What if our corporate overlords could measure precisely how one single city block—yours—would respond to their advertisements for Pringles™ brand astronaut potatoes, to offer a delicious example? They would use this power for racism, obvs.
I've been instructed to use my goodbye post to relate a story I haven't told before. So strap in, kids: you're getting the never-before-revealed tale of my brief foray into reality television.
Verne Troyer has finally found something even more embarrassing than appearing on Celebrity Big Brother in a foreign country: being forced to wear a Winnie the Pooh costume on that very same show.
After working with Ledger in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus just before his death, Troyer was moved to replicate part of the actor's signature—a heart—as a tattoo on his hand. Troyer recounted his memories in a sober, touching story that belied its setting: an episode of the UK's Celebrity Big Brother. Luckily, Troyer managed to keep the moment respectful; the only flicker of inappropriate reality show camp came just before he began, as the narrator noted, "4:48 pm. Coolio is in the kitchen." [ONTD]
Die Power Der Veto. We assumed a headline reading, "Hitler planned 'Big Brother' style television to broadcast Nazi propaganda," meant that the Nazi dictator was the John de Mol of his time. Turns out they were just talking about boring, old Orwell-style Big Brotherism: projections of the dictator speaking in public squares. It would have so much more fascinating to think Hitler was way ahead of the reality TV curve, with a plan to put a dozen Aryan out-of-work bartenders inside a house rigged by Leni Riefenstahl with hundreds of cameras, and broadcasting the ensuing bickering and hottübben shenanigans for an enraptured German population. [Summer's Assholes 10 photo-illustration courtesy of Glark.] [Daily Mail]
We love nothing more than a fairy tale ending, and we got one on last night's Big Brother, when—amidst the tragedy of contestant April's ejection from their 24-hour surveillance Eden— surviving housemate and oral-sex-partner Ollie proposed..um...popping his relationship cherry? Prodded by host Julie Chen, who had already been given a fat dossier on the pair's budding romance which included a number of X-ray stills from their quilt-covered shenanigans, Ollie extolled the many virtues of the Arizona auto-financing manager, then announced, "I got a question for you: Will you be my first girlfriend? I want an answer from you the second I get out of this house." CBS would be fools not to capitalize on the event, mounting a lavish Ollie and April's Going Steady Ceremony primetime special upon which no expense would be spared.
I guess there are probably two camps on this story, about an Indian reality show star who will have her reaction to a cervical cancer diagnosis broadcast around the entire subcontinent. Some feel that Jade Goody, a British woman on the Big Brother-esque reality program Bigg Boss, should have had her tearful reaction to the news she received over the phone kept private. Others, like me, feel that these are the few moments when reality television actually feels like, well, reality. Remember when Danny's mom passed away on Real World: Austin? It was terribly sad and awkwardly on camera, but it also transformed Danny from complete drunken buffoon into actual, sympathetic person. I'm not saying that he needed his mother to die in order to become "real," rather that we on the on the other side of the glowing box can be pretty jaded-we forget that, beyond the silly feather ruffling and preening, these really are people with lives and mortality and family. It's a bitter little pill to swallow, sure, but I think it lends an air of legitimacy to a landscape that is, for the most part, lacking in that department. Well, except for Beauty and the Geek which is sweet and lovable and all about feelings and makes me happy. That show is pure gold. But these other ones, especially this Bigg Boss where I hope Ms. Goody makes a speedy and full recovery and that maybe she's helped raise awareness for vigilance in detection and prevention, shouldn't be at fault, in my opinion, for airing these difficult moments. Reality show "stars" (contestants? participants? guinea pigs? victims?) may mostly be signing up to have their drunkenest hot tub kadoodle flicker on their horrified parents' television set, but once in a while something true and difficult and all-too-relatable will happen and you remember that, despite all the silliness and Jell-O shooting and gonorrhea having, in the words of High School Musical, we're all in this together. And that's a good thing. (Also you should really just read the article because it's sort of crazy and reads like a book about magic. India!)
