projects in the works, here are a few other options you ought to consider:
Memoir: Eat, Pray, Find a Rich Husband and Get the Hell Out of Ukraine
Hit Single: "We are living in a post-feminist world/and I am a post-feminist girl"
Dating Service: Something like J-Date, only more explicit about the whole money thing.
"Thank God we live in the USA!" -Oprah Winfrey
When Newsweek's January 25 issue hits newsstands on Monday its cover story will be an essay about the devastating earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday, written by a guy you may have seen on TV—President Obama. The magazine had been planning to run a story on that whole Google v. China skirmish but when the earthquake hit editor Jon Meacham called up David Axelrod who asked his boss if he was game to write an essay for the magazine. And Obama said yes. Yes Time, it's really that easy.
Nick Bilton, New York Times: He might be lead blogger on Bits, the Times tech blog, but Bilton has also worked as a user interface specialist and hardware hacker in the Times R&D lab, helping to develop the TimesReader. He also knows his way around a C compiler.
Learning to program is yet another way journalists are becoming generalists, more like pamphleteer, typesetter, postmaster and newspaper publisher Ben Franklin and his fellow ink-stained polymaths than highly specialized publishing types like Bob Woodward, Annie Leibovitz or Mario Garcia. Your typical professional blogger might juggle tasks requiring functional knowledge of HTML, Photoshop, video recording, video editing, video capture, podcasting, and CSS, all to complete tasks that used to be other people's problems, if they existed at all: production, design, IT, etc.
Coding is the logical next step down this road, albeit one that might only appeal to more ambitious or technically-minded journalists, the sort of people who want to launch their own websites, or attach a truly powerful and interactive feature to an existing one.
I told myself that [the code] had succeeded for a number of reasons that were vaguely unfair: The users knew the programmers; the names database had been populated in advance; the programmers could use the in-house mailing list to launch the application...
The designers came from the same population as the users, and could thus treat their own instincts as valid; beta-testers could be recruited by walking down the hall; and it kept people from grandiose "boil the ocean" attempts. What I hadn't anticipated was the second-order benefits. Time and again the groups came up against problems that they solved in part by taking advantage of social infrastructure or context-sensitive information...
Gartner recently caused a stir by saying there would be 235,000 fewer programmers in the US ten years from now. This would have been like predicting in the 80s, that there would be fewer typists in the US by 2004. Such a prediction would be true in one sense — the office typing pool has disappeared, and much data entry work has moved overseas. But actual typing, fingers hitting the keyboard, has not disappeared, it has spread everywhere.
So with programming; though all the attention is going to outsourcing, there's also a lot of downsourcing going on, the movement of programming from a job description to a more widely practiced skill. If by programmer we mean "people who write code" instead of "people who are paid to write code", the number of programmers is going to go up, way up, by 2015, even though many of the people using perl and JavaScript and Flash don't think of themselves as programmers.
Sorry, professional programmers: Disintermediation is a bitch, isn't it? On other hand, if the first wave attacking your profession is a bunch of journalists, well, you probably don't have to start sweating anytime soon.
(Top pic: Bilton in the Times R&D lab, by Dennis Crowley. Bottom pic: Shirky at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, by Sean Salmon)
O'Reilly tonight had a dumb fit over all the aid money the U.S. sends to Haiti; Olbermann freaked out about Pat Robertson. But Campbell Brown was just really sad. And, honestly? We were, too.
How do you get a gazillion young people to help earthquake-devastated Haiti?
Have Robert Pattinson talk to them.
As you may have already heard, George Clooney is heading up a...
Yes, everyone, Leonardo DiCaprio is a Jersey Shore fan!
At least that's what he told the reality show stars when they ran into him at last night's Vida launch party at West...
Four kids might not be enough for the Wahlberg clan.
"She's saying she's done, but she did start hinting to the fact that this would be the last time that we're in the...
Oh come on, people!
There's so much existing juicy smut in the world, from Tiger Woods to the backstage dealings on The Bachelor. Why add Lindsay Lohan to the mix when the mix is...
• Is NBC close to resolving the mammoth mess it has on its hands? TMZ reports the network has reached a deal with Conan O'Brien (in which he'll leave NBC with some amount of money, and Leno, in turn, will take over The Tonight Show). Others, however, say the negotiations continue and NBC chief Jeff Zucker's been playing hardball with O'Brien. So who knows. Fortunately, Conan has lots of exciting options to consider when he finally walks out the door. • Related: NBC announced its new, post-Leno primetime lineup today. [NYT] • George Clooney will host a live telethon on Jan. 22 to benefit earthquake victims in Haiti. ABC, NBC, MTV, HBO and CNN will all broadcast it. [EW] • Why isn't Fox News covering the tragedy in Haiti? Because rehashing faux controversies involving President Obama always comes first, duh. [MM] • Avatar could top Titanic and become the top-grossing movie in history this weekend. In related news, it seems the Avatar backlash is in full swing. • Robert Pattinson won't be Tobey Maguire's replacement in Spider-Man. [E!] • American Idol creator Simon Fuller is starting up a new company. [LAT] • Editor & Publisher is back in business under new ownership. [E&P] • Is the ratings dry spell at MTV almost over? MTV execs hope so! [LAT] • The cleanest and dirtiest cafeterias in the media industry. [DF]
The eight worst neighbors you can possibly have living in a New York City apartment building, according to a totally unscientific survey: "amateur gourmets; hoarders; nasty drunks; the Brady Bunch; trust fund babies; smokers and tokers; musicians, or, worse, aspiring musicians; and insecure rescue dogs." Or a reality TV "star" who drinks, smokes, has eight kids, four girlfriends, and sometimes ransacks his own apartment for the publicity value. [Brick Underground]
Chris Parnell first made a name for himself during his eight-year stint as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, but in the intervening years, he's carved out quite a career for himself as a go-to comedic character actor in both television and film. In addition to his hilarious recurring role as the quacky Dr. Leo Spaceman on 30 Rock, Parnell is contributing his voice talents to FX's new animated spy spoof, Archer. Vulture spoke to him about his Method preparation for playing a cartoon character with a 12-inch wang, what it was like to be fired by Lorne Michaels not once but twice (!) and whether he's on Team Conan or Team Leno.
In Archer, you play a numbers-crunching bureaucrat with jealousy issues who works in the office of a company that specializes in spying and international intrigue. We're assuming you've never held a position like that in real life, so where do you draw your inspiration from?
Oh gosh. I appreciate and enjoy mathematics and science and all that side of things I definitely have that side of me even though I’m not by any means an expert, but I love reading about physics and math and that kind of stuff. I wish I knew more than I did. I mean, I read books written for laymen, not textbooks or anything. So that and just drawing on my own insecurities and nerdishness.
Does it take any special preparation to play an extremely well-endowed cartoon character, one that the ladies in the office gossip about being 12 inches down there? Or is it totally just a Method thing?
Well, I guess it’s something you keep in your pocket, so to speak. It only occasionally, probably, colors how he presents himself. It gives him a little extra confidence at times, but he’s so insecure about Lana and Archer's relationship that it doesn’t quite make up for that.
Most of America first came to know you during your 8 year stint on SNL. That was one of the longest runs in the history of the program, but it also meant that Lorne Michaels had to let you go on two separate occasions. What was it like leaving the first time, then going back, then having to leave again?
Yeah, well, overall SNL was fantastic. I feel incredibly lucky that I was able to do that for the amount of time that I was between the job itself, what it got for me professionally but even a lot of ways more importantly, the people that I worked with and that I’ve met, the friendships that I’ve made there and all the hosts that came through and getting to work with all those people. It wasn’t always great, there were definitely tough times, the toughest of which was when I was fired the first time and which really came out of left field and pretty devastating.
I’d been on for three seasons and, some people go in there with guns blazing like Will Ferrell and Jimmy [Fallon] too, they’re just right there and off with the gun. For me, it took me a bit longer to build up my confidence and find my footing and as soon as I was feeling like I had done that I got cut loose and that was pretty hard.
Was it a tough decision to go back?
Not at all. There was no consideration, I was absolutely going back, I absolutely wanted to. There had been such an outpouring of support from both the cast and the writers, people where were just like, I can’t believe this happened and from what I hear Will [Ferrell] and [Chris] Kattan went to bat for me and certainly one of the writers did. There were a lot of people who were in my camp and you know Lorne to his credit at the TCA panel we did the next year, it came up and Lorne admitted that he made a mistake, which was really cool of him.
From what we have heard, he rarely does stuff like that.
So I appreciated that and our relationship is still good. When I got let go the second time, I was pretty okay with it. It still stung a little because you don’t ever want to be let go but it was me, Horatio [Sanz], [Rachel] Dratch and I knew they had to cut $10 million out of the budget. I was a little burnt out, so it was alright.
Something we felt you never got the proper credit for was the runaway success of "Lazy Sunday." That came out towards the end of your run, and the way we see it, you really pioneered that form with your Weekend Update raps about Britney Spears and Jennifer Garner.
Yeah, well Akiva [Schaffer] and Andy [Samberg] and Jorma [Taccone], you know they had had this website already, The Lonely Island, and they had been making music videos and stuff for the site, so they came to SNL with the skill set already. They had seen the raps I had done previously so they came to me and said "Hey, we want to try and do a rap and do you want to do it with us." And I said, "Yeah, of course, absolutely." So the four of us sat down in their office and wrote it over the course of a Monday and Tuesday and recorded it that Tuesday night, went out and shot it all on Thursday. Akiva was doing the camera work and Jorma was sort of doing everything else, holding the playback of what we recorded on Tuesday night and just sort of running around New York shooting it. That was my involvement with it.
And then Saturday night, I got to see what they had come up with, what they put together and it was just crazy. It got a really nice response from the audience and I was like, "Ah that was gratifying, that was fun." I knew they were going to post it to their site, I didn’t know that it was going to be posted necessarily to YouTube, I don’t think. That was the last show before Christmas and I went back to Memphis for the holidays and I was there with my family and I got a call from Marc Liepis from NBC publicity saying, "Hey, the New York Times wants to interview you about this music video, it's become this thing" and I was like, "What?" I really had no idea, that was my first hint that it had become a phenomenon.
So, can you tell us what the future holds for Dr. Spacemen on 30 Rock? What do you think he does in his off-time?
I’m always up to exploring more aspects of Leo’s personality, but they do a pretty good job of going there for me. As for his off-time, I’m sure he’s involved in some shady research or he’s off in a foreign country doing something questionable medically.
One last question for you. Are you team Conan or team Leno?
Well, Conan clearly is the one that’s gotten screwed in all of this, along with everyone who had jobs for those five one hour blocks on NBC and all the NBC affiliates. I definitely feel for Conan on this one. Clearly, this is something that meant a lot to him, being a host of the Tonight Show and he did earn his way up there. I can’t completely fault NBC, I think the deal that happened back in 2004 whenever it was, was probably questionable to assume that Leno was going to be ready to retire in 2009 and all of that. Yeah, it’s a mess, but I definitely my heart goes out to Conan and all the people that work on the show, he’s the one who’s been wronged. I’d love to see him go to Fox, I’d love to continue to see him do a great show, wherever it is.
And then there was one. Week, that is.
While NBC refuses to go on the record about when Conan O'Brien may be saying his final good-night to The Tonight Show, evidence is mounting to...
Poor Carson Daly. All week long, Letterman has delighted in mocking NBC's fourth-string late-show host ("The Pluto of talk shows!"), which has still been funny, even if it's totally just piling on. (Also, sort of unfair: Even at 1:30, Carson's show regularly outperforms ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which airs a full 90 minutes earlier, making Last Call one of the few overachievers in NBC's lineup.) Here's a highlight reel.
If you hadn't noticed from all the television commercials, officially recognized city celebrations, and the banner ads coating this very website, Project Runway is hurtling back to a television near you. As part of the publicity groundswell for Project's return to the airwaves (and premiere on Lifetime), Betty Confidential spoke to judge and Marie Claire fashion director Nina Garcia, who offered previews of the new contestants and snippets from her off-camera life, including some chestnuts about her young son. One point of concern, though: When asked what was the "must-have" for this coming season, Garcia said, "a pair of camouflage cargo pants. Camo is back in a big way." Oh, no. Not again.
AP - "Iron River" (Dutton, 369 pages, $26.95), by T. Jefferson Parker: Mexico is paying a high price for America's appetite for illegal drugs. The drug cartels have murdered an estimated 15,000 people in the last three years and the violence has spilled across the border to the American Southwest.
