Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

Sometimes, you just have to accept these things as the truth.

Seacrest To Be Paid $15 Million To Do Nothing

Ryan Seacrest is to be the highest paid TV personality, whatever that may be, with $15 million dollars a year for his American Idol hosting duties, whatever that may be.

Seacrest is now officially, according to Forbes, the highest paid non-working non-entertaining entertainer since Carson Daly was paid $9 million to stay up and pretend he had a late night talk show.

“This is beyond my wildest dreams,” said Seacrest in a press conference earlier today. “When I was younger, I would say I didn’t want to do anything when I grew up. And now that dream has come true. And paid off generously.”

And while Seacrest will be making $15 million a year, his former Idol co-host Brian Dunkleman has also received a raise, to $15 an hour as a manager at Starbucks.

Seacrest’s numerous duties on Idol including standing up, holding a microphone, reading off cue cards, waxing Simon Cowell’s ass, and driving Paula’s short bus to and from work.

In addition to Idol, Seacrest’s resume includes being a producer on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Bromance, and Denise Richards: It’s Complicated. Seacrest has often commented how hard it is to keep destroying television. Seacrest additionally receives tens of millions of dollars a year for radio shows, E! hosting jobs, Bar Mitzvahs, and standing around Rupert Murdoch’s home as a modern art piece.

After the announcement of Seacrest’s salary of $15 million a year, MTV.com stated “he earned it.

They seriously did.

Please Note: The above picture is of Ryan Seacrest in the closet.

American Idol Season 9: Rose Bowl Auditions

We sent out trusty reporters Ben Brock and Thane Economou to the Los Angeles Idol Auditions, check it out:

Transformers 2: Another Opportunity To Be Corny

In 2007, I began seeing trailers for a movie called Transformers .  I thought to myself, “Certainly they can’t be making a live action film based on a popular series of children’s action figures.”  But I was wrong.  The hype began to build and all around me, close friends were getting caught up in the excitement.  Though they had never mentioned the franchise prior to 2007, they began to reveal that they were huge fans of the Transformers toys, the Transformers comic books, the Transformers animated television show, and the original Transformers animated film.  Everyone was pumped for the film’s release except for me.

When I watched the trailers for Transformers , I saw a summer blockbuster with merchandising potential.  It resembled the dozen or so big budget superhero movies that had come out in the summers leading up to 2007.  In the back of my mind, I was hoping that Transformers would be an art house film about a robot coming to terms with his failures, fighting his drug addiction, and allowing himself to love.  The trailers assured me that this was not going to happen.

The film came out and everyone seemed very pleased with it.  My friends were happy about the various action sequences.  My fellow film nerds were mesmerized by the clean visual effects.  A close relative of mine, who shall remain nameless, said it was the greatest movie he had ever seen.  I decided I would rent the film on DVD.

A few months later, I rented Transformers and watched it with my close relative, who shall remain nameless.  In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, I must say that the sound design and visual effects were very well done.  Action was intense and the CGI looked good.  However, whenever characters would speak, I would hear unimaginably embarrassing trash.  There are lame, one-line jokes used to end scenes.  There are lame, super-serious comments made about life and the fate of the world.   There are lame, charmingly inadequate attempts to speak to girls or authority figures.  Half the film is so corny, it makes me cringe thinking about it.  I looked over to my close relative, who shall remain nameless.  He admitted to me that when he originally saw the film, he was on drugs.

Here are a few of the most painful lines:

1. SAM WITWICKY- “Here’s the dream: your B-, (poof!), dream gone.  Sir, just ask yourself: what would Jesus do?”

2.  JAZZ- “You want a piece of me?”  MEGATRON- “No, I want TWO pieces!” (Megatron rips Jazz in half).

3. CAPTAIN LENNOX- “Listen to me, you’re a soldier now!”

4. SAM WITWICKY- “In fifty years when you’re looking back at your life, don’t you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in that car?”

Shia LeBeouf does not do well as the quirky white teenager trying to save the world and get the girl at the same time.  Many believe that LeBeouf is “the next Tom Hanks.”  I can’t see that being true, only because as far as I know, Tom Hanks was never an annoying little bitch.

Read the rest of this entry »

House M.D. Is World’s Most Watched Show

The Eurodata TV Worldwide announced that the Fox medical drama House M.D. is the most watched show in the world. The Hugh Laurie program brings in more than 81.8 million viewers.

The reason for the show’s large following is due to its easy ability to be translated. In South America, the show, known as Casa M.D., is often set to mariachi music. The show is very popular in China, where it is edited heavily, thus House does his work for free and spouts off the philosophy of Mao. And the show is hugely popular in Ethiopia, where residents claim “we love how cranky he is, and can’t wait to see what happens next season. It’s a nice distraction since we haven’t eaten in months.”

House M.D.’s huge viewership worldwide also explains why the rest of the world thinks we need healthcare reform.

The second most watched show was CSI, which makes sense, because Europe is completely covered in semen, and people can identify.

The third most watched show was last year’s winner, CSI: Miami. David Caruso taking off his sunglasses is the universal sign of awesome, and needs no translating.

The most watched soap opera worldwide is the American show Bold and the Beautiful. It pulls ahead of the Marina from Mexico. Marina, the telenovela about a tourist boat captain who inherits a large fortune, was thought to have “jumped the shark” this season when Veronica killed her twin sister Laura, and Marina found Chuy’s watch at the crime scene.

The most watched comedies worldwide were Desperate Housewives, Monk, and Ugly Betty, proving that people around the world have shit taste in comedy.

Nadine Talks To Mitch Hurwitz and Will Forte

In support of the new Fox animated series Sit Down, Shut Up, I had the chance to get on the phone with Mitch Hurwitz (who also created Arrested Development) and Will Forte last week. The show is awesome and of course has a stellar cast of: Will Arnett as Ennis Hofftard; Jason Bateman as Larry Littlejunk; Will Forte as Stuart Proszakian; Tom Kenny as Happy and Interpreter; Nick Kroll as Andrew LeGustambos; Cheri Oteri as Helen Klench; Kenan Thompson as Sue Sezno; Henry Winkler as Willard Deutschebog; Kristin Chenoweth as Miracle Grohe.

Check out Sit Down, Shut Up on Sundays at 8:30 PM ET/PT on Fox.

Enjoy:
Q: Mitch, how did you develop the personalities for the characters…was there a lot of back and forth or was it set?
Mitch: It was a lot of back and forth. It’s like once we found out that we had a chance of getting Will Forte, who happens to be on this call. We just started writing to what we’ve seen him do and what we think he can do. And then as he starts ad-libbing and putting his own stuff, we kind of end up copying that. You know, a lot of what Will does that’s really hilarious, he doesn’t realize he’s doing. He’s just a very very foolish man. Is that fair to say Will? I mean, does that hurt your feelings?

Will: I would say, if you start at a point of dip-(sh#ttiness), you’re starting at the right place

Mitch: I think, you know, Will is so hilarious. I think one of the things that’s so different about this show is that we have all these really hilarious people. Like Arnett comes in and we - we’re just mixing a show last night where the Arnett character who plays a very macho character, for some reason started like talking like a teenage girl in the doctor’s office…

(click to read more after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, you just have to accept these things as the truth.

Ryan Seacrest is to be the highest paid TV personality, whatever that may be, with $15 million dollars a year for his American Idol hosting duties, whatever that may be.

Seacrest is now officially, according to Forbes, the highest paid non-working non-entertaining entertainer since Carson Daly was paid $9 million to stay up and pretend he had a late night talk show.

“This is beyond my wildest dreams,” said Seacrest in a press conference earlier today. “When I was younger, I would say I didn’t want to do anything when I grew up. And now that dream has come true. And paid off generously.”

And while Seacrest will be making $15 million a year, his former Idol co-host Brian Dunkleman has also received a raise, to $15 an hour as a manager at Starbucks.

Seacrest’s numerous duties on Idol including standing up, holding a microphone, reading off cue cards, waxing Simon Cowell’s ass, and driving Paula’s short bus to and from work.

In addition to Idol, Seacrest’s resume includes being a producer on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Bromance, and Denise Richards: It’s Complicated. Seacrest has often commented how hard it is to keep destroying television. Seacrest additionally receives tens of millions of dollars a year for radio shows, E! hosting jobs, Bar Mitzvahs, and standing around Rupert Murdoch’s home as a modern art piece.

After the announcement of Seacrest’s salary of $15 million a year, MTV.com stated “he earned it.

They seriously did.

Please Note: The above picture is of Ryan Seacrest in the closet.

We sent out trusty reporters Ben Brock and Thane Economou to the Los Angeles Idol Auditions, check it out:

In 2007, I began seeing trailers for a movie called Transformers .  I thought to myself, “Certainly they can’t be making a live action film based on a popular series of children’s action figures.”  But I was wrong.  The hype began to build and all around me, close friends were getting caught up in the excitement.  Though they had never mentioned the franchise prior to 2007, they began to reveal that they were huge fans of the Transformers toys, the Transformers comic books, the Transformers animated television show, and the original Transformers animated film.  Everyone was pumped for the film’s release except for me.

When I watched the trailers for Transformers , I saw a summer blockbuster with merchandising potential.  It resembled the dozen or so big budget superhero movies that had come out in the summers leading up to 2007.  In the back of my mind, I was hoping that Transformers would be an art house film about a robot coming to terms with his failures, fighting his drug addiction, and allowing himself to love.  The trailers assured me that this was not going to happen.

