Still together or was he just there supporting his “friend”? Well we knew they couldn’t stay apart for long, but word on the curb is that Breezy and Rihanna actually did not split — they’ve just been feuding for the last few weeks after Breezy “flaked” (surprise surprise). But despite their differences, nothing could keep Chris Brown from Rihanna’s show at the Staples Center Monday night. Fans snapped a few shots of the R&B singer as he watched RihRih rock the stage. And according to #TeamBreezy and RihRih’s #Navy, RihRih even got choked up as she sang “Stay” while gazing at her boo in the audience. Now isn’t that romantical? Hit the flip for more photos from the show and to hear the gossip on what supposedly had them at odds in the first place.
In a new interview with E! News, Selena Gomez doesn’t mention Justin Bieber by name. But the singer – who insists her new single, ” Come & Get It ,” isn’t about her famous ex – does touch on how she was “in a different place” when recording her upcoming album, clearly referencing her relationship with a certain 19-year old. How is Gomez handling the break-up? Just fine, thanks! She joked about making Bieber cry during an appearance on The Late Show a couple weeks ago and she tells E! that her recent “transition has been really fun.” “After going through some of the most interesting, cool times in my life, I’ve come out a better person,” Gomez says . “And it’s definitely what I want to exude.” And exuding it she most certainly has been! Sorry, JB.
In a new interview with E! News, Selena Gomez doesn’t mention Justin Bieber by name. But the singer – who insists her new single, ” Come & Get It ,” isn’t about her famous ex – does touch on how she was “in a different place” when recording her upcoming album, clearly referencing her relationship with a certain 19-year old. How is Gomez handling the break-up? Just fine, thanks! She joked about making Bieber cry during an appearance on The Late Show a couple weeks ago and she tells E! that her recent “transition has been really fun.” “After going through some of the most interesting, cool times in my life, I’ve come out a better person,” Gomez says . “And it’s definitely what I want to exude.” And exuding it she most certainly has been! Sorry, JB.
Bachelor star Sean Lowe dedicated his Viennese Waltz on Monday’s DWTS performance show to fiancee Catherine Giudici , who was in the audience. He then followed up by kissing her for all the world to see! Sean Lowe – Dancing With the Stars Week 4 The routine, which earned 20 out of a possible 30 points, should be more than enough to keep Sean Lowe on the show for at least one more week. Especially given the judges’ praise, which included accolades such as “steaming” and “sweet.” Sort of sums up The Bachelor star in a nutshell. Sean made the waltz about his romantic proposal to Catherine Giudici in Thailand on the season finale we witnessed on March 11, a telling gesture. Rumors of the couple’s demise have followed ever since, including one report in which she is said to be jealous of his DWTS pro partner Peta Murgatroyd . If there’s any tension, it was not evident Monday night. Sean and Catherine: Will they make it to the altar? YES. You can just tell. They are made for each other. Maybe … not convinced, but not writing them off. No chance. I don’t see the connection! View Poll »
Bachelor star Sean Lowe dedicated his Viennese Waltz on Monday’s DWTS performance show to fiancee Catherine Giudici , who was in the audience. He then followed up by kissing her for all the world to see! Sean Lowe – Dancing With the Stars Week 4 The routine, which earned 20 out of a possible 30 points, should be more than enough to keep Sean Lowe on the show for at least one more week. Especially given the judges’ praise, which included accolades such as “steaming” and “sweet.” Sort of sums up The Bachelor star in a nutshell. Sean made the waltz about his romantic proposal to Catherine Giudici in Thailand on the season finale we witnessed on March 11, a telling gesture. Rumors of the couple’s demise have followed ever since, including one report in which she is said to be jealous of his DWTS pro partner Peta Murgatroyd . If there’s any tension, it was not evident Monday night. Sean and Catherine: Will they make it to the altar? YES. You can just tell. They are made for each other. Maybe … not convinced, but not writing them off. No chance. I don’t see the connection! View Poll »
Welcome, readers, to another edition of THG’s Caption Contest! This afternoon’s pic comes to us from Scotland, where Kate Middleton ‘s hubby William leaned in to kiss a local resident … only to be rebuffed! Sometimes, a photo really is worth 1,000 words. The question for you all now is: What would be the best caption for it? You tell us below! Just leave comment(s) below with your best caption(s) for the photo! Go to it! Winner will be announced Monday . Best of luck …