The First Lady stopped by the U.S. Department of Labor Day Care Center today to read Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham to the youngsters, wearing a black turtleneck, a gray patchwork skirt, a few bangles, and a perfectly primped bob. See the full look in the Michelle Obama Look Book.
For those of you who aren’t rabid followers of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ local-ass commercials for A&L Motors featuring forward Max Talbot, they just released an epic FOURTH installment (move over, Saw series!) Because the ads are sequential (it’s like frickin’ Lost – they should do a “Previously On These Commercials” segment before each one), here are the previous three:
I expect Doc Jensen will have his 13-page recap of the new commercial any day now. Just be careful talking about any spoilers in the workplace – people might get pissed at you if they’re still only on Commercial 2.
You juiceheads out there aren't going to believe this, but MTV is running not one, but TWO new episodes of Jersey Shore tonight! We're not entirely sure why they decided to reduce the overall run of their most popular show in eons by burning two new episodes in one night, but we've never been the type to look a gift horse in the mouth (at least, not without the liquid confidence that comes after slamming a pitcher of Ron-Ron juice). Anyway, as a means of whetting your appetite for tonight's two-hour extravaganza, we'd like to share with you this delightful slice of cuteness that is sort of like the Muppet Babies meets Jersey Shore (only this time around, the mini-Situation may or may not have an outie).
Novelist John Lanchester's I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay is a book about the financial crisis that even people who hate reading about the financial crisis should enjoy. Funnier and more thoughtful than its peers on the current crisis bookshelves, it's an essayistic indictment of the culture of post–Cold War capitalism as the root cause of the crisis. It was even blurbed by Will Self! Resident crisis-book binge reader Moe Tkacik talked to the author about how the "douchebag culture" of bankers helped cause the crash and why, despite the vastness of their crimes, there will probably never be a Wall Street version of The Wire.
So, John Lanchester: When you're not writing novels, you review Naipaul and Nabokov for the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. Why bother parsing such turgid esoterica as the structure of CDO-squareds?
Well, it's a great story, for starters. But my father was a banker, so it was always less alien to me, I suppose. The project started as an outgrowth of a novel I was writing in which the main character is a banker. I was just sort of marinating in the stuff anyway, and the LRB asked me to do a few pieces on banks, and then Northern Rock blew up. And basically what happens every time I finish a novel is that I stick the draft in a drawer and tell myself that now is the time to learn German or take up Pilates, and then before I know it three months have passed and I can look at the draft again. If I were a rock band, [writing the book] would have been a side project. Of course, it was too effective as a distraction technique, and now I feel like I'm going to pick up my novel and find a 600-page book about bunny rabbits or something.
You've joined some crankier critics praising the (realistic!) The Wire as ne plus ultra of contemporary novels. Why not try to write The Wire of high finance?
The thing is, fiction has to seem true, and the finance world is full of things that are just so unlikely you can't write about them without addressing the subject of their unlikeliness. Like [Goldman Sachs CFO] David Viniar saying that it was a "25 sigma event" when it turned out poor people couldn't afford to pay their mortgage resets. You really could not make that shit up, and if you did make it up, it wouldn't be interesting. It's only interesting because it's true. I would love to see The Wire of Wall Street, but I just don't know if you could do it.
Because Wall Street is simply too big and too technical, or because guys like David Viniar aren't compelling/sympathetic-enough characters?
For one thing, scenes are very hard to dramatize. So much of the drama in finance hinges on esoteric technicalities. It's hard to think how you'd explicate the stuff to a larger audience without adopting an irritating narrative gimmick along the lines of the proverbial "Tell me, professor" scene in science fiction. As for bankers, I find the people at the other end of the food chain more interesting. The victims have a more kind of human appeal to me. With regard to the bankers themselves, less so. I don't think this was always the case; one of the books I read as research for the novel was this four-volume history of the City of London by David Kynaston, which starts in 1815 and goes up to the present day. And in the introduction to the fourth volume, he writes a disclaimer, something along the lines of, "I have to warn you, reader, the people in this volume are less interesting than the ones who populated the first three volumes. They work so hard, their lives are so completely consumed by their professional ambitions, it's rare that anyone gets the time to become interesting." When you look at the history of finance, the people seem strikingly smaller now than they did in the era of, say, J.P. Morgan. While the systems and the ramifications of what they do is much more interesting, the attention and rigor and ambition and labor required to rise to the top of it doesn't leave a whole lot for much else.
Your critique of finance is the only one I've read that, while giving due credit to the flawed regulatory regime and "incentive structures" and whatnot, zeroes in on the banking culture, promulgated by platitudes as "lunch is for wimps," "sack the bottom 10 percent," and "if you can't measure it, it isn't real." Do you agree that most of the crisis books have elided the problem of "douchebag culture" to everyone's peril?
Well, as you know, there's a scene in the Lehman Brothers memoir A Colossal Failure of Common Sense where he goes out to Southern California and meets the subprime mortgage meatheads taking their three-martini lunches. It's shocking and very, very vivid, and by the end of the scene you completely believe it; okay, those were the assholes who were pumping these things onto the most vulnerable lenders, it makes sense now. What makes the scene all the more compelling is that there are so few like it, which goes back to the one thing I will never get over about this story: Wall Street employs thousands upon thousands of analysts and consultants who are paid to scrutinize this stuff. All any of them had to do would be to get into the elevator, go down 30 or 40 stories, catch a cab to Penn Station, and take a train pretty much anywhere where they were selling these things, and just spend a morning talking to literally anyone in the real-estate business. That's all it would have taken to uncover this massive systemic just sort of crazy levels of unsupportable lending glaring everywhere, in your face. And yet so few of them connected the dots.
But even now that the dots linking "obscene bonuses" to "widespread economic devastation" have become clear, you are pessimistic about the prospects for a cultural shift, depicting London financiers as largely indignant about being vilified — perhaps because the U.K. is taxing their bonuses now — whereas in America, where there seems to be a much stronger current of populist outrage actually running within the financial community, we seem to have achieved approximately nothing in terms of curbing the excess.
Well, it's a very common attitude in lots of parts of Europe to assume that if someone's rich that they've stolen the money, or that anyway, they inherited what one of their ancestors must have stolen. Theft is broadly construed as the source of all wealth. That worldview at the moment is quite true, although it is still a bit blasphemous to think so in America, where the philanthropic efforts of men like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have tended to cast capitalists in a socially conscious light. It's different in finance, which people go into with the goal of making money. That said, I think bankers everywhere really, really mind the public opprobrium, and that's why we have to keep at it.
To that end, how do you feel about now–Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner?
Well, he was part of the team that averted a Great Depression, let's not fail to award the coin. But they've missed a historic opportunity to kick some butt and take some names and impose some real curbs on this behavior, and those are going to be some very expensively missed opportunities. Because if you had proper reform, there would be no reason for it to happen again. The rescue was one thing, but the failure to act on it is gonna have the potential to be really catastrophic. The system is not fixed. It is nowhere near fixed.
A judge in Rockland County sentenced former NY1 anchor Dominic Carter to a month behind bars today for beating up his wife in 2008. Carter wasn't too happy with the decision. But at least he didn't leave the courtroom empty-handed: The judge gave him a green sticker that reads "Attitude Makes the Difference" and an article about Matt Damon before he was escorted off to jail. [NYDN]
Front Page: Holiday weekend boasts 'Avatar' plus 'Eli,' 'Spy' -- The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday could see another record-breaking weekend at the domestic B.O.
We know Leighton Meester plays a sometimes snotty brat on Gossip Girl, but did life imitate art Tuesday night?
Earlier that evening, Leighton was all smiles with her fellow...
You're looking at the sheets by Calvin Klein Home, right? Oh, of course.
Jesus Luz stars in his own spread and Q&A feature for the new issue of Interview magazine. Photographer Mikael Jannson shot the Dolce & Gabbana face in seven different situations, a variety that includes a bondage-inspired look with a blindfold and leather straps as well as a make-it-rain photo where his Jheri curl is totally drenched. His abs get prime placement in the other pictures, spectacularly, especially in one where he's lounging on the bed with Calvin Klein Home bedding with one sheet placed so low you can see all of his down-there manscaping preferences up close. With that cigarette dangling from his mouth and his hand covering his eyes, it's hard to say exactly what he's thinking, but surely it has to be something nasty.
The Hollywood “reboot” has become of accelerated interest the past few years following the enormous successes of the new Batman movies, Star Trek, and Casino Royale, which is understandable given Hollywood’s ongoing effort to always do what itself is doing, but the actual word “reboot” has, in the last two years, jumped from “term in quotes used as a tidy way to say ‘Forget about that last sucky movie with the same title, here’s a new one’” to “ubiquitous term required to describe any movie that is in any way based on a past thing.”
In the past three days alone, we’ve gotten word that Spider-Man 4 will be a reboot, as well as some casting rumors about the upcoming Conan The Barbarian reboot (Sidenote – Do we really need to ‘reboot’ a franchise that old? Can’t we just ‘build a new computer?’)
Superman is rebooting. The Karate Kid is rebooting. The Hulk tried rebooting five years after booting to begin with (unless that in itself was a reboot of the previous Hulk boots, even though none of those were very booted).
Hollywood execs have extra incentive to use the word “reboot”, too, because the term “remake” immediately connotes “Making crappy version of old classic thing that’ll just piss everyone off,” whereas “reboot” signifies “Hey, this movie might end up being The Dark Knight! Didn’t you love The Dark Knight?” As such, its use has increased exponentially over the past few years, especially in the trade papers — or as I call them because I’m a Hollywood know-how, “Trader Joeses” — and it’s now in every article about every movie. Yep, literally every sentence. Even stuff about The Hurt Locker.
With Twitter, Twilight, and unfriend out of the picture, 2010 is looking like reboot’s time to shine. And if it doesn’t shine, well, we’ll just have to completely start over with a different synonym.
New York has been exploding with Good Samaritanism lately. Last week, a cab driver returned a purse with $21,000 cash in it to an old lady. Tuesday, on a routine inspection of his train, a Long Island Railroad conductor named Larry Pinkham found a wallet on a seat containing $2,830 and, despite the fact that he was all alone in the car with no one around to see what he did with it, promptly returned it to its owner. "We’re here for the customers," he told the Post.
It's not that we don't find these stories heartwarming — we do — but a part of us is a little troubled that this is becoming a trend, one that might have lasting effects on New York's gruff and gritty reputation. Someone needs to put a stop to it, if you ask us. Show the world that we're not going soft. That we're not the Midwest. Which is why we're keeping the $5 we found on the street today. Just because it happened to be on the ground behind a 6-year-old swinging an open Dora the Explorer purse doesn't mean it's hers. Plus, we've got to do our part to keep New York New York.
Score one for good taste.
Choosing not to linger over icky legal details, the family of Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein has settled its lawsuit against LearJet, Goodyear Tire and several...
SKIN
• Miranda Kerr suggests you get yourself some noni juice. “I’ve been drinking noni juice for the last 12 years, my grandparents introduced it to me. I am not the same without it — it does incredible things for my skin.” [PopSugar Australia]
PLASTIC SURGERY
• Susan Boyle: "I haven't changed from an ugly duckling to a swan but I do try and take care of myself. I have a new hairdresser and I have discovered Botox, as well as getting my teeth whitened." [Showbiz]
FRAGRANCE
• Fashion house Maison Martin Margiela launched its first fragrance, Untitled, which was developed by perfumer Daniela Andrier. It is set to debut at Colette in Paris next week and elsewhere in March. [Now Smell This]
MAKEUP
• Capitalizing on its ever-popular Orgasm peach/pink shade of products, Nars Cosmetics is launching an illuminator that will be available exclusively at Sephora this February. It is a soft shimmer liquid formula that was originally used at the Thakoon, Marchesa, and 3.1 Phillip Lim spring 2010 runway shows. [Beauty Blogging Junkie]
• Japanese actress Meisa Kuroki signed on to become the newest face of L'Oréal Paris. [Japan Today]
• Marchesa designed a free gift bag full of samples for Drugstore.com shoppers who spend $150 or more. The bag is pink with a huge flower on it. [Drugstore.com]
• Avon's trying different marketing techniques to hook in a younger demographic with its lower-price spinoff named Mark., such as a Facebook e-shop. They've also integrated 40,000 Mark Girls, who are women between the ages of 18 and 24, as their new direct salespeople, who know how to sell products through digital marketing. [NYT]
Gawker's Doree Shafrir intercepted a memo from Times "Metro" editor Joe Sexton about a new reporter they're looking to hire:
Yes, we're finally doing it: Creating a full-time beat covering New York's private schools. It is, perhaps, the one topic other than real estate that lights up cocktail party conversation. Dalton. Brearley. Fieldston. Spence. Collegiate, Horace Mann and Riverdale. And, yes, Regis and Ramaz and St. Ann's and The Little Red Schoolhouse, too. They are bastions of aspiration and privilege both, places that inspire fierce competition and intense curiosity, worlds known to few outside their citizens yet critical to the shaping of the wider one. OK, maybe that's a bit much, but we know this: The stories are yakkers that race up the most e-mailed list and get noticed; we're talking about the kids of the people who run the world here.
