During the Oscar's Red Carpet, Sacha Baron Cohen (as his character from "The Dictator") spilled the fake ashes of Kim Jong-Il onto Ryan Seacrest. Watch the video:
Just when you thought everyone in America bought Adele's21 CD, she goes and has her best sales week ever! Thanks to her six Grammy awards last weekend, Adele sold 730,000 albums this week. Which coincidentally happens to be her 21st week at #1. That is the longest a female artist has ever been at #1 on the Album Chart with one CD, breaking the old record of 20 weeks held by Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard Soundtrack.
Justin Beiber is putting another book out this September. "Justin Beiber: Just Getting Started" will be the second official photographic book from the Beeb's.
Nicki Minaj is taking another page out of the Lady Gaga playbook by planning to launch her own Foundation. Nicki's foundation, which still exists only in her mind so far, is intended to empower and nurture young girls by stressing the importance of education and safe sex.
Greedy much? Paula Abdul has been ordered to pay $900,000 to Jill Khol, a woman who tripped, fell and injured herself in Paula's driveway during the filming of her Reality Show "Hey Paula". Ms. Kohl said the driveway was in "a dangerous and defective condition". Not sure which bothers me more, the fact that this woman filed a lawsuit for tripping in someone's driveway or the fact that Paul Abdul actually had a Reality Show.
It was another big night for Adele tonight at the Brit Awards across the pond. She won 2 awards at the UK version of the Grammys tonight, but it was not a sweep for her like it was last weekend at our Grammys. She won Best British Female and Album Of The Year, but did not win British Single. That award went to boy band One Direction and their song "What Makes You Beautiful." One Direction has had a huge 2011 in the UK, and will attempt to recreate their success here in the US this year. If you want to hear the song that beat out Adele, I've got it up on the Hot New Music Page.
Other winners at the Brit Awards included Rihanna for International Female, Bruno Mars for International Male, and Coldplay for British Group. Lana Del Rey, taking some flack here in the US for her awkward Saturday Night Live appearance last month, won International Breakthrough Act (Best New Artist).
The Wanted was also nominated in the British Single category with their hit "Glad You Came." It did not win, but it will be one of the songs sung on tonight's episode of Glee! Kelly Clarkson's smash "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" is also on the list for tonight.
Bet you didn't see this coming! Chris Brown and Rihanna have just released not 1 but 2 remixes featuring each other. Only 3 years after he laid the beat down on her, now they're laying the beats down together. We had heard Rihanna was dropping a remix of the "Birthday Cake" song from her Talk That Talk CD, but did not realize her ex was joining her on the track. On the CD, "Cake" is more of just a sexy interlude, but the remix is a definitely steamy full song. Then Ri returned the favor and is featured on the remix to Chris' current single "Turn Up The Music," from his new CD Fortune due out March 16.
In 1952, MAD Magazine was first published and inside was a comic that still runs today called Spy vs. Spy. It's a silly, wordless cartoon about a black spy and a white spy who just try to kill each other. About five years ago, it was rumored in Hollywood that they were going to take that wordless, short classic comic and turn it into a feature film. Bad script after bad script was written and the idea was laid to rest in horrible idea heaven...but then someone came up with the idea to add a girl and make it a love story and the end result was This Means War...a far cry from it's 1952 beginnings.
Even with an idea like the one we end up seeing in This Means War, doesn't mean it's good. In fact, it's a pretty lame, tired idea of a romantic, action comedy about two so-and-sos fighting for the love of a woman. What makes this film good is the talent that was brought to the table. Reese Witherspoon is the only face you may recognize unless you love movies. Her two handsome suitors are played by Chris Pine (Unstoppable, Star Trek) and Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises). These two guys are actors I've had my eye on for a while going all the way back to Pine in Bottle Shock and Hardy in Bronson. They are both very skilled actors in their own way; Pine is charming and funny and Hardy is dark and intense (albeit not in this). Their talent doesn't fall short in this either, which is a shock for Hardy to see him pull off comedy so well.
