The good news is that Jersey Shore is going to get a whole new cast after the fifth season (The fourth is filming now.) The bad news is that half the cast already got spinoff shows, including one with Snooki and J-Woww trying to demonstrate basic life skills, Pauly D showing us his DJ pickup techniques, and The Situation lifting up his shirt and doing that lip curl thing that he thinks is irresistible to women. We’ll be rid of lesser players Ronnie, Sammie, Vinny and Deena at least.

Here’s the story from US:

Jersey Shore producers plan to recast the MTV hit. “After this group comes back from Italy and shoots season 5 this summer, that will be the end for them,” says an insider. The new stars will be “a lot cheaper”… plus the current gang can feel free to pursue spinoffs. Says the source, “They will leave on a high note!

[From US Weekly, print edition, July 4, 2011]

This comes right after the news that the current cast members were holding out for more than the $100,000 an episode they were already being paid for season four, which is filming now. Prior to signing contracts for season five they wanted even more cash, so if this report is correct MTV may have been fed up with it. They reportedly worked out something for season five, but seem to have called their bluff and decided to wipe the slate clean after that. Drunken famewhores are a dime a dozen and these kids are replaceable. Of course they got greedy and found out the hard way. Tough luck.

Snooki and J-Woww are shown cuddling a miniature daschund that stays in the little shop next to the pizza store where they’re working in Florence. Photos are from 6/17 and 6/18/11. Credit: WENN.com

On one side, I kind of admire Blake Lively for showing up to the MTV Movie Awards knowing that every single person in the theater and at home was looking at her like “Yeah, I’ve seen every inch of your bolt-ons, et cetera.” For a self-conscious woman, that would be painful, but for someone with extreme confidence in her assets, maybe it’s fine. So Blake showed up last night for the MTV Movie Awards as a presenter. She did her duties with Ryan Reynolds, because they’re both starring in the soon-to-be released Green Lantern. Incidentally, Blake is still nearly non-existent in trailers for the film, but after this T&A explosion, something tells me that she’ll be front and center during promotion, right?

Anyway, Blake wore this Michael Kors dress that hugged every (man-made?) curve. I like the dress. I like the dress on Blake too – it’s bright, it compliments her coloring, and it’s flattering. What I hate: the shoes. I get that Blake didn’t want to go matchy-matchy for the shoes, but these shoes simply don’t work with the Kors.

Also: I swear a watched a chunk of the show, but I missed the cracks on Blake. Apparently, Jason Sudeikis (how unfunny and hack-y was he?) introduced Blake with “Someone that we believe is the real Blake Lively though she won’t confirm it.” And Reese Witherspoon made a cut on Blake too, saying, “If you take naked pictures of yourself with your cell phone, you hide your face!” You know what? I kind of feel like I expect more from Reese. I mean, she didn’t have to go up there and be so judgy, you know? They’re just boobs.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

When I first read that headline I panicked a little, thinking that MTV was foisting three new shows on the public featuring the Jersey Shore tools. They’re really just putting out two new shows, and we’ve had advance notice about them for some time but I’d pushed it out of my mind. J-Woww and Snooki are going to be sharing a house together, where they will inevitably fail to properly cook or clean and will spend their time getting drunk and hooking up with guys. Pauly D is some kind of spiky-haired DJ and he’ll be hanging out with his friends, getting drunk and hooking up with women. It’s just the Jersey Shore formula with some familiar faces and new players. If Sammi and Ronni could manage to stay together more than a hot second we’d probably be seeing a reality show about their relationship too.

MTV announced Thursday that Jersey Shore stars Snooki, JWoww and Pauly D will be featured on two spin-off shows next year.
Before the announcement, Snooki and JWoww told MTV News what viewers can expect on their show.

The two will be living in a yet-announced location, said Snooki.

“It’s pretty much just the concept of me and Jenni being on our own without our roommates,” she explained.

JWoww said the concept was developed before the show was green-lit. “We legitimately just wanted to buy a house together,” she said. “She wanted to get out of her dad’s, and I wanted to move out of the home that everyone could see on TV, so they were like, ‘Let’s shoot it!’ ”

As for Pauly D, his show will track his journey of becoming a successful DJ in the music business.

