andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

I am not the audience for this movie.

I did not see the original Twilight. I read the novel and was horrified; how many teenage girls truly believe that men like Edward Cullen exist? (Fewer, probably, than the number of boys men who expect to meet a gorgeous independent woman who caters to their every whim and is miraculously attracted to slovenly underachievers, but that’s a rant for another film.) In real life a man who stalks protects a woman the way Edward does will continue to do so whether her life’s in danger or not. Perhaps the majority of Twilight fans recognize this, and treat the stories as wish fulfillment, much as this reviewer does with good romantic comedies (though not, it must be said, The Ugly Truth, which peddled a similar adolescent fantasy).

On that level, New Moon delivers. It reproduces the central appeal of the books: a man who’s faster, stronger, more romantic, better at playing baseball and musical instruments alike and more beautiful than anyone you could possibly imagine falls for Bella Swan, an ordinary, unremarkable-looking girl, and continually professes not only that he loves her, but that he cannot live without her. So protective is he that when his otherworldly urges place her in danger he actually abandons her to protect her.

This is the basest sort of adolescent fantasy, the kind any writer who’s attended university could dream up, and yet it would be undone by a sense of manufactured cynicism if author Stephenie Meyer didn’t wholeheartedly believe in it. She does, and it would appear a wide cross-section of the western world does too.

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OK everybody, the Twilight saga continues with New Moon (ladies please control your crying). We were lucky to sit down with Canadian heartthrob Bronson Pelletier for an interview during the recent press stop in Toronto. Bronson plays Jared in the movie and apparently had to get jacked up to play his werewolf character. He also spoke with us about his relationships with his fellow Twilight actors.

It’s every citizen’s worst fear: a cop who willingly and continuously breaks the law; and even worse, a cop who gets away with it. Yet somehow, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is still an enjoyable watch.

Directed by Werner Herzog, Bad Lieutenant tells the story of Terence (Nicholas Cage), a rogue detective who is equally as devoted to his job as he is to scoring illegal drugs. Taking place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the film follows Terence as he tries to find the drug dealing killer of a low-income family, all the while smoking and howling like a mad man.

Appearing high and/or delusional in every scene, Terence wields his gun, flashes his badge, and threatens everyone around him to get what he wants. And most of the time what he wants is drugs. He steals drugs from young couples at nightclubs, makes drug deals with the criminals he is supposed to be arresting, smokes drugs in front of just about anyone, and even carries around a lucky crack pipe.

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Perez Hilton at the 2009 MuchMusic Video Awards

Perez Hilton has dropped the assault charge that he filed against Black Eyed Peas’ manager Polo Molina, according to NME.com.

Molina was accused of punching Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, outside a Toronto nightclub at a MuchMusic Video Awards after party in June, after the celebrity blogger allegedly made a homophobic comment about Black Eyed Peas member Will.I.Am.

But the assault charge against Molina was dropped after he issued a written apology to Hilton.

Molina has also agreed not to contact Hilton except through his lawyer, not to carry a weapon for 12 months, not to come within 100 metres of the nightclub where the incident allegedly took place, and to donate $500 to Toronto’s Red Door Family Shelter.

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Perez Hilton at the 2009 MuchMusic Video Awards

What’s a Perezzie, you ask?

Let’s get to the root of the word: Perez. Eureka! Perez Hilton.

Yes folks, that’s right, the year-end Perezzies awards are back and now your participation is encouraged more than ever.

As it says on his blog, Perez Hilton has announced that the awards are “back, and they’re better than ever – with new categories, including one nominated by U.”

The awards, just like Perez himself, are a fun way to take jabs at and gossip about the hottest celebrities in the biz.

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Thanks to illegal digital downloading, album sales are on a continuous decline. And as sales keep sliding, the music industry keeps looking for ways to make big events out of record releases. There have been partnerships with big retail companies (such as Walmart’s exclusive with AC/DC’s Black Ice), large-scale live shows (such as Jay-Z’s event before the release of The Blueprint III), and exciting fan contests (such as Pearl Jam’s artwork scavenger hunt for Backspacer). But as rollingstone.com reports, one sure way to guarantee an album’s success is Oprah Winfrey.

For example, Canadian singer Michael Buble’s new album Crazy Love went to the top of the charts after he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which led Variety magazine to examine what they are calling the “Oprah Effect.”

“Oprah is the one thing everyone wants,” Diarmuid Quinn, president of Reprise Records, told Variety. “If you get that call back from her production people, my god, it’s the Holy Grail.”

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This week on Peak Season: Episode Six

Episode six of Peak Season was, for lack of a better word, overwhelming. To clarify, take the best parts of the Real World, Twilight and Intervention, mash them together, and you’ve got an imitation of life in Whistler. Don’t let those serene snowflakes at the beginning fool you, that’s what some people refer to as the calm before the storm, and this episode was a level nine on the Richter scale.

What happens:

Matt and Elle: Adrenaline-Junkies.

On a coffee date, Elle questions the value of remaining in Whistler to Matt, while he sheepishly defends his actions at the club earlier. One thing I really like about the Australians is their lingo, which consists of talking how I did in elementary school. I mean, how can Elle even consider leaving after hearing how “sucky” it will be for poor Matt?

Fortunately, all it takes is accompanying Elle to a skills competition, consisting of jumps, backflips and your typical ring of fire. I half-expected a bearded lady to Allie Oop through the ring after the competitors. After this, they continue on to complete their couple bonding by tandem bungee-jumping off a bridge. I’ll give it to Matt, he certainly knows how to make unique apologies. These Canadian fellows need to step it up!

Matt continues his new gentleman act at the bar when the Australian posse meets up for beers. When Elle is hit on, he immediately gets defensive, which translates into standing on the bar and making faces at the perpetrator. The poor guy is already single, don’t you think he has enough problems? A bar fight ensues, where they end up sloppy-UFC’ing outside in slippery conditions. Elle cries, because that’s what girls do best when someone else gets hit, and Matt the manly man comforts her outside the bar. All’s well that ends well.

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Bollywood debut was so awkward I could barely watch, but I couldn’t look away either.

There has never been any mistaking Harper for a cool guy; an Obama-type personality. Harper belongs on TLC, not MTV, and that isn’t news. But his appearance on India’s version of So You Think You Can Dance reaffirmed that there really isn’t much personality under his tough conservative skin.

In early October, Harper performed on stage with famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Harper’s rendition of The Beatles’ With a Little Help From My Friends was actually…not too bad. It was the first time that many had seen Harper peek his head out of a Conservative shell that he’d been hiding in since he became Prime Minister. I started to cut him some slack.

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Seinfeld’s Michael Richards, aka Kramer, made an appearance on Curb Your Enthusiasm, attempting to make a joke out of his 2006 racist rant at the Laugh Factory, TMZ reports.

In an episode of Seinfeld-creator Larry David’s popular series, Richards goes off on a African-American character and threatening him, says, “”If only there were a horrible name that I could call you … that would make you as angry as I am.”

At the same time he is being filmed by a group of spectators, mimicing the 2006 incident. He then pulls of a few Kramer-like gestures and storms off.

For fans of Richards, the 2006 tirade was the disappointing destruction of arguably the most popular character in sitcom history. While this may have helped to ease the tension, I think the best thing for Richards is to bury the incident completely.

The Popular MTV host whose game show helped spark the careers of comedians like Adam Sandler, Colin Quinn and Dennis Leary was found dead in his house on Sunday, MTV.com reports.

Between 1987 and 1990, Ober hosted “Remote Control”, a popular music trivia game show that was one of the first non-musical programs on MTV.

The show was a highlight of a career that started with his comedic discovery on Star Search in the mid-1980s. He was also involved on the production of shows like Mind of Mencia and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

“Ken Ober was one of the sharpest, quickest, sweetest guys I ever met,” Adam Sandler said to MTV news, “He was always a great friend and I will miss him very much.”

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