Duck Dynasty, once a cable powerhouse, has been bleeding viewers for the past few seasons, to the point where some say it may even get the axe. The catalyst was the controversy involving Phil Robertson , the show’s patriarch who infamously disparaged homosexuals in a 2013 GQ interview. That alone hasn’t led to a decline of nearly two-thirds from the show’s peak audience of 12 million viewers, however. Experts say it’s just the life cycle of reality TV. Duck Dynasty Stars Without Beards! 1. Jase Robertson: No Beard! Jase Robertson of Duck Dynasty with no beard. That was a long time ago. With Jase is his wife Missy. Jeffrey McCall, a media studies professor at DePauw University, says “shows based on unique or unusual people usually don’t have great staying power.” “Once viewers have seen the personalities and their lifestyles, audiences tend to move along… Duck Dynasty already beat the odds by getting to Season 6.” Other industry insiders say the show’s marketability has been able to save it from cancelation before, and may continue to do so for awhile longer. Moreover, the network airing it says Season 7 is already in the can. “It’s a strong, strong franchise and will continue for a number of years,” said David McKillop, executive vice president and general manager of A&E, said. Forbes estimated that Duck Dynasty was worth about $400 million to A&E just in merchandising, and HEY, two-thirds of 12 million viewers is still a robust four. Even if the Robertsons can’t amass an empire of reality shows like E! has thanks to Keeping Up With the Kardashians , it’ll go down as enormously successful. After all, seven seasons is still worth quacking about.
Women Who’d Get Ignored If They Weren’t Attractive Some people get attention for being skilled. Others for their personalities. And some…well some just get noticed because they’re fine as hell. These women are just known for their looks and if they weren’t fine nobody would pay them any mind. Continue reading →
Hitman Joe ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ) is confronted with his future self — in the form of a time-traveling Bruce Willis — in Rian Johnson’s Looper , the writer-director’s third feature and one of the freshest original science fiction tales in years. Before debuting the September 28 release at Fantastic Fest over the weekend, Johnson spoke with Movieline about the pre- Brick short script that gestated into Looper , the film’s dark streak and the 1970 soul ballad that serves as “the heart of the movie.” Take me back to the beginning – the idea for Looper began as a short story in your notebook around the time of Brick , right? Before I made Brick . It was a script for a short film, and it was a few years before we made Brick , during a time when we were spending all of our time looking for money to make Brick – Steve [Yedlin], my cinematographer, and I. We realized we were just driving ourselves crazy and to alleviate the pressure we decided to start making some shorts, and we made a few but this was one that I wrote but we never ended up shooting. What was the original seed of the idea that started it? It’s funny, at some point after the release I’m going to put the three-page script up on the internet but it started with the same voice over that the feature starts with. It explains the guy and his job, and when his older self shows up, it was a foot chase between the two of them across the city, then it ended when they caught up with each other. It has a similar ending to the feature which is why I don’t want to put it out too soon. I had been reading a ton of Philip K. Dick and was in a period when I had just discovered his books, so I think my brain was full of sci-fi ideas. Were you feeling super existential? I must have been going through one of those existential phases we all go through, continuously. The honest answer is it was ten years ago and I don’t exactly remember. Ten years ago I was 28. The quarter-life years or so. It’s true, my God. Now I’m going through an existential crisis, thanks a bunch! I’m sorry! One thing I like about the concept is that it’s so much about identity, our past selves, our future selves, how we see ourselves and the potential to change the future. And our relationship with this kind of character, our future self, our notion of what we’re going to turn into and our ideas of how our lives are going to go. That’s usually personified in your relationship with a mentor or parent, someone who’s indicative of a path you could take in life and whether you want to or not, that’s kind of the interesting question. I found the film to be quite romantic. Nice! And that was not something I was really expecting. That song you use, Chuck and Mac’s “Powerful Love,” is so beautiful and perfect. Isn’t it