There is...SO much wrong with this picture...mommy, I'm scared

It won't be long before Stephenie Meyer tells them all to drink the special kool-aid so that they can all become sparkly vampires...

Wait......WHAT?

One of the most exciting, consistently brilliant American Idol contestants just LOST to an admittedly good but low-key pretty boy from Arkansas? Why America...WHY!?

Hands down the best Super Bowl commercial...

Today in bulls**t: David Hirschfelder's Australia score is M.I.A.

Source: Australiamovie.net

“Where’s the Australia Soundtrack?”, “Who composed the score?”, “Where can I purchase David Hirschfelder’s music from the film?” and again “Where is the Australia Soundtrack?” are just a mere few examples of many many e-mail enquiries, forum posts, and guestbook entries wanting to know what on earth Bazmark and 20th Century Fox are doing. Even a large amount of our site traffic is coming from other forums and serach results looking for the same thing.

At first it appeared there was simply a delay, but as time goes on it’s fast becoming a disappointing reality that the score for this film, by musician David Hirschfelder, may not be made available to the public. We’ve been told that the rights obviously lay with Bazmark and Fox, and beyond that it is unknown what the decision for release will be but, “at this point it doesn’t look likely”.

It’s a befuddling world we are living in when random films such as Just Like Heaven, Serendipity and The Wedding Planner have soundtracks made available but an epic film such as Australia cannot release a hardcopy CD containing the works of an award winning composer. Where’s the logic?

With the recent boost in interest generated by international filmgoers, there may still be a chance for the soundtrack to reveal itself yet. However in the meantime davidhirschfelder.com has generously put five full songs from the Australia score in high quality streaming format on the composer’s official website.

The website reads, “David spent 7 months on the project from temp to trailers to finished score. His imposing score at times combines frenetic percussion of pounding cattle hooves melding on the barren red desert and river beds to the majesty of a herd of wild brumbies galloping across the dusty plains. With over 2 hours of underscore it is hard to pick highlights…”

Tracks made available are Bombing of Darwin, Nullah Enchants Sarah, England to Oz, Stampede and Nullah is Safe. The website is best viewed using Internet Explorer.

I think I've just seen the best film of the decade

Killer Buzz (2001). The girl in the pink tank top totally deserved a best supporting actress nomination for her riveting delivery of, "Eat THIS! And that! You want some of this!?"

A message to writers/journalists/bloggers everywhere...

I know I'm probably not the best person to go on a rant about grammar. I catch ludicrous mistakes on here all the time, and there are most likely errors in this very post. However, when I make mistakes like "they're house" instead of "their house", it's usually an accident that I fix as I soon as I find it. For many, unfortunately, this is not the case. So, not to sound like some insufferable English teacher, but I feel like I have to at least sound off on some of the grammatical errors that simply drive me over the edge. Now no one can say that I didn't try.

1) Their vs They're vs There

• It's actually REALLY simple. Their is possesive, they're is a contraction meaning "they are", and there is a reference to location. Some examples to drive home the point....
• I want to burn that copy of "Twilight" sitting on that table over there.
• I can't believe they're reading "Twilight"; I thought their tastes were much more refined.

2) Good vs Well

• Nothing irritates me more than to sit down in my high school's cafeteria (pardon, dining hall) than to hear one of my friends brag about how he, "felt like I did really good on the pop quiz."
• For starters, the words differ in function. Good is an adjective, and well is generally an adverb. So...
• I did really well on the in-class essay in AP English (which, if you have my teacher, is still grammatically correct, but none-the-less a lie).
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a really good movie (yes, yes it is).
• However, well can be used as an adjective: I don't feel well today.

3) A history/historic/historically vs An history/historic/historically

• Did I say that errors in good vs well bothered me? Those mistakes are nothing compared to the sudden RAGE I feel when I see an error here. Why? Because it isn't just an error made by average Joe's. I've seen errors in high quality publications. I was recently horrified by Anne Thompson's review of "Benjamin Button" in Variety, wherin Ms. Thompson declared the film, "an historic acheivment." 
• NO. NO. NO. NO.
• "But wait!" you say, "We say 'an hour' and that's correct, right?" 
• Yes, it is correct to say "an hour", but that's because English pronunciation all but drops the "h". The "h" never changes the fact that "hour" is pronounced identically to "our", which begins with a vowel, therefore making "an hour" correct. Though the "h" in "history" may not be where the main stress of the word falls, it is still crucial to the word, and, being a consonant, very much requires a damn "a".
• Still not convinced? Helium, a well respected website that focuses a lot on languages has this to offer:

• Should the "h-" sound be pronounced with breath, or without? Is it simply a matter of opinion?