“I used to be this DJ in Rhode Island, DJing two sets a week, hustling, promoting,” he told MTV News earlier this year, “and all of a sudden, I’m on this show, and now they’re sending private jets for me to DJ for these huge crowds, yet I’m still the same guy that was DJing for 200 people, just loving life.”

Chris Linn, MTV’s executive vice president of programming and head of production, told The Hollywood Reporter Thursday he doesn’t think the shows will dilute the popular franchise.

[From Hollywood Reporter]

Well I guess it was inevitable. Snooki is so popular that she got paid $2,000 more than Toni Morrison to speak at Rutgers. She banked $32,000 for just 2 hours of question and answer sessions in which she judged a men’s ab contest and revealed such deep thoughts as “When you’re tan, you feel better about yourself.” She also demands that her man be tan and that his name “ends with a vowel.” I’m not making this up.

So Snooki, J-Woww and Pauly D are moving on to new shows, but we won’t be rid of The Situation or the rest of the cast anytime soon. Jersey Shore is of course continuing on for yet another season, and will air well into 2012.

I wanted to wait to comment on this new and controversial MTV teen drama show, Skins, until I’d had a chance to actually watch it. As it is, I lasted a whole 15 minutes, which is probably apropos. Advertisers have been pulling out en masse, and the nonprofit TV watch group Parents Television Council has been calling for a federal investigation into whether it shows child pornography. Underage actors are shown engaging in on-screen sex, drinking, drug use, masturbation, I could go on. The plot focuses on teens scheming to get up to no good, to the point where it gets tiresome just a few minutes in. I found it predictably over-the-top, like Porkys meets American Pie with a twist of Superbad. (Without 1/10th of the originality of any of those films.) I’ve only seen part of the first episode so far, which had awful one-liners and very trite plot lines, specifically (spoiler I guess) a Eddie Haskell-type character (Tony) who tries to get his friend laid before he turns 17. Some of the more winge-inducing lines include:

To a lesbian cheerleader: “Have you ever told those sweet girls [fellow cheerleaders] that you worship at the coochie shrine?”

To a friend on how they’re plotting to help him lose his virginity: “Tonight, you’ll present Mr. Happy the keys to the furry city.”

Then the virgin guy lifts up the covers on his bed and says “You hear that Mr. Happy? The furry city.”

The cheerleader issues a challenge: “Tony if you can get that kid’s cherry popped, I will accidentally lose control of my breasts during next week’s halftime show.”

The virgin on his prospective “cherry popper”: “I’m going to park my Chevy in Michelle’s garage?”

Then the Michelle chick comes over and starts making out with the Alpha character, Tony. The virgin guy asks “Am I getting laid or should I just start filming this so I can whack off to it later?”

That’s just in the first fifteen minutes of the show and I couldn’t bring myself to watch the rest. It was lame and while I’m unqualified to judge, I doubt that it was in any way indicative of teen culture beyond the sex and drugs. Kids don’t talk that way, and it just felt false, like worse than a heavily scripted sitcom with a laugh track.

There were some funny parts, but there were also plenty of jokes I didn’t get at all, although that could be due to the piss poor delivery. Some of these kids are terrible actors. The show is a reboot of a UK series of the same name. Maybe it worked better with the original British humor.

Advertisers that have pulled out so far include Taco Bell, Wrigley, General Motors, Subway, H&R Block and Schick. I don’t blame them given the quality of that show. In my opinion the problem isn’t the controversial subject matter as much as the very awkward, obvious, feeble way that it’s handled.

Ken Tucker at EW agrees, and explains this controversy much better than I can.

You can watch Skins on MTV.com if you’re in the US.

Did any of you really enjoy Punk’d with Ashton Kutcher? I remember that when I first saw it I found him so obnoxious in that hat in the little room. He was such a fool with that goofy act of his, but I eventually got used to it and learned to ignore him. There were times I found it interesting (albeit cruel), like when poor Justin Timberlake thought that the IRS was seizing all his stuff, including his dogs. The pranks were the appeal of the show, not Ashton. He just bugged me. Now we have news of another host who will try and narrate the pranks and line up unsuspecting celebrities to mock: 16 year-old singer, Justin Bieber. Shouldn’t they wait until his voice changes first?