incredible? It’s such a beautiful song. I literally picked up blind, I think on vinyl on the Twinights [album]. Listening to that song just sticks, then the lyrics somehow attach themselves to the meaning of the whole thing and it ends up jamming in your head and it becomes a really obvious choice, you know? Actually, in pre-production I sent an mp3 of that song to Bruce [Willis] right when he signed on and told him this song is the heart of the movie, and he got really excited about it. I was listening to that song over and over while we were shooting it. That and a lot of Sam Cooke. A soul connection. I’m really happy that you felt that from the movie. There is a real deep heart of romance in the movie, and not just boy-girl romance but romance with a capital R. Love. Yeah – love in the sense that love can somehow fix things. I hope that that’s baked into it. As dark and as bleak as the movie can get at times, the reason I feel comfortable having it go there is I hope that it gets to a really hopeful and redemptive place at the end. Do you see Looper as dark and bleak? I think it goes to some pretty dark, bleak places and shows these characters, even the ones who are supposed to be good guys, doing some terrible things. I think it shows the dark side of everybody and gets to some spots where you wonder if it’s all going to be okay, but I hope it shows you that people can change and people can make decisions for the right reasons. I was really surprised to be crying as the credits rolled. Yes! I was trying to make you cry. That makes me really happy. My little sister cried! That’s what we were going for, that kind of rush of emotion at the end. Your films have been quite different, playing in different genres. When you decided Looper would be your next feature did you have any trepidation about tackling the time travel aspect knowing the geekosphere would scrutinize it? Well, yes – especially because I’m part of the geekosphere and I’m one of those guys. The thing is, I’ve never had time travel inconsistencies in a movie deny me the pleasure of enjoying a movie. For me those are two separate things. And that’s something I can’t understand. I can’t understand someone who says “I didn’t like that movie because that, that, and that…” For me it’s like, wow, that’s a cool movie with a well-told story that was awesome, and this didn’t make sense and that’s fun to dive into and pick apart. But every time travel movie that’s ever been made, if you really dig into it you’re going to hit bedrock where paradoxes kind of hit each other and it doesn’t make sense. The important thing is that the storytelling works and that it has a consistent set of rules that it plays fair by. But I was mostly terrified just because time travel is a tough thing to work into the fabric of a story. It’s a tough thing to put into a story and still have the whole thing tick – it can be like pouring grape jelly into a clockwork watch. It’s a messy ingredient that’s hard to tame. As your films have gotten bigger and your career has gone from indie to increasingly more mainstream audiences, how do you feel your trajectory has evolved? I guess the movies have gotten bigger, one by one – I still haven’t worked with a studio. Sony’s putting this out and have been awesome and I would love to work with a studio someday, but so far we’re doing each of these independently. I guess I’ve crept up in scale with each one, but at the end of the day they’re all motivated by the same thing; they all start with a story that I care about that I want to tell. It is fun to see how broad a canvas we can accomplish; even with the next step I think it would be really fun to do something bigger, working on a broader canvas and reaching a bigger audience. But it can never come from that place. It’s so much work to make a movie, and for me it has to get me off my butt. To get me actually writing you have to strike something inside, you have to hit a power main to get the energy. You have to strike something you care about. Have studios approached you a lot more in recent years with projects? Not so much after Brick – I got anything that was dark and had to do with high school. Not so much after Brothers Bloom . In the lead up to Looper there have been more people calling… but the thing that’s interesting to me is if this group, this little family that we have that we’ve made these movies with, can tell one of our stories on that scale – and that doesn’t just mean doing something, I think you have to be conscious of the size of the canvas that you’re working on, the amount of money you’re spending, and the audience you’re trying to reach and you have to adjust your storytelling. I think that’s part of your job as a storyteller. You mention this “family” of filmmakers