by Jac Kern
05.16.2013
3 days ago
Posted In:
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TV/Celebrity,
Music at 09:55 AM |
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Jac's roundup of pop culture news and Internet findings
98 Degrees appeared
on Bravo’s late night show, Watch What
Happens Live, last week and, shockingly, Justin Jeffre didn’t wear a
fedora! But seriously, on the after-show, Nick played “Plead the Fifth”
(without pleading the fifth!), a regular game in which host Andy Cohen asks a
guest three personal questions, and they can only decline to answer one. Nick
revealed, “The
best thing about not having Joe Simpson anymore as a father-in-law is that I
don't have to play grab-ass under the table on Easter Sunday anymore.” And
judging by the reaction (plus the rumors about Joe batting for the other team), he
ain’t talking about Jess… But the best part of this episode was the night's bartender, Internet
sensation of yesteryear, Sweet Brown! In case you were wondering,
no, she still ain’t got time for that.
Hold on to your
knickers, girls, because Robb Stark (government name: Richard Madden) is going to portray Prince Charming in
Disney’s upcoming live-action reboot of Cinderella.
If you somehow avoided
the Internet late last week, perhaps you missed the genius that is Ryan Gosling
Won’t Eat His Cereal, a series of Vine videos by Ryan McHenry. IknowIknowIknow
ANOTHER Ryan Gosling meme — but this one will make you spew milk out of your
nose. That is, if you’ll ever eat cereal again knowing RG’s disdain for it.
Peep them all here,
conveniently compiled by Buzzfeed.
Well, it’s time.
Seven years after cancelling one of the smartest comedies on television,
the folks behind Arrested Development “unmade a huge mistake.” Season Four comes to
Netflix May 26 and the first official trailer is here.
According to
HuffPo,
AD goes live at 12:01 a.m. PT, which
is 3:01 a.m. our time. Early morning frozen bananas, anyone? After all,
breakfast is the most important thing — out of things you eat.
Kristen Wiig
hosted Saturday Night Live last week (don’t even get me started on that mess) and Vampire
Weekend performed two songs from their new album, Modern Vampires of the City. It’s pretty good; you should buy it
here. Does anyone know if lead singer Ezra Koenig (right) and actor Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk
Empire, A Serious Man) are related?
Seth Meyers, head
writer for SNL and Weekend Update
host, is now the confirmed replacement for Jimmy Fallon when he leaves Late Night
to take over The Tonight Show. Longtime veteran Jay Leno will be stepping down
early next year. When the switch goes down, both The Tonight Show and Late
Night will be filmed in New York. Lots of questions still remain: Will The Roots
stay with Jimmy or stick to Late Night? How will old people react to two goofy,
youngish SNL alumni with normal chins
taking over their screens two hours each weeknight? Seriously, has anyone
checked on Conan O’Brien lately? Is he doing OK?
I can be suckered
into any number of advertising campaigns (HELLO, TARGET) but it really irks me
when an ad tries too hard and I can totally see through it. For example,
remember last spring when Mike and Ike billboards were popping up and — oh my
gosh, someone vandalized them! Every single one! That’s right, the ads appeared
to have either Mike or Ike scribbled out and then a few weeks later, the next
wave of ads were released, which revealed that Mike and Ike have “broken up.” I
really do not give a shit about boring movie candy. Do kids even know what Mike
and Ikes are anymore? I guess that’s the point. Well, a year later, Mike and
Ike are back at it. This time, they're getting some street cred thanks to their
new friend, Nelly. From a press release:
Award-winning hip
hop artist, Nelly has teamed up with MIKE AND IKE® to honor their recent
reunion after a highly publicized split last Spring! As a long-time fan of the
candy, Nelly played a role in helping Mike and Ike get back together and is
excited to be part of their new campaign!
Read more of this
thrilling, newsworthy announcement here.
