"The Twilight Saga: New Moon" opened up to a record-busting weekend, bringing in over $140 million over the weekend (making it the third-largest film opening of all time, behind "Spider-Man 3" and "The Dark Knight"). Certainly the business generated by the second film in the series was due to the buzz created by stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart last week. The promotional push doesn't slow down this week on the TV talk shows, many of which are dark or running limited schedules because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Tonight, Ashley Greene will try to follow Pattinson's appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman," while co-star Taylor Lautner will be Conan O'Brien's guest on "The Tonight Show."
Letterman also has some top-shelf musical talent this week, as he welcomes Rihanna on Tuesday night (November 24) and Adam Lambert on Wednesday (November 25). Conan, meanwhile, has Timbaland on tonight and Weezer on Tuesday. Need more Weezer? Check them out on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" tonight. Kimmel will also have Wolfmother and the winner of "Dancing with the Stars" (almost certainly Mya) on Tuesday.
Perhaps the strangest encounter this week will happen on "The Jay Leno Show," which tonight not only has California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger but also Lady Gaga, who is coming off a triumphant performance at last night's American Music Awards. Hardcore hip-hop heads can look forward to Jimmy Fallon's show every night (because you always get killer stuff from the Roots), but Wednesday night's episode of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" will feature a performance from Mos Def and Talib Kweli, who collaborated on the legendarily great album Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star and will no doubt throw down something fierce with the house band. But the story is still "New Moon" and probably will be for some time.
Celebrity appearances on "The Simpsons" are hardly unusual (last night's episode featured a drop-in from Jonah Hill), but the Seth MacFarlane-birthed animated shows ("Family Guy," "The Cleveland Show" and "American Dad") don't tend to have a ton of cameos. However, last night's episode of "American Dad" was built almost entirely around one of the most beloved young rock bands in the country and certainly lent the show some indie cred. The show featured daughter Hayley's sojourn to a My Morning Jacket concert, which Stan initially argues against but then falls completely in love with their jammy style and the pipes of frontman Jim James.
In a particularly amazing sequence, Stan tries to explain what he sees when he hears the band's "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2" (from last year's smash album Evil Urges, where most of last night's music came from). It involves a vision quest that contains a bunch of owls, a well, some magical fish, a flight into space and James ultimately becoming the sun. Even for the surrealist-leanings of the Sunday night animation lineup on Fox, it's a pretty trippy sequence.
It was an especially guest-heavy edition of the show last night, as the voice of actor and comedian Zach Galifianakis ("The Hangover") also showed up as a My Morning Jacket superfan. Strangely, promos for the show touted the Galifianakis appearance but completely skipped over the presence of the band (though the show was titled "My Morning Straightjacket").
In the middle of the song, as he moves from one riser to another, Lambert can be seen tripping, tumbling and rolling. But to the man's credit — we guess all that music-theater training, not to mention his months on "American Idol," paid off — he barely misses a beat.
Then again, that was just one amazing moment of his performance. He also slunk along to the song's throbbing beat and dropped the line, "Don't be afraid, I'mma hurt ya real good," while walking two scantily-clad male dancers across the stage. And then, shortly after, he grabbed another male dancer's head and thrust it into his gyrating crotch as the camera quickly cut away.
After a few more tongue-wagging yelps, a half dozen more hip-level gyrations, a back-of-the-head-grabbing kiss with a male keyboard player, some fireworks and another lung busting scream, the performance finally came to a close (no doubt to the delight of more conservative viewers everywhere). Lambert promised to MTV News last week that his AMA performance would be "sexy." It was all that, and a lot more as well.
In perhaps one of the oddest moments of the week, 50 Cent's crew got tangled up with longtime basketball announcer Marv Albert backstage at "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on Wednesday (November 18). 50 and Marv both appeared on the show that night, and according to the Los Angeles Times, Albert received a chilly reception from 50's entourage when he arrived at the studio. Apparently, they didn't recognize the venerable voice of the NBA, and they were under the impression he was trying to impose on 50's interview. So when the broadcaster entered the building, what went down? Punches were thrown, obscenities were spat out and things got quite hostile.
Although the details remain unclear, the 68-year-old Albert was in the middle of it all. Even when a Kimmel staffer identified Albert, 50's entourage remained unswayed. Somehow, Albert got out of there unscathed, remarking, "Did you see that? I thought they were kidding, then I realized they weren't."
Both Albert and 50 were interviewed later and neither made any reference to the incident. In their defense, most people know Albert's voice more than his face. In fact, Albert could have probably avoided the whole incident had he simply shouted "LeBron James for three! Yes!"
"It's gonna be sexy, I think. The wardrobe is amazing. I'm working with 10 dancers that I'm so impressed by. I was looking for a certain sensuality — five guys, five girls and they're all incredible."
-"American Idol" runner-up and For Your Entertainment mastermind Adam Lambert, telling MTV News about his upcoming performance on this Sunday night's American Music Awards broadcast, which marks the first time he'll sing in prime time since the "American Idol" finale in the spring. It'll be a big week for Lambert, as he will perform on Sunday and then drop his debut album on Monday, challenging a number of other high-profile artists (including Rihanna, Susan Boyle, Beyonc&233;, Lady Gaga and Shakira) to a Thanksgiving-week sales war. Lambert also talked about the band he brought together (the same group he just debuted online). "I auditioned a band a couple weeks ago that I've been working with," he told MTV News' Larry Carroll. "I'm so impressed by [them] and it feels really good to be part of a team situation again. It's great because I'm back in a team environment and it reminds me of my roots in musical theater." Check out Lambert — as well as the rest of the AMA performers, like Jay-Z, Rihanna, Eminem and Janet Jackson — this Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Yesterday, Ellen DeGeneres presented one of her "Read Letter Day" segments, where she reads and responds to fan mail. One of the letters was from a girl from Connecticut who lamented the fact that she missed the episode featuring Justin Bieber's performance. "That's why I keep guests around just in case," she said. The host stood up from her chair and found Bieber lying on the ground behind her reading an issue of O magazine.
Bieber was greeted with rapturous cheers from the audience and gave a shout-out to the fan from Connecticut. After announcing the release of his album My World yesterday, Ellen mentioned that Bieber was on Usher's label and that it was only appropriate that Usher was there too.
The curtain on the "Ellen" stage parted and revealed Usher, who danced in and hugged DeGeneres. The R&B superstar told the story about how he found Bieber and revealed that what sold him was Justin's rendition of "U Got It Bad."
DeGeneres then raised the stakes. "You guys should dance a tiny, tiny bit," she said. "Yeah!" kicked in on the PA and the pair both started busting out moves, including Usher's strange sideways moonwalk that Bieber aped perfectly. They closed out the show by reminding everybody about Bieber's golden ticket promotion, which will give winners a chance for a private concert from Bieber and the opportunity to be in one of his videos.
It's got to be a sign of the quality of dancers "So You Think You Can Dance" has amassed in recent seasons that they're no longer judged on how well they execute their steps. Instead, the judges struggle to explain these very intangible criteria: growth, humor, commitment, maturity. It's all so vague, I'm itching to see someone really screw up, fall on their face and drop their partner, just so we have some concrete reason to send them home. Sorry, I'm going to dance-fan hell for that, aren't I? Anyway, here are my own arbitrary categories for last night's episode.
Completely Agreeing With the Judges' Praise For: Kathryn and Legacy: Once I was able to tear my eyes away from Legacy's bare torso, I noticed that Kathryn was indeed killing it (as Adam Shankman put it). She had fire in her eyes and drama in every movement. And Legacy didn't just pose in that paso doble stance — he threw his partner around like a champ. (And they can't be blamed for Tony Meredith's ridiculously contrived "admiral and concubine" story.)
Ellenore and Ryan and Travis: The judges spent most of their time praising Travis Wall for his choreography, which included excellent storytelling and some gorgeously complex lifts and jumps. I'm still not in love with Ryan, but he certainly was adept at throwing and catching Ellenore, who seems to have wings on her feet. Read more...
It's been a long, winding season of "Dancing with the Stars," but at last we've arrived at the finals. This week's semi-final series of episodes ended with Joanna Krupa getting sent home in something of a semi-upset. Krupa certainly moved better than Donny Osmond or Kelly Osbourne, but she's far less famous than either of those two and was thus shown the door. She seemed completely unsurprised by the decision and did her exit dance without much fuss.
In fact, her dismissal was something of a metaphor for the back half of this season, as now that the drama-makers have been tossed off and the underdogs have all put their shoes away, we're down to actually naming a winner. And has anybody doubted — even for a nanosecond — that Mya was going to win this season? The public do love Osmond, but the goodwill of the over 60 set won't be enough to give him the crown. It's sort of a cheat, really, as Mya is about as close to a professional dancer as you can get without actually putting it on your tax return. (It's always been sort of unfair to have figure skaters on this show, too.) If the show was a sham, Osbourne would totally be named the winner next week, as she has provided a great story. Remember how borderline hostile she was in the opening episodes? And now she's totally great! In the brief history of "Dancing with the Stars," nobody has ever improved so much so fast.
This week's performance episode was great, as it was four couples doing impressive dancing (the choreography on this show is sometimes spotty, but everything was on point). The nearly drama-free results episode was one of the more insane hours of television in recent memory: Alicia Keys dropped in to perform "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart" (the best song Price never recorded), Leona Lewis belted out "Happy" (from her excellent just-released new album Echo) and then Robin and Barry Gibb tapped into their falsettos for a run through "You Should be Dancing." Can you guess which on was the most surreal?
There won't be much tension during next week's finale, as Mya should already have printed up business cards announcing her as the season's victor. Just to make it interesting, the producers of "Dancing with the Stars" should give Mya some sort of stomach virus, just like Carol Hannah on "Project Runway." But unless there's projectile vomiting involved, the former "Lady Marmalade" contributor will dance away with the trophy.
The game show portion was especially brilliant, as it brought together the sort of knowledge found in dusty boxes of "Trivial Pursuit" with garbage facts left behind after hours of television viewing (movie theme songs, cast members on "The Partridge Family," details about "The Facts of Life"). In essence, Ober was a nerd who managed to spin his obsession with junk culture into a point of view and a career. In the age before the Internet, this was a remarkable accomplishment.
There may be no more definitive 90 seconds of "Remote Control" than the clip below. Ober introduces a lightning round called "Gershwin, Beethoven or Partridge Family," wherein he names song titles and the contestants must choose which of the above wrote that particular tune. It's followed by Ober's casual dismissal of the contestant, a wacky stunt exit and an incredible blast of audience participation. It's an incredible amount of comedy and zaniness crammed into a minute and a half, and it's all fueled by Ober's lightning fast wit.
Quinn weighed in on Ober's passing yesterday, but the top MTV News archivists resurrected an interview with him from 1999 (which was taped for an episode of "Uncensored" that contained a behind-the-scenes look at "Remote Control"). Ober and Quinn began on the stand-up circuit in New York in the '80s, so they were old friends who managed to elevate themselves to the strange cable creation that was "Remote Control." "We knew each other from comedy clubs," Quinn explained. "When we first started, all we cared about was what 20 comedians thought. We hoped they wouldn't see the show, because even then the 'Brady Bunch' jokes were hack. But all the comedians thought it was funny."
The former "Saturday Night Live" cast member and host of "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" had nothing but praise for Ober, even going so far as identifying himself as an "acolyte" of his. "Kenny was hilarious. He was just very spontaneous," Quinn said. "And he had a hard thing: Being funny and still reading all those damn questions for 45 minutes."