and collaborators, from using Joseph Gordon-Levitt again to working with Nathan Johnson on the music. You named Noah Segan’s character after his own nickname. Even Joe’s character is named Joe. I was really lazy with these names! [Laughs] When it comes to working with this group of people again and again, how do you synthesize all this? Did you write these characters with their personalities or capabilities in mind? Their capabilities more than their personalities, their strengths. This is a unique case with Noah and Joe, but usually I don’t have any idea who’s going to play [my characters]. It’s not like when I’m writing these characters I’m picturing my friends. You’re creating a completely new character and hiring somebody to play to that and against it and shatter your expectations of what that character could be in some ways. With Joe for instance, the way that Joe loves transforming himself on film and the way that he loves disappearing into his role I knew was specifically suited to something where he was going to have to sell himself as a younger version of an older actor. And there’s just something about Noah that’s inherently likeable and I knew that’s a trait I wanted to shine through with this weird little pathetic villain character – I wanted there to be something where you could see the little boy in him who’s trying to be a cowboy. That’s the sort of thing you know from your friends that you can hopefully use to your advantage. How much do you think our world will be like the world of Looper by the year 2044? I think that our world will be much nicer. I’m an optimist, actually. I think everything’s going to get better. I think we’re evolving. Looper is in theaters Friday. Read more from Fantastic Fest! Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
‘At this point, it really doesn’t matter who you’re voting for, because you’re picking between a lesser of two evils,’ an Occupy protester tells MTV News. By Gil Kaufman Mitt Romney campaigning in Jacksonville, Florida Photo: MTV News DUNEDIN, Florida — As MTV’s Power of 12 tagged along with the Mitt Romney campaign on Monday, we saw three very pumped-up, supportive crowds who knew just when to put their hands together for the former Massachusetts governor . As the crowd shuffled out of picturesque Pioneer Park on Monday afternoon, college student and waiter Adam Rezendes, 24, was feeling pretty confident about whom he was going to cast a vote for in Tuesday’s (January 31) Florida primary. “I am going to be voting for Mitt Romney,” he said. “I believe in Mitt’s conservative views and [his desire] to stop the federal spending and repeal Obamacare. He’s got a lot of great views that really appeal to me. … I trust the country in his hands more than any other candidate.” At the same time, some members of the Occupy movement were facing off with Romney supporters who took umbrage to the sign they were toting which read, “Dear Mr. 1% Go Fire Yourself. Love, The People. Not Corporations.” Recent high school graduate Emily Rogers, 19, has been staying with her friends in Occupy Tampa after logging time with Occupy Orlando, and she was definitely not there to support the GOP front-runner. Rogers had made the trip a few days earlier to attend Friday’s hearing on the state’s controversial new voter-registration laws . And while she didn’t agree with Romney’s take on the legacy of the Obama administration, Rogers wasn’t necessarily throwing in with anyone else, either. “At this point, it really doesn’t matter who you’re voting for, because you’re picking between a lesser of two evils,” she said. “Which, in my opinion, is not how the government should run when it’s supposed to be for the people. You can line them all up like bricks next to each other, but one is really not that much better than another. You’re picking from red-orange to orange to yellow-orange, and those are your options.” As discouraged as she was about her choices for president, Rogers said she was even more concerned about the raft of states with new voting laws she fears could dissuade young voters from coming out to the polls this year. “The voter suppression laws will definitely have an impact on students and young people,” she said, noting that college kids who have changed dorms and not updated their address on their voter registration could find their votes invalidated. “Your vote won’t even count. Students that have that knowledge, they don’t even want to go out and vote because they think, ‘Well, my vote’s not going to count anyways, so whey even vote?’ ” MTV is on the scene in Florida! Check back for up-to-the-minute coverage of the primaries and stick with PowerOf12.org throughout the 2012 presidential election season. Related Videos Florida Primary: The Race Is On!
