Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladehawke’s latest music video and much more!
Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!
Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.
When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.
The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.
Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.
Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.
Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.
David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.
Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.
Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”
Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.
Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.
During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.
There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.
When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.
It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.
Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.
Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.
Marina and The Diamonds are working on some new music, but Marina is being very secretive about it. Although the release has been delayed, she let’s us in on some secrets about the new album, and how alcohol changed her life.
There’s a type of film I like to call “conventional indie.” You know the ones: a self-absorbed, oddball protagonist, sometimes a whole family of them, is faced with a problem, usually psychological, and interacts with a number of equally oddball characters who, thanks to some freak alignment of nature that dictates the supporting characters exist for the sole purpose of healing the protagonist(s), heal them. Usually – not always, but usually – romance is involved. Recent movies that fall under this category include Ghost World, Napoleon Dynamite, Thumbsucker, Little Miss Sunshine, and anything directed by Wes Anderson.
Lars and the Real Girl is a conventional indie.
I do not mean to knock conventional indies. I rather enjoy them, and rank at least one of them (Garden State) among my all-time favourites. But notice the pattern: Lars and the Real Girl is about a social outcast who, at least outwardly, appears to function in society. He wakes up, eats, goes to work, comes home, and lives in the log cabin outside his brother’s house. Lars has a problem: he is completely incapable of anything beyond the barest of human interaction. And everyone – everyone, from his sister-in-law, to his coworkers (including the new one, who happens to be a cute girl), to the office secretary he blows off every morning, to the old lady at church who gives him a flower he promptly throws in the snow – is really, really nice to him, as if they exist solely to make his life better.
As played by Ryan Gosling, Lars is certainly hard to dislike: he’s clearly a good person, loves his family, was a bit unhinged by his father’s death (no, we don’t get to find out exactly how it affected him, thankfully, though there are hints), and is quiet in a quirky, almost endearing kind of way. But enjoying someone’s company for a couple of hours is one thing; having to live with them day after day is entirely different. The attitude of Gus (Paul Schneider), Lars’s brother, makes sense: it’s that typical mix of exasperation and caring you often feel towards your family. Karin (Emily Mortimer), Gus’s wife, has an attitude towards Lars that makes sense too, assuming you buy her as a sunny person, which I did. The other characters however, especially Margo (Kelli Garner), the office cutie, exist outside reality.
However, let’s assume that, like me, you buy (or want to buy) the conventional indie’s belief in the best qualities of human nature. Let’s assume that it makes perfect sense when the local GP/psychiatrist, Dr. Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), diagnoses the blow-up doll Lars orders with anemia, begins scheduling weekly sessions for her (taking Lars into her office so “Bianca” can have some alone time) and advises the other townspeople to go along with it. Let’s assume it’s normal when the other townspeople care enough about Lars to treat Bianca like a real person, and that no one bats an eye when (wheelchair-bound, of course) she attends church, the local school board meetings, and even an office party.
In retrospect, the film is a tricky balancing act. As Lars, there’s a lot Gosling could have done wrong with the role, but doesn’t. And even though the town is populated by people who are this nice, that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to snap occasionally. At least once during the movie someone blows up at Lars for the same reasons I wanted to. The fact is, sometimes it takes this many people being to lift a depressed person’s spirits. And thankfully, there is no multitude of quirky characters in this indie: Lars himself is odd enough to carry the film.
I enjoyed Lars and the Real Girl, but wouldn’t recommend it to viewers who dislike conventional indies any more than I’d recommend, say, Across the Universe to people who hate musicals.
3.5*