  The answer, coincidentally, is a historic one (not an historic one). Like many words in the English language, "history" is derived from French. The French language does not pronounce the "h-" sound at all it is, in essence, swallowed. For many of the words beginning with the letter "h" that English commandeers from French, the French pronunciation is respected: "honour" (Fr. "honneur"), "honest" (Fr. "honnete"), "heir" (Fr. "hair"), and "hour" (Fr. "heure") to name but a few. However, there are also many h-words taken from French in which English has changed the pronunciation of the "h": "hideous" (Fr. "hideux"), "horror" (Fr. "horreur"), "hotel" (Fr. "hotel"), and, of course, "history" (Fr. "histoire"). The words that retain the French pronunciation of "h" still begin with a vowel sound in English, and the article "an" should be used: an hour, an honest woman, etc. For those words that English modifies the pronunciation of, thereby breathing the "h-" and creating a consonant sound, the article "a" should be used: a horror movie, a hideous man, etc. It would sound ridiculous if we heard somebody say, "I have an history test tomorrow", because English changes the pronunciation to a breathed "h-" sound. Therefore, we can safely reason that the English adjective "historical" should be constructed from the English noun "history", breathed "h" and all, and thus take the article "a".

Apparently my cat thinks he's a dog....

Merry Christmas!!

AP Entertainer of the Year: Tina Fey.

They really couldn't have picked anyone more deserving for this year.

Source: YahooNews

NEW YORK - Tina Fey is the entertainer of the year? You betcha.

Fey was voted The Associated Press' Entertainer of the Year, an annual honor chosen by newspaper editors and broadcast producers across the country. Fey was selected by AP members as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008.

The 38-year-old comedian bested runner-up Robert Downey Jr ., whose comeback was capped with the blockbuster smash "Iron Man," and the third-place vote-getter, Heath Ledger , who posthumously wowed audiences as the Joker in " The Dark Knight ."

But it was Fey who most impressed voters largely with her indelible impression of Gov. Sarah Palin on " Saturday Night Live ." Her cameos on her old show (where she had been a head writer until 2006) helped drive the show to record ratings and eventually drew an appearance from Palin herself.

"Tina Fey is such an obvious choice," said Sharon Eberson, entertainment editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "She gave us funny when we really needed it and, in a year when women in politics were making huge strides, Fey stood out in the world of entertainment."

Fey's 2008 was a full year, though.

She also starred for the first time on the big screen in " Baby Mama " (which grossed $60 million at the box office) and won three Emmys for her critically lauded NBC sitcom " 30 Rock ," which she created, stars in and writes. In the comedy series category, she won for best lead actress and best writing, and shared in the award for best comedy series.

"She simultaneously entertained us with her wit and put a mirror up to the nation during the election and made us think about what was going on," said Scott Shive, assistant features editor at the Lexington Herald-Leader. "She is the epitome of the smart kid coming out on top for once."

As soon as Palin was chosen as Sen. John McCain 's running mate , conjecture mounted that the similar-looking Fey would have to return to "SNL" to play her.

In an interview earlier this fall, Fey recalled watching early TV coverage of Palin: "That was the first time I thought, `Well, I kinda do look like her. I'd better really listen to how this lady talks.'"

Fey debuted the impression on the "SNL" season premiere and a sensation quickly followed. She made four more pre-election appearances as Palin on the late-night satire.

"From the winks to the nods to the accent, she nailed it," said Marc Bona, assistant entertainment editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland. "And she did so at a time when it seemed the whole country was tuned in — both to the presidential race as well as ' Saturday Night Live .'"

Her Palin impression has benefited "30 Rock," too. The show premiered its fourth season to 8.5 million viewers, a million more than last year's opener.

Recently, she was also nominated for a Golden Globe (for best performance by an actress in a TV series, comedy or musical), as well as a Screen Actors Guild award .

