American Idol's surviving ("competing" seems like an overstatement) eight dudes ripped through enough country jams and fossilized ballads to fill your average 4 a.m. infomercial. Unfortunately, these dudes couldn't sell anything. Let's rank these jank caterwaulers from #8-1.
Post-Oscar week is nearly over and Elinor Burkett's fifteen minutes of fame ran up before she could make a single actual late night appearance. Fear not, other Academy Award winners made their final victory laps last night. Like Christoph Waltz, who stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to reflect on those 28 awards won this season and that one embarrassing late night sketch in which he mimes sex with rotary phones. That clip, as well as the others you missed last night while putting the finishing touches on your 30-city comedy tour, after the jump.
After an unsuccessful, off-putting foray into nu-metal teasers, the ad campaign behind Ridley Scott's Robin Hood has refocused itself for this week's full trailer. Now, we get a more classical approach to the story, a lengthy backstory for Robin (Russell Crowe) involving his dead father, and a whole lot of shots of Maid Marian, action hero. (Cate Blanchett donning chain mail didn't help Elizabeth: The Golden Age much, but let's hope she fares better here). Does it all seem a little familiar? Yes, but I'd argue to its advantage. The trailer says, "This is your father's Robin Hood -- just much, much more expensive-looking," and there's nothing wrong with a traditional approach done right. Let's just hope all those scenes of straight-shooting arrows inspire some spatial coherence from Scott's action editing.
VERDICT: Interested.
After weeks of speculation surrounding Conan O'Brien's plans to circulate the country on a comedy tour (and no less than two false starts by eager distributor Ticketmaster), the former Tonight Show host officially announced his Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour this morning. In a statement provided to TheWrap, O'Brien revealed that NBC's ironclad exit deal didn't leave him many options: "It was either a massive 30-city tour or start helping out around the house."
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Buried in Anne Thompson's survey of the wreckage at Variety, find this startling revelation about the paper's former editor-in-chief and all-around Hollywood insider Peter Bart: "Bart [...] has lost his phone-answering, email-printing assistant and corporate BlackBerry. He used to type his correspondence, columns and blog entries (which he abandoned after Michael Fleming defected to Deadline.com) on a typewriter and have someone else put them on the computer. Now he files from home." Typewritten blog entries! What will he think of next? Anyway, Peter, welcome to the club. Let me know if you need help finding your way around that mouse. [TOH]
Kim Masters wrote something yesterday about how Taylor Lautner may soon usurp the role of Twilight franchise mascot from Robert Pattinson -- if he hasn't done so already. It seemed a little unlikely to me, if only because Pattinson's the one among them who can actually act when provided any halfway-decent material. But between all the broody portent and LOLZ-y line readings, there's something kind of touching about Lautner in the first trailer for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
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Heidi Montag has fired her manager -- who just happened to be her husband and Hills co-star, Spencer Pratt -- and replaced him with...(wait for it)...a psychic. Montag told People Magazine last night, "After the incredible experiences I have had healing my life and truly connecting to my dreams with healer intuitive Aiden Chase, I have officially asked him to become my manager. Having an intuitive psychic leading my team gives me an edge no one else has." Pratt has been Heidi's manager since the couple met five years ago. The pair will remain married. [People]
· It's taken months of tireless Facebook campaigning, but fans now have official confirmation of Betty White's upcoming Saturday Night Live episode in the form of a date: May 8. Although the former Golden Girl does not actually have children, Lorne Michaels validated her Mother's Day booking by explaining, "She's the mother of us all in comedy." Apparently, this mother needs her little helpers, because Michaels has enlisted six former female SNL cast members to join the comedy legend for the episode; Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Molly Shannon, Maya Rudolph, Ana Gasteyer and Rachel Dratch will all help to lighten White's sketch load at Studio 8H. A band for the May 8 show has yet to be announced. [People]
A 24 star gets a Happy Ending, Mark Burnett tests the deceptiveness of game show hosts, and more TV Bites after the jump.
· Ed Helms and Jason Segel have signed on to Jeff Who Lives at Home, a stoner comedy set up at Paramount by filmmaking siblings Mark and Jay Duplass (Cyrus, Baghead). Segel is set to play the titular slacker while Helms will appear as his slightly better-adjusted brother, and really, can't you see the resemblance? The Duplasses are still looking for someone to portray the film's mother; hell, why not Mo'Nique? [THR]
Clint Eastwood takes on Hoover, Steve Martin rounds out a nifty comic trio, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
· We're not trying to post Funny or Die videos every day, but this one's chock full of Oscar winners, nominees, and boobs, so the fourth estate calls. Here, Marion Cotillard effectively sells you plastic forehead boobs. She's accompanied by Taraji P. Henson and our eternal Miss Scarlet, Lesley Ann Warren. [Funny or Die]
Howard Stern railed on Monday with concerns for Gabourey Sidibe's weight "crisis" and her potential in show business. Those doubts were allayed -- with spectacular timing -- by news that Sidibe had landed roles in the Showtime drama The Big C and the film Yelling at the Sky. But today, Stern elaborated on his diatribe by comparing Sidibe to the show's troubled team member Artie Lange. "I kinda don't see a difference between what our Artie [Lange] did -- Artie tried to kill himself -- and I feel like this girl, in a slower way, but nevertheless the same outcome will be that she's going to kill herself." Full audio is embedded after the break.
This week's corrosive meltdown between critic Armond White and Team Greenberg -- including filmmaker Noah Baumbach, his publicist Leslee Dart, and distributor Focus Features -- was thought to have wound down with White's admission to a screening of the film this Friday. You'll remember Dart "banned" him from the first NYC critic's preview occurring tonight, in part because of an old review where White allegedly said the filmmaker's "parents should have aborted him." White hinted to Movieline and several other publications that he never wrote any such thing. And he's right -- kind of. Now that someone's dug up the smoking-ish gun, you be the judge.
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You sampled the inert chemistry between Jerry Seinfeld and Kelly Ripa during last week's disappointing premiere of The Marriage Ref and tomorrow morning you can relive it all over again. On Live! with Regis and Kelly, Ripa and Seinfeld will joke about the morning news, throw a few plugs towards Ref and end the hourlong show by interviewing guest Donald Trump. Other stars filling in for the Reege this week include Ludacris and Ted Danson. [THR]
Fox announced today that it's moving Oliver Stone's Wall Street sequel Money Never Sleeps from an April 23 release to Sept. 24. The bump pretty much squelches the momentum accrued this month with a Vanity Fair cover, Carey Mulligan's Oscar nomination and trailer play around the country, while it opens the possibility of festival play at both Cannes and Toronto and perhaps even an awards-season push of its own. Anyway, you've already waited 23 years; what's another five months? [Deadline]
The Corey Haim filmography that began with the 1984 family drama Firstborn will end next month with Decisions, the last movie Haim completed before he collapsed and died of an accidental drug overdose today at age 38. His IMDB page shows a host of others in pre-production, but Haim rolled film on this one last November in L.A. with director Jensen LeFlore. As the clip below hints, you might say it's slightly flawed. But as the movie's executive producer implied, it's not Haim's fault.
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