I don’t know how much interest there will be in this story, but I like talking about Oprah and wanted to cover it. As you probably know, Oprah’s new OWN network is really tanking in the ratings. Everyone thought Oprah could pull it off because she’s Oprah but not many people are watching OWN. Oprah launched a new talkshow last month in which she interviews celebrities, similar to what she was doing on her syndicated show, and it did boost ratings comparatively, but she’s still struggling to make her network a success.

I get that channel, and I tried for about 20 minutes to watch two different episodes of the Shania Twain “reality show.” It was mind-numbingly boring and featured Shania talking at length about how she was putting the pieces back together and challenging herself to grow after she got cheated on and split with her husband. Shania’s story has all the elements of a fascinating one: her husband shacked up with the secretary who also happened to be her best friend, and the secretary’s hot husband clued her in on it. Shania subsequently busted her husband and then married the secretary’s husband, who was a definite trade-up, looks wise. She also trashed the other woman publicly. Still, the Oprah special on Shania made it seem really dull and repetitive all about self actualization.

Oprah has expressed her disdain at the Real Housewives shows, but her people are struggling to produce programs that are consistently interesting. Granted the RH shows take it way too far, but Oprah just seems unable to sensationalize beyond pushing her self actualization line. Her vision is a network through which we better ourselves, but a constant diet of that is boring, and her viewership is reflecting that.

Anyway Oprah needs to make “Oprah’s Next Chapter” (close the book) popular and she seems a little desperate to promote it. She tweeted that Nielsen watchers should tune in so that her ratings would improve. Then she realized she shouldn’t have written that and apologized, sort-of:

Oprah Winfrey found herself embroiled in a Twitter furore and offered an apology Monday after she took to the microblogging site a day earlier urging her fans — especially Nielsen households — to watch her struggling cable channel OWN instead of the Grammy Awards.

“Every 1 who can please turn to OWN especially if u have a Nielsen box,” the former talk show host tweeted to more than nine million followers Sunday, just before her new interview show “Oprah’s Next Chapter” started, Entertainment Weekly reported.

While some tweeted their thanks to Winfrey for the reminder, the overwhelming response was negative, with readers criticizing Oprah for “begging for viewers” and being “desperate.”

A defiant Winfrey defended herself, writing in a series of tweets, “The word ‘please’ is used as courtesy not a beg … ‘desperate’ not ever a part of my vocab … ‘unethical’ a little harsh don’t u think? Seemed like it made sense to me. Sorry if u’re offended.”

However, on Monday morning, Winfrey issued a statement saying, “I removed the tweet at the request of Nielsen. I intended no harm and apologize for the reference.”

According to the New York Times, the apology came after Nielsen and OWN executives corresponded Monday morning.

Nielsen measures TV viewership by a sample of about 25,000 households across the country. Networks are not allowed to appeal to Nielsen viewers directly or attempt to influence their viewing habits.
“It is Nielsen’s policy to note attempts to single out panel members to either change their viewing habits or otherwise influence or affect their reporting,” Nielsen spokesman, Matt Anchin, said in an email.

The company said that it would attach an asterisk to OWN’s ratings at the time of Winfrey’s tweet, with a note stating that the figures may have been the result of a “possible biasing effect.”
Ironically, Winfrey was among the 39.9 million people who watched the Grammys on Sunday night.

The Times, citing Winfrey’s executive producer, Sheri Salata, said that the Atlanta hotel the pair were staying in did not carry OWN, and five minutes after the Nielsen tweet, during a Grammys commercial break, Winfrey wrote, “Grammy people..u can turn to OWN.”

[From MY Fox DC]

When even Oprah gets into trouble on Twitter, you know that it’s not a good idea for celebrities to tweet unsupervised and unedited. Whatever meager ratings Oprah’s show got on Sunday will be tainted by her tweet, but according to Oprah she’s not “desperate” and it wasn’t “unethical” to ask Nielsen people to tune in.

I used to like Oprah, but I think she got too far up her own butt and lost touch with what is popular and interesting. I like when Oprah helps people with their lives, but she’s like medicine: best taken in small doses.

Oprah will air a special on Whitney Houston on Thursday. Oprah scored the first interview with Whitney during her alleged sobriety and brief comeback in 2009. At that time Whitney admitted to smoking crack and marijunana during her marriage to Bobby Brown and said “I wasn’t getting high by myself. It was me and him together. We were partners.” The special on Whitney could be interesting.

Oprah will also air a two hour Oscar special on Wednesday featuring Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis and Jonah Hill.

Oprah is shown at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India on 1-22-12. Credit: Solarpix, PacificCoastNews.com. She’s also shown on 5-3-11 at the Illinois Broadcasters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Credit: Daniel Locke / PR Photos

I used to watch “The Simpsons” when I was growing up, and I watched it a lot in college. I stopped taping it years ago, though I’ll occasionally catch it at a friend’s house. It can be an hilarious show, but it got way too disjointed for me the past few years and I felt like they missed a real opportunity with the 2007 movie. (I just looked up the Rotten Tomatoes reviews and was surprised to see that it got 90%! It seemed mediocre to me although it was definitely funny. Maybe the show just set the bar so high that I expected more from the film.)

“The Simpsons” has been on since December, 1989, and is “the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and the longest-running American primetime, scripted television series.” (Wikipedia has it beating “Gunsmoke” in 2009 for that last title.) So it’s kind of sad that it may be going away soon, but in another way it may be about time that it did.

The issue stems from producers at Fox demanding that the voice actors take a 50% pay cut for the upcoming season, which would reduce their salaries from around $8 million a year to $4 million a year. The actors are trying to bargain for a 35% pay cut along with a percentage of the incredibly hefty merchandising profits, but Fox isn’t having it and is threatening to shut the show down.

It looks like The Simpsons—20th Century Fox Television’s multibillion-dollar cash cow, the anchor of the Fox network’s Sunday primetime schedule, and the longest-running sitcom in the history of broadcasting—might stop production after the current 23rd season ends next spring.

The reason is a negotiating impasse between the studio and the six principal actors who voice the beloved characters on the animated series that hilariously satirizes middle-class Midwestern angst.

Difficult bargaining is nothing new for the show, which was created by James L. Brooks and Matt Groening. Fox studio execs have occasionally threatened to replace uncooperative cast members with sound-alike actors. But for the first time in nearly a quarter century of haggling, the executives have insisted that if the cast doesn’t accept a draconian 45 percent pay cut, The Simpsons will die an abrupt death as a first-run series.

A Fox Television spokesman had no comment at the time of publication Monday night. On Tuesday, the studio issued the following statement: “23 seasons in, The Simpsons is as creatively vibrant as ever and beloved by millions around the world. We believe this brilliant series can and should continue, but we cannot produce future seasons under its current financial model. We are hopeful that we can reach an agreement with the voice cast that allows The Simpsons to go on entertaining audiences with original episodes for many years to come.”

The pay-cut ultimatum was delivered Monday evening as Fox spurned the actors’ proposal, delivered late last week, to take a cut of around 30 percent in exchange for a tiny percentage of the show’s huge back-end profits—amounting to untold billions—from syndication around the globe and merchandising of Simpsons clothing, lunchboxes, stamps, DVDs, a feature film, and videogames, among other paraphernalia. The series is produced by the 20th Century Fox studio and aired by the Fox network, both News Corp. companies, but the studio reaps the ancillary rewards.

“Fox is taking the position that unless they can cut the production costs really drastically, they’ll pull the plug on new shows,” said a Simpsons insider with knowledge of the negotiations. “The show has made billions in profits over the years and will continue to do so as far as the eye can see down the road. The actors are willing to take a pay cut of roughly a third, but that’s not good enough for Fox.”

Not that the actors have been hurting.

Dan Castellaneta (Homer, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, and others), Julie Kavner (Marge and others), Nancy Cartwright (Bart and others), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Hank Azaria (Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum and Apu Nahasapeemapetilon), and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, and others) each earn about $8 million annually for about 22 weeks’ work.

Even under Fox Studio’s proposed downgrade, they would still be making around $4 million apiece, which goes a long way in the fictitious town of Springfield, and even in the allegedly real city of Hollywood.

But the actors have long argued that they deserve a taste of the plentiful syndication and merchandising profits because they’ve contributed creatively to the success of The Simpsons almost as much as Brooks and Groening. The latter two benefit greatly from the show’s back-end revenue, and will continue to get even richer off the second round of syndication deals once new episodes are no longer being produced.

But Fox has consistently refused to compensate the main cast members beyond their generous salaries, and once production ends, the studio will continue to reap billions for years to come (with Fox drawing on a valuable archive of around 500 episodes), while the actors will receive little more than their union-mandated residuals.

“Now Fox is basically saying, ‘If you don’t take this deal, we’ll shut down the show,’ and they’ll continue to make a ton of money,” said the insider. “They’re free to sell it to cable and a second round of syndication, and they figure that the cast has very little leverage.”

[From The Daily Beast]

It’s hard to wrap my mind around $4 million vs. $8 million, but I understand the cast asking for a percentage of the back end. It seems fair, even if it involves an astronomical amount of money. The show is raking it in, and the people who do the work should get some of it.

I remember that they killed off Maude Flanders when the voice actress wanted higher compensation. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled the plug on this show, but I expect that they’ll reach an agreement and that they’ll squeeze a few more seasons out of this. “The Simpsons” is an institution and I doubt the higher ups want to close up shop over this. We’ll see, though.

I’ve watched a few episodes of Two and a Half Men prior to now. Usually that was the result of being stuck in a waiting room or an airplane with absolutely no other programming options. It’s a dumb show with canned laughs, but at times it did crack me up. So I went into this with low expectations, which were met I guess. I mean it sucked. The show opened with Charlie’s funeral, where his ex lovers trash talked him and listed off his sexual fetishes. There were plenty of dumb jokes and groan-inducing one liners. A few were kind of funny though. Here’s my very brief recap. Evil Beet has a better one you’re interested.

Rose explains how Charlie died, by “falling” in front of a moving subway train after she caught him cheating on her. “I want you to know that Charlie didn’t suffer. His body just exploded like a balloon full of meat.”
Jake asks “does anyone else feel hungry?”

They establish that no one can afford the house now that Charlie has passed. Later, when Alan is alone, Ashton Kutcher comes in to use the phone after unsuccessfully trying to commit suicide by drowning. He tells someone on the other line “I want you to know that I just flung myself in the ocean because I can’t live without you. No, I’m not calling you from the ocean. Because it was cold.”

Ashton’s tech billionaire character Walden: “Money does not buy happiness.”
Jon Cryer’s character, Alan. “I don’t know I’ve never had either.”

Ashton then strips down to his skivvies to change. Then they go out to some TGI Fridays type place to bond over drinks. Ashton picks up two chicks with his sad sap story, and the two of them bring the ladies back to Charlie/Alan’s place. Ashton scores a menage a trois and gets laid while Jon Cryer’s character goes to bed alone with no nookie.

The next morning Walden/Ashton proceeds to walk around shirtless/nude while everyone exclaims at his penis size. Then he announces he’s buying the house.

At least the whole episode was only 20 minutes or so. It wasn’t terrible, just kind of there.

A lot of people tuned in to watch Ashton’s half dressed debut, though. The show got over 27 million viewers and a Nielsen rating higher than any single episode when Charlie starred. So it’s safe to say that Ashton will be sticking around. Don’t cry for Charlie, though. He just made $25 million from Warner Brothers for his past episodes and could get $100 million for syndication rights over the next ten years. I guess it was money he was owed or something, but still that sounds outrageous.

This week’s True Blood, the season four finale, was chock full of plot. More than that it had plenty of clever one liners that provided some excellent comic relief for the more serious moments. I kind of felt like most of the plot was rehashed from past seasons, and that the Marnie witch character was too similar to the Maenid nonsense we saw in season two. It was basically a “when will this bitch die?” plotline, with Marnie’s ghost hanging on way too long to wreak havoc. I’m going to do a half-assed recap here. Instead of going over every detail, I’ll just focus on the awesome lines that cracked me up and added the campiness of this show. I love it, basically, but I see it for what it is, and I feel like producers are letting us know that’s ok, and that they’ll continue to deliver it for us. They did that with some of the best lines this season. Here are some of my favorites from the finale:

The best lines from the True Blood finale (SPOILERS)

Hoyt to Jason on his admission that he slept with Jessica, “How?”
Jason to Hoyt “If you really want to know, missionary then doggy then her on top. It was nothing too kinky.”

Arlene to Sookie on her Halloween costume: “Zombies are the new vampires.”

Jesus to Lafayette possessed with Marnie’s ghost. “I agree with you. Vampires suck!… You can’t trade magic like f*ckin Pokemon cards!” He then proceeds to do just that, and give up his evil demon self to the Marnie ghost, dying in the process.

Arlene to her kids on Halloween. “You better start behaving yourselves right now or you’re going to be Trick or Treating down at the trailer park again. Now do you want a bag of empty coors cans and food stamps or do you want candy?”

Scott Foley is introduced as a new character, an old war buddy of Terry’s. Terry says to him “I heard you were dead.” He answers, “I heard you were crazy.”

“Well yeah that’s still true.”

Sookie asks Holly if she’s ever cast a serious spell like the one she’s going to attempt to save the vampires from Marnie’s ghost. “Goddess no, usually I just light a candle and ask the spirits to make sure my boys don’t end up in jail or knock somebody up, but so far that’s worked out ok.”

Bill to Eric when they’re strung up silvered on the stake by Marnie. “I liked you better when you were brain damaged.”

Lafayette as Marnie in a muumuu, “What goes around comes around, bitches.”

Eric to the group after Marnie is sent to the spirit world and Tara is tending to Lafayette. “Excuse me, we’re feeling a little crispy up here.”

Jessica to Jason. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend… I just got out of a serious relationship… I’m not ready to commit to you.”

“I kind of wish you would have told me that, before I took an ass kicking.”

Pam on losing Eric to Sookie: “I’m so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name. F*ck Sookie.”

“I’ve been with Eric for over 100 years. I’ve watched him seduce supermodels and princesses and spit on their bones when he’s finished. How can someone named Sookie take him away from me?”

Sookie breaks up with Eric and Bill: “There’s only one way I see this ending, and it’s me walking away with neither of you.”

Jesus’ ghost to Lafayette: “Dude I’m dead, you’re a medium. I’ll always be with you.”

Jessica to Jason on the sex they just had. “I liked it, I liked it a lot. Maybe next time we could try oral? Hoyt was kind of shy about that, because of my fangs.”

Jason understands why Jessica is reluctant to drink his blood. “You know, it’s kind of like a hooker with kissing…

“You’re like no other woman I’ve been with, and I’ve been with a lot of women. ”

Eric to Nan Flanagan and her posse “Hi Nan, and gay stormtroopers.”

Nan Flanagan on being fired from the American Vampire League. “I’ve been alive for 816 years. I refuse to be retired like a fat first wife.”

Eric, after he and Bill kill Nan. “What a bitch.”

The stuff where Eric and Bill offed Nan reminded me of when Bill killed the Vampire Queen of Louisiana, Sophie-Anne. Also, there weren’t any quotable lines at the end when Sookie accidentally killed what’s-her-face, Debbie, and that’s probably for the best. The episode ended with Sookie holding a gravely injured Tara and screaming out. “somebody please help us, somebody!” In the parallel scene in the books, it’s just Sookie and Debbie, with Tara having nothing to do with it and Sookie cleaning up the evidence and secretly burying Debbie. (With Eric’s help, if I remember right.) It makes you wonder if they’re going to kill off Tara’s character, which I wouldn’t mind, honestly, or if one of the vamps is going to whisk in and save Tara. I think Eric gave Tara his blood in the books in some other incident, but I don’t remember it too clearly. I’m pretty sure she’s still alive in the last book.

Also, there were some nice scenes and lines in this episode about trusting your heart. Alcide made a really lame plea for Sookie’s love by saying he wanted to go with his head instead of his heart. He said “People always say follow your heart… What if our hearts can’t be trusted? What if it’s our brains we should be listening to?” Then when all the spirits in the cemetery got resurrected by Holly’s spell, Sookie’s grandmother came back temporarily from the other world and told her that “[The] answers where it always is, your heart. Being alone ain’t nothing to be afraid of, my Sookie. We’re all alone at the end.” Maybe that’s why they’re killing off her best friend, so we can see Sookie truly alone for once, but we’ll have to wait for next season to see. True Blood has been renewed for a fifth season, so there’s sure to be more obnoxious one-liners and campy plots for us to enjoy.

Mario Lopez has a new reality show coming that will probably go the way of Ashton Kutcher’s “Pop Fiction” business. Do you remember that show? That’s right, you don’t. Lopez’s show is called “H8R” and Internet trolls will be invited to tell their most hated faux-celebrities to their faces how they feel about them. Uh oh. Perez Hilton got all skinny and kiss-ass after he had a talking to by Jennifer Aniston. We’re breeding a new generation of reality stars with every one of these throwaway shows. They’re keeping the plastic surgeons in business at least.

Here’s more from an interview Lopez did with Star Magazine (with no sense of irony) about the show, which premieres on The CW on September 15th. This interview is accompanied by a shirtless photo of Lopez in the pool and a still of Janice Dickinson on the show touching some young chick’s leg in an attempt to win her over.

What’s H8R about?
The internet provides a forum for haters. We thought, “What if a person confronted the celebrity they’re bashing? Would they still have the guts to say it to their face?”

How do you select the celebrities?
We base it on who we assume might have a hater. Nobody is going to really hate Dustin Hoffman, but somebody like Snooki – she’s one our first show.

Do celebrities like it?
It’s a chance to rehabilitate their image. They can have a little fun with somebody who dislikes them because of a preconceived notion and then try to show them the real person behind the celebrity.

You confronted one of your haters. How did that go?
I’ll be honest; it was awkward at first. She was forming her opinions based on hearsay. But I won her over quick!

[From Star Magazine, print edition, September 5, 2011]

There are some previews of H8R on CW’s website (and one below) and it doesn’t look bad, honestly. They’ve got Snooki and Kim Kardashian. Some girl tells Kim K her ass isn’t real, a guy bitches Snooki out for not being Italian and then the celebrities meet them, act sweet and try to win them over. Of course it works because no one is going to continue telling someone to their face that they find their public personas annoying.

It looks very predictable, though, and as Lopez says it’s not like any A-listers are going to agree to be on it. He tried to frame it like those people don’t have haters, but in actuality it’s not like anyone with a real Hollywood career would be on that show. Popfiction had the same issue. We’ve seen all these people on so many other reality shows that it’s not interesting when they’re playing themselves yet again. Plus we know the outcome. I would like to see someone stand their ground and be like “yeah, you still really suck. How much money are you making for lying about your plastic surgery and attending toilet openings again?” It wouldn’t be me, though. I’d be caving and being sweet with the rest of them.

Mario Lopez is shown in August with his girlfriend, Courtney Mazza, and interviewing Kathy Griffin for “Extra.” Kathy should be on the show! Credit: WENN.com

We’ve heard all sorts of rumors of how Chelsea Handler’s upcoming vanity project sitcom, Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea, is flailing in production and having problems before the first episode has even aired. Mike Walker in the National Enquirer claims that Chelsea is asking her BFF Jennifer Aniston for help with the show and to possibly make a cameo and Aniston is all “I don’t do that anymore.” Are You There Vodka is set to star Laura Prepon as the trash-talking Chelsea character, and Chelsea is playing her own holy roller sister. The trailer we saw in May made it look really bad, so Aniston would do well to distance herself from this mess. Here’s Walker’s story:

Desperate to save her problem-plagued pending NBC sitcom… after three actors were fired before it’s even aired – E! talk show Chelsea Handler’s begging BFF Jennifer Aniston to help revivie her sagging show with a sprinkle of the magic sitcom dust that made “Friends” a smash! “There are rumblings that the show’s doomed, but Chelsea’s determined to save it – and save face,” said an Aniston insider. “She’s invited sitcom expert Jen to her LA home to brainstorm ideas with writers and producers. She’s even gotten her to read script and provide feedback. Jen can’t say no to a friend in need – but flatly drew the line when Chelsea asked her to make a few cameo appearances on the first season. Jen told Chelsea she’s won’t do TV unless it’s her own project.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Walker's column, August 29, 2011]

Aniston helped her friend Courteney Cox’s shows by doing cameos on both her FX show Dirt where they had a same sex kiss (ooh edgy) and on Cougar Town. The Aniston factor didn’t lend much of a boost to either show, though, with Dirt being canceled and Aniston’s episode of Cougar Town underperforming.

It’s rather amusing to me that Aniston is turning Chelsea down flat though. She’ll get drunk with her and make quesadillas and she’ll give advice on scripts but when it comes to making a cameo on Chelsea’s show Aniston won’t stick her neck out. Does this mean that Chelsea will retaliate by not making rude jokes about people who wronged Aniston?

Photos are from 7/7/11 of Aniston’s hand and footprint ceremony and also feature Jