Sad news for fans of over-hype: The royal family will not allow Rupert Murdoch to broadcast the already over-hyped wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 3-D, despite the fact that the Murdoch-owned Sky News has the ability to do so. "I'm afraid I have to say that we have decided not to progress with 3-D coverage of the service on this occasion," said Prince Charles' press secretary in a statement. (Any chance her name is Moneypenny?) Fingers crossed for a crappy post-conversion 3-D DVD release spearheaded by M. Night Shyamalan. [NYO]
Kids: They see the darnedest things! You may recall that a group of seven-year-olds mistakenly watched Saw 3D instead of Megamind 3D because of a theater mix-up last November. Well, those traumatized youngsters can take solace in the fact that they didn't see something called Bubble Butt Bonanza No. 17, which is what happened when a pair of Queens youngsters popped in their new Dora the Explorer DVD.
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· God bless Prince! During his concert at Madison Square Garden in New York on Monday night, the singer purple rained all over Kim Kardashian's good time by calling the tabloid fixture up to the stage to dance, and then tossing her off when she wouldn't. You haven't lived until you've seen this -- which thankfully you can! Click ahead to watch -- the fun starts about one minute into the clip -- then stick around for more Buzz Break.
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Robert Pattinson is pensive about the Big Top, and it doesn't help that Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz are dancing inside like elegant grizzly bears. In the new poster for their movie Water for Elephants, we win a glimpse into the sulkiest circus I know. Juggle those emotions, R-Patz -- with flaming bowling pins and a red grin.
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Less than two years after Chris Farley was tastelessly summoned from the grave for a DirecTV commercial, the late actor is again being resurrected. Sorta. Alan Pagano and Carlo Rivieccio are recalling Farley for a private industry reading of their story The Fatman Cometh, about the last 18 months of the star's life. Their project is set entirely in Farley's Saturday Night Live dressing room and will premiere on Feb. 28 in New York City. [Playbill]
In Just Go With It, Jennifer Aniston plays the foil in Adam Sandler's latest crazy scheme to meet the woman of his dreams (or to take money out of your wallet, depending if we're talking about the film or real life). How did Aniston become America's box-office semi-sweetheart after her 10-year run on Friends? You can always trace a direct line through a handful of important roles (but not always the best roles) to illustrate what led to an actor's current success, and with Aniston, that line doesn't deviate too far from her core strength in romantic comedies -- but it did on occasion and it's sorely missed today. Let's look at eight performances -- including one of her earliest -- that trace the evolution of one Jennifer Joanna Aniston.
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Some days, the Internet gives you a lump of coal; some days, it gives you a diamond. Baseball Prospectus writer Larry Granillo has identified the exact 1985 Chicago Cubs game that Ferris Bueller and Cameron Frye attended during their epic day of hooky in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Spoiler: The Bears were not, in fact, winning. Sorry, Mr. Rooney!
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Hard to imagine anyone is surprised to find out that the Church of Scientology took some umbrage with the Lawrence Wright-penned New Yorker piece about Paul Haggis and the church's more untoward practices. (Like disappearing meddling wives, that sort of thing.) Still! Affect your best look of feigned surprise and check out what church spokesman Tommy Davis (Anne Archer's son to you, buddy) had to say about the 25,000 takedown.
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In this Tuesday edition of The Broadsheet: The Beaver gets pushed back again... Bristol Palin might write a memoir... America wins as Cobie Smulders is cast in The Avengers... and more ahead.
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All right, England: If we're going to accept a British Superman, then let's see how you like an American Margaret Thatcher! Oh? You're okay with it as long as it's Meryl Streep? Okay, yes, based on the first photo of Streep from the upcoming Thatcher bio-pic The Iron Lady (which is not a new Marvel franchise... yet) Streep actually does look like she fits well in the role of the famed Prime Minister. (The film details the days before she took the UK to war in the Falklands.) Phyllida Lloyd, who directed Streep in Mamma Mia!, is behind the camera on this one, but to my knowledge it does not contain musical numbers. Too bad! Take a better look at Streep -- and compare her to the real Thatcher -- after the jump.
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Julie Taymor's troubled production of Spiderman: Turn off the Dark has become such an easy target over the last several months that the part of me that roots for the underdog (Yeah I know, the bloated $65 million dollar underdog.) was kind of hoping it'd pull through on the second wave of reviews. No such luck. Most major theatre critics ignored that ill-advised opening date change and went ahead and ran their reviews this week. They're actually a little worse than the initial set of negative reactions, with even the non-negative reviews reading as sympathetic rather than actually positive. And so, while we usually reserve our "Most Scathing Reviews" feature for movies, we'll make an exception for this Broadway production that seems to wish it was a movie.
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Aw man, another movie about some guy who gets a brain tumor only to be nursed back to his former self through music by Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead? Okay fine, we have probably actually never seen this plot in a Sundance Dramedy, but by the end of the trailer for The Music Never Stops it's pretty clear that this is just a backdrop for an father (J.K. Simmons) reconnecting with his estranged son (Lou Taylor Pucci), which might explain why it all feels so familiar.
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· Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twins who tried suing Mark Zuckerberg out of his Facebook fortune, go back and forth -- like true rowers -- on whether The Social Network portrayed them in a positive light. They can agree that Armie Hammer turned in a fine performance, but you'll notice their optimism fades after Piers Morgan notes that the film made them look, eh, a little miserable. [CNN]
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Earlier today we were tickled by tales of Bob and Harvey Weinstein's genius early '80s sexifying shenanigans, but this afternoon brings allegations of shady accounting and legal chicanery lobbied by none other than former collaborator Michael Moore, who claims the Weinsteins deceived him out of millions in profits from his 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Naturally, we wonder: What's this mean for the Oscar race?
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Depending on your mileage for superhero origin stories, the trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger was either totally awesome (Red Skull!) or totally blah (Red Skull?), but no matter how strong your geek heart beats, one part of the slick, 30-second spot demanded universal attention: Chris Evans' transformation from bulky real-life actor to wimpy fictional soldier to bulky fictional superhero. As has been echoed at Internet watercoolers all day: How'd they do that? Perhaps the answer lies ahead.
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