"The ` SNL ' stuff has certainly changed things for me," Fey said in October. "A lot more people seem to know who I am."

Last year's AP Entertainer of the Year also went to a comedian whose satire blended in with politics: Stephen Colbert .

Apparently....

Movie Reviews

The folks at ABC are pure evil....

Why do all the good shows have to get cancelled? Pushing Daisies certainly isn't the best show on TV, but it is/was a delightful and unique high concept comedy that always kept itself fresh and fun. Just when Lee Pace had a great career break....what a shame. How is it that this is going off the air and crud like America's Next Top Model and Survivor keep on living? ARGH!

Source: TV by the numbers

Update: Watch with Kristin has Pushing Daisies executive producer Bryan Fuller’s take on the news.

James Hibberd reports that producers of all three shows have been informed that their series will not get full season pickups. This jibes with all of our numeric sensibilities, and we’ve been seeing it in the making for weeks. But rumors were rampant that Eli Stone or Dirty Sexy Money could be kept. It’s possible that’s true, but that continued ratings erosion this week killed off any chance of that. We’d presumed Pushing Daisies dead all along.

The networks held off on using the word “cancellation” but that’s typically the case. Hibberd seems to think since the shows are still on the schedules the networks want to leave a little wiggle room about it in the event that they order more shows. I believe it far more likely, especially given this week’s low numbers for all three shows that the network is avoiding the “c” word only because it doesn’t want to hear flack from advertisers who don’t want to advertise on shows that have been CANCELLED.

We may need a new category of as close to cancelled as you can possibly get — so close, that it’s the same thing as being cancelled.

Personally, while I’m sad for both fans of these shows and the producers and everyone involved with working on them, I’m happy it shook out like this. If they’d have kept Eli Stone, for example, we’d have seen 10,000 “how could they cancel Dirty Sexy Money and keep Eli Stone! WTF!?” I’m glad we won’t have to deal with that…

Again, there is no comment on the quality of any of the shows here, but from a numbers perspective, they weren’t on the bubble, they were well below the cancellation line. All three shows performed well under ABC’s average, and even before this week’s lousy numbers are factored in, they were ABC’s three worst performing scripted shows among 18-49 year olds.

Update: Hibberd also reports that Life on Mars will air after LOST at 10pm on Wednesdays as was earlier thought, starting January 28, but I’m not sure yet whether that means a full season pickup for the show.

Midnight's Children being adapted into a movie!!

This is one of my all time favorite books, and a movie version has the potential to be spectacular (although lots of stuff would have to be cut out). Here's hoping it gets done justice...

By Etan Vlessing

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - Canadian director Deepa Mehta is collaborating with Salman Rushdie on a big-screen adaptation of the author's 1981 historical novel "Midnight's Children."

The book, which earned Rushdie the prestigious Booker literary prize, portrays the history of India from 1910 to a declared state of emergency in 1976. The story is narrated by a young man born on the stroke of midnight August 15, 1947, the day India won independence from Britain.

Toronto-based Mehta and Rushdie will co-write the screenplay, and they hope to have cameras rolling in 2010.

Indian actors Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das, who starred in two earlier Mehta films, "Fire" and "Earth," are on board to star in the project.

Both Mehta and Rushdie were born in India, with the filmmaker eventually moving to Canada and the novelist to Britain.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Wait....what?

If he's being serious, then this is really a shame. He had potential to be one of the best actors of his generation.

Source: ExtraTv.Warnerbrothers

Joaquin Phoenix: Leaving the Silver Screen?
"Extra" caught up with actor Joaquin Phoenix, and the "Walk the Line" star dropped a shocker -- is he really leaving show biz?!

Yes! Last night at the Paul Newman benefit, the Oscar nominee told "Extra," "I want to take this opportunity... also to give you the exclusive and just talk a little bit about the fact that this will be my last performance as an actor... I'm not doing films anymore."

"Extra's" Jerry Penacoli, shocked by the news, further probed Joaquin. "Are you serious?" Phoenix, who was curiously being followed by his own camera crews, reiterated, "Yeah. I'm working on my music. I'm done. I've been through that."

Actor Casey Affleck, present during the admission, tells "Extra", "I don't think he's kidding. He's got music and stuff."

Today, "Extra" contacted Phoenix's rep for clarification and got this response: "That is what he told me."