That New York Reality TV School we mentioned earlier is getting more and more attention, becoming something of a television-esque circus unto itself. A brave writer for AdAge entered the fray recently, and reports back that, just like reality shows themselves, events are pre-arranged and camera crews are everywhere. He met a woman named Cody-Ann Palmer, who expressed an interest in appearing on a show like The Real World or sadness-fest Big Brother. She seemed like the ideal reality star-assured, ambitious, dumb-until her time came to do a practice pitch of herself:
· And now for some non-earthquake-related Big Brother rumbles: In one corner, we have 75-year-old contestant (and the oldest person on CBS since Murder, She Wrote), Jerry. In the other, we have professional "mixologist" Memphis, precisely one-third Jerry's age. We won't tell you how it plays out, except to say so long as you're glimpsing three-quarters-of-a-century-old armpit, Jerry's winning. [Big Brother] · A fourth Austin Powers is reportedly being written by Mike Myers. It's a "very personal [take] with a father and son theme loosely based on his own life," meaning it's sure to feature a scene in which the old Mini Me is tossed around in the backyard. [Deadline Hollywood] · In honor of Discovery Channel's Shark Week, a chat with a Great White. [edithzimmerman.com] · Hitting every stop on the Interactive Ben Kingsley Accent Map would wear out even the sturdiest Amazing Race contestants. [bestweekever.tv] · Hey—bear running around a track in high heels! [Jezebel]
Cultural capital of the world Los Angeles held up bravely during its earthquake yesterday, not counting its public officials. Bloggers continued their work, showings of Batman went on undisturbed, and gynecologists kept on, uh, doing their thing. But Judge Judy was not the only celebrity to suffer a disruption; the quake shook LA's indispensable horoscope reader CosmosGal (pictured, bracing herself) to distraction! Even worse, the attractive denizens of the Big Brother house were forced to flee outdoors and remove their shirts! You can see both of the stunning clips of disaster survival after the jump; we urge any other minor celebrities who may have been inconvenienced to contact us at once:
Following a 5.4 earthquake that dealt most of its damage to people's Facebook status updates ("Jim is: EARTHQUAKE!"), it was only natural to wonder how the tremor might have affected the city's old, its infirm, and its Big Brother 10 residents. Fortunately, the Hollywood Reporter can help us out on at least one of those fronts: its video update reveals that the Big Brother houseguests bypassed the "Is that a truck? Oh, wait..." stage experienced by most Los Angelenos, instead rushing out into the backyard to doff their clothes and trade "Omigawds." Video after the jump.Click to view
· When did they let this moaning, twitching, four-legged freak-creature (two white legs, two black with socks on) into the Big Brother 10 house? Look away! It's positively monstrous! [Arguably NSFW.] [B-Side Blog]
· Ben Silverman told TCA today that the Amy Poehler is actually starring in a completely separate project from that Office spinoff. In other Poehler news, Lorne Michaels said that her departure from SNL will be a "big loss." (Rifling around frantically for our Kristen Wiig doll...There you are. Hugggies.) [THR, LAT]
· Patrick Swayze looking surprisingly hunky for someone with inoperable pancreatic cancer. Go get 'em, Bodhi! [Daily Mail]
· The poster for Alan Ball's True Blood makes us quiver with antici. (Count to three.) Pation. [Slashfilm via AICN]
· Remember that time you were thinking to yourself, "If only I had a visual dictionary of a wide variety of baby animals." Well, today is your lucky day. Even Four-Legged BJ Monsters are cute when they're babies! [Baby Animal Alphabet]
· HBO shakes things up in their original series development department, moving longtime president Carolyn Strauss into a new, not-quite-fired-but-let's- see-what-some-new-blood- can-do-about- never-letting- John From Cincinnati -happen-again position. [Variety]
· Hollywood StrikeWatch 2: The Bickering. SAG and AFTRA can't seem to decide whether basic cable should be included in the upcoming actors negotiation, leading to a flurry of strongly worded letters and "near-constant sniping" between the two unions, who'll ultimately air out their differences in a choreographed rumble in the Farmers Market parking lot, set to the music of Leonard Bernstein. [Variety]
· Marvel Studios has sold the exclusive broadcast rights to FX for a package of five of their movies, including the upcoming Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, along with three more, yet-to-be-determined titles. (We're pulling for a She-Hulk Vs. She-Thing, starring Rachel Bilson and Mischa Barton.) [Variety]
The second installment of our newish feature, Scrambled Eggs, comes to us courtesy of an eagle-eyed friend of Defamer, People Paula. But before we get into the contents of the clip at hand, we'll give you a quick refresher on what exactly makes a Scrambled Egg. It's a term we invented to describe those glorious moments that happen in television shows when a bored (or possibly stoned) editor cuts an inexplicable and altogetherly out-of-context image into a scene, likely as an inside joke for themselves. Got it? Good.
