In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.
Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’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.
The Nobel Prize in Literature may seem like an unlikely thing to cause scandal, but lo and behold the insults and drama!
The Swedish Academy announced that the winner of the world’s top literary award (worth 10 million crowns!) will be named on Thursday, even as one of its members quit in outraged disgust at last year’s winner.
Reuters reports that in a signed newspaper article, Knut Ahnlund resigned from the Academy, saying that giving the prize to Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek “caused irreparable harm to the value of the award for the foreseeable future.”
He blasted Jelinek’s writing as “whingeing, unenjoyable, violent pornography.” Then he went on to declare, “After this I cannot even formally remain in the Swedish Academy.” There has been no response from Jelinek.
Although Ahnlund didn’t explain why he waited a year to voice his criticism, Academy head Horace Engdahl suggested the whole thing was timed to spoil this year’s events.
Engdahl told TT news agency that Ahnlund wasn’t even privy to the Jelinek prize debate. “He knows nothing about the discussion that led to the choice of Elfriede Jelinek so what he says in this article of his must be seen as empty speculation.” Oh snap.
Unlike with its brethren Nobels, the date of the literature award is kept secret until just two days beforehand. It’s usually on one of the first two Thursdays in October. The official website (www.nobelprize.org) says the winner will be announced this Thursday at 1 p.m., at the earliest.
There has been speculation that the 18 Academy members were split, with a British paper reporting that the divisive choice was Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, but the Academy has awarded the prize since 1901 and never leaks its shortlist.
No, this book is not about an owl’s adventures. It doesn’t open with owls swooping around in search of prey or with a description of an orchestra of owls making a racket in the dark night sky. In fact, owls aren’t even mentioned until about halfway into the plot.
Albeit that this book is funny and eccentric, in typical Hiaasen fashion, I’m not all that sure it is all that award-worthy. I mean, it’s readable, but not fantastic. It teaches some good lessons revolving around bullying and standing up for what you believe in, but it’s not like a super-dee-duper monumental jump ahead in children’s literature. It’s got a good message, entertains the reader and is a satisfactory expedition into the twists and turns of a small-town juvenile mystery.
Roy Eberhardt is the new kid in town ? once again. It’s becoming second nature to him, not feeling like he 100% belongs anywhere. With all of the moving he and his parents do, he’s now hesitant to make himself comfy at all, because the chances are high that the suitcases will be packed and they’ll be heading to the next state before his next report card is distributed. He misses the mountains of Montana. He longs for a real place to call home. He crazes excitement in his life. And soon, he gets it.
Trace Middle School. Coconut Grove, Florida. It’s all brand new to him ? and not at all very welcoming. He sits at a table by himself at lunch, no real friends, only bullies to push him around. But Dana Matherson’s bullying served a good purpose for Roy. If it hadn’t been for him mashing his face against the school bus window that fateful morning, he may have never seen the running boy. And if he had never seen the running boy with a backpack and no shoes, then there’s a possibility that he may never have met the scrawny but tough, Beatrice, which means he would have never discovered the burrowing owls living in the lot on East Oriole Avenue that was in the midst of being transformed into a pancake house. If weren’t for the owls, there wouldn’t have been an adventure of a lifetime and he probably would have continued with the same boring and excruciatingly painful routine ? and he would’ve never made any friends or saved any owls. Thanks to a bully’s actions, Roy ended up on TV, in the newspapers and praised all around for standing up against capitalism and being an animal rights activist. Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House was not going to be built on top of these cute little owls’ homes, not if he had anything to do with it.
Regardless of whether or not the adults in charge of this project are ignoring the burrows of tiny owls that will be buried by the bulldozing equipment, Roy insists they are living there and that they need to be saved. His parents tell him he can’t win against such a big company. But Roy does his research and it turns out the company hadn’t filled out all of the necessary permits. Ah ha, loophole. So Roy, Beatrice, and her refuses-to-give-his-real-name, step-brother Mullet Fingers, outwit Officer Delinko, the police officer whose duty is to protect the site, and Curly, the foreman responsible for construction of the site. Entertaining but engaging, but still lacking the childish joie-de-vive every good novel geared toward this age group should contain.
It was a good attempt on his part, but I don’t think Hiaasen has the knack needed for children’s literature. In my opinion, he’s better off writing his farfetched tales of wonderfully twisted and tragically weird fiction for adults. It was interesting, but I still say he should stick to his niche. He’s too bitter to write children’s books. His ‘somewhere-between-amused-and-disgusted’ attitude toward the world just doesn’t really work for young readers. They don’t get it. It’s wasted on them.
Author: Carl Hiaasen
Genre: Young Readers/Mystery
Given the choice, Jaine Austen would pass down the opportunity to work as a ghostwriter for SueEllen Kingsley, the pretentious Beverly Hills socialite, but cash-strapped and striving to live a lifestyle of particular large expenses, she knows she needs to. She would prefer to say no, but she can?t. Her Ben & Jerry addiction and high-maintenance cat, Prozac, leave her with no other option. She has to be a minion to this big-haired-long-nailed plastic wannabe Barbie doll if she wants to keep paying rent. There was no way she could turn down $3,000 a week, no matter how much it killed her to know that someone else would be getting credit for her words.
But before meeting SueEllen, Jaine meets her client’s stepdaughter, fifteen- year-old Heidi, who is a tad pudgy. She warns Jaine about the wrath of the queen of mean and advises her to leave before it is too late. She doesn?t listen.
Jaine?s interview with SueEllen is strange, as she does most of her dictating from her giant bathtub. As SueEllen recites recipes that Jaine was almost positive SueEllen had never actually cooked herself, the guffawed ghostwriter can?t help but stare at her boss? perfect boobs, which apparently were a present from her plastic surgeon husband. That explains it. Anyhow, despite having to get in the zone while sitting on this social goddess? toilet seat isn?t all that comfortable, Jaine does her best.
Before Jaine knows it, her writing gig turns into a puzzling mystery when SueEllen is found dead in her tub, having been electrocuted by a hairdryer. The police believe it was Heidi who killer her mother, but the teen insists she saw a blonde running from the scene of the crime. Jaine?s assignment quickly turns from ghostwriter to undercover detective. She?s on a search to uncover the Killer Blonde.
Jaine talks to herself a lot. This relieves a lot of tension and allows room for comic relief. The twists are not all that unpredictable, but amusing nonetheless. A lot of focus is given to the SueEllen-Heidi relationship or the lack thereof, and so the teen is made to look like the perfect suspect. This who-done-it is a light read, and Laura Levine does a good job of keeping a Beverly Hills drama interesting.
Apparently, ghostwriting can be dangerous business.
Author: Laura Levine
Genre: Mystery/Humour
Apparently, being a Canadian is really great ? us Canadians already knew that. But Margaret Wente, the red, white and blue native who wrote An Accidental Canadian: Reflections on My Home and (Not) Native Land, wasn’t aware of this fact until she set foot on Maple Leaf turf — and now, she never wants to leave.
Wente moved here because her mother married a Canadian. She loved Toronto because “it was a good place to reinvent yourself.” Margaret Wente describes her decision to make a home on this side of the border quite succinctly: “After I finished university in the States…I had the biggest decision of my life: Canada or the United States? The U.S. was in a dark phase, torn apart by the awful politics of Vietnam. Canada was in a good phase, newly vibrant, cosmopolitan, open to the world. It was a no-brainer. I chose Canada.” She put down roots here and as a result, become one of Canada’s most favoured columnists.
But along with her star journalist status, currently commenting on whatever it is she feels like for the Globe and Mail on a daily basis, Wente is also a keen observer and a great comedian (if she wanted to quit her day job, I would bet my entire four years’ tuition on the fact that she could make a splendid career out of stand-up, but I myself would prefer she stays put as a journalist, thank you very much ? because this way she can seek answers and crack jokes). With a collection of her most popular Globe and Mail columns, of course revolving around the common themes of life and living, plus a personal narrative which tells her own story about how she came from being Uncle Sam’s little girl to the beaver’s best friend.
In this satirical story of how a young girl living in the U.S. of A. became a hockey-loving camper, Wente shines. She connects with Canadians and sparks interest with chapters like I Was Conrad Black’s Boss and I Married a Retrosexual. If you?re a regular Wente reader, you know that her columns headlines are only a sneak peek into her creativity, so for those of you who have never heard of Margaret Wente until this very moment, once you?re finished reading this review, zip over to the nearest corner store and buy the Globe and Mail. Then, read her column ? it’ll be most refreshing, I promise.
Trust me, if you’re a Canadian and proud of it, you should really read this book. She makes it her goal to articulate exactly what everyday life is for the average Canadian, while shedding light on the lifestyles of the more fortunate and prestigious and sympathizing with those who count their pennies. She’s a humanitarian with a great sense of humour, if you ask me. Millions of Canadians from the sun-soaked and sandy beaches of the west to the salmon-covered shores of the east make her column in the Globe and Mail their very first read of the day, and in this book, she proves why. Wente?s got a quintessential way with words. By candidly discussing her own mortgage headaches, marital squabbles and weight struggles, her readership not only feels at home with her, but her ramblings of honesty encourages them to be okay with the little things that we sometimes find trivial and not to sweat the small stuff, but instead, to embrace it.
She’s downright hilarious, witty and impressingly accurate about certain elements of being a Canadian, even though she hasn’t always been one. In this book, she’s got something to say about everything Canadian; she refers to hockey as “just a lot of goons bashing at each other. Half the time you can’t even see the puck” because after having grown up in Chicago, she never really got the hang of hockey; she mentions how Pierre Elliot Trudeau was more than just a politician but also Canada’s own JFK, the only prime minister to actually have groupies, standing outside of buildings, waiting for him to come out, begging him for his autograph; she sounds a bit bitter about country living, maybe it’s because she wasn’t one of the baby boomers who migrated and found a comfortable place to call home in the straw-hilled, manour-smelling villages of Canada — “Those irritating baby boomers are at it again, snatching up the very same land their great-grandpas and grandmas happily abandoned for a better life in town.” But all in all, her observations come together and make perfect sense. And as I flip the pages of this book more and more, I sympathize with her ‘accidental canadianship’, but I also get closer and closer to coming to terms with the fact that the definition of being Canadian is really what you make of it ? whether you base it on your love for hockey, or you make a point of having a maple leaf swaying in the wind on your front lawn.
The geese may migrate for the winter, but I stay here and enjoy the crisp air and disabling snowfalls of Canada for more than half the year. Frost-bite isn’t fun and neither is digging yourself out of a storm, but I’m a Canadian, so somewhere deep down, I love it. Reading Wente’s book has made me appreciate my country more and more, and I hope it does the same for you, if you choose to read it. She openly reflects on our country and on comments on our ways of navigating through the 21st century, and on the small pleasures and big questions in life. It’s an inspired collection of wise and witty writing, wherein she tells her story of her girlhood in a Dick-and-Jane town, a Wonder Bread suburb of Chicago, and discusses her early career, marriage and her life today as a chronicler of Canada and Canadians.
Author: Margaret Wente
Genre: Autobiography/Humour