The film came out and everyone seemed very pleased with it.  My friends were happy about the various action sequences.  My fellow film nerds were mesmerized by the clean visual effects.  A close relative of mine, who shall remain nameless, said it was the greatest movie he had ever seen.  I decided I would rent the film on DVD.

A few months later, I rented Transformers and watched it with my close relative, who shall remain nameless.  In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, I must say that the sound design and visual effects were very well done.  Action was intense and the CGI looked good.  However, whenever characters would speak, I would hear unimaginably embarrassing trash.  There are lame, one-line jokes used to end scenes.  There are lame, super-serious comments made about life and the fate of the world.   There are lame, charmingly inadequate attempts to speak to girls or authority figures.  Half the film is so corny, it makes me cringe thinking about it.  I looked over to my close relative, who shall remain nameless.  He admitted to me that when he originally saw the film, he was on drugs.

Here are a few of the most painful lines:

1. SAM WITWICKY- “Here’s the dream: your B-, (poof!), dream gone.  Sir, just ask yourself: what would Jesus do?”

2.  JAZZ- “You want a piece of me?”  MEGATRON- “No, I want TWO pieces!” (Megatron rips Jazz in half).

3. CAPTAIN LENNOX- “Listen to me, you’re a soldier now!”

4. SAM WITWICKY- “In fifty years when you’re looking back at your life, don’t you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in that car?”

Shia LeBeouf does not do well as the quirky white teenager trying to save the world and get the girl at the same time.  Many believe that LeBeouf is “the next Tom Hanks.”  I can’t see that being true, only because as far as I know, Tom Hanks was never an annoying little bitch. Read the rest of this entry »

The Eurodata TV Worldwide announced that the Fox medical drama House M.D. is the most watched show in the world. The Hugh Laurie program brings in more than 81.8 million viewers.

The reason for the show’s large following is due to its easy ability to be translated. In South America, the show, known as Casa M.D., is often set to mariachi music. The show is very popular in China, where it is edited heavily, thus House does his work for free and spouts off the philosophy of Mao. And the show is hugely popular in Ethiopia, where residents claim “we love how cranky he is, and can’t wait to see what happens next season. It’s a nice distraction since we haven’t eaten in months.”

House M.D.’s huge viewership worldwide also explains why the rest of the world thinks we need healthcare reform.

The second most watched show was CSI, which makes sense, because Europe is completely covered in semen, and people can identify.

The third most watched show was last year’s winner, CSI: Miami. David Caruso taking off his sunglasses is the universal sign of awesome, and needs no translating.

The most watched soap opera worldwide is the American show Bold and the Beautiful. It pulls ahead of the Marina from Mexico. Marina, the telenovela about a tourist boat captain who inherits a large fortune, was thought to have “jumped the shark” this season when Veronica killed her twin sister Laura, and Marina found Chuy’s watch at the crime scene.

The most watched comedies worldwide were Desperate Housewives, Monk, and Ugly Betty, proving that people around the world have shit taste in comedy.

In support of the new Fox animated series Sit Down, Shut Up, I had the chance to get on the phone with Mitch Hurwitz (who also created Arrested Development) and Will Forte last week. The show is awesome and of course has a stellar cast of: Will Arnett as Ennis Hofftard; Jason Bateman as Larry Littlejunk; Will Forte as Stuart Proszakian; Tom Kenny as Happy and Interpreter; Nick Kroll as Andrew LeGustambos; Cheri Oteri as Helen Klench; Kenan Thompson as Sue Sezno; Henry Winkler as Willard Deutschebog; Kristin Chenoweth as Miracle Grohe.

Check out Sit Down, Shut Up on Sundays at 8:30 PM ET/PT on Fox.

Enjoy:
Q: Mitch, how did you develop the personalities for the characters…was there a lot of back and forth or was it set?
Mitch: It was a lot of back and forth. It’s like once we found out that we had a chance of getting Will Forte, who happens to be on this call. We just started writing to what we’ve seen him do and what we think he can do. And then as he starts ad-libbing and putting his own stuff, we kind of end up copying that. You know, a lot of what Will does that’s really hilarious, he doesn’t realize he’s doing. He’s just a very very foolish man. Is that fair to say Will? I mean, does that hurt your feelings?

Will: I would say, if you start at a point of dip-(sh#ttiness), you’re starting at the right place

Mitch: I think, you know, Will is so hilarious. I think one of the things that’s so different about this show is that we have all these really hilarious people. Like Arnett comes in and we - we’re just mixing a show last night where the Arnett character who plays a very macho character, for some reason started like talking like a teenage girl in the doctor’s office…

(click to read more after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »