by Jac Kern
02.05.2013
133 days ago
at 02:19 PM |
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Jac's roundup of pop culture news and Internet findings
Sunday’s Super
Bowl was arguably one of the most entertaining sporting events for even the
most athletically clueless. Admittedly, I fall into that category — this was
probably the most recent football game I’ve watched since last year’s SB — and generally
watch for the commercials and half-time show/to justify eating my weight in
cheese and crackers/to feel like a real American. But from on-field brawls and
the post-Beyonce power outage to the tense final minutes of the game, this shit
show was truly a spectacle! Bravo, NFL. Bravo, America.
Queen Bey’s
half-time extravaganza was flawless, lip-synching or not. She booty-popped her
way through a handful of hits and even summoned recently-reunited Destiny’s
Children Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams (no, not her)
to perform a couple classics in coordinating outfits (obvs). Kelly was looking extra fabulous and, as a friend pointed out, that's really saying something about a chick dancing alongside Beyonce.
Michelle, as always, played the cute third wheel role. It appeared that her mic
was off for half of her time onstage, which was probably the stipulation for
Beyonce even allowing Michelle to be included in the reunion. DC superfan note:
Michelle always gets the shaft.
Hours after the
epic, show-stopping (literally — you know Bey caused that outage) show, Beyonce’s
summer tour was announced: The Mrs. Carter Show. Be still, my heart.
For those who care
even less about football than me but still want to check out the over-hyped
commercials, see a roundup here.
30 Rock came to a bittersweet end Thursday. Tina
Fey’s hit changed the comedy landscape and the way we look at snack foods (I’ll
never eat a cupcake the same way again!). Take one last jaunt through TGS memory
lane with every trucker hat
Frank wore throughout the series.
While Girls’ Lena Dunham is still new to the
TV scene, the love-her-or-hate-her writer/director/producer/actress will embark
on a new HBO series with Girls co-executive producer Jenni Konner.
Conan O’Brien a
certified comedy demigod — one of the most beloved late night hosts of the 21st
century. Despite the buzzed-about drama with Jay Leno and Conan’s move to TBS,
the show retained its core audience and it’s clear people still love them some
Coco. And, after watching last week’s Occupy Conan episode, it’s clear Coco
loves us, too. Back in November, the late night host announced he’d present a
fan-generated episode. Viewers were invited to re-imagine their own episode based on the Aug. 16, 2011 show with Anne Hathaway and Fun. Tons of original
content was submitted and mashed together to create an epically weird and
hilarious version of that episode. “Occupy Conan” featured animations,
live-action interpretations, puppets and even submissions from the likes of
Tina Fey, Fred Armisen and Joel McHale. I hadn’t actually seen the original
episode, which is unfortunate as Anne Hathaway gave the most WTF-worthy rap
performance only a white girl could pull off (or not — you decide). I wouldn’t
be surprised if this becomes a new TV trend for shows with particularly
ambitious/obsessed fans. Check out the full fan-sourced episode here.
In hatchet-wielding
homeless hitchhiker news: A delusional man in Fresno, Calif., claiming he was Jesus,
purposely hit a PG&E worker with his car. Thankfully, help was on the scene:
Sa-Mash.
0 Comments · Wednesday, January 16, 2013
People sure are concerned with Girls for a time when television is full of objectionable content — terrorists, gigolos, Bill O’Reilly, etc. For better or worse, Lena Dunham’s comedy has garnered a ton of attention since its premiere in April 2012.
by Jac Kern
01.15.2013
Jac's roundup of pop culture news and Internet findings
Tina Fey and Amy
Poehler hosted the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards Sunday, making
the three-hour event pretty much bearable! Some awards were pretty predictable
(Les Mis) while others were surprising (Girls) but T&A — I’m coining their
celebrity couple name — kept the show fun by teasing Hollywood greats and each other.
The first awards
of the night went to Christoph Waltz, Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, Drama
for Django Unchained; Maggie Smith,
Best Supporting Actress – TV for Downton Abbey;
and Julianne Moore, Best Actress – Miniseries/TV Movie for Game Change, which also was awarded Best Miniseries/TV Movie. Now,
I think we can all lay to rest the Sarah Palin impersonation. May we never seek
its comedic relief again.
Keeping everyone
on their toes, T&A randomly planted themselves, in disguises, in the
audience as the camera panned to nominees:
Next up, Homeland started to sweep
the evening, nabbing Best TV Series – Drama, Best Actor
(Damian Lewis) and Best Actress (Claire Danes) in the category. Danes thanked her recently born son, with whom she was pregnant while filming some of this season's craziest scenes. Cute, but she really
should have named that kid Saul, right?
As Michael Bloomberg said, white
people love them some Homeland.
Mychael Danna was awarded with Best Original Score
for Life of Pi and Adele, finally out
of maternal hiding, won a much-deserved Globe for Best Original Score for the
eponymous hit from Skyfall.
Taylor Swift was
not impressed.
JLo showed up looking like a slutty Queen
Frostine in a what appeared to be a body paint ensemble
to award Best Actor – Miniseries/TV Movie (Hatfields
& McCoys) to a very boring
Kevin Costner. So what do you do when half the crowd is drunk and the show
starts getting boring? Bring out Bill Clinton!
Willie bit his
lip, thumbs upped a few times and introduced Lincoln (once everyone stopped throwing their panties onstage at
him). Not missing a beat, Poehler came out, awestruck, and proclaimed, “That
was Hillary Clinton’s husband!” Sa-woon.
Then out come Will
Ferrell and Kristin Wiig (looking foine as ever),
giggling like a couple stoned teenagers, pretending to not have seen a single
film in their category (Best Actress – Motion Picture, Comedy/Musical).
JLaw got the prize
for her role in Silver Linings Playbook,
wearing what may become a major spring 2013 fashion trend: boob origami.
Lawrence seems like a real human, and funny to boot. She'll be hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend.
Ed Harris won
Best Support Actor – TV for his role as John McCain in Game Change. Anne Hathaway dreamed a dream about winning Best Supporting
Actress – Motion Picture…and it came true (Sorry, that was pretty bad). Though
I did not care for her 1994 mother of the bride look. Best Screenplay went to Quentin “Don’t ask me about violence” Tarantino
for Django Unchained. In a pretty
surprising turn, Don Cheadle, who is awesome, won Best Actor – TV,
Comedy/Musical for House of Lies,
which is really not that awesome. Louie C.K. was robbed.
Everyone took a
little nap as Best Foreign Language Film was announced (Amour) because ENGLISH. And Brave
won Best Animated Feature Film (Side note: Go watch that shit with your mom and
be prepared for sobbing and family bonding).
The Best Actress –
TV, Comedy/Musical category was full of badass ladies, including the two hosts.
Tina awaited the
results with new BFF Jennifer Lopez
While Amy cozied
up with her new beau. Eat it, Will Arnett!
But — Surprise! — it was Lena
Dunham who napped the award for her role in Girls. T&A promptly
poked fun at Dunham’s speech, gave a losers toast, and called out a very drunk
Glenn Close. Then, things turn a turn for the…weird. Jodie Foster was honored
with the Cecil B. DeMille Award, presented by Robert Downey, Jr. In her speech (the one that they actually could have cut off but didn't), Foster hopped
back and forth between trying to make jokes and some genuine, serious points,
making the whole thing a little hard to follow.
On one hand, I can
understand why some people are confused as to why, if she was going to address
her personal life anyway, she wouldn’t just come out with a declarative
statement about being gay. It’s important for people to see strong, positive
public figures who happen to be homosexual, especially children who feel
different, ostracized or unloved because of who they are. I get that. But Miss
Jodie had some points in that cloudy ramble of a speech. As a celebrity who
works hard to keep her life off-screen private, why should she be pressed to make
some kind of grand statement, especially since she has already come out to
those who know her personally? “Coming outs” can certainly be positive these
days, but they’re also an invitation for attention and publicity, which she
personally does not want. In her own words “I am not Honey Boo Boo Child.”
For the final
awards of the night, Ben Affleck won Best Director for Argo; Girls won Best TV
Series – Comedy/Musical; Hugh Jackman nabbed Best Actor for Les Miserables, the same film awarded for Best
Comedy/Musical; Jessica Chastain, who’s appeared in 10 films since 2011, won
Best Actress for Zero Dark Thirty;
Daniel “Human Chameleon” Day-Lewis shocked no one when he won Best Actor for Lincoln; and Best Film in the Drama
category went to Argo.
Whew. That was a
lot to take in, wasn’t it, Mel?
0 Comments · Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Television gets a bad rap for being the
poor man’s medium. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of weak and
culturally regressive programming out there, from The Bachelor to Huckabee.
But because of its accessibility and popularity, fads on television
often represent greater cultural trends.
0 Comments · Wednesday, April 11, 2012
A group of young women balance life, love
and work as they try to make their mark on New York City. Sound
familiar? But where Carrie and Co. represented an embellished fantasy of glamorous, high-powered, sexualized New Yorkers, HBO’s Girls offers a more realistic view of entering adulthood as a 21st century female.