Avatar in 3D is stuck with Panasonic until 2012

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I’ve got some bad news for you early adopter folks.  If you purchased a 3DTV recently in hopes to revel in everything Pandora has to offer in the comfort of your own living room, this won’t be happening until 2012. Earlier this month Panasonic became the exclusive seller of Avatar 3D on Blu-ray; if you want a 3D copy of the flick you must purchase a Panny VIERA 3DTV.  The exclusive deal was expected to end sometime next year, but the electronics manufacturer has confirmed that the deal will run through February 2012.  Happy bidding!

[Via Gizmodo]

Comedy Central chooses Donald Trump as the next roastee

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Just when you thought Comedy Central couldn’t top The Hoff they just did: Donald Trump is the next celebrity roastee!  The wealthy man with that thing on his head commented on the breaking news: “I’ll show up to the Roast because Comedy Central is paying me a lot of money, but I’m confused as to how anybody could make fun of me.”  Oh, you’ll soon find out buddy.

Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump tapes March 9 and is slated for a Spring 2011 air date.

[Via Deadline]

NBC to preview ‘Perfect Couples’ after ‘Sing-Off’ finale

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NBC’s The Sing-Off is doing so well in the ratings that the network’s decided to expand the December 20 season finale by a half-hour.  But here’s the really exciting news: The Peacock plans to use the Sing-Off finale as a platform to promote the new midseason sitcom Perfect Couples.  Following the finale a “preview episode” of Perfect Couples will air from 10:30PM to 11PM; the network makes it clear that this special preview is not the pilot. That will be saved for the show’s true premiere date set for Thursday, January 20 at 8:30PM.  It will follow Community in the Thursday night comedy block, which was recently extended to include six shows in total.

Perfect Couples follows three couples at various stages of their relationships.  Here’s a quick synopsis: Dave (Kyle Howard, My Boys) and Julia (Christine Woods, FlashForward) are the relatable, normal couple, but Julia’s hope of remaining the cool, low-maintenance chick is tested by Dave’s attempts to keep both his wife and his needy best friend Vance (Dave Walton, NBC’s 100 Questions) equally happy. Vance, along with the neurotic Amy (Mary Elizabeth Ellis, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), are the high-passion, high-drama couple who bring out the best and worst in each other.  The third duo features Rex (Hayes MacArthur, She’s Out of My League), a reformed party guy, and his wife, Leigh (Olivia Munn, Attack of the Show), who considers herself as the group’s mother hen. Believing that they are relationship experts, Rex and Leigh have attended every class and seminar on relationships — and regard themselves as the ‘perfect couple.’”

Update: Well there’s been a change in scheduling here, so take note: The Sing-Off finale will remain two hours in length, and the Perfect Couples preview episode will air at 10PM followed by a repeat of The Office.

[Via Deadline, here & here; EW]

Fringe is about to “re-animate” Friday nights

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Following news that the best sci-fi show on television Fringe is moving to Friday nights, FOX put together this trailer that is all kinds of awesome.  At least we know that the network is willing to push hard for the show to keep it relevant.  The showrunners must be loving this.

Says Dean Norris, Fox senior VP of marketing and special projects: “We are trying to rebrand Friday, and what we’re trying to do with this show specifically is make it kind of like forbidden fruit. We want that teen demographic that might not be our audience right now to say, ‘That this is a show my parents might not want me to watch — but I’m going to watch it, anyway.’”

FOX shuffles around the remaining episodes of ‘Running Wilde’

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Mitch Hurwitz’s Running Wilde, starring Will Arnett and Keri Russell, never caught on with TV viewers.  And that’s unfortunate because it’s a damn funny show that boasts the same kind of charm Hurwitz’s Arrested Development managed to carry across to its cult fans.  FOX still hasn’t had the guts to officially cancel it just yet, but all signs point to a quick exit for the short-lived comedy.  The network did not order additional episodes past the original 13, and this week they decided to shuffle the remaining five episodes around instead of letting them air consecutively in their regular Tuesday night slot.  If you’ve been a trouper and stuck with the show, mark your calenders.  The remaining episodes will air on these dates: Sunday, December 19 at 7PM & 7:30PM; Sunday, December 26 at 9:30PM; Tuesday, December 28 at 9PM (one-hour finale).  Farewell Steve, Emmy, and Puddle!

[Via EW]

Glee’s Matthew Morrison is going on a world tour to promote upcoming solo album

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Matthew Morrison’s album with substance is almost here, and the Glee star recently spilled the beans that he will be headlining a world tour to promote the album’s release.  Rehearsals begin later this month and the tour will kick off in April just as the FOX sensation goes on its hiatus.  Exact dates and locations have yet to be specified but Morrison promises that he’s “gonna go all over the world.”  And what’s the story on the much anticipated solo album?  “We’re almost done,” he says.  “We have like two more songs to record and then it’s off to the mixing stages. I’m really really happy with it and I can’t wait for people to hear it as well.”  It’s expected to hit stores this May.

[Via EW]

Coldplay is prepping a concept album

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It’s official: the followup to 2009’s Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends will be a concept album.  After ten years on the scene Coldplay is finally ready for some intense experimentation.  And they’ve got Viva producers Brian Eno and Marcus Dravs coming back for support.  Says frontman Chris Martin: “It’s from the point of view of two people who are a bit lost. Two like-minded outsiders who meet in a very difficult environment and therefore have a journey together. It’s a concept album but it’s supposed to be very personal within a big framework. Does that make sense?”  Martin on the “tag-team” that is Eno and Dravs: “Brian is the sower of seeds and ideas and experimenting, which is very liberating. Then Marcus’s job is to come in after all that’s been done and try and sculpt it into some kind of releasable format.”  How much longer do we have to wait for the concept to drop?  “We spent a year making a lot of noise”, says Martin. “You know those things in a fairground where you have bran in a tub and in there are some hidden prizes? That’s sort of where we are at.”  Sound like we’ve got a while before the product is complete.  At least we have “Christmas Lights” to play over and over until then.

[Via BBC]

TIME Person of the Year is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (and other TIME Top 10 things)

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The man behind the social network has been crowned TIME’s Person of the Year “for connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them, for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives.”  Click here to read the 10-page cover article.  Zuck beat out the trapped Chilean Miners, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai, and The Tea Party.

The zine also named the top ten albums and songs of the year.  Here’s what they had to say about the #1 album, Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: “Kanye West can seem like an attention-hungry young child who constantly tugs on his mother’s pant leg, saying, “Watch this! Watch this!” But once Kanye got our attention, instead of a simple somersault, he delivered the musical equivalent of a one-handed back handspring.”  Cee Lo Green’s “F**k You” is Time’s #1 song.  Look after the break to see the full listing of TIME’s top ten albums and songs.

Other TIME Top 10 things worth noting: in the Top 10 TV Series category they included Parks and Rec, Party Down, and Boardwalk Empire; in the Top 10 TV episodes they included Community‘s “Modern Warfare”, Lost‘s “The End”, and Fringe‘s “Peter” (!).  Really digging the selection here.  The Social Network and Toy Story 3 are listed in the Top 10 Movies category, Angry Birds is a top video game, and Merton on Chatroulette, Bed Intruder, and Double Rainbow are favorite viral videos.  Again, look after the break to see the full listings from all of these categories to see if your favorites made the cut.  Or you can opt to head over to TIME to view many other Top 10 categories ranging from popular toys to scientific discoveries.

[Via TIME, here & here] Continue reading TIME Person of the Year is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (and other TIME Top 10 things) →

How the world searched, tweeted, and YouTube’d in 2010

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Ah 2010, what a year it has been.  What’s the best way to find out what was on everyone’s minds over the course of the past year?  By looking at the top Google searches, top Twitter trends, and most watched YouTube videos, duh!  The search giant has gone all out this year with their public Google Zeitgeist 2010.  What were this year’s hottest search terms?  Well, just look in the bar graph above!  The creepy video chat service Chatroulette took the top prize as the fastest rising query, and the rest of the list includes celebrities Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Apple’s iPad, game portals Friv and GameZer, ringtone maker Myxer, and social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.  Click here to browse the entire Google Zeitgeist report.  Search terms are categorized subject matter and region, and Google also put together some snazzy interactive maps to support the data analytics.

Look after the break to learn about the most popular Twitter trends and the most watched YouTube videos of 2010. Continue reading How the world searched, tweeted, and YouTube’d in 2010 →

The Assassination of Yogi Bear by the Coward Booboo

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This video is disturbing, unsettling, and hilarious all at the same time.  The upcoming Yogi Bear animated movie doesn’t hit theatres until this Friday, but that didn’t stop 25-year-old animator Edmund Earle from making a parody video that went instantly viral.  He’s billing it as a “parody” in hopes that Warner Bros. (the studio behind the real Yogi Bear movie) do not take it down from the ‘Net.  He makes it clear that the video is independently made and that he has no association with the movie.  Anyway, the title of the viral hit is “Yogi Bear Alternate Ending: Booboo Kills Yogi” and it’s nearly a shot-by-shot recreation of the final scene from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a 2007 Western starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck.  Taking a comically dark route in this parody was “an organic creation”, Earle told the WSJ (that’s right–the WSJ has already interviewed him and the video was uploaded to YouTube earlier today).  I’m not surely exactly what it is–the music, the way this short story is told through the eyes of the characters?–but again there’s something very unsettling about watching a famed cartoon go down like this.  Ah well, in the end it’s an extremely well made parody and you should watch it, unless of course you’re under the age of 12.

Trailer: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

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Johnny Depp is back as Capt. Jack Sparrow in another Pirates tale from Disney, Jerry Bruckheimer, and director Rob Marshall. Gore Verbinski, the original director from the first three films in the franchise, decided to sit this one out.  Actors Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley also parted ways with the film.  This time around Jack Sparrow is hellbent on finding the Fountain of Youth.  Depp is joined by new female lead Penélope Cruz who plays the daughter of the film’s main antagonist Blackbeard (Ian McShane).  Geoffrey Rush reprises his role as Captain Hector Barbossa.  As you’re watching the first theatrical trailer you’ll surely notice that the Klaus Badelt/Hans Zimmer collaborative score has carried over and is still fantastic.  On Stranger Tides hits theatres May 20, 2011 in standard, 3D and IMAX 3D formats.

Update: I’ve replaced the Yahoo! Movies clip with the trailer that’s been uploaded to Disney’s YouTube channel.  This one features a short introduction by Jack Sparrow and more importantly it can be viewed in full HD!