It's still not a talent dreamteam without a good director and This Means War got a pretty good one. It was directed by a guy named McG. His real name is Joe McGinty Nichol but he calls himself "McG." It's true that he has a reputation for being as douchey as that nickname would have you believe but he's actually a pretty talented director when it comes to action films. He directed both Charlie Angels films and had the balls to do Terminator Salvation, all of which were better than expected. This Means War might be his best one yet and it captures the fun, explosions, funny and car chases that keep this film exciting.
However, the attempt to make the perfect date movie that both men and women could enjoy is what made this movie fall short of being great. They spend such emphasis on making sure the film is a romantic comedy and a comedic action that both story lines are elementary at best. On the action side, yes there's a bad guy the spies are after but what does he do? Why is he bad? Who knows? It's not important. We just know he's bad because he's wearing black, never smiles and shoots at the heroes. On the romance side, the relationships are ushered along so quickly that the plausability for Witherspoon to fall for either of these guys or for the guys to be okay with the other one dating her is void. Not to mention that the way both stories are wrapped up at the end is rushed, confusing and laughably unbelieveable.
But that's not why we love movies like this, is it? We wanted shallow romance, sexy explosions and cheap laughs and goddamnit, we get it all! This Means War is a film that is as charming as its two male leads. Sure it's hardly deep, richly dressed up and doesn't think too much, but who can resist those eyes? And the car chases, guns and funny quips too? This Means War (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: B
Adele is either very humble or an extremely poor judge of popularity. She claims she didn't prepare any acceptance speeches for the Grammys because "I didn't think I had any chance." Right. Adele is back at it this weekend at the Brit Awards (the UK version of the Grammys) where she's nominated for Album Of The Year, British Single, and British Female Solo Artist. Do I smell another sweep?
If you didn't hear Mercedes' version of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" on Glee Tuesday night, do yourself a favor and give this a listen. I think she did an amazing job with it!
Now some more interesting Whitney Houston news. She's going to be in a movie due out this August entitled Sparkle. Whitney plays the mother of 3 girls who become a successful girl group (one of the daughters is played by former American Idol Jordin Sparks). As their mom, she guides them through the challenges that comes with their new stardom, including some drug issues. How's that for eery? Whitney even sings a couple of songs in the movie, which also stars Cee-lo Green and Mike Epps.
Diddy is headed down under for the first time to perform at Supafest, a 4-day traveling urban music festival held in 4 different cities in Australia in April. Lupe Fiasco, Kelly Rowland, Trey Songz and others are also on the bill. Distant places such as Australia often hold big festivals such as this to lure many big name artists to their corner of the world that may not have been otherwise inclined to travel such a long distance.
Green Day began work on their new CD yesterday according to a tweet from lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong. No further details on the album at this point.
The "We Are Young" song by the band fun. that I posted on the Hot New Music Page last week is the most downloaded song in Sacramento this week. Kelly Clarkson steps down to #2 with "Stronger" and Whitney Houston's death over the weekend spurred her song "I Will Always Love You" into the #3 spot. Adele got a Grammys bump as all three of her popular songs moved back into the Top 10 this week. The rest of the Top 10 features Tyga at #5 with "Rack City," "Sexy and I Know It" is still #6, "Young, Wild & Free" drops to #8 and the new Madonna song moves up to #10.
In 1952, MAD Magazine was first published and inside was a comic that still runs today called Spy vs. Spy. It's a silly, wordless cartoon about a black spy and a white spy who just try to kill each other. About five years ago, it was rumored in Hollywood that they were going to take that wordless, short classic comic and turn it into a feature film. Bad script after bad script was written and the idea was laid to rest in horrible idea heaven...but then someone came up with the idea to add a girl and make it a love story and the end result was This Means War...a far cry from it's 1952 beginnings.