MTV may need to start shopping for a trucker hat that won’t mess with Justin Bieber’s hair, because multiple industry insiders tell Vulture that the tween singer has been all but officially tapped as the host of a revival of Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d for the network, assuming all details can be worked out. Kutcher isn’t entirely relinquishing the celebrity practical-joke franchise he birthed back in 2003: He’ll remain as an executive producer of the new series via his Katalyst Entertainment. But if a deal can be worked out, the on-air baby face of the new show will be none other than Biebs. If Kutcher’s past history with Punk’d is any indication, Bieber will likely appear in a few early episodes as a participant in the pranks, then gradually revert to mostly introducing segments. While Kutcher was famous during the original Punk’d era (he was starring on That 70s Show), the actor was nowhere near as famous (or busy) as Bieber, giving him more time to pull punks on his peers.

Kutcher announced he was retiring Punk’d back in 2007, but even at the time of the show’s demise, sources at MTV indicated the network hoped to one day revive the brand. The thinking was that the show, whose pranks had grown lamer as the years wore on (the final season included punks on Jewel and Freddy Rodriguez), needed time to rest. Given how quickly pop culture runs through celeb cycles these days, the move may have worked: We now have a whole new class of celebs who — like Bieber himself — weren’t even on our radar when Punk’d exited three years ago. So get ready Bristol Palin, Jon Hamm, Snooki, and the entire cast of Glee: You’re probably about to get Bieber’ed!

[From NYMag via WeSmirch]

Bieber is just as annoying and self important as Ashton Kutcher, so this could work. Plus, NYMag is right that there’s a new crop of celebrities to ridicule. Miley Cyrus, those Jonas Kids, the Kardashians, they’re all fair game. I guess it’s a good enough concept to continue, but Kutcher should have just sold it off instead of insisting on being involved. Didn’t he learn anything from the utter failure of Popfiction? It’s not like he has a hell of a lot else to do other than Tweet and attend events, though.

Last night at the VMAs Taylor Swift sang a ballad she composed for Kanye West. The lyrics showed understanding and forgiveness with a theme of redemption. She gave Kanye way too much credit. The guy crashed her moon man acceptance speech last year. Yes he apologized, but he’ll never really “get it” and in no way does he deserve that kind of thoughtful song. He’s an ass no matter how much he protests about it, and he proved that with his song choice for the awards show one year after he became an Internet meme. In his song “Runaway” he kind of reveled about what a jerk he was, although at least he seemed to admit it. Here’s a comparison of Taylor and Kanye’s lyrics for the songs they performed referencing the minor scandal:

Kanye’s “Runaway” (partial):
I always find something wrong.
You’ve been putting up with my sh*t way too long.
I’m so gifted at finding what I don’t like the most.
So I think it’s time for us to have a toast.
Let’s have a toast for the douchebags.
Let’s have a toast for the assholes.
Let’s have a toast for the scumbags.
Everyone of them that I know.
Let’s have a toast for the jerkoffs that will never take work off.

Baby I got a plan. Run away as fast as you can… Runaway from me baby.

Taylor Swift’s “Innocent” (partial):
Time turns flames to ambers
You’ll have new Septembers
Everyone of us has messed up too
Mind change like the weather
I hope you remember today is never too late
To be brave (ohh)

It’s all right, just wait and see
Your streaming lights are bright to me oh
Who you are is not where you’ve been
You’re still an innocent
It’s OK, life is a tough crowd
32 and still growing up now
Who you are is not what you did
You’re still an innocent
Lost your balance on a tight rope
It’s never too late to get it back

[via MTV]

Kanye has no balance on that tightrope, he’s pulled it off the wall, has jumped to the ground and is swinging it around while he swills cognac. That’s always how he’s been and someone is bound to get hurt. I’m not going to toast that douche or get philosophical about why he turned out that way and where he can go from here. There’s no point feeling sorry for him.