‘I think it’s kind of ugly and I don’t really agree with it all,’ voter Ricky Varlotta tells MTV News. By Gil Kaufman Mitt Romney greets voters in Florida Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/ AFP/ Getty Images TAMPA, Florida — The one excuse Florida voters can’t use is the weather. That was especially true Tuesday (January 31), a picture-perfect day for voting in the Republican primary in the always-important swing state. With 50 delegates at stake in this winner-take-all state, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was tipped to win after spending nearly four times as much on negative ads (with the help of some SuperPac surrogates) than his rival Newt Gingrich. Despite the deluge of attack ads that blanketed the airwaves over the past few weeks, anesthesiology assistant student Ricky Varlotta, 24, said he saw a lot of the commercials but tried not to let it affect his decision. “I think it’s kind of ugly, and I don’t really agree with it all,” he said after casting his vote for Romney at the Kate Jackson Memorial Center in downtown Tampa. “If they think that’s the best way they can win, it says a lot about them.” Varlotta said a number of his friends with jobs voted early to make sure their ballots got counted, but that some are also so disenchanted with the political process that they’ve decided to just sit it out this time. “That’s their choice, and I think if you’re really concerned about it, you would come out and do something about it, and that’s why I’m out here voting.” This is the first presidential primary campaign that has felt the impact of SuperPac money, and from what the voters who spoke to MTV’s Power of 12 could tell, so far, it was not for the good. Though her chosen candidate, U.S. Representative Ron Paul, chose not to mount a campaign in Florida, Tessa McKenna, 21, singer for the “country shoegaze” band Sleepy Vikings, has been bowled over by all the negative Florida campaign ads she’s been inundated with when watching shows on Hulu. Because they don’t really educate her on the candidates, McKenna has also tuned out the din of the commercials. “In politics, I guess you never really know who’s right and who’s wrong,” she said. McKenna, who registered as a Republican at 16 when she got her license, felt that her personal politics don’t really match those of the party anymore, but she likes to stay politically involved and feels that Libertarian-leaning Paul is the “lesser of all evils” in this election cycle. “Kids really need to get out and make change for their country,” she said. Despite the more than $20 million spent in the primary on the spots, Amy Hightower said she’s never been influenced by them, because she’s more focused on the issues than the personalities. The young mother added that it has been hard lately being a Republican because she is pro-choice and for gay marriage and social programs. Despite those leanings, she cast an absentee ballot for Gingrich because, “He’s no bullsh–. He just says it how it is, and he’s not afraid of his flaws. I feel like a lot of the other ones are so slick … and the others were too far to the religious right.” MTV is on the scene in Florida! Check back for up-to-the-minute coverage of the primaries and stick with PowerOf12.org throughout the 2012 presidential election season. Related Videos Florida Primary: The Race Is On!
Tyrese should be celebrating the upcoming release of his highly anticipated album and return to music with Open Invitation but instead he is being banned from radio stations for sharing his opinion on zoning issues such as liquor establishments near schooling institutions. “For those folks who have read my book, my mother struggled with alcohol for 27 years by the grace of God my mother has been sober for 4 years from alcohol abuse is a very sensitive subject for me because it killed my childhood” says Tyrese. “Liquor Stores and the personalities that they attack should not be that close to innocent kids!” This come after Tyrese was kicked out a Delaware radio station for expressing his concern during an on-air interview. He was told to leave by the programming director who later demanded an apology after threatening to ban his music. In an exclusive interview with HelloBeautiful, Tyrese got very personal on why his stance remains secure and why he will never apologize for simply saying something about a world-wide issue with which everyone should be concerned! Stay tuned for Part 2… Tyrese Kicked Out Of Radio Station For Liquor Store Back-Talk Taraji & Tyrese Reunite For Another John Singleton Film
