Posts by Zach Dionne
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![Arcade Fire]()
YouTube to Pioneer Blissfully Brief, Achingly Hip Music Awards Show
As tired of soul-deadeningly long award telecasts as the rest of us, YouTube is entering the arena and keeping it to the point. Airing November 3, the 90-minute YouTube Music Awards will feature performances from Eminem, Arcade Fire, and Lady Gaga as well as still-unannounced acts who’ll “provide taped performances from cities as far-flung as […]
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Afternoon Links: Breaking Bad Nearly Doubles Its Biggest Audience for the Finale
Breaking Bad sledgehammered its own viewership records over and over during its final eight-episode run, and Sunday night’s disappointingly cat-free finale — very solid in other aspects, though! — was no exception. After last week’s all-time high of 6.6 million viewers, “Felina” drew 10.3 million slobbering fans, 6.7 million of them coming from the Get […]
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The Miley Cyrus–Britney Spears Singularity Looms Closer Than Ever With the Leak of ‘SMS (Bangerz)’
That #hannahmontanaisdead flow from Mike WiLL Made It’s “23” rampages all over “SMS (Bangerz)” — the closest thing to a title track from Miley Cyrus’s imminent album, Bangerz — and it’s aided and abetted by one Britney J. Spears. With the leak swamp-monster audio quality (linked here if the video goes dead), it’s tough discerning […]
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Ron Howard's Rush Debuts Behind Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
Anything with a title featuring half of every kid’s favorite meal is gonna be hard to beat at the box office. Even if Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 had dropped out of the sky like a rain of Bill Hader–voiced food puns, with no first-movie precedent, it would’ve won the weekend. Despite earning […]
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Afternoon Links: People Were More Excited to Reunite With Robin Williams Than With Michael J. Fox
Two lovable comedy icons returned to their mutual hometown of Sitcomland last night, but America acted like Robin Williams was the cool guy who’d flown around the world on a hang glider while Michael J. Fox was the neighborhood dweeb who set a jump-rope record on the corner. An enormous 15.6 million viewers tuned in […]
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Katie Holmes Lends Her Talents to The Giver, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise
Suri Cruise will eventually be old enough to read The Giver, and there’s no way any kind mom would want to purposely ruin that seminal reading experience by joining a film that craps all over the book. So let’s go ahead and assume that Katie Holmes signing on for the adaptation of Lois Lowry’s 1993 […]
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Afternoon Links: South Park Destroys Alec Baldwin
Since a South Park episode dedicated to reminding us about Alec Baldwin’s homosexuality-unfriendly tweet-spree back in June might have felt a little forced, the show instead anchored its Season 17 premiere to a gag that put us in mind of “HUMANCENTiPAD,” “Make Love, Not Warcraft,” and “Guitar Queer-O” — episodes we’re always grateful to reflect […]
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![Jennifer Lawrence and Gary Ross]()
Gary Ross Adapting East of Eden With Muse-for-Hire Jennifer Lawrence
Steven Spielberg’s Grapes of Wrath just fell to no. 2 in the John Steinbeck Adaptation Pool (Remake Division). Not because we’re about to argue that Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville) is a better filmmaker, but because Ross’s East of Eden will have Jennifer Lawrence.
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CBS Unearths Ancient Vince Gilligan Script, Hopes for Breaking Bad Magic
Just get it out of the way and admit that Breaking Bad hasn’t given you a single second to breathe, much less to consider showrunner Vince Gilligan’s next move after the show concludes this Sunday. A long vacation probably would’ve been nice for the guy — anywhere but New Hampshire — but he’s actually heading […]
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Afternoon Links: If Bill Hader and Michael Cera Did Behind the Music
There is an indie act called Islands; they just put out an album Pitchfork finds kind of OK. Commemorating the occasion, though, is an improv-heavy YouTube clip about Islands’ dubious rock-and-roll legend status. Michael Cera says things like, “They’re all basically conductors, electrical conductors, and sometimes you can’t even give those guys a high five […]