Let’s compare how pitchy these two were. Taylor was a little pitchy but that’s typical for her and she did a great job overall. Kanye cannot sing and really needs that autotune he overuses. At least he sang live, unlike Justin Bieber.

Kanye’s song performance:

Taylor’s performance:

Note: the video of Kanye above will only play for users in the US. I’m very sorry for this and could not find another version as of press time. If you’re outside the US you can hear it through this link.

Truly, in the immortal words of Kanye West, let’s have a toast for the jerkoffs. Let’s start this recap off with discussing Chelsea Handler’s hosting duties for last night’s VMAs. There were a lot of drinking jokes, and a lot of jokes about black guys. That’s her comfort zone. I thought she seemed rather nervous during her opening bit, and she had good reason to be nervous – she wasn’t very funny. True, her humor did not fall flat as I expecting (hoping) it would, but most of her jokes seemed really obvious – like, stuff I would come up with in two seconds as I was writing, as opposed to the kind of joke Chelsea and a team of comedy writers would come up with after several weeks. All in all, she felt like a very safe and unchallenging host, made worse by the fact that she played like she was being naughty and avante garde.

Onto the winners and losers and memorable moments:

* I really enjoyed Eminem’s opening number, “Not Afraid” plus his duet with Rihanna with whatever, the fire song. Just after he performed, Em got on a plane so he didn’t get a chance to walk up and accept his awards for Best Male Video and Best Hip Hop Video. I’ve really been buying Em as authentic about being clean, and so “Not Afraid” was especially moving.

* The Black Keys won Breakthrough Video! I love them.

*Jared Leto’s rock band, 30 Seconds to Mars won Best Rock Video. Name the song. You can’t, right?

*Baby Justin Bieber won his first VMA for Best New Artist. He also performed, but not in the theatre, he performed to a bunch of tween girls and with a bunch of embarrassed-looking backup dancers.

*Lady Gaga took home so many awards! Her “Bad Romance” video was like R.E.M.‘s “Losing My Religion” – if that doesn’t date me too badly. Gaga’s “Bad Romance” took home: Best Choreography, Best Female Video, Best Direction, Best Editing, Best Pop Video, Best Dance Music Video, and Video of the Year. And she got to meet Cher! YAY!

When Gaga (clad in meat) accepted the award from Cher, she said, “I never thought I’d be asking Cher to hold my meat purse… I promised that if I won this tonight, I’d announce the name of my new record,” she said. After exhaling, Gaga revealed it is titled Born This Way. “God makes no mistakes…I’m on the right track baby. I was born this way.”

*The whole Taylor Swift/Kanye West thing. CB is covering it in a separate post, but I thought I’d show Kanye’s performance. Does anyone remember Fatboy Slim? The beat sounds like Fatboy Slim.

*Drake…? I like Drake, but I don’t know much about him. His performance was pretty good, even though it included Swizz Beatz. But f-ck me, I love Mary J. Blige.

Can I just say, I thought Florence & the Machine was the best performance of the night? Her voice is f-cking incredible.

All in all, a night that was surprisingly about the music. Shock.

Since the Twihards dominated the MTV Movie Awards once again, going through the list of winners is rather moot. Kristen Stewart deigned to roll her eyes through her victory in Best Kiss (with Robert Pattinson) and Best Female Performance. Pattinson won Best Male Performance and something else I didn’t catch. And they won Best Film, and Peter Facinelli cussed his ass off and the censors didn’t catch it in time, so my ears were assaulted (I’m clutching my pearls as I type) with multiple F-bombs. It would probably be easier to list the non-Twilight people who won: Tom Fenton (from the Harry Potter films), Sandra Bullock (the “Generation” Award), Amanda Seyfried (who won for Jennifer’s Body), Ken Jeong (from The Hangover, who got emotional about his wife’s breast cancer) and Anna Kendrick (who is in the Twilight films, but won for Up In The Air). Anyway, let’s do some highlights:

* For me, the absolute best part was seeing Tom Cruise in character as Len Grossman, dancing his motherf-cking ass off with Jennifer Lopez. Did anyone really think Tom could keep up so well? I have to admit something sketchy – I’m attracted to Tom Cruise as Len Grossman. I would hit that. And I could watch Jennifer Lopez spanking Tom Cruise all f-cking day. I like them both so much when they’re Fly Girls.