Or, more accurately put, the kids of the people the Times wants to have reading its paper. And who doesn't like reading about their own kids?
Ali Wise, NYC's most famous ex-publicist/alleged voicemail hacker, turned up in court this morning! But don't expect to see droves of socialites flocking to Manhattan Criminal Court in the months ahead to show their support when Wise takes the stand. Her lawyers are now looking to cut a deal with prosecutors and avoid a trial:
Dethroned PR princess Ali Wise is in talks with Manhattan prosecutors, hoping to avoid a felony indictment on accusations she hacked into the voicemails of her ex-boyfriends' new girlfriends. The Barbie-blonde society gal was back in court this morning, and stood smiling slightly in her high heels and tight-fitting white wool coat as a prosecutor said his office has held off on convening a grand jury so that the negotiations can go forward.
How close is Wise to reaching a deal? What would the plea involve? Most importantly: Did she wear anything by Dolce & Gabbana—her former employer—when she went to court today?
Per Wise's rep: "Ali's attorneys are continuing their discussions with the DA, so we can't comment any further."
It’s raining teaser trailers for upcoming HBO shows we’re legitimately excited about! First we got a brief look at David Simon’s Treme, and now here’s 57 seconds of Boardwalk Empire. It’s kind of a snooze, actually, which is not something you’d expect to hear about a project that involves the phrases “produced and directed by Martin Scorsese,” “written by The Sopranos’ Terence Winter,” “starring Steve Buscemi,” and “about gangsters wrecking shop in 1920’s Atlantic City.” We basically just get a few gunshots, some well-cut period garb, and a whole lot of forlorn looks. Guess we’ll have to wait until the premiere (the exact date is unannounced, but word is not till fall) for the goods. For now, you'll have to continue to get your entertainment from NBC's late-night scheduling news.
An artist calling herself Finley will be plastering wallpaper over Dumpsters in Brooklyn Heights tomorrow. She just wanted to let you know in advance. [Curbed]
The fashion world may be a judgmental community, but let it never be said that it is an uncaring one. Fashion Delivers, the four-year-old relief charitable foundation that distributes excess clothing to needy individuals and families all around the globe, is issuing a massive open call to designers and stores to donate "lightweight apparel" for men, women, and children in response to the epic catastrophe still unfolding in Haiti. The group is also calling for "underwear, socks, sheets (all sizes) and throws or lightweight blankets as well as baseball caps, sneakers, sandals, and sleepwear" — basically anything and everything the people of the island nation will need over the coming days, weeks, and years to stay clothed. Already Brooklyn-based retailer Bird has pledged to donate clothes on sale and 10 percent of all its sales this weekend to the cause. While the team is still working on other arrangements with boutiques and producers, with people like Sean Combs, Russell Simmons, and others on their board of directors, more high-profile campaigns should be coming soon.
Disgraced former NY1 political anchor Dominic Carter will serve 30 days in jail for choking and kicking his wife, and will be barred from being near his wife for two years if he does not undergo therapy with a psychologist who will prescribe him medication. Upon sentencing, Carter burst into tears. "Courtney, I’m counting on you, I need you to be a big girl," he said tearfully to his daughter, who is 21. Judge Arnold Etelson had harsh words for Carter, but assured him and his wife, Marilyn: "Someday, you both will thank me." [NYP]
Remember yesterday when you, the loyal Vulture commenters, took us to task for saying that Fox affiliates wouldn't exactly be doing cartwheels if they had to give up their nightly 11 p.m. syndication block in favor of some sort of Conan-helmed gabfest? Well, as it turns out, that is exactly the case! (Though no one dared utter the words MADtv.) According to a report in today's Broadcasting & Cable, Fox affiliates have been crunching the numbers and stand to "lose millions" if they are forced to give back this hour to the parent company, and that affiliate stations "fall somewhere between lukewarm and intrigued about the notion of O'Brien shifting to their late night air."
You see, their lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact that affiliates would have to give back a lot of the commercial time — some say as high as ten minutes worth — that they normally run during that hour to the parent company, inventory that is not only a big revenue generator for them, but also very profitable air time. Making matters worse, one Fox affiliate that B&C spoke to had to go and dredge up the dreaded name of Chevy Chase, who network brass also promised would also be super successful back when his show premiered in 1993. "They thought there might be some flow there, but it just didn't happen," says the affiliate. "It's like drilling for oil — you just don't know what you're going to get." In other words (and to keep the oil analogy going to its logical conclusion), it seems as if the affiliates have serious doubts as to whether Conan will be able to drink Jay Leno's milkshake.
There is a frenzy of designer sunglasses hitting the stores this spring. Our favorites out of the bunch are Stella McCartney's. Here are five reasons we love them:
1. She's morphed classic shapes ever so slightly to make them just hip enough to look new and right for now.
2 The prices for designer shades can run high, but hers are definitely reasonable.
3. Her pals love them: Gwyneth, Gwen, and Sofia Coppola, to name but a few.
4. Her use of color in the frames is not overpowering and adds glamour to the face.
5. Gotta love an accessory that's going to last years and not months in your wardrobe. What a concept!
$190 to $250 at Ilori, 138 Spring St., nr. Wooster St.; 212-226-8276.
