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My inappropriate crush is really on Harry Potter, not Daniel Radcliffe. I know that. But every time a Harry Potter film hits theaters, the two become one. I've been avoiding Potter press and previews because I want to prolong the Half-Blood Prince-fueled trip to crazy(crush)town for as long as possible. (I did a drive-by recently when I had a discussion about how I couldn't be with Zachary Quinto's Spock because there'd be nothing for me to do on the Enterprise, but I could always work for the Daily Prophet -- assuming newspapers are faring better in the Potterverse.) Today, however, I slipped and read an item on People. I felt myself get annoyed when it mentioned Radcliffe's age: How is he still only 19?All aboard!
Anyone else preparing to make that trip? And since we're sharing.... Be honest: Have you ever thought about how you'd make ends meet in the Potterverse? I'm not sure if I decided to work for the Daily Prophet because I've always liked my fantasies to be based in reality or because I'm too much of a wimp to wield anything other than a magic pen....
Michael Jackson loved the movies. And for years, he hoped to complement his staggering accomplishments in music with a career in film. Sadly, he never got to realize that dream before passing away. Of course, he did dabble over the years -- from The Wiz to scores of groundbreaking cinematic videos, to a funny cameo in Men in Black II.
Jackson also spoofed his MiBII appearance with another cameo, this time in his friend Bryan Michael Stoller's Miss Cast Away, an unabashedly campy flick that went straight to DVD in 2005 and starred Eric Roberts and (gulp) Evan "Joe Millionaire" Marriott. Jackson played Agent MJ, an Obi-Wan-like character who dispenses wisdom to a group of island castaways via a hologram generated by an R2D2-y robot.
You can see the trailer here. But far more interesting is the bizarre making-of footage (embedded below), in which Jackson, filming a scene in his library at Neverland, stops the take as a noisy choo-choo train makes its way around the ranch. He also sings a line: "She's out of your life." He seems subdued and, until a friendly wave and little giggle near the end, it's hard to tell if he's having much fun. But considering that the footage dates from the time Jackson was dealing with the second round of child molestation allegations, that's not so surprising. In any case, it's a rare look at the pop icon in a more intimate setting towards (what turned out to be) the end of his life. Also, it's hard not to watch the pop icon interact with They Cage the Animals at Night author Jennings Michael Burch and wonder what those two kindred spirits said to each other. Think we'll ever get to see more of that footage?
Mean Magazine is lining up stars to reenact famous scenes from movies, and first out of the gate is the summer's most squee-inducing duo, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel as Sid and Nancy. Go!
Somewhere in my past or childhood, I must have done something pretty darn good, because hallelujah holy Moses, Dead Like Me is now on Hulu. All of it! Both seasons!
For a show with such a stunning pedigree -- holla atcha, Bryan Fuller; we still love you -- DLM flew kind of under the radar. It's a show I recommend to people all the time, especially to anyone who mentions liking Pushing Daisies or, seriously, Our Town. That whole "I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another" vibe? Combine that with a sense of whimsy and some hyperliteracy, and poof! Dead Like Me, the story of a group of Grim Reapers as told by their youngest member, the angsty college dropout George.
Who's with me, PopWatchers? Did you love this show when it was on, and are you pumped that its made its Web debut?
Chrome sweet chrome?* That's what Google is hoping. The company announced that they'll release a new OS come 2010: The Chrome browser is getting beefed up into a full-fledged operating system. Somewhere, someone at Microsoft is curled in the fetal position, gently sobbing.
According to Google's release, the Chrome OS will be "open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks." Fancy!
The major difference between the Chrome OS and the current OS you're probably using is that Chrome will be more Web-oriented, rather than desktop oriented.
I'm excited to see Chrome's development because in the last few years, like a lot of peeps, I too have shifted to be more Web-oriented. I type stories in Google Docs, not Word. I edit photos using Picnik, not Photoshop. I play Web-based games, not downloaded ones, and I listen to more music via websites than I do in iTunes. In other words, there are a lot of ways I'm using a browser as a sort of OS already; if there's an OS designed for that, so much the better. Minus a crystal ball, we can't know exactly what Chrome will be like, but so far I've been almost stupidly satisfied with the ways Google has taken over my life so far -- would you ever go back to non-Gmail e-mail? I wouldn't. If Chrome can capture a shred of that, it will instantly become my browser of choice.
What about you, PopWatchers? Will you be saying hasta la Vista and heading to Chrome?
* If there had been a way to get "Chrome on the range," "there's no place like Chrome," "Chrome decorating," "Chrome alone," "Chrome sick," "hold the Chrome," or "Chromoerotic" into this post, I would have. Oh, well.
Take your seats, class: We're on week 2 of EW University, with our third and final class on gangster movies in pop culture. Check out yesterday's class, featuring; White Heat and Prizzi's Honor, or click through our 12 Killer Gangster Movies gallery with Ken's top picks, or skip ahead and see how you score on our final exam. Stick around all summer long for future EW University courses on Lost, Harry Potter, and more.
Gangster Movies: The Hip-Hop Connection Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons will tell you what the gangster film has meant to him: "Scarface was about empowerment at all costs [and so is] hip-hop." In the 1980s, the gangster film was mostly something studied in film school, and it was commonly thought that its masterpiece era -- the first two Godfather movies -- had been reached, and the genre could have fallen into obscurity. Instead, it found a whole new life and a whole new audience among a certain group of hip-hop musicians who latched on to gangster movies as metaphors for tough life out on the streets. The first hardcore "gangsta" record -- possibly the first to use that phrase on a hit song, at any rate -- may well have been "Park Side Killers," by the Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D in 1985. That same year, LL Cool J spoke, on the album Radio, of being "a hip-hop gangsta." And in California, NWA was about to make the West Coast the new main headquarters of cutting-edge gangsta rap with the 1986 release of Straight Outta Compton, tales of nightmarish violence that required being met by force, and Scarface-like stoicism, and loyalty to one’s allies in all its songs, most notoriously "F--- Tha Police."
After the jump: Why gangster movies appeal to hip-hop artists
He made our list of scary-good actors yesterday, but Jeremy Renner is also on my Must List this week for his spectacular performance in Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker, which opens wide on Friday. As Staff Sergeant William James, head of a bomb disposal squad charged with tracking down and defusing explosives, Renner nails his character's cocky bravado while subtly revealing a kind, caring side. His risk-taking maverick complements the squad's other two members, straight-arrow Sgt. Sanborne (Anthony Mackie) and scared-but-resigned Spc. Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). EW's Lisa Schwarzbaum praised the film as ''an intense, action-driven war pic, a muscular, efficient standout that simultaneously conveys the feeling of combat from within as well as what it looks like on the ground.'' While Mackie and Geraghty also turn in skilled performances, the film belongs to Renner.
Hulu is streaming the first eight minutes of the film, and although Renner isn't in the scene, I've embedded it below anyway. What's on your Must List this week, PopWatchers? List up to three items from current TV/movies/music/books/games/online. Don't forget your e-mail address, in case we decide to use your submission in the magazine. Deadline is Thursday, July 9 at noon ET.
I missed last night's premiere of the newly minted Syfy Channel's Warehouse 13 -- though judging by Ken Tucker's take, I didn't miss much -- in favor of catching up with a couple of DVR'd episodes of Kings. You remember Kings, don't you? That fantastic NBC show that reconceptualizes and recontexualizes the story of David, he who slew Goliath? The one that has Ian McShane melting a hole through the screen with sheer acting luminescence? The one nobody watched and is now being unceremoniously burned off on Saturday nights?
That Kings. So, as I was sitting there, basking in the plummy, almost Arthurian dialogue and the stentorian production design, I had an epiphany: Why doesn't Syfy pick up Kings? Given that part of their whole name-change raison d'etre is to be able to program beyond the sci-fi spectrum, they could do far worse than roll the dice on a show as well-produced as this one.
Yes, I know, there is the whole "Kings had less viewers than my honeymoon video" problem. I firmly believe that isn't the show's fault; it's NBC's. They had no idea how to market Kings, so they mismarketed it: all those mysterious butterfly posters and trailers that told you nothing about the show besides that it was pretty and it had McShane in nice suits. Was it science fiction? An alternate reality? A soap opera? All of the above? John Rogers, executive producer of TNT's Leverage, summed up the misfire -- and missed opportunity -- quite succinctly: "After years of the cultural Right bitching and moaning about how Hollywood doesn't provide for them, NBC could have gone to every evangelical church in America and said 'We're serializing the story of King David in a modern, very relatable way. Here you go, a multi-million dollar series, in prime time, based on a Bible story. You're frikkin' welcome.'"
That's still money left on the table, Syfy. Money that could be yours. The stink of failure would fade, in time, and you'd be left with one of the best shows on television, one that could fill the sucking vacuum left by Battlestar Galactica, and you could sell those DVD sets to church congregations, Sunday schools, and synagogues until kingdom come.
Just look at this clip; listen to the words, watch McShane work like the devil himself, and wonder why you don't deserve more of this on TV:
Did you know about Kings while it was on? Would you watch it if someone levied some confidence behind it?
We may watch this show twice a week, and with ardent enthusiasm, but we've got to face facts: It's sort of the dumb cousin of other, better reality competitions. Our judges don't have the instant quotability of a Simon, Paula, or Randy. Show name to the contrary, our contestants do not have the talent of a So You Think You Can Dance or Top Chef. And the theme music! (Don't get me started.) At the end of the day, America's Got Talent is summer filler -- something to prevent your TiVo from atrophying while you await the return of fall TV. But it's sometimes fun, occasionally heartwarming. And it tries -- Lord, how it tries.
You've got to give the ATG editors credit for attempting to wring some dramatic tension from the "lack of talent" at the Hollywood auditions. From the first performer, an androgynous singer called "Nasty Nate," through the fifth, a 49-year-old nurse (who had everyone thinking "Boyle?" until they thought "Not Boyle"), last night's early round had the judges cursing Tinseltown and making plenty of "worst day ever" remarks. Was it really? Of course not. The televised order of performances hardly reflects the actual auditions. But it gave the show 1) a great excuse to have The Hoff don his Baywatch jacket and attempt to "save" the auditions* and 2) a perfect set up for some talent redemption later on.
The debt-ridden City of Los Angeles has set up a Web page inviting its citizens to contribute money to help defray the significant costs of Michael Jackson's recent memorial. At the link, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa requested that folks "Help the City of Angels provide the extraordinary public safety resources required to give Michael the safe, orderly and respectful memorial he deserves...If you're a Michael fan, consider giving a small donation to help us celebrate his extraordinary life and music."
Hmmm. As much as I appreciate Michael's artistry, and agree his life deserves to be memorialized, I'm not sure I'll be logging-in to my PayPal account any time soon. Isn't this like being invited to a friend's New Year's Eve party, and before old acquaintances can even be forgotten, your host hands you a check on Jan. 1? I was 3,000 miles away, so I can only imagine how the Los Angeles-area
people feel about this after already being inconvenienced by the circus
surrounding the tribute.
I understand L.A. is in a financial bind, and I know many of the city's merchants inevitably profited from the event, but please explain to me why the public should shoulder the burden. Surely, Joe Jackson's new record company can pitch in a few mil, right?