*Sandra Bullock’s acceptance speech for the Generation Award. She was pithy and funny, and lacking in self-pity. I love her for that. She did a shout-out to the Gulf Coast, and it didn’t feel cheap. She was letting everyone know it was cool to move on. She’s beautiful, and a really amazing woman.

*Pattinson and Stewart. Okay, I know I called off the fatwa and everything, but she and her rolled eyes were plucking my last nerve. I get it, she’s an “actress”. I understand that she’s “uncomfortable” with the attention. But she needs to sack up, stop rolling her eyes, stop biting her lip, and just act like a f-cking professional. Like Pattinson. Pattinson is so lovely, he really is. Just gracious and funny and sweet, even when Kristen is acting like a little diva bitch. I was so glad when he just grabbed her and kissed her for their “Best Kiss” win. Here you go:

*Russell Brand – I know he’s not everyone’s favorite, but he was cracking me up last night. I did love when he and Jonah Hill made out. And Russell and Katy Perry looked really cute together. Speaking of Katy, that girl can barely sing, can’t dance for sh-t, but my goodness she has spectacular breasts, doesn’t she? And she puts them out there a lot.

*Lindsay Lohan was in the audience. She didn’t present anything, and she wasn’t up for anything. And it took me a good 40 minutes and at least three cutaways before I recognized her. I thought she was someone’s 40-something hooker escort (cough Michael Bay cough).

*Christina Aguilera’s Sparkle-Vadge! She had a heart-shaped LED-light on her vadge (on her costume), and it was kind of awesome. Unfortunately, Getty doesn’t have any photos of the vadge all lit up like Christmas morning.

That’s all I’ve got. For a two-hour show, they kept up the pace and there were several funny parts. I didn’t think the host, Aziz Ansari was solid but not amazing. To be fair, MTV didn’t really give him enough rope to hang himself, and his hosting duties were pretty much limited to his opening monologue (which made me smile but not laugh), and several pre-taped bits which were kind of funny. All in all, I didn’t feel like I wasted two hours of my life, but I’m old enough to remember when these MTV shows were crazy important. Oh well.

Here are some extra photos for the Twihards, amd anyone who loves Len Grossman:

Oh, the Video Music Awards. Where bad fashion goes to die, where pop music goes to celebrate itself. I remember when the VMAs used to be edgy. I remember when they were a huge deal. Now it just seems so… corporate. Maybe it was always corporate, and I was just naïve back in the day. Note: CB is covering the Kanye West/Taylor Swift incident, in which Kanye made a rather spectacular ass out of himself. Anyhoodle, here’s a rundown of the nights biggest winners and losers, both from the actual awards, and from the fashion:

*Winner: Lady Gaga’s “Mistress Dark Feathers” ensemble. According to Us Weekly, it was “a black lace Jean Paul Gaultier dress with Dragon print silk underlay from Gaultier’s fall/winter ready to wear collection. She accessorized the look with a Keko Hainswheeler neck brace and Kiko jewelry.” Later, in the press room, Gaga was wearing some grey-silver puffy leotard that was not attractive.

*Loser: Gerard Butler. He’s my boyfriend and everything, but he had no reason to be there, and he looked extremely grumpy. He needs to stop going to every event, you know? I love him, and I love seeing pictures of him, but I can only think that he was there to hit on the young 20-year-old reality stars. Or poor Taylor Swift, who had a rough enough night without Gerard Butler trying to put the moves on her.

*Winners: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart looking like they could eat each other up in every damn picture. The two of them, plus Taylor “Third Wheel” Lautner, were there to introduce a clip from New Moon. Poor (hot) Taylor. I bet he even had to go in the car with Pattz and Kristen, and they probably couldn’t keep their hands off one another. Kristen wore a really pretty beige-gold party dress, and her hair was super-cute. Sparkles is a mouth-breather, and he looked smug. Like “Yeah, I’m finally nailing Bella” smug.

*Loser: Perez Hilton and his “demented gardener/proctologist” look. And for being Perez.

*Losers: Pink and Shakira wore the same black Balmain mini-dress. Maybe I could understand if the dress was really, really cute, but it’s totally plain. The real loser is the House of Balmain, who should have been better organized than to send the same dress out to two pop stars for the same event.

*Winner: Beyonce, for winning Video of the Year, for her cute red outfit, and for being so classy to Taylor Swift.

*Loser: Jennifer Lopez, for whatever the hell she was wearing. She’s trying too hard, and it’s painful.

*Losers: All of the dumb, interchangeable MTV reality stars who all looked like hot death.

*Actual VMA winners:

Video of the Year: Beyonce, Single Ladies
Best New Artist: Lady Gaga, Poker Face
Best Hip-Hop Video: Eminem, We Made You
Best Male Video: T.I. featuring Rihanna, Live Your Life
Best Pop Video: Britney Spears, Womanizer
Best Rock Video: Green Day, 21 Guns
Best Female Video: Taylor Swift, You Belong With Me
Best Video (That Should Have Won a Moonman): Beastie Boys, Sabotage
Breakthrough Video: Matt and Kim, Lessons Learned
Best Art Direction: Lady Gaga, Paparazzi
Best Choreography: Beyonce, Single Ladies
Best Cinematography: Green Day, 21 Guns
Best Direction: Green Day, 21 Guns
Best Editing: Beyonce, Single Ladies
Best Special Effects: Lady Gaga, Paparazzi.

What can I say? Meh. Any award show that celebrates Eminem’s video “We Made You” as the best anything is a pretty crappy award show. Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” rocks though. I’m going to have that song stuck in my head all day.

Photo credit: RAM/Fame Pictures; WENN.com

British comic Russell Brand has just been announced as the host for this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. This will be Russell’s second year in a row as host, and after last year’s controversy, I’m sure some people hoped MTV would ban him. Russell’s jokes last year infamously offended many people because he seemed to be mocking the whole purity ring and virginity stuff. Of course, he also got pretty political, calling George W. Bush a “retarded cowboy” and he made several jokes about Sarah Palin, Bristol Palin, Levi Johnston and that whole situation, which had just become public. Russell didn’t seem to care about the anger he had caused, and he seemed bewildered when he started receiving death threats. I suppose MTV figured that as long as Russell kept people talking, the show would be a success. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of Brand’s (I find him skeezy), but his one sentence reaction to being named this year’s host made me giggle:

The Jonas Brothers had better polish up their promise rings — MTV announced this morning that controversial Brititsh comedian Russell Brand will be returning to host this year’s Video Music Awards.

“This year will be a controversy free festival of love and discrete orgasms,” said Brand, who notoriously poked fun at young stars like the Jonases and their squeaky clean reputations.

Significantly less controversial but equally newsworthy is the announcement that Taylor Swift will mark her first VMA performance by singing a previously unheard version of “You Belong With Me.”

“I’m so excited that MTV and the VMAs have invited me to perform,” said Taylor in a statement. “Because I think this year’s show will be unlike anything they’ve ever done! I love incorporating theatrics into my performances, and the VMAs have always allowed artists to run with that. MTV has been so good to me, and I could not be more excited about this year’s VMAs!”

This year, the awards are moving back to their NYC origins and the night will feature performances being broadcast from all over Manhattan, including Radio City Music Hall. Let’s just hope it’s better than the 2007 VMAs from Vegas, which had artists performing all over a Sin City resort, to pretty blah effect.

[From OK! Magazine]

I kind of hope they just let Russell do his thing. If he offends people, so be it. It’s on MTV’s head for inviting him back. I just hope MTV doesn’t try to sanitize his act, but that would just be offensive generally, to all people. Here’s a question – do you think Lindsay Lohan will be invited? Either way, I have a feeling Brand will be making a lot of Lohan jokes.

Russell Brand is shown at Diddy’s White Party on 7/4/09. Credit: WENN.com