And don’t forget
to check out Tom+Chee on Shark Tank this Friday!
by Jac Kern
04.03.2013
46 days ago
Jac's roundup of pop culture news and Internet findings
As the weather
gets warmer, music lovers tend to get antsy looking forward to summer concerts
and music festivals. There’s Bonnaroo, Forecastle, Bunbury all within a
reasonable drive from Cincinnati, plus tons of touring concerts like The Shins, The Lumineers, country acts galore and the most anticipated tour of them all: The Package. Boy band lovers of the ‘80s and ‘90s will unite for this music spectacular from New
Kids on the Block, Boyz II Men and Cincy’s own 98 Degrees. The tour kicks off next
month and Nick Lachey & Co. may not officially come home until the sold-out
concert June 25, but Buzzfeed is already getting in the spirit with this
collection of photos that reminds us about how Justin Jeffre was essentially
the Michelle Williams of 98 Degrees.
Upon looking up some 98 deets on Wikipedia, I realized dude is the only bandmate
who doesn’t have his own page. And he ran for mayor in 2005! Poor Justin. At
least he took a break from rehearsing to stop by our Best of Cincinnati party
last week (and if you obnoxiously asked him for a photo or just squealed and pointed at his
presence…Shame on you), which was just one
day before the release of the reunited band’s newest single. “Microphone”
(which, according to The Daily Beast’s painstaking analysis, could have also been entitled “Penis”) has all the ingredients for a killer
boy band tune: a danceable beat, barely-subtle phallic references that preteens
could unknowingly sing on the back of the school bus, and lyrics that pay
tribute to the group’s barber shop quartet past (“Say, ‘do-re-mi-fa-sooooo’ ”).
Remember Ryan
Cabrera? He was an early-2000s Pop singer who dated pre-Pete Wentz Ashlee
Simpson and was later resurrected on that post-Lauren Conrad final season of
The Hills that probably only I watched. Well, in a move I can only wish I was bold enough to pull first, he got Ryan Gosling’s face tatted
on his calf. One glance at the InAPPropriate
Comedy trailer and it was obvious — that shit was going to be bad. But as
this Huffington Post live-blog of the — ahem — “film” describes, it was baaad. Like being-inside-Lindsay-Lohan’s-vagina
bad (Spoiler Alert).
The Walking Dead’s
third season finale was Sunday night and, though the season closer was full of ample zombie/Governor scariness, the most terrifying part of the night came
during the live after-show, Talking Dead.
Somehow, this dude managed to make it on the air:
Hey, if you want a
captive, conspiracy-loving audience to stir up, TWD fans are it.
OK, time to get
serious for a minute. I don’t usually like to discuss serious matters like
death or illness on this silly pop culture blog, but this latest news from MTV
is just too crazy to ignore. A cast member from Buckwild, MTV’s take on
the rednecksploitation trend that replaced Jersey
Shore, was found dead in his car after having gone missing over the
weekend. While full details have not officially been released, it’s looking like the
accident is a result of off-roading after a stint at a local watering hole.
Shain Gandee, 21, was found dead with his uncle and a friend in Gandee’s truck,
which was partially submerged in mud. Their deaths have been ruled accidents, caused by carbon monoxide poisoning (with the car's exhaust stuck under mud, fumes filled the car).Obviously, this is tragic and not
something to make light of. What’s really disturbing is that, had this not
taken a terrible turn, the whole drinking-and-mudding scenario is something
that easily would have been included in an episode of the series. Not that MTV
needs to be a beacon for safety (see: Jackass,
Ridiculousness, the Jersey Shore's “smoosh room,” etc.)
But maybe it’s time to seriously re-think what we promote via reality TV
bullshit. Production on the show's second season has since been halted and it has been reported that Gandee's funeral expenses will be covered by Buckwild producers.
And here’s a cute video
of baby Gorilla Gladys at the Cincinnati Zoo to help you recover from that
story.
0 Comments · Wednesday, January 9, 2013
After a brief postponement from the fall — to edit a violent sequence in a movie theater — Gangster Squad, the 1940s and ’50s crime thriller from Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less)
seeks a hostile takeover of the weekend box office.
by Jac Kern
06.25.2012
at 09:48 AM |
Permalink |
Comments (0)
Jac's favorite recent pop culture and Internet findings
Happy Half
Christmas, everybody! Celebrate this midpoint to the holiday season
in true Workaholics fashion: Throw a HoneyBaked Ham on the grill, tap the
keg-nog and if you’re lucky enough to not be in a cubicle today, check out Comedy Central’s
Half Christmas programing. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation kicks things
off this morning and the fun continues through 9 p.m. with the Half Christmas
Workaholics episode, “The Strike.” Let’s get weird!
If that’s not
enough to make you stop whining about Mondays, here are 20 Soul-Crushing Summer
Jobs from Pop Culture. Remember, things could always be worse.
There’s always
money in the banana stand!
Meanwhile, in
Sweden, a different citizen has been manning the country’s official Twitter
account each week for the past few months. If you peep @sweden, you’ll find this week’s guest tweeter is a
boring football player who
pretty much uses Twitter as instant messenger, but it could be worse. Like
when this chick took over.
A 27-year-old single
mom named Sonja Abrahamsson got the account
lots of publicity recently with her politically incorrect “humor,” odd photos and
comments about her kids. Mashable highlights her prime tweets, the best of which being this video
(which she posted without comment).
Apparently people
can’t get enough of Shia LeBeouf naked, I mean Sigur Rós’ new video.
Another day,
another video of a young Ryan Gosling bustin’ sweet moves.
(Late-in-the-game side note: Crazy,
Stupid, Love., featuring a really well-groomed Gosling, is actually really
good.) From feminist blogs to news stories about his dreamy ways, the Internet
loves some Ryan Gosling. Of all the options, my favorite is this clip from Mickey Mouse Club (co-starring Justin
Timberlake and *NSYNC’s JC Chasez) featuring a young, baggy-panted RG making
pre-teen hearts melt on stage. Shit gets real at 1:43.
Waiting for Game
of Thrones to return is tough, but thankfully the makers of the HBO hit are keeping
the show in the news: In a very intense scene of the first season, the camera
cuts to a row of dudes’ heads on stakes. Turns out one of ‘em was Dubya’s.
They’re sorry.
Travel + Leisure
named OTR’s Neons Unplugged as one of America’s 30 Best Outdoor Bars!
George Clooney's political thriller doesn't quite transcend genre
0 Comments · Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Stephen
Myers (Ryan Gosling) — the precociously successful political media
consultant at the center of The Ides of March — knows how to
handle his business. Sure, he might believe that the man he’s
working for, Pennsylvania Gov. Mike Morris (George Clooney), is the
best candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and the man
who can do the most to make America better. But he’s also just fine
with feeding a specious allegation about their opponent to the media,
just so it will require time spent to fight it off.” If you’re
looking for a starry-eyed idealist in The Ides of March, whose
utopian dreams might be crushed by harsh reality, you best look
elsewhere.
Ryan Gosling and Nicolas Winding Reyn cruise into Hollywood’s past
0 Comments · Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Ryan Gosling and Nicolas Winding Reyn.
Audiences should get used to seeing these names together, because this
could be the start of a beautiful collaborative relationship. It would
be one based on a real love of movies — good gritty Hollywood movies —
proving that there doesn’t have to be any shame involved in enjoying
films made simply to entertain.
Behind the scenes with the caterers of George Clooney’s local film shoot
1 Comment · Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Along with George, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei and the other stars, the movie shoot has brought to town a huge crew — an army, really. So who’s feeding them? I was cutting through the Carew Tower arcade when I thought I saw the answer to that question — a redhead wearing a black chef’s jacket and a baseball cap with a skull-and-crossed-cutlery logo. “Hey, catering guy!” I hollered. That’s how I met Dan Gearig, co-founder of Chow Catering out of Detroit.
0 Comments · Wednesday, February 16, 2011
People who grew up in Cincinnati generally don’t spend a lot of time trying to prove that our city is an exciting place — we’re just fine mixing our occasional cultural celebrations with regularly scheduled backyard barbecues. But even here, there occasionally occurs a cultural event so exciting that it forever alters every resident’s life forever. Such an incident occurred today when George Clooney and his family went to Northside to film the front of some buildings.