Do you deeply enjoy the fiction and journalism of David Foster Wallace? Perhaps to the point where you've actually fantasized about what it would have been like to hang back with the dude, crush a brewski or seven, and, you know, just talk? Bad news: If this dream scenario had actually played out — maybe on a spring evening, on the porch of a Cape Cod house overlooking the ocean, with the breeze floating in just so — you would not have been rocking jams off The Razors Edge as you bro'd. Believe it or not, DFW hated AC/DC. Sucks, right?
[Ed. Note: These "moments" were chosen individually, not collectively. If your favorite moment isn't represented, we are not trying to assassinate your sense of humor. Writers were warned to not all pick "Monorail" or "Homer at the Bat"; as a result, no one picked them. We all love those two episodes; they're probably everyone's favorites. Our choices are both too obvious and too obscure. Like, where's Poochy? Go outside and take a deep breath of fresh air before attempting to murder us. If this disclaimer feels suspiciously like the one the writers presented after the 500th episode this Sunday — our inspiration for celebrating the show in this week's HOF — you might be on to something.]
"See My Vest"
Alex Pappademas: Season 6, shading into madness under the stewardship of David "Get a Life" Mirkin: Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns shows off a walk-in closet containing only resplendent finery made from exotic animals while preparing to kill a litter of puppies to make a tuxedo. Your basic "Beauty and the Beast"-inspired musical number positing extreme sadism as the logical endpoint of capitalism. Word to the 1 percent of the 1 percent: "See my loafers, former gophers / It was that or skin my chauffeurs." (From "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds," which also features Santa's Little Helper's only sex scene.)
When it picked up the sitcom New Girl, Fox made a risky gamble: It pinned the success of a freshman series on the polarizing cultural figure known as Zooey Deschanel. A member of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Club since her star turn in (500) Days Of Summer, Deschanel has a very specific celebrity brand: She's a ModCloth-wearing, signature bangs-rocking, ukulele-playing quirk factory — not that there's anything wrong with that. And Fox's marketing campaign played up Deschanel's appeal by promoting New Girl with a made-up word: "adorkable."
Less than 24 hours after The Suspiciously Real Fake Bachelor Wedding that rocked the TV world, Bill Simmons and Reality Czar David Jacoby discuss the inevitability of Fantasy Suite relations, whether a winery or a sports bar is a better status symbol for a bachelor-on-the-make, and when is the optimal time for a bachelorette to reveal her baggage. Also discussed: Survivor, The Challenge and Jacoby's secret stash of reality TV shame-porn. (Yes, the Kardashians are involved.)
Well, well, well – look who's back from near death! When Community was held off NBC's mid-season schedule in order to give a chance to some shows that humans may, actually, one day, watch in large numbers, it seemed like out-and-out cancellation was the only next possible step. NBC chief Bob Greenblatt kept swearing that wasn't the case, that Dan Harmon's inventive, divisive creation would live to fight again another day. We certainly didn't believe him!
Justified isn’t exactly known for its nonviolent conflict resolution. So calling an episode of this show “When the Guns Come Out” is kind of like naming an episode of Friday Night Lights “When We Improbably Win a Football Game at the Last Second.”
There was plenty of gunplay (though, not enough Gunplay) in this sixth episode. And, per usual, Raylan lived through all of it, only to have Winona to shoot him through the heart.
Today, let’s take on the who-the-hell-knows categories — the Oscar contests that are traditionally almost impossible to guess even if you’ve seen the nominees. (Please note: This is probably going to be the final Oscarmetrics column that is completely free of whining about The Artist.)
Best Foreign Language Film
Nominees:
Bullhead (Belgium) Footnote (Israel) In Darkness (Poland) Monsieur Lazhar (Canada) A Separation (Iran)
While CBS says they have “no knowledge” of the incident, Fox News is reporting that a man named Jeff Rice — who worked as a freelance facilitating producer for The Amazing Race, setting up the show's competitions and challenges — has died in Kampala, Uganda. Rice was part of the team that worked on The Amazing Race's 20th season, which just premiered on Sunday, but he was not working on the show at the time of the incident. Fox News is calling it a “failed shakedown attempt,” adding "after refusing to give in to the demands of local thugs, Rice and another facilitator ended up very sick with poisoning of some kind.” The name of the other facilitator has not been reported, but apparently she is now “clinging for her life.” The details of the situation were confirmed by Rice's widow, Sally Blackman.
According to Blackman, “They were not attacked but [evidence] points towards being poisoned. [A]t this stage it is quite difficult to give you any firm reports as the incident is currently under investigation by the Uganda police.” She adds: “I would not like to speculate or even attempt to give my views on this as this may jeopardize the investigation going forward. His production assistant, currently working for [Rice's company] Maverick Entertainment, was also discovered in a coma and has been hospitalized in Uganda. She has not shown any improvement as [of] yet." And lastly: “Jeff was a dedicated father who made the most of his time with his family when back home in South Africa. He has left a huge void, not only in the film industry, but with his family he has left behind. We will miss his smiles and constant humor.”