Now that your memory has been rebooted, we are glad to present this Scrambled Egg from Wednesday night's episode of Big Brother. As the Chenbot attempts to engage the castmembers of the 412th season of the show in some casual conversation while they dangle from some sort of unusual swinging device (forgive us, we haven't followed the show since the days of Dr. Will and Mike Boogie), the show's sleep-deprived editors make what can only be described as an unusual choice for a cutaway shot.
The current season of CBS' Big Brother has the objective of setting up its contestants with their soul mates. As we mentioned before, there were two gay guys on the show who were supposedly meant for each other (though one of them recently left.) Well now it looks like there may be a third homo. Well, he's at least gay-for-pay. It would seem that "Crazy" James, a 21-year-old from Sarasota who was paired up with a girl on the show, has, erm, done a little less-than-straight adult work in the past. I for one am shocked and appalled that someone on such a prestigious cornerstone of the highly reputable reality TV genre should be associated with such filth. Abandon all hope ye who click further, it's all NSFW. [ohnotheydidn't] After the jump, a Safe For Work clip of "Crazy" James on the show, talking about his interesting life (and probably providing an explanation for the porn.)
With the fumigation circus tent removed from the Big Brother house on the Radford lot, every stubborn germ, virus, and parasite from the last batch of contestants effectively snuffed, we're now ready for another round of the hit CBS reality series. And while there was certainly nothing broke with the show's last incarnation—who doesn't love watching 16 off-duty bartenders stand around a kitchen island sharing Jew-spotting tips?—they've tweaked Season 9 considerably. Big Brother: 'Til Death Do You Part pits eight teams of two against one another: all couples. And by that we mean, sex-having couples.
Proving that the problem of homophobia has finally been completely eradicated, this coming season of Big Brother will feature not one, but two gay dudes. But that's not the big hook! The conceit of this iteration of the seemingly unending strangers-locked-in-a-house competition show is that the contestants had to fill out a "love match profile", and will find out when they get on the show that one of the other people in the house is... their SOUL MATE! So that means that CBS is tolerating, even encouraging, two guys to kiss and touch each other's privates and stuff! Harvey Milk! You won! And they're high quality geighs, too. Joshuah, 25, is a media buyer who slept with his sister's cheerleading coach. Which got her kicked off the team. In an introductory video he says he'll bring "back stabbing" to the show. In that same video the other homo, Neil, says that when he's dating someone people always ask him "Why are you dating someone? You're attractive. You should be dating everyone." Oh. Oh dear. Cast intro video after the jump. (Which includes an interview with a hideously coiffed producer. Neil! Joshuah! Help her!) [AfterElton]
To the casual onlooker, Mike "Boogie" Malin leads an existence worth coveting: a self-made nightlife entrepreneur with first pick of the aspiring-starlet veal, Malin is perhaps most famous for quarantining himself on national TV and walking away from the experience $1 million richer. But there's an ugly underside to life in the Hollywood fast lane, strewn with suspicious growths, nights in Denver jail, partners accused of rape, and now, courtesy of Eater LA, this:
It seems The Dolce Group restaurant impresario and Big Brother All-Stars $1 million-winner Mike Malin, whom last we checked in with for his weekly penile-wart singeing, wound up in a Denver jail cell after allegedly demonstrating a little too much enthusiasm over the Boston Red Sox's recent World Series victory. Eater LA has the scoop:
