andPOP » Adam Gonshor

Contest: Prison Break Season 4

Adam Gonshor — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:42:13 +0000

Prison Break Season Four- DVD out on June 2^nd. Season Four follows brothers Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows as they seek justice against The Company, the shadowy group responsible for destroying their lives and killing the woman Michael loves, Dr. Sara Tancredi.

andPOP is giving away 2 copies of the DVD.Email contests@andpop.com with your mailing address for your chance to win. Hurry! Contest ends July 5.

Contest: 24 Season 7

Adam Gonshor — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:31:18 +0000

Get ready to get addicted again with another heart-pounding, nail-biting thrill ride when “24” Season Seven arrives for the first time ever on high-definition Blu-ray Disc and DVD May 19 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. The countdown starts over as Jack Bauer (Emmy® Award winner Kiefer Sutherland) is thrust back into action in a new city, with a new role and a new enemy to bring down. Set in Washington, D.C., Jack is under investigation for his “high crimes” during his time at CTU as a mysterious new threat is attempting to take the government down. As the race against the clock escalates, Jack is forced to take matters into his own hands, working with old friends and new allies to once again protect the country. Featuring stunning performances by returning from dead cast member Carlos Bernard (“Tony Almeida”), Mary Lynn Rajskub (“Chloe O’Brian”), James Morrison (“Bill Buchanan”), Carlo Rota (“Morris O’Brian”) and Elisha Cuthbert (“Kim Bauer”), new faces emerge including comedian-actress Janeane Garofalo (The Truth About Cats & Dogs, Ratatouille) and two-time Tony Award-winner Cherry Jones, as the first female President of the United States.

24 Season 7 is now available on DVD and Blue-ray!

andPOP is giving away 2 copies of the DVD.To enter, email contests@andpop.com with your complete mailing address by June 16.

Contest: Wings The Final Season on DVD

Adam Gonshor — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:38:16 +0000

Wings – The Final Season – DVD is now available!

The Hackett brothers, laid-back Brian and straight-laced Joe, and Joe’s wife, Helen, attempt to run a one-plane airline on Nantucket surrounded by their various wacky friends and employees.

andPOP is giving away copies of this DVD and all you have to do to enter is email your mailing address to contests@andpop.com. Contest ends May 20. Good luck!

Toronto Film Fest Diary: Ben Affleck Gives andPOP The Scoop (and then threatens us)

Adam Gonshor — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 20:29:48 +0000

Mr. Toronto Film Fest 2007 Ben Affleck revealed to andPOP Saturday morning that he isn’t ready to end his working relationship with Matt Damon just yet.

Affleck showed up to a screening of Running the Sahara, which Damon produced and narrates, and told andPOP that he will indeed be working with Damon on a project again soon.

The two actors became mega-stars when they wrote Good Will Hunting, which won them an Oscar.

So what will that project be?

“If I told you,” Affleck said, “I’d have to kill you.”

Fair enough.

Toronto Film Fest Diary: Hilary Duff and Mike Comrie Together in Toronto

Adam Gonshor — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 20:26:52 +0000

If you visit andPOP regularly, then you know we don’t report rumours – we only report facts.

So here’s one for you: Mike Comrie of the New York Islanders and his gal pal Hilary Duff are in Toronto together. She’s here to perform and host a film fest party. He’s here for some Duff.

There, I said it. I hate talking about people’s personal lives, but you like to read it, and we have the “scoop” (ok it’s a small scoop) so might as well report it before someone else does (like a certain other Canadian site who likes to take our exclusives without giving us credit).

Other not as interesting spottings: Kenny and Spenny at the E! launch party Friday night, Ellen Page walking around Yorkville with a group of friends also Friday, and Ben Affleck all over the city. Affleck is this year’s Lance Bass. Last year, Bass turned up everywhere. This year, it’s Affleck’s turn.

Toronto Film Fest Diary: Saw Actor, Director Start Film Fest on the Right Foot

Adam Gonshor — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 20:19:36 +0000

The official opening night party for the Toronto International Film Festival sounds so prestigious, but if Screech from Saved by the Bell stopped in, he’d be the biggest star there. And he wasn’t, so if you didn’t go, you didn’t miss anything.

The place to be on opening night of the film fest was The Brant House, where Darren Lynn Bousman, the director of the “Saw” franchise, and Lyriq Bent, who appeared in the first three but stars in October’s “Saw IV,” hosted a party (both pictured at right).

Bousman is in town shooting a horror musical, which stars Paris Hilton. He brought another star, Alexa Vega, to the party. Also spotted was Rasta Phil, a member of Mark Wahlberg’s real entourage.

The party was a great way to begin the film fest, which can’t be said about the rump across town.

Interview: Jennifer Lopez Not Hesitant to Work With Husband Marc Anthony

Adam Gonshor — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:45:30 +0000

The last time Jennifer Lopez appeared on the big screen with her other half, the world was punished with “Gigli.”

The film starred Lopez and Ben Affleck, her fiancé at the time, and was universally panned by critics and failed miserably at the box office. The relationship didn’t last much longer after the film’s release in 2003.

On Friday, Lopez’s latest film, “El Cantante,” was released in limited theatrical release and he co-star is none other than Marc Anthony, her (current) husband.

So weren’t Anthony and Lopez hesitant at all to work together?

“Absolutely!” Anthony says with a laugh, when andPOP posed the question to the couple at the Toronto Film Fest last year.

“We’ve worked together so many times,” Lopez interjects.

The couple’s working relationship dates back to 1999, when Lopez released her first album, “On the 6.” The album featured a Spanish duet, performed by Lopez and Anthony, called “No Me Ames,” which reached No. 1 on the U.S. Hot Latin Tracks chart even though she never released it as a single.

But they had never spent so much time together in a working environment until “El Cantante.”

The film tells the story of salsa singer Héctor Lavoe – from his contribution to Latin music to his battle with drugs and to his death at age 46 after battles with depression and AIDS.

It was Lavoe’s music that drew Anthony to this film.

“Héctor Lavoe is an icon in our community and got the chance to leave behind some amazing music,” he says. “This is a chance we got to tell his story.”

“It’s a tragic story,” Lopez tells andPOP, “but it’s a story of a real artist. And it’s a beautiful story in that sense because, like Marc said, he left behind an incredible legacy of music.”

Global Hip Hop Fest Ends on Sour Note With Wyclef No Show

Adam Gonshor — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:43:41 +0000

A few thousand people promised an appearance by Grammy-winning Wyclef Jean at a free outdoor hip-hop festival in Toronto went home disappointed Saturday night when the rapper didn’t show up.

They weren’t so much disappointed that Jean was a no-show. What irked them was that they were kept in the dark.

“We thought he’d come on at the end. But after a few artists were on the stage for an hour, right at the end, they said Jean couldn’t make it,” Matt Jenkins of Toronto wrote in an email to andPOP.

Jean was supposed to appear at the Global Hip Hop Festival at Harbourfront to showcase artists from his label, Sak Pase Records.

After members of his label performed for an hour, one of them finally told the crowd that Jean wouldn’t be appearing because of problems at the border.

Turns out, organizers had already known Jean wouldn’t be attending and he didn’t have any border problems. He couldn’t have had border problems – he was on the other side of the world.

“Wyclef was asked to perform overseas with international superstar T.I.P. (T.I.) on that same weekend,” reads a statement from YB Entertainment Group, which had planned the Wyclef apeparance. “He recently voiced a track in collaboration for T.I.P album and the track toke [sic] off on the charts, so we were forced to reschedule the event as per request of [the] record label.”

A concert featuring Wyclef planned for the night before in Montreal was also cancelled.

“Had they said that at the beginning, that would be understandable, problems happen,” Jenkins said. “But they didn’t tell us he wasn’t coming until the very end. That was bush league. We all left disappointed because we had no idea he wasn’t going to show up.”

Jean is no stranger to Toronto. Last August, he performed with Shakira at the Air Canada Centre. The next month, he was in town for the Film Festival and performed at an after-party for his film, Ghosts of Cite Soleil. In November, he performed at a secret show to launch Playstation 3.

Prepare to be Entertained by the Ethnic Heroes of Comedy

Adam Gonshor — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:15:00 +0000

When four comedians sit down together for one on-camera interview, it makes editing it very difficult.

What do you cut out? What do you leave in? Why deprive the audience of a full interview?

Ya, why? We understand that when the local news does an interview, most of it will be canned since they only have a few seconds per story. But we’re the internet with no restrictions and no time limits!

andPOP sat down with four comedians – Sugar Sammy, Frank Spadone and the two members of the Doo Wops – who will all be performing on July 28 at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre as part of the Just for Laughs festival at a show called The Ethnic Heroes of Comedy.

The interview of course has its humour, but the guys also get serious, discussing the comedy scene in Canada and what needs to change.

So here it is, uncut and uncensored, the whole damn thing. If you get easily offended, or if you’re from Stouffville, watch with caution.

Oh, and while watching, the comics try to remember who the fourth member of the Rat Pack was. Joey something. Play along at home and see if you can remember his name before they do. Or just Google it and cheat.

Richard Lewis Uses His Pain to Make You Laugh

Adam Gonshor — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:10:36 +0000

Richard Lewis just turned 60 years old, but because of his appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm, he’s attracting a whole new generation of fans. 20-year-olds who are too young to remember his sitcom with Jamie Lee Curtis, Anything But Love, or his constant appearances on Letterman that started in the ’80s are suddenly fans because of Larry David’s show.

But not me.