Evil Dead has one of the most difficult names to live up to. The original film is a consummate cult classic. While most fans of The Evil Dead franchise may not hold the reboot in the same esteem, it does succeed in bringing the story into the 21 st century. The new film is gory. Very gory. While there are only one or two startle points in the entire thing, there is enough blood to make millions of black puddings (gross). The rules of Evil Dead are slightly different than the 1981 movie, but the same tropes are all hit. Five people in a cabin in the woods find the Book of the Dead and unlock a demonic presence. Simple. If you’re looking for the famous tree branch scene, it’s there. Corpses bursting from the soil? You bet. A badass strapping scene? Definitely. Some chainsaw action? Of course. To its detriment, however, Evil Dead trades in the camp of The Evil Dead for a pristine, modern aesthetic. Unless you are easily terrified, you won’t find Evil Dead particularly scary. Gross, yes. Thrilling, probably. But the original series leaned very heavily on its unapologetic camp, and the new attempt could have definitely used some of that. Because it’s difficult to scare modern audiences with the same techniques that were used in 1981, Evil Dead comes across as somewhat lost between old and new. It’s an old story that we’re very familiar with, retold through a pristine modern lens, but with none of the modern horror elements that terrify audiences today. Director/Co-writer Fede Alvarez does frame Evil Dead in an unexpected way, however. First of all, while horror films tend to feature sex-crazed teenagers played by 25 year-olds, Evil Dead features 25 year-olds played by 25 year-olds, which is much appreciated. And there’s no sex . None. Well, except for the tree scene… Instead of the usual “let’s escape our hectic lives and go get drunk and make out in the woods” thing, Evil Dead brings its characters into the woods to help Mia, played by Jane Levy, detoxify from years of drug use. What the drug back story does is make it impossible for the other characters to believe Mia when she tells them she’s seeing demons. It creates a natural time-lapse before they start to think that something more than withdrawals is happening. It’s refreshing to see a horror movie , or any movie for that matter, actually take care to establish a context and a story for the 90-minute investment the audience is making. Instead of just plopping five sexy personality-devoid teens in the woods and slowly picking them off one-by-one, Alvarez gave us a reason to want to see what happened, and gave the characters a reason to act they way they do (imagine that!). So while Evil Dead suffers a bit by assuming gore is scary, and from a kind of ridiculous ending that leaves the audience trying to piece together the logic of what just happened, this reboot is not just a run-of-the-mill horror movie. It has a pulse. You can tell because something has to be pumping all that blood. “The most terrifying film you will ever experience?” Definitely not (sorry, posters). A fun, thrilling, 90-minute gorefest? Absolutely. If you’re into that, then go see Evil Dead . RATING: 3.5/5
Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton gave another hint this week as to when the world will greet the royal baby. Not that the heir(ess) cares what she thinks. Kate told onlooker Rachel Sawyer that she is due “around mid-July, but apparently babies have their own agenda.” Indeed. As for what they’ll name him/her? “We have a short list for both but it’s very difficult.” “My friends keep texting me boy and girl names.” Accompanying Prince William on a visit to Glasgow, the royal (known in Scotland by the title Countess of Strathearn) charmed her audience of well-wishers. Sawyer asked when the mom-to-be, who had a tough early pregnancy, would be able to put her feet up and relax. Replied Kate Middleton : “around June time.” What should she name the royal baby? Vote! Alice Caroline Charlotte Diana Eleanor Matilda Victoria Something else! View Poll » Albert Arthur Frederick George James Philip Something else! View Poll »
ome children were so tired that they even fell asleep inside the arena, with one woman saying a young girl ‘fell fast asleep’ in the audience before her father picked her up and carried her out. It was also reported that Bieber cut his set by 30 minutes to coincide with time constraints. http://www.youtube.com/v/uhjGSLvxihg?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Visit link: ‘Cheap seat’ Justin Bieber tickets were £70 each.! Mother’s outrage over delay
When The Onion ‘s CEO Steve Hannah publicly apologized last week for the satirical newspaper’s controversial Oscar-night tweet about Quvenzhané Wallis , two thoughts crossed my mind: 1) It’s not a good day for comedy when a satirical publication says it’s sorry for a joke that was not actually about the Beasts of the Southern Wild actress. And 2) what would Paul Provenza make of this? In addition to being a veteran stand-up comic and actor, Provenza directed The Aristocrats , one of the finest dissections of comedy in any media (and not because I’m in it). The 2005 documentary deconstructs one of the oldest and dirtiest jokes in stand-up — the film’s title is its punchline — and when I shot my segment with Provenza, I quickly learned that, in addition to being a very funny guy, he’s a scholar of humor, who’s really good at explaining why something is funny — or not. ‘The Onion’: The Quvenzhané Wallis Controversy So, in the aftermath of the Wallis controversy, I emailed Provenza to get his analysis of the situation. Excerpts of his assessment appear below, but, first, an unexpurgated recap of what happened last week for anyone who was focusing on the sequestration crisis instead. If you’re offended by the word “cunt,” then stop reading now, because the term appears quite a bit in the following passages, and, in the context of this discussion, I think it’s justified. Also, as Provenza noted, censoring the word, “just adds to the irony” of the controversy. Here’s what The Onion initially tweeted during the Academy Awards on Feb. 24. After initially obscuring the offending word, the tweet was eventually disappeared as the backlash grew: “Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a cunt, right?” The Onion’s Apology Here is the apology that Hannah posted on The Onion ‘s Facebook page on Monday, Feb. 25: Dear Readers, On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting. No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire. The tweet was taken down within an hour of publication. We have instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures to ensure that this kind of mistake does not occur again. In addition, we are taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible. Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry. Sincerely, Steve Hannah CEO The Onion Why The Onion’s Apology Is Problematic Take it away, Professor Provenza: I think the crux of it is that the whole issue has more to do with Twitter than it has to do with comedy. Not completely, but largely. Twitter is a big, broad audience, and it’s a tough room to ‘read’, particularly with a joke this harsh. But the joke is absolutely misunderstood in most of the chatter. It is NOT a joke calling that sweet little girl a cunt. It’s not maligning her in any way whatsoever — it is saying exactly the opposite. The joke rests squarely on the fact that Quvenzhané Wallis is the very last person you’d ever want to call a cunt. Not even the most steadfast cynic can find her anything but innocent, beautiful and adorable, and that’s the whole point of the joke: The Hollywood schadenfreude and the palpable desperation that runs through much of the movie biz inspires the idea that someone, somewhere in Oscartown is already spreading vicious rumors about her. The fact that it is so inappropriate to say anything like that about her is precisely the basis — and I believe the point — of the Tweet. It was meant as a satirical comment about Hollywood and the pretense that everybody at the Oscars loves each other so much. It’s all golden statues and lavish praise — and is, The Onion suggests, about as phony as it gets. SO The Onion ‘s apology is problematic. It suggests they did insult her, and they’re sorry about it. Which is not the case. They offended, yes — not by insulting Quvenzhané Wallis, but by using the word “cunt” in the first place. And what could they expect, putting a most innocent, beloved 9 year old in the same sentence with perhaps the second most reviled word in the English language? That’s not the norm for The Onion , which usually does a much more deft job of communicating harsh comic ideas, but, comedically speaking, the joke is meant to be a bludgeon. So, I really can’t fault it on that score. It’s not meant to be a cleverly disguised notion. It’s meant to be as harsh as the ugly truth of envy, back-biting and negativity that Hollywood embodies. No one is spared, no matter how sweet and pure and innocent. Provenza goes on to point out that launching the Wallis joke into the Twitterverse put The Onion in “a difficult place.” Their work rarely has reached the audience this has reached — it has gone beyond their normal audience of comedy fans, fans of biting satire, whatever — to the broadest based audience imaginable: Oscar viewers, news & opinion blog/TV watchers. That audience includes far more people who would be offended in great numbers. And that’s where it becomes about Twitter. It’s now a story debated by people who have never had, nor do they now have, any interest in The Onion or what they’re all about. And now we’re into the business of damage control. But man, it feels wrong to apologize for a joke you didn’t even make. When I asked Provenza if The Onion should have apologized at all, he replied: Not this apology. They could have apologized for upsetting people in their audience. That would have been honest — they didn’t want to offend anyone. But this apology is dishonest: They apologize for offending the little girl and saying she deserves better when they did NOT say anything offensive about her. Thus, the apology is obsequious, reeks of insincerity and is compromising of The Onion’s integrity and its actual point of view in the first place. The Onion’s Tweet & Seth MacFarlane’s Jokes Stir The Pretentious Pot Provenza also drew a provocative connection between The Onion ‘s tweet and Seth MacFarlane’s much-maligned emceeing of the Academy Awards that night: If you look at The Onion thing (the actual substance of the joke, not the misinterpretation of it) and Seth’s entire night of hosting, some very loud voices were digging into the whole pretension of the Oscars. And what’s really interesting to me is that Seth was essentially a fox in the Academy Awards henhouse. The producers of the telecast knew what he was going to do: Nothing was off the cuff, songs were rehearsed for weeks, scripts were signed off on by legal departments and Standards & Practices. In other words, the producers of the Oscars themselves chose to let Seth call bullshit on false propriety, to dredge up unsavory things about the celebs in attendance and onstage, to take very little of it as seriously as the Oscars seem to want to be taken. They essentially allowed him to repeatedly remind the audience what a load of crap it all is. We all know that Oscar itself is a massive industry. The politics behind the nominees and winners is predominated by studios/distributors’ financial interests and all kinds of deal-making and horse trading. The fact that awards shows and celebrities are being called out ever more loudly, even from within, seems to suggest something. It’s almost as if even the people involved in the enterprise can’t ignore how pretentious it all is and are really tired of the machine. I can’t wait to read the comments on this. Leave them below. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