That rumor yesterday about Sarah Jessica Parker teaming up with Halston? It's true, although what she'll be doing for the label wasn't disclosed, other than she'll have an "active design role" of some kind. Oh, and Halston co-owner Harvey Weinstein didn't have anything to do with the decision. It was the other investor in Halston, which owns a stake in Polaroid and got Lady Gaga to come aboard as the brand's "creative director," that made it happen. Not to mention Harvey has more pressing issues to worry about. [People, NYM]
This week, New York polled all sorts of New Yorkers for its "50 Simple Steps to Happiness" guide. The result, from mostly experts like yoga instructors and therapists, included advice like, "Never show up for drinks on an empty stomach, or for that matter, let yourself get so hungry you'll eat street meat," and "Forget the brown-rice sushi." For a more, er, authentic poll, we sent our Man on the Street Tim Murphy to see what makes your average city-dweller smile. (For the record, things that make Tim himself happy are rainbows, jeggings, and light-skinned black men.)
Hello, stylish readers of The Cut: Did you know that we're dying to see what you're wearing? It's true! We even have a Look Book dedicated to you, and you alone, where you can upload images of what you're wearing so that we can all revel in your sartorial greatness — after all, we'd like to think we're not just a blog, but a fashion-savvy community (also, why should Jane Aldridge have all the fun?).
So let's see what you've got, shall we? Using the tool below, upload snaps of what you (or your friends) are wearing. As our Look Book grows, we'll even start to highlight some of your fabulous contributions, like the one at right, uploaded by our dapper reader Ruben Gold.
Need more explicit instruction on how to use the tool? Go here.
Gossip Girl stylist Eric Daman on defining the cast's style: "I've helped them become fashion icons and they've helped me become who I am and it's a great give-and-take," he told us at the You Know You Want It book party at Henri Bendel this week. "It's nice to be able to take men's fashion to a whole new place. With girls' fashions, you can always have fun and play with it, but taking straight men's fashion to this strange, dangerous place with very handsome, rich men drinking bourbon and wearing pink ascots — that's a very big movement for American men's fashion."
I believe it was the great Twitter account of Dave Holmes who once said ” I am not emotionally prepared for the return of American Idol.” None of us were, Dave, and yet here it is, American Idol, Season 9, all new in two thousand and ten… and yet so strangely unfamiliar.
This week has already felt different, restrained and uncomfortable, like a pair of skinny jeans after Christmas, as perhaps our most beloved Idol judge Paula Abdul was no longer around, instead replaced by a Schindler’s List extra and Mary J. Blige. While Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham did little other than complimenting people’s looks and sucking 4 cubic centimeters of carbon dioxide out of the room, Mary J. Blige on the other hand brought the “LOLs,” as they say, with her consistent restrained laughter. She induced tears out of herself, and may have even pulled her back out, trying as she did not to hurt any feelings while simultaneously sh*tting in her pants dying laughing. It wasn’t Paula, but it would do.
Kara, on the other hand, has really amped up her “affectation and annoyance” settings this season. She needs to stop dancing and talking and generally trying to be the center of attention during the auditions, because it’s not entertaining, it’s f**king distracting. She’s like an ingrown hair you just can’t quite pluck.
Also, Ryan Seacrest got rid of his highlights. In the words of our favorite QVC shopper to Puff Daddy: “MM. I like it.”
This will be the last season with our favorite judge Simon Cowell, who, in the immortal words of Danny Glover, is “Gettin too old for this sh*t.” Aren’t we all. Oh ps, he’ll be back as a judge on X Factor, slogan “It’s just like Idol, but with menopause!”
Then you had the contestants…
(Click ahead for more of our American Idol Season 9 Premiere Week Recap)
Sopranos cast-off Amadeo Diricco thought he’d give performing another try, as he sang while simultaneously juggling muhtzer’ell balls while strangling people with telephone wires. He, unsurprisingly, makes it through.
Katie Stevens had a nice enough voice, but we secretly wish her Grandmother with Alzheimers would have made it through to Hollywood. Group session fights would be epic.
Then you had “Is He Hot? No, Right? Wait, Maybe… Yes, He Is!– No, Wait, Not Hot” dude Andrew Fenlon, who is clearly an out of work screenwriter who needed some extra cast for his Lenscrafters pot, and was hired by Idol to do some terribly unconvincing acting. We smell a future Law & Order corpse in this kid! He’s got “talent.” Note Posh’s sexual intrigue face when the guy walks in the room.
Codzilla, while technically not a contestant, is the best Fish-Fictional-Monster pun we’ve heard all month.
Vanessa Wolfe, from Tennessee, was basically a Simpsons character come to life (maybe one of Cletus‘ many daughters). She’s a poor gal who likes flinging herself off of bridges, and walking around town kicking the grass while holding her guitar. But it’s hard to not like the girl… her little nervous wave to the judges won my Idol viewing audience over. (Ben at B-Side blog knows who he is.)
Jesse Hamilton, an actual slack-jawed yokel who has died 3 times, proved that Idol producers still have no issue letting people with questionable mental capacities audition. To be fair, this kid had a heart of gold. NOTE TO IDOL PRODUCERS: Please do not attempt comedic sketches any more on this show. It was like watching Dave Coulier’s Jackelope sketches on America’s Funniest People, and it made us HIGHLY UNCOMFS.
Be-Fris Carmen Turner and Lauren Sanders. Not sure who is who, just that for a moment I got excited thinking a new episode of Toddlers in Tiaras was on. Hopefully, I’m not the only one who thought that the brunette (Lauren?) looked and sounded exactly like Judy on SNL’s The Lawrence Welk Show.
*This seems meaner than intended. But we really thought there was a resemblance.* Lauren seems like a nice enough girl, no hard feeeelinnnngs. (*This actually makes it worse.)
FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: Could it be anyone other than Jermaine Sellers? The ADORABLE self-described “Church Boy” with just about the sweetest personality and best voice? If this kid cracks the Top 10, we might have another Season 8 on our hands.
MOST HILARIOUS AUDITION:Lamar Royale. I’m sorry, but I’d glady tune in night after night to watch this guy interrupt the judges with his vocal runs. Randy Jackson was quite the diplomat tonight: “Dawg, are you a good listener?” Highlight was his singing in the elevator while Idol security tried to look like they were on a different planet. This guy has singing tourette’s and WE LOVE IT.
BEST MOMENT: Well, it wouldn’t be an American Idol Season 9 Week 1 recap without mentioning General Larry Platt. At first glance, what with his TGI Friday Flare and general enthusiasm, one might mistake the general for your run of the mill lunatic. Turns out the guy is an Atlanta legend, who was at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement. Might explain why he got the royal treatment from the judges. Also why he was able to produce the catchiest tune of the New Millennies since “Don’t Be Tardy For the Party.” Ladies and gentlemen, American Idol’s Viral Video Hit of 2010… it’s “Pants on the Ground.”
AP - "Silencer" (Minotaur Books, 276 pages, $24.99), by James W. Hall: After 10 books, fans of James W. Hall's series featuring an amateur detective named Thorn have grown accustomed to seeing the reclusive roughneck come charging to the rescue. So it's startling, in book 11, to find him spending most his time held prisoner in an underground pit while his friends try to figure out where he is.
Friday night’s Critic’s Choice Movie Awards, airing live Friday on VH1 at 9 PM, are expected to be a wild night of impromptu Hollywood mania, due in large part to its firecracker host Kristin Chenoweth, and its insane A-list presenter roster including the likes of Bradley Cooper, Wil Arnett, Amy Poehler, John Kraskinski, Sarah Silverman, Jason Bateman and, hell, just click here for the list.
We caught up with Cheno earlier this week as she filmed a variety of skits for the CCMAs, including the following. It features Cheno looking like an adorably fabulous Hamburger Helper while she attempts an audition for the Michael Jackson documentary “This Is It.” If Michael were alive to see this, he would surely die laughing. Chenowith is a naturally gifted comedian… we can’t wait to see what she has in store for Friday night.
Hosted by Kristin Chenoweth, Critics’ Choice will air live on VH1 Friday, Jan. 15 at 9:00PM ET. Check back here as we live-blog the show with our partner sites, including AOL’s Moviefone, The Envelope, The Huffington Post, TheFabLife and fashion experts Refinery29. Sign up below for an e-mail reminder for our Critics’ Choice Live Blog Party.
It seems the eternal dialogue over body size in the fashion industry has never been more alive and more interesting than it is at this very moment. As the average American woman now wears a size 14, we've seen a true clampdown on dangerously underweight models (though beanpoles still abound), editors as powerful as British Vogue's Alexandra Shulman are demanding that designers adopt "healthier" standards, and some magazines are now using non-models exclusively. Meanwhile, Kate Moss sits there reminding us that "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" and the "pro-ana" websites still offer helpful tips on self-starvation. Adding a new ripple to all of this is the woman who has accidentally found herself at the center of the conversation: Queen of the plus-size girls and star of V magazine's "size issue," Crystal Renn offers herself up to Eric Wilson in today's Times. Predictably, we learn that Renn has suffered emotionally from being "normal" in an industry that values the abnormal. Wilson relates one frightening story found in the pages of Renn's book, Hunger. "By 2002, when she moved to New York at age 15, she weighed 95 pounds and had lost more than 42 percent of her body weight. On her first day in the city, she landed a shoot for Seventeen." Eesh.
Far and away, though, Renn's most interesting revelation is that she's not strictly pro plus-size. “When designers and editors choose one fat girl to salivate over, and revel in her avoirdupois, I’m not sure how much it advances the cause of using girls of all sizes in a magazine,” she says. Renn argues that making an example of a handful of curvy models for periodic editorials (as in V's current issue) is no solution to the industry's deeper body-image issues. Normality, whatever that is, and diversity are far more valuable than a single shot of Beth Ditto on the cover of your magazine. Says Renn, “I believe fashion can be a place of diversity. It’s not going to happen overnight, but do you want it to?” We put that question to you.
Equinox has been taking lots of heat since the gym chain erected two enormous billboards outside its West Village location over the holidays: The move outraged local community groups and led the city's Department of Buildings and Landmark Preservation Commission to threaten the company with steep fines if it didn't pull them down. Equinox has until tomorrow to remove the ads, and the failed campaign will end up costing the company a good deal of money in the process. But the gym chain just walked away with a victory in a Manhattan courtroom, so maybe the week will go down as a wash.
Last year, a 28-year-old woman filed a lawsuit against Equinox, claiming she'd been sexually assaulted by her trainer at the East 85th Street location on more than a dozen occasions in 2006 and 2007. She never reported the alleged attacks to the police, though, or notified gym management. But not because she was embarrassed, or fearful that her trainer would retaliate against her, or anything like that. She says she was worried that if she said anything, she might lose her gym membership and, you know, might be forced to work out elsewhere. (Can you think of a fate worse than having to go from an Equinox to a New York Sports Club? We certainly can't.)
The other day I was just thinking, hey, I like baseball — why don’t I play it professionally for lots and lots of money? So I had my agent make some calls (my agent meaning me in a British accent), one thing leads to another, and suddenly the Brewers are offering me a contract.
Small-market clubs like the Brewers have to mine for talent wherever they can — Latin America, the Asian market, the Pop Culture Blogosphere — so hopefully I can blaze a trail for future bloggers with no baseball experience outside the JCC league in the early 90s and the occasional spastic whiffle ball game in Brooklyn parks. I don’t see how this idea can not work.
The A’s are currently scouting ONTD for a first baseman, while the Marlins are reportedly close to a deal with Gabe from Videogum.
Host Conan O'Brien of the television show "The Tonight Show" attends the 2009 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour. O'Brien warned this week he would "not participate" if NBC television went... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 12:19 pm
Television host Jay Leno of the "Jay Leno Show" speaks during the 2009 Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour. Leno stepped down as host of "The Tonight Show" in May -- which he had taken over... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 12:19 pm
There's plenty of stuff going on in the news to keep you awake at night, matters both foreign (Haiti, obviously) and domestic (Harold Ford running for Senate). So it's always nice when you can cross something off your "worst fears" list. The Post reports today that immigrant-hating former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs has decided not to run for political office, after all. He's decided to stick to TV instead, a source tells the paper, which means you can start counting the minutes until you see oversized frame parked next to Sarah Palin on a couch at Fox News. [NYP, previously]
For those of you who missed Season Two of MTV’s sketch show Human Giant last year because no one knows when anything’s on MTV ever (also when is that network gonna play some more music videos, you know what I mean???), Comedy Central is airing all of Human Giant Seasons 1 and 2 in order this coming Saturday night for your viewing / DVRing pleasure.
Fortunately, the Ken BurnsNational Parks series got deleted off my DVR while I was away for Christmas, thus freeing me up to actually record stuff again while saving myself the embarrassment of admitting that I’d never actually end up watching such a literate and informative program.
If you haven’t seen Human Giant or you’re just rusty, brush up with the “Carpet Monkey” sketch below:
Front Page: Net shuffles shows as Conan wrangle continues -- As the standoff with Conan O'Brien continued Thursday, NBC unveiled its post-"Jay Leno Show" 10 p.m. schedule, replacing the yakker with three scripted skeins in the hour this spring.
1990 was a year full of misguided promise, a year when Americans were juggling Koosh balls while slapping (deadly) bracelets onto their wrists during American Gladiator marathons. Things were sweet. But could they have been sweeter? Oh… they could have.
That’s because what could possibly have been the greatest show of our time was left by the wayside along with so many other television failures. The only difference being this show was called Poochinski, and was about a cop who dies and comes back to life as a talking bulldog. If the $9 bulldog puppet used isn’t enough to sell you on the idea, perhaps the brilliant dialogue will. Sorry, not perhaps. IT WILL. (Honorary Emmy to everything between :32 – :38.) Oh yeah, it also features the hot guy from Adventures in Babysitting.
Forget Team Conan. We’re Team Poochinski. If NBC really wants to save their network, they’ll resurrect Peter Boyle and make this show happen now.
Front Page: Studio replaces Oren Aviv with 'Tron' producer -- Sean Bailey wasn't necessarily considered the first choice to replace Oren Aviv as Disney's new president of production.
It's hardly like Adam Lambert to be anything but upfront, so the recent mystery about his possible appearance with Oprah Winfrey on her show was a bit baffling.
Family adopts unwanted baby deer, names it “Dillie,” raises it in their home, deer befriends pet dog, adopts dog’s habits, becomes family’s new beloved house pet? My Human Interest Story-o-meter just frickin’ exploded, sending pieces of levity and shrapnel in all directions. The dude at Home Depot told me putting shrapnel in my Human Interest Story-o-meter was dangerous and unnecessary, but I stupidly ignored him.
I love that the husband explains that Dillie’s favorite food is “ice cream with coffee and a sprinkle of sweetener,” because it’s any food. Then she eats flowers. She is a deer. (Be sure to stay tuned for the reporter’s final pun, which shattered my new Human Interest Story-o-meter that I built after the first one exploded):
Reuters - There's a snap in the air and a new date on the calendar, which can only mean one thing: "American Idol" auditions! For tens of millions of viewers, it really is the most wonderful time of the year. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 14 Jan 2010 | 9:26 am
AP - Edgar Vos, the designer known as "the emperor of Dutch fashion" who created clothing tailored for all figures and most budgets, has died, associates said Thursday. He was 78. Source: Yahoo! News: Fashion News | 14 Jan 2010 | 8:57 am
Children are seen reading the comics during the launch for the Chinese editions of The Adventures of Tintin, in Beijing. The beloved Belgian cartoon reporter hero Tintin, long a victim of piracy in China,... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 8:28 am
A woman is seen reading a copy of "The Blue Lotus" during the launch for the Chinese editions of The Adventures of Tintin in Beijing. The beloved Belgian cartoon reporter hero Tintin, long a victim of... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jan 2010 | 8:28 am
Ivan Reitman confirmed he will direct a third Ghostbusters movie and hopes to begin shooting it this year. He failed to comment on whether the movie will be “odds-defyingly good” or “really disappointing.”
Beyonce and Jay-Z were Hollywood’s highest-earning couple in 2009, beating out Brad & Angelina and the surprise second-place duo of Harrison Ford and Calista Flockheart. Man, that Ally McBeal dancing baby just continues to be an annual cash cow.
This list of the 10 Worst Tree Removal Fails raises the question – are there any tree removal successes on the internet?
Despite various dramatic online rumors, police figured out that Heidi and Spencer have not been kidnapped after conducting an investigation. The investigation, of course, consisted of one cop thinking for two seconds and deciding this was obviously a frickin’ internet hoax.
Osama's supple kisser 
Bin Laden's 
Two can play at this game. (Well, really, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, George Lopez, et al., it's been more like eight, but...)
Jay Leno had a few choice words for Conan...
What doesn't sound fun about a "festival of dumbasses"?
Aka, what Chelsea Handler called Jersey Shore before actually sitting down and getting to know the charmingly...
How do you get a gazillion young people to help earthquake-devastated Haiti?
Have Robert Pattinson talk to them.
As you may have already heard, George Clooney is heading up a...
Yes, everyone, Leonardo DiCaprio is a Jersey Shore fan!
At least that's what he told the reality show stars when they ran into him at last night's Vida launch party at West...
Four kids might not be enough for the Wahlberg clan.
"She's saying she's done, but she did start hinting to the fact that this would be the last time that we're in the...
Oh come on, people!
There's so much existing juicy smut in the world, from Tiger Woods to the backstage dealings on The Bachelor. Why add Lindsay Lohan to the mix when the mix is...
And then there was one. Week, that is.
While NBC refuses to go on the record about when Conan O'Brien may be saying his final good-night to The Tonight Show, evidence is mounting to...
We know Leighton Meester plays a sometimes snotty brat on Gossip Girl, but did life imitate art Tuesday night?
Earlier that evening, Leighton was all smiles with her fellow...
The Hollywood “reboot” has become of accelerated interest the past few years following the enormous successes of the new Batman movies, Star Trek, and Casino Royale, which is understandable given Hollywood’s ongoing effort to always do what itself is doing, but the actual word “reboot” has, in the last two years, jumped from “term in quotes used as a tidy way to say ‘Forget about that last sucky movie with the same title, here’s a new one’” to “ubiquitous term required to describe any movie that is in any way based on a past thing.”
Score one for good taste.
Choosing not to linger over icky legal details, the family of Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein has settled its lawsuit against LearJet, Goodyear Tire and several...
Ali Wise, NYC's most famous ex-publicist/alleged voicemail hacker, turned up in court this morning! But don't expect to see droves of socialites flocking to Manhattan Criminal Court in the months ahead to show their support when Wise takes the stand. Her lawyers are now looking to cut a deal with prosecutors and avoid a trial: 
Equinox has been taking lots of heat since the gym chain erected two enormous billboards outside its West Village location over the holidays: The move 