True, I’m 24 and I watch Curb like the rest of them. But no, I can’t be considered a new fan. I’ve had Lewis on my radar since the 1993 film Robin Hood: Men in Tights, in which he played Price John. I’m an old fan.

“I’m 24,” I begin to tell Lewis, on the line from his home in Beverly Hills.

He interrupts me in a panic.

“You could be my son. In my drinking days, I could have been with a zebra and I didn’t know.”

The phone interview – from start-to-finish – becomes an improvised standup act, much like the method he takes when he does a real standup act, like he’ll do on Friday, July 27, at Toronto’s Massey Hall as part of the Just for Laughs Festival. He’s billed as a “special guest” and will share the stage with Lewis Black at one of the festival’s galas.

“I hate the name gala,” Lewis says. “I feel like I’ll have to go out and buy a tuxedo and some prom dress for some chick.” (“Or a woman,” he continues. “If you write chick, let the women know I hate men; I love women. It’s time we got this dick out of the White House anyway.”)

Every question I ask has Lewis trailing off on some rant, which he apologizes for every time. And every time, I tell him he has no need to apologize. I’m somehow getting a free standup act from a comedy legend – shhh, don’t tell anyone.

The paying audience next week can expect a very candid Lewis. He has never been shy about his personal woes – he’s battled alcohol and drug addictions and is proudly almost 13 years sober – and is convinced that if he didn’t get so personal on stage, his career would have ended long before it started.

“That’s why I got on stage to begin with,” Lewis says. “I felt like I was being raised like a lamb chop. I said you know what, I can’t be as crazy as [my parents] are making me feel. What got me on stage was to be validated as Richard Lewis and find out who the hell I was and the only way I could was to talk about the deepest feelings I had. When they laughed at my pain, I felt like I’m not alone, my family isn’t right, and I had another option; that I could be Richard Lewis and feel good about myself.

“Granted,” he continues, “I’m riddled with low self-esteem and I have a bottomless pit of obsession, but I have a lid on it. And drinking and sex and rock and roll, that lifestyle lasted for two decades.”

Lewis says he’s never been happier in his life than he is now, and a large part of that is because of his wife of two years, Joyce, a former music executive who is now involved with Urban Farming (urbanfarming.org).

Lewis begins to tell me the story of how he met his wife at a party, as he is walking up the stairs in his house to find a note he wrote her.

“I was a consensual womanizer. They wanted to be with me for some reason … I feel like I’ve had every manager in L.A., from the biggest to the littlest, and if I leave my manager now who is one of the biggest in the world, then I’m down to like a dairy father in Iowa, I’m done. I had this one manager who was huge and very famous and I would give him so much money in commission and they had this tradition to give gifts for their clients at the end of the year. This one guy gave boxes of stationary, couldn’t have cost more than 100 bucks, with the client’s name on it. I had different pads, different sizes. I had 100s of these things, and I wrote on one to my wife.

“I wrote, and I’m reading right now, ‘J, I swear I’m very decent’ with my phone number with a heart and an ‘RL’ and the heart looks like a kidney bean, but nevertheless. It was so Freudian because I wasn’t very decent. I was compelled to make love with her as soon as possible. Even though I was sober I still had that sexual addition thing going crazily and she came over. We didn’t sleep together the first night although she’ll be the first to admit the second night we did.”

Anyway, I’ve somehow got sidetracked, much like Lewis every few seconds (his physiatrist sometimes walks up and leaves when he goes on rants, he says). But back to the gala.

Lewis says he never knows what he’s going to say once he gets onstage, but spends hours upon hours preparing.

“I go to hotels during the day and write and look over thousands of new lines that I hope come out when I’m on stage. Every show will be slightly different. Some shows are entirely different. I prepare my ass off. I’m already scrawling over 20 hours of new material. And then I’ll ad-lib half the show anyway. I’m looking forward to it. That’s how I live on the edge. It used to be with drugs and sex additions and alcohol and now it’s standup. I’ve never enjoyed standup more in my life than now.”

His method wasn’t always like that.

“Starting out, my dream was to get on the Tonight Show and to do that, you have to get three or four tight to the bone monologues, and the only way to do that is to do the same set every night until you’re ready to get the producers to come down and you hope that you score. And I got on the Tonight Show in a little over two years, which is fairly fast and I never looked back.”

He’s appeared on Letterman over 20 times since the early ’80s, but always conversed with Letterman, never performing as a standup performer.

“The truth is, he said just sit down in the chair and don’t do standup because you’re just too physical. Jay Leno once quipped that I had left the camera and walked out of the screen for a few minutes and they couldn’t even find me. After Letterman set that precedent for me way back in 1982, I have never done standup ever again on a television talk show.”

Lewis can be seen on the next season of Curb You Enthusiasm in September, and he has also been pitching a new show to networks.

He’s also hoping for a change in Washington.

“I will never nor do I want to go into the oval office during this administration. He would never invite me anyway.”