BEYONCE IS NOMINATED for 10 Grammy Awards this year; Taylor Swift, eight; Kanye West, six. If anyone's waiting for a repeat of the infamous "Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'm going to let you finish ..." moment from last year's MTV Video Music Awards, all the pieces are in motion for it to occur.
But if Kanye has any sense — and the people in charge of the Grammy Awards have three-second delay — then the 52nd annual Grammys, which air on CBS Jan. 31 at 8 p.m., won't go down that way. Instead, it will be a night defined by its performances (which include ones from Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Pink and Taylor Swift, among others) and the actual award-winners rather than Hennessy-fueled melodrama.
Yet while most of this year's nominations pit Beyonce against Taylor — just like at the VMAs — it's the three most encompassing categories that could get the most hairy. In Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year, Beyonce and Taylor compete not only against each other, but also with the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga and Kings of Leon, among others. And the Best Album of the year categories in pop, electronic, rock, alternative and rap also have their own baggage, with people like Kelly Clarkson, Pink, David Guetta, Mos Def, Eminem, Death Cab for Cutie and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs all battling for bragging rights.
So, what are my best guesses as to who should win the Grammy, and who actually will, in this year's top categories? Read on to find out.
REMAKING BRITISH POP CULTURE mainstays to suit American audiences can be a tricky prospect. Sure, "The Office," "American Idol" and "Hell's Kitchen" have flourished stateside, but many hyped do-overs of other British successes just don't take. For example, "Life on Mars" only lasted one season from 2008 to 2009 on ABC despite critical acclaim, and the 2003 reimagining of "NBC didn't even last all 11 episodes — four were aired from September to October, and that was it.
But if Hollywood has its way, then the film remake of the thrilling '80s mini-series "Edge of Darkness," which starred English actor Bob Peck back then and Mel Gibson now and comes out in theaters on Friday, will do just as well as the original did back in the day. A mix of politics and noir, "Edge of Darkness" won tons of awards, has been re-run on the BBC in years since and was released on DVD earlier this month. And, since the director of the mini-series, Martin Campbell, is the same guy who directed James Bond classics "GoldenEye" and "Casino Royale" and is helming the 2011 live-action "Green Lantern" film, he knows what American audiences want: Gibson beating the crap out of people.
And thankfully, "Edge of Darkness" has a lot of that. The mini-series's/film's main focus is on detective Ronald Craven, whose daughter, Emma, is murdered outside their home. As he blames himself for her death and thinks the hit was meant for him, Ronald unravels a web of deceit that places his daughter at the center of a political cover-up that spans out of the United Kingdom and into the United States, with unsettling global implications. Once he starts uncovering the motives behind Emma's murder, Ronald gets caught up in a larger debacle, but never stops fighting for revenge.
MANY "AMERICAN IDOL" contestants refer to their singing ambitions as a dream. And whether those dreams are attainable or not, it's clear they didn't start — and likely won't end — with just a few fleeting seconds of national TV time.
Three of Tuesday night's rejects have taken their show to YouTube, the Internet's premier Island of Misfit Toys. Come along and see the fruits of their labor — if you dare.
AUSTIN FULLMER
He confused us all with his Mick Jagger-esque performance of a Cheap Trick tune on "Idol." Now, he's a little more Bowie, but still strangely British-sounding on this video posted just last night for an, um, original tune called "Sex Machine."
Some lyrics: "I'm not just a sex machine, you keep touchin' and touchin' and drivin' me crazy." Uh huh.
The video's worth a watch for the Buster Poindexter-style facial expressions alone. His "Idol" vid's on top, the new one's below that.
Continue Reading "American Idol: Los Angeles, the YouTube Files" »
THE BIG, RED blemish on television's complexion is the reality celebrity. These rabid fame-seekers — yes, you, Tila Tequila, the Kardashian sisters, Jon Gosselin — earned their notoriety (and tabloid covers) for a willingness to air their messy lives (and, often, their lack of underwear) to the world. Then, in order to stay in the E! News circuit, their antics get more desperate and disturbing.
Arguably the worst of the bunch is married "Hills" stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag — aka Speidi, above — who elbowed their way back onto the gossip cycle this month when 23-year-old Montag unveiled the results of a recent 10-procedure bout of plastic surgery.
Montag — formerly viewed as the saner half of the couple — has made the TV rounds defending her actions, at least as much as her face (creepily frozen from Botox and a brow lift) will allow. The aspiring singer has come under attack for setting a bad example for fans (We pause to ask: What fans?). But one look at her disturbingly sculpted visage and awkwardly enormous cleavage and it's clear her actions might just have the opposite effect, turning potential patients off the idea of plastic surgery forever.
Photo courtesy Matt Sayles/AP
FOR ANYONE WHO thinks enchiladas just come from a waiter at Lauriol Plaza, Food Network's Mexican Made Easy (Sat., 9:30 a.m.) provides a sunny, info-packed wake-up call. Si, host Marcela Valladolid proves, even gringos can create south-of-the-border fare such as Baja fish tacos, guacamole and flan. But Valladolid — a ringer for Jessica Alba — doesn't just sling ramped-up versions of Taco Bell: She also dishes out what you might call Mexican Mod: eggs Benedict with chipotle hollandaise and ancho-crusted lamb.
Photo courtesy Food Network
AT ABOUT THIS TIME during the seemingly never-ending "American Idol" auditions each year, I start to get the impression that the "Idol" powers that be are pretty much phoning it in.
Their formula goes something like this: intersperse decent singers with the miserable ones, throw in at least one, but preferably two stories that tug at the heartstrings and hype, hype, hype like every minute of airtime is freshly spun gold.
Judging by Tuesday's opening, they're not even trying to hide it.
The setting is the studio of Seacrest's radio show, which is broadcast in Los Angeles, the scene of this episode's auditions. It is by no means representative of L.A., unless someone injected Seacrest with Botox, filled the studio with smog and set part of the joint on fire.
It's uninteresting. It's barely even television, really. And it's such an afterthought that the "Idol" producers didn't even make Seacrest leave his other gig to do it.
Can the producers sink lower? We've got two weeks of auditions left to find out!
LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRAZY!
Of course, L.A., the land of the wannabe, would produce a massive crowd of oh-my-God-I-have-to-sing singers — 11,000 in all. This could be one of the few times I actually feel sorry for the millionaires on the judges’ panel.
Speaking of the wealthy, we start the proceedings with guest judge Avril Lavigne, who's looking indie-cutesy in her devil-horned hoodie and sounding especially Canadian. I wonder what that's all aboot.
But very little could prepare me for our leadoff hitter of the evening, Neil Goldstein, a, um, self-confident chap who appears to have made off with Martha Stewart's hair and Neil Diamond's wardrobe.
At his core, though, Neil is a brainy 15-year-old girl with a thesaurus and a dream:
In my heart is the love to perform, the love to touch the souls of others. To exhilarate, to exultate, to exalt in what it is to be human, to be vulnerable, to have strengths and weaknesses and passions and loves and hates and everything bundled up inside, until you can let it out.So he didn't get beat up a lot as a kid, he got beat up a whole lot.
He's very shiny. And has a tic in which he makes a clicking sound with his mouth at the end of every sentence? And he surely has a gift for vibrato. And when the judges, of course, tell him thanks but no thanks, he stages an awkward, but almost endearing protest — like a very proper man telling a firing squad "you can't shoot me because I simply shan't die today!" It's all very Frasier Crane.
"I really do think 'American Idol' lost out today," Neil tells us during his post-flameout interview. "I really do think, in the grand scheme of things, they're going to be the bigger losers."
Don't think that, Neil. Don't ever think that.
HOW'S THIS AS an exercise motivator? "I'm going to be in a swimsuit competition in HD," says Jen Corey, aka Miss District of Columbia 2009. The 22-year-old unlikely pageant queen — who first went for a crown just three years ago at the urging of her voice teacher — is off in Vegas counting down the days to the live Miss America pageant showdown. And her body is ready for that bikini, thanks to months of sweating with trainer Heather Cohen.
Corey was already naturally slender, but she knew her body needed a major overhaul. "Girls who've done the best have had muscle definition. It's not the skinny girls," she says. Until a year ago, Corey had never been inside a gym, gone for a run or done a single push-up. The first time she tried one of Cohen's cycling classes, she nearly walked out.
It's not that she's a slug. A medical condition required reconstructive surgery on both of Corey's knees, which kept her in wheelchairs and on crutches for weeks in high school and college, and she spent years contending with physical therapy. But by the time she paired up with Cohen, she was ready to get to work.
Continue Reading "Meet Miss Muscle: Miss D.C. Jen Corey's Workout Regimen" »
DOES WASHINGTON, D.C., have some hidden power to make people totally crazy and uncaring of others' feelings? Because if so, that would explain a lot about last night's episode of "The Real World: D.C."
And my high school years — whomp whomp.
But no, I won't dawdle down a memory lane paved with awkwardness. Instead, back to "The Real World: D.C." — from Andrew's no-etiquette-involved approach to dating that completely skeeves out the girl he's sort of in a "relationship" with to Ashley's flippant rudeness to the locals, the roomies seem to be getting some cabin fever. The former wants to get laid by anything that moves, preferably in a public area where squirrels can watch (sigh, poor little rodents), while the latter doesn't want to make any new friends. Trick, we don't want you either! MTV, who are these people you unleashed upon us?!
Thankfully, though, the episode was more lighthearted than last week's, which was dominated by drama between Emily and Ty. This time around, it looks like the two have made up — there's no real screen-time given to the two of them together, but they each pitch in to patch things up between other roommates, and there doesn't seem to be any lingering sexual tension getting in the way. Well, or at least editing makes it so.
I AM NOT on Team Coco or Leno. I am on Team Mo'Mo.
In week two of NBC's late-night meltdown, I'm tired of reading about high-paid, middle-aged white guys vying for supremacy. There is, you know, a woman in the mix. Her announcer calls her "the queen of late night." Admittedly, she has no competition. But she still deserves the crown.
Nightly on BET, Mo'Nique runs a show that is just like her: bold, bawdy, hilarious and full of heart. Welcoming singer Keri Hilson, Mo'Nique says, "I'm going to get to these questions on this card, but we got to get to this foolishness they put out on Twitter." Mo'Nique allegedly disrespected Hilson on the Internet. A total lie. "I do not twit and I do not tweet," Mo'Nique declares. To whomever cooked up the fake comments, she says: "You all can kiss my ass and Keri's ass, too." Now, that's a voice you just don't hear in the Leno-Letterman-O'Brien world.
Mo'Nique has said, "This show is for us — it's black entertainment television." When Al Roker of the "Today" show asked whether other races are welcome, Mo'Nique put it like this: "You can be from Mars, sugar — it's for everybody."
Written by Express contributor Marc Silver
Photo by Jeff Christensen/AP
LET'S JUST ADMIT IT: Tuesday's auditions in Chicago were a failure. A bomb. A bust. A waste of an hour of airtime. With a mere 13 golden tickets handed out, you could have filled a hotel with angry monkeys and you'd have been as likely to find just as many who could sing.
Fill a room with Monkees and your percentage gets even higher: three out of four. Sorry, Peter Tork.
Would the hopefuls Orlando, Florida fare better? In a word, yes. This episode gives us 31 Hollywood-bound singers — more than double Chicago's haul.
And their story starts with a shazam.
ALL THAT GLITTERS ISN'T GOLD
I have no idea which Lady Gaga fan club Theo Glinton came from, but his sparkly, spangly, mirror-ish getup is a little bit "Terminator," a little bit Cher and fierce enough to make Meshach Taylor scream for his mama.
He makes up for his flashiness with humility ("I am beautiful. I am all that anyone can be.") and a dash of coquettish incoherence ("My gift is something you get only on particular days. I'm just something that you can just get a piece of on Monday and on Tuesday when you put it in the microwave to warm it up, it's still good.").
His family and friends must be patient, saintly people. Who get very strange presents at holidays.
I expect a bedazzled train wreck, but when Theo sings, I'm surprised. I mean, he's not good, but he's not godawful. I've never heard a Pat Benatar song sound as much as an exorcism set to a beat as when Theo sings "Heartbreaker," but I guess there's a first time for everything.
My favorite reaction from the judges is a twofer from Kara: "you're not Jennifer Hudson," which makes poor Theo audibly gasp, and "...but you smell nice." See? Everyone leaves happy. Or at least smelling pleasant.
Addison Road