We head to company headquarters for the real story behind founder Mark Zuckerberg’s social network in a doc airing on March 30 at 11 p.m. ET/PT on MTV. By Eric Ditzian Facebook engineer Pedram Photo: MTV News & Docs What does it take to run a social-networking site that five-hundred millions users rely on and obsess over? Who are the people working to keep your Facebook page not only up and running but constantly innovating and transforming? MTV’s ” Diary of Facebook ” — premiering March 30 at 11 p.m. ET/PT — goes deep inside the social network’s hyperkinetic Palo Alto headquarters to tell the story of what really goes on; you think you know, but you have no idea. The 30-minutes special features company founder Mark Zuckerberg giving insight into the company’s culture and evolution, as well as day-in-the-life journeys with a technical engineer named Pedram and a consumer-marketing employee named Erin, as they work to pioneer new applications and bring together users whose lives have been changed through the site. For the first time ever, we get an inside look at Facebook’s famous “hack-a-thon,” a 24-hour, no-code-barred event in which employees are directed to ditch their normal duties and instead break ground on those pet tech projects they’ve always wanted to create but have never found the time to pursue. Not only does Pedram innovate, he does so under-pressure, and overnight. And then there’s Erin, a driving force behind Stories.Facebook.com ‘s effort to highlight users’ life-changing, social-networking stories, from one woman’s quest to locate long-lost family members to an A.L.S.-stricken man who finds in Facebook a way to engage with the world around him despite the limitations of his disease. In the end, viewers will walk away with an intimate look at the personalities and day-to-day dealings of one of the world’s most talked-about companies and social platforms. It’s all happening on March 30, when “Diary of Facebook” debuts on MTV. Tune in to ” Diary of Facebook ,” airing on Wednesday, March 30, at 11 p.m. ET/PT. Related Videos Sneak A Peek At ‘Diary Of Facebook’
Peggy Tanous describes herself as the “life of the party,” but it hasn’t always been that way. The new Real Housewives of Orange County cast member says she was partly inspired to join the show because she saw it as an opportunity to recover from postpartum depression, something she battled after the birth of daughters London, 3, and Capri, 1 1/2. “It was kind of a perfect way for me to kind of get me back in the swing of things but not take me away from my family too much,” says Tanous, who is friends with Alexis Bellino. While Tanous tells Us Weekly she has a “strong personality,” she also insists that she gets along with her fellow stuck-up cast members. “I didn’t clash with anyone! Tamara [Barney] and I hit it off the most. She’s got a daughter a couple years older than London and our personalities are alike. She’s really funny and she jokes around a lot and so do I.” The Real Housewives of Orange County returns to Bravo on March 6.
Do you wanna look like THIS ? If so, you’re in luck: Kourtney, Khloe and Kim Kardashian have confirmed that they will partner with Australian designer Bruno Schiavi’s Jupi Corp. to create a line of clothing. It will debut early next year and include accessories, lingerie, swimwear and shoes. “We obviously waited on a big partnership like this for a long time because we’ve had so many different offers and we wanted to make sure that we had a huge say in the design and that our personalities would come through,” Kim said. Their personalities would come through? Does this mean all outfits inspired by Kim will resemble a robot? These sisters own a pair of Dash clothing stores in California and Miami (though THG reporting proves the Florida establishment is rarely actually open for business) and also designed a fall line for Bebe this year. The new collection will hit major retail stores in 17 countries in 2011 and be comprised of pieces that flatter all body types, including ugly one-shoulder dresses , jumpsuits, blazers and leggings. “All three of us have similar bones, but we have different shapes and sizes,” Khloe said. “I’m tall, Kim is curvy and Kourtney is petite – and we know how to dress up our best assets.” Translation: they show off their big breasts a lot.
Paris Hilton pictures are a dime a dozen. Nicky Hilton pictures are a little less common. Both sisters together? Well, that’s just begging for a fashion face-off. Earlier, we pitted a blue-haired Katy Perry and Lindsay Lohan , whose options were limited due to the ankle bracelet she had to cover up, against each other. Now Paris and Nicky duke it out in a clash of fashionable, rich heiress titans. As you can see, their MTV Movie Awards styles are as different as their personalities and hair colors. Which sister do you think looked best? Tell us below … Who looked better at the MTV Movie Awards?