Well, that's insane. It's always been clear that some of the countries The Amazing Race visits are very dangerous, but a situation like this suggests that perhaps the local producers working for the show are the ones in the actual way of harm. And while it won't change anything for Rice and his family, let's hope that CBS investigates and figures out what kind of situations they are putting their freelance employees into.
Two of the biggest snubs of this year’s Academy Awards happen to be two of my favorite movies of 2011. Neither of them is Drive, although Drive was really good and the music was so effective that two nights ago the song with the gravelly robot voice played in my dream. (As I recall, it was a horror dream.) The snubs I’m concerned with are Project Nim and Tilda Swinton’s performance in We Need to Talk About Kevin, both movies about failing to be a good parent to a charge who shits at you with a stone-cold stare, and wants to bite and maim.
Because I live in Los Angeles, I got to the theater for the 4 p.m. screening of the original, 1985 Teen Wolf on Sunday afternoon about 10 minutes late. It was playing at the Aero, a one-screen theater in Santa Monica, and all the website had said was that the movie would be followed by a panel featuring members of the cast and crew. I figured I could walk in, slide into a seat near the back and go relatively unnoticed. When I pulled open the theater door, Scott Howard was already stumbling on Mr. Lolley’s stage with the wrong color paint, and the place was packed.
Over the last couple weeks, response to my brazenly advertorial posts about the consulting firm I'll soon be establishing for forward-thinking, rapaciously ambitious future Bachelor contestants has been so overwhelming that I've gotten a little ahead of myself and already begun living the extravagant lifestyle that's surely coming to me. The Bentley (custom plates: FINLR$E) and cutting-edge loft space in downtown L.A. have already been leased, the lobby Cristal fountain designed, the yacht (The Final Ro$e) tricked out with a below-decks karaoke stadium. Shit, as they say, is getting real. There's just one problem with these champagne wishes and caviar cream-dreams: The single greatest tactical mind in the history of fake-engagement competition genre is not in our employ, she's actually competing on the show. And so in the interest of (a) further advertising the future services of this incredible soon-to-be business and (b) undermining a dangerous potential competitor's entry into this lucrative consulting space, this week we're going to go to the tape and break down Courtney the Model's mind-blowing strategic masterstroke from last night's episode: The Warm-Up Wedding. The video's embedded above. Watch it again as we prepare to deconstruct the staggering brilliance of the boldest gambit in Bachelor history.
The Hollywood Prospectus podcast is now weekly and free to cover any topics in the pop culture universe. To celebrate, Chris Ryan and I talked ... mostly about TV! Our conversation ranged from The Simpsons’ 500th episode to whether a Friday Night Lights movie is a good idea (we even supplied some better ones; you’re welcome, Peter Berg!). We also touched on the glories of Eastbound & Down, the sorrows of Life’s Too Short, the finale of Downton Abbey, and the continued zombie stagger of The Walking Dead. There’s even some talk about the Oscars and why, just maybe, we don’t care so much about them anymore. Listen now, and if you happen to know Josh Lucas (or his agent), tell him to listen, too! We’ve got the perfect part for him!
Judaism and hip-hop have gone hand-in-hand for at least as far back as 1983, when the Beastie Boys (each of whom has at least one Jewish parent) released their first rap song, “Cooky Puss.” But these days — with proud Jew Drake holding down rap stardom while folks like Matisyahu and Mac Miller sell out shows across the country — seem like a particularly special time for the Chosen People in rap music. And what better way to celebrate the influx than to round up some wonderful hip-hop bar mitzvah stories? (Note: If not otherwise noted, interviews were conducted by Grantland.)
By Molly Lambert at
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images
1. Michel Teló, "Ai Se Eu Te Pego"
Global hit from Brazilian vocalist Michel Teló (formerly of Grupo Tradição) that sounds like any singer-songwriter stuff you might hear drifting beerily through windows on the college quad, but with way more accordion as befits sertanejo universitário. The title translates from Portuguese to "Oh If I Catch You!" and the song spawned a dance that soccer players like Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo, and André Santos do to celebrate scoring. Best YouTube Comment: "IT`S THE UGLIEST SONG NOT ONLY IN THE BRAZIL BUT IN THE WHOLE WORLD BY THE WAY I LIKE NIRVANA" —juniorsabara Grade: B
By Mark Harris at
John Shearer/Getty Images/Hollywood Film Awards
The Oscars, as I hope we’ve established by now, are not simply a beauty contest. But when it comes to the half-dozen categories that reward visuals, that can be hard to remember. Here’s this year’s rundown:
Best Art Direction
Nominees:
The Artist Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Hugo Midnight in Paris War Horse
