They're in the wild now, these iPads. Perhaps you've seen them. Perhaps your friends have them, or that neighbor, Jones, who you're trying to keep up with. They're kind of fun to play around with, am I right? There's just that sticking point of the price...
Fortunately, you've got 2 days left to win an iPad for free, thanks to Movieline.
After a few years of ceding the spotlight to the younger, cooler Showtime, it looks like HBO is back on the upswing. After airing only one episode of the cachet-granting new series Treme, the network has already renewed it for a second season. Let's all free-associate musically in celebration! [THR]
When you think of the Syfy network, you think of sweaty, steroid-fueled men (and women) issuing choreographed moves like the shining wizard, the Mongolian chop and the Bionic elbow for your guilty pleasure, right? Well, that is what the "Imagine Greater" network is hoping for when it premieres WWE Friday Night Smackdowns on Oct. 1. Syfy president Dave Howe rationalized that the partnership is perfect because "WWE is the ultimate in imagination-based sports entertainment." Standing moonsault! [TVbytheNumbers]
· I just don't get whatever is going on in the mind of the man who picks out the key art for the Sex and the City film franchise, but at least this is an improvement on the teaser poster.
· Who's going to judge Glee's regionals competition? Josh Groban, Olivia Newton-John, and Sue Sylvester, somehow.
· 20th Century Fox has picked up a teen fugitive tale for director David Gordon Green.
· Which creatine-friendly young star should play He-Man?
· Andrew Niccol's canny sci-fi script for I'm.mortal allows him to cast 25-year-olds...as other 25-year-olds' parents. The game has been upped, CW!
There were all kinds of awesome contretemps dotting the pop-culture landscape during Movieline's first year online, but only a few of them seemed to flare up into blazes you could see from outer space. Some you might have expected (Roman Polanski), some were crazy-making (Paramount's patronizing G.I. Joe campaign), and some were just... crazy (Harry Connick Jr. vs. Australian blackface? Say whaaaa?). But for better or worse, they all helped set the standard for culture wars and other skirmishes to come in the year ahead:
At the end of every month at Movieline, we like to assemble that month's best writing into one easy-to-digest table of contents, slap a cover onto it in a tribute to Movieline's print legacy, and call it the Virtual Newsstand. We hope it's a great feature for you, the reader, but it's also a very necessary ritual for the Movieline staff.
When a famous actress delivers an unusually candid quote to a foreign news site you've never heard of, it's only fair to think that something may be lost in translation. At least, that's the only explanation I can think of for this: "Jim [Cameron] didn't have breasts, and I think that was the reason [he lost the Best Director Oscar]," Sigourney Weaver supposedly told Folha Online, a Brazilian news site. "He should have taken home that Oscar...In the past, Avatar would have won because they loved to hand out awards to big productions, like Ben-Hur. Today it's fashionable to give the Oscar to a small movie that nobody saw." [HuffPo]
Conan O'Brien may be legally prohibited from being funny on television -- at least until November -- but that doesn't mean he can't bring some laughs to YouTube. The new TBS host started his nationwide comedy tour last night in Eugene, Oregon, and -- wouldn't you know it -- many of the surprises and jokes from the show have already found their way onto the Internet. So if you can't wait to see Conan on your HD television in seven months -- or if you couldn't get tickets for the live shows in the other 29 cities -- check out these crappy cell phone videos after the jump. Spoilers, kinda.
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When it comes to Movieline's "On This Day" feature, there are always plenty of historic occasions to commemorate on April 13 -- say, Sidney Poitier's groundbreaking Academy Award win for Best Actor in 1964, or Rick Schroeder's birthday 40 years ago (go ahead, gasp). But today around ML HQ, there's another momentous birthday we can't overlook celebrating as well: Ours.
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Steven Seagal is a movie star, a Tibetan Buddhist, a musician, a martial artist, a writer/producer, a deputy sheriff -- and now, thanks to a lawsuit filed by a former employee of his -- an alleged sexual harasser. Details of the case, along with the reasons why you should be thanking your lucky stars you are not on Mr. Seagal's payroll, after the jump.
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· And now, Chapter 17 of the Moneyball chronicles, in which the tortured path of Sony's bestselling book adaptation finally looks like its going to straighten out. (Actually, we got a pretty strong hint of that back in Chapter 16, when Jonah Hill confirmed he'd be in the cast when director Bennett Miller shoots the film this summer.) The latest word has many more details about timeline, additional casting (it's underway) and budget in particular -- $47 million. Hooray? [Deadline]
Of course it wouldn't be Moneyball unless Brad Pitt was suddenly whispered to be dropping out; more about that and the rest of Hollywood Ink after the jump.
Curious as to why Olivia Wilde has been hitting up her Twitter followers for tips on mastering an Iowa accent? Movieline can reveal the reason: it's because the House actress has been cast in Butter, Jim Field Smith's satirical comedy that plays out the themes of the 2008 Democratic primary by using an Iowa butter-carving competition as the setting.
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· Dixie Carter was many things during her seventy years of her life: star of Designing Women, wife to Hal Holbrook, unlikely Republican voter, and former boss to eventual Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry (who broke into Hollywood as her assistant). One thing she was not, however, was vain, and this Exorcist-evoking clip from Dixie Carter's Unworkout proves it. Stay tuned for the sweet, infectious burst of laughter at the end:
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Don't cry for Patton Oswalt, whose Broadway debut in <a href="
http://www.deadline.com/2010/03/megan-mullallys-exit-closes-curtain-on-lips-together-teeth-apart/">Lips Together, Teeth Apart was canceled thanks to Megan Mullally's gripes and exit. He's been cast as a Hamptons billionaire in the NBC pilot Beach Lane with Matthew Broderick and Kristen Johnston. That's an exciting ensemble; in fact, if anyone's owed a proper comeback here, it's Johnston, whose most recent attempt at television was not that absolutely fabulous. [Variety]
First things first: most up-and-coming actors would kill for Sam Worthington's career. After receiving James Cameron's imprimatur via the lead role in Avatar, Worthington was cast to topline two additional tentpoles -- Terminator Salvation and Clash of the Titans -- before Cameron's blue movie had even come out. Not bad, right?
No, but it could be better. The four films Worthington has made since Avatar have all been tumultuous productions, and two of them may not even come out in theaters. You know things are bad when a James Cameron shoot is your least trouble-plagued production of the last three years. Here's the rundown of Worthington's bad luck:
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