Last week we told you David and Victoria Beckham were expecting their first daughter together.
Now, the proud daddy is speaking out about the wonderful news. David states:
?It?s something obviously we hoped for, but obviously when you have a baby you kind of just think as long as it?s healthy ? [then] that?s all you [...]
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A Royal Wedding ?Knit? For A King
With only a few weeks left until the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, those of you who like to knit can learn how to make your own set of dolls so that you can have your own Royal Wedding party in your own home. With just a few bundles of yarn, knitting [...]
Michael Jackson's 'Thriller': Story Behind The 'Glee' Cover
MJ classic is mashed up with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Heads Will Roll' for post-Super Bowl episode.
By Aly Semigran
"Glee"
Photo: FOX
Madonna, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and now, finally, Michael Jackson. The cast of "Glee" has covered plenty of icons during their first two seasons, but it's taken 33 episodes to get around to the King of Pop.
With a huge catalog of Jackson songs, the singing, dancing students of McKinley High paid homage to the late singer with one of his biggest staples (and, arguably, the greatest music video of all time) with their take on "Thriller."
The groundbreaking single from Jackson's best-selling album of the same name was mashed up with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Heads Will Roll" for the post-Super Bowl episode (titled "The Sue Sylvester Bowl Shuffle"), featuring a zombie-fied "Glee" cast.
Bound to become a smash all over again (though with its nonstop rotation at Halloween parties and wedding receptions until the end of time, it's never truly gone away), here's a brief history of the dance/pop classic.
Released on January 23, 1984, "Thriller" was the seventh, and final, single to be released from Jackson's smash record. According to the RIAA, the album (released by Epic Records) has gone gold 29 times, narrowly edging out the Eagles' Greatest Hits 1971-1975 for the title of best-selling album of all time.
In 2009, MTV News estimated that the Thriller album was poised to go triple diamond, meaning 30 million records sold in the U.S. alone.
After Thriller's other singles (including "Billie Jean," "Beat It" and "Wanna Be Startin' Something") dominated the charts, it was time for the spooky, undeniably original track to take over. The song "Thriller" also appeared on many of Jackson's other albums, including the compilations HIStory and Number Ones.
Clocking in at a little under six minutes (though the radio edit was closer to four-and-a-half), the song features pop-music mainstays like synthesizers but shakes things up with its spooky sound effects, including creaking floors, howling and thunder.
The song was produced by Quincy Jones and written and composed by Rod Tempterton and spent 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #4.
But it's the music video for "Thriller" that truly made it the phenomenon it was in the '80s and continues to be today. Less a music video than a mini-motion picture, the video (over 13 minutes long and directed by John Landis) won three MTV Video Music Awards and has been named the best music video of all time by many outlets, including VH1 for the special "VH1: 100 Greatest Videos."
The chiller features Jackson in that iconic red leather jacket on a date with his girlfriend (played by Ola Ray) before things go terribly awry. After all, as Jackson (whose disclaimer at the start of the video reads, "This film in no way endorses a belief in the occult") sings in the opening line, "It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark." Cue werewolves, zombies, Vincent Price's soliloquy and one of the most memorable dance sequences ever.
The video was (no pun intended) a monster hit. As the Los Angeles Times notes, "At the height of the song's popularity, MTV would run the 14-minute 'Thriller' video twice an hour."
Choreographed by Jackson and Michael Peters (who, as the LA Times also reported, appears in the video as one of the zombies) and with makeup by Oscar-winner Rick Baker (also an undead "Thriller" extra) was made with a huge budget of an estimated $500,000.
Still, the efforts paid off. Landis (who told the "Today" show back in 2009 that no one wanted to give them the funds to make the risky vid) made the accompanying 45-minute documentary about the venture, called "The Making of Thriller." Featuring the behind-the-scenes wizardry, as well as the music video in full, it would go on to move more than 10 million copies.
Since then, the signature song and video have seen their share fair of tributes in movies (notably in the 2004 comedy"13 Going on 30") and TV ("South Park," "Family Guy," "30 Rock," among others), not to mention the countless flash mobs that have gone viral. (Remember the prisoners in the Philippines who became overnight phenomenons on YouTube?)
Even with the "Glee" number, this likely won't be the last incarnation of "Thriller." Billboard reported in October that a "Thriller" film is in the works. With a plot allegedly revolving around Price's narration, Kenny Ortega, who directed Jackson's last effort, "This Is It," will reportedly helm the project.
Since Jackson's untimely passing on June 25, 2009, the song and video's legacy continue to live on. In the week following Jackson's death, "Thriller" was the best-selling track in the U.S., with sales of 167,000 copies on the Billboard Hot Digital Singles chart.
Then, in December 2009, "Thriller" was the first music video to ever be inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. It seems "no mere mortal can resist ... the thriller" after all.
What did you think of the "Thriller" mash-up on "Glee"? Let us know in the comments!
Related Videos Related ArtistsTuesday, March 15, 2011
Liz Hurley Surfaces On The Set Of ?Wonder Woman?
Principal filming of the new David E. Kelly TV series Wonder Woman, which will premiere on NBC in the Fall, has begun here in SoCal. Today we get to see photos of actress Elizabeth Hurley on the LA set of the show earlier today. Check out a couple photos of Liz lookin’ fierce as Hell [...]
Lady Gaga Says No Duets On Born This Way
'I want to stand on my own two feet,' Gaga says.
By Jocelyn Vena
Lady Gaga
Photo: Kevin Mazur/ WireImage
On Lady Gaga's 2009 smash The Fame Monster, the eccentric star hooked up with one of the fiercest ladies in the game when she and Beyoncé got their party on for the club anthem "Telephone." The singers then appeared together in an over-the-top music video in which they played a Quentin Tarantino-esque version of Thelma and Louise.
As the May 23 release date of Gaga's latest musical opus Born This Way draws near, the singer's little monsters are wondering if the star has secured any A-list talent for a collaboration on the new album.
In a recent radio chat, Gaga revealed that she's not planning on having anyone guest on Born This Way, according to Digital Spy. "I want to stand on my own two feet. I've already collaborated with my favorite female in the business," she teased. "We'll see how I'm feeling when I'm wrapping up the album."
With the anticipation for the record so high, fans are beginning to piece together the puzzle of BTW. Reported lyrics for her second single, "Judas," have already hit the Internet. On the track, Gaga waxes poetic about a lover whom she loves more than he loves her.
"Judas/ You never ever never/ Ever really ever loved me more, than I/ But Nemesis is watching over-high," she reportedly sings. "And this is your time/ Judas, lie on lie, write/ Tears drop 'cause I cry/ The echo truth killed you so you may finally die."
Lyrics for another BTW track, "Government Hooker," also reportedly found their way onto the Internet. A remix of the song debuted last week at the Thierry Mugler fashion show in Paris.
On the song, Gaga sings, "We had our night/ Our real nature/ No more time to decide/ Let it climb, let it ignite/ I can be cool/ I can be anything/ I'll be your everything/ Just touch me baby."
Related Videos Related Photos Related ArtistsConan O'Brien's Documentary: Early SXSW Reviews Are In
Some say the movie chronicling Conan's ouster from NBC is funnier than his show.
By Eric Ditzian
Conan O'Brien
Photo: Noel Vasquez/ Getty
Four months removed from the debut of his TBS late-night show, Conan O'Brien swept into the South by Southwest film festival over the weekend, a bit reluctantly, to promote a documentary cataloguing the fallout from his "Tonight Show" firing and his subsequent creative resurrection via a live comedy tour.
Called "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop," the doc begins by recapping his NBC ouster and follows the comedian and his team as they come up with the comedy tour idea, build it from the ground up and then head out on the road. O'Brien has already largely moved on from these sordid events, but for one evening, he was compelled to relive the juicy late-night scandal and his reaction to it, which was not always as high-minded as he might have hoped. A few reviews, as well as O'Brien's own comments about the project, have already hit the Web, so read on for some early insight into "Can't Stop."
The Overview
"What starts out as a sanity-restoring make-work project evolves into a highly entertaining cross-country extravaganza during the course of 'Conan O'Brien Can't Stop,' an up-close account of the former 'Tonight Show' host's two-month, 32-city comedy-and-music variety-show tour shortly after he parted ways with NBC in 2010. But the biggest laughs and most intriguing revelations are provided offstage in this slickly produced documentary, as O'Brien — often pushing himself to the point of exhaustion before, during and after performances — plays for keeps while playing for laughs." — Joe Leydon, Variety
The Laughs
"Conan O'Brien should take some satisfaction in the thought that Jay Leno will never earn as much laughter in half an hour as he and his crew does in the first third of 'Conan O'Brien Can't Stop.' To be fair, O'Brien's TV talk show was rarely if ever this full-tilt hilarious, either, which might have something to do with why he seems to have so many more supporters than the program had viewers. But 'Can't Stop' is as entertaining as any showbiz doc in recent memory and could draw a nice audience of Team Coco followers in a limited theatrical release." — John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
Conan, In His Own Words, Part I
"I personally have trouble watching it because it's a time in my life that I don't like to go back to. I'm happy where I am now. I don't really need to go back to it. But I made a commitment." — O'Brien, in an Associated Press interview
Conan, In His Own Words, Part II
"I've done thousands of hours of television, and they get a sense of you, but you're really only on TV for an hour, and this is seeing these other sides of me. It's funny, because my staff, they saw this and they said, 'Oh, we get to see a little bit of Mean Conan.' And they said, 'Mean Conan, he's our favorite, he's the funniest Conan.' Which is weird. There's a way in which, after our meetings sometimes, I'll talk about the show and I'll just go on these long riffs, which are over-the-top, sarcastic about everything, and people will be laughing really hard while I'm saying negative things about the show. I'm really hard on myself, I get very dark. I tease people constantly. I physically fight my writers, and they fight me back. And so it's this gear I have that I've used sometimes on television but really hardly at all. There's all of this stuff there that I think, well, if not now, when? Might as well let people know he exists." — Conan O'Brien, in a New York Times interview
Monday, March 14, 2011
New 'Super 8' Trailer's Five Key Moments
We take a look at the most fascinating scenes featured in the new promo clip for the upcoming J.J. Abrams-directed adventure film.
By Eric Ditzian
Joel Courtney, Ryan Lee, and Riley Griffiths
Photo: Paramount Pictures
"What the hell?" says a boy at the very end of the first full-length trailer for "Super 8," neatly summarizing our own thoughts about the footage from the mysterious action-adventure film: Um, what exactly did we just see?
Well, what we saw, first off, was an incredibly effective promo clip courtesy of director J.J. Abrams and executive producer Steven Spielberg. It managed to maintain the spirit of a teaser trailer — withholding far more information than is ever unleashed — while expanding our understanding of, and getting us seriously more excited about, what we'll see in the flick when it hits theaters on June 10. Here are our picks for the new trailer's five key moments:
What Kind of Military Trucks Are Those?
In we'd already seen the fiery train crash that unleashes some sort of very angry, possible very alien creature. So what we're focused on here is what's new, like those military trucks rolling through town with red cargo bins. What kind of military vehicles haul cargo like that? We see them pull right up to the train's wreckage, so we're guessing whatever is in them is important. As an Air Force leader, played by Noah Emmerich, says to Kyle Chandler's local policeman, "I understand you have concerns about our cargo," before telling him there's nothing to worry about. Right ...
9/11 ... for Dogs?
Though the film is set in 1979, there's no mistaking the allusion to September 11, 2001, in this shot of missing-dog posters. Apparently, all the dogs hightailed it out of town after the train crash. Why is it that animals always seem to grasp potential sci-fi terror before humans? And what ever happened to man's best friend, after all?
That Looks Like It Hurts
So dogs and people start to go missing. Things, no doubt, start to go from bad to worse. Just look at this bloody-faced guy who has a gun in his hand, a terrified look in his eyes, and one word of instruction: "Go!" This raises a question about "Super 8" that we've had for a while. Early reports seemed to suggest that this movie would be more of an alien-invasion film in the vein of "Cloverfield." But most of the footage we've seen thus far gives an impression of something more akin to "E.T." So which is it? Or is it both? In the new trailer, we definitely get a sense of a Spielberg-like focus on family-oriented fare, yet things clearly get very intense and very dangerous at some point.
Boom! Boom!
Throughout the trailer, we've seen how this alien presence can somehow manipulate electricity and exert a telekinetic power on objects. Here we see a prime example of that ability, as the local electronics store goes boom. At others points, power lines explode, a bus tips over, and, well, it's all leading to...
Look, Up in the Sky
The most eye-popping scene in the entire trailer comes at nearly the very end. Main Street is trashed, the citizenry is freaked out and the military is nowhere to be seen as vehicles rise up into the air. The kids (portrayed by Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning) — both looking very much like characters from "E.T.," he Elliot, she Gertie — take in the craziness. Like in "E.T.," it seems that only the children fully understand the implications of what's actually going on. For example: No one believes a man in the hospital, for instance, who claims to have seen the creature ... except the boy. As he tells the man, "I believe you."
What are your favorite moments in the new "Super 8" teaser? Tell us in the comments.
Check out everything we've got on "Super 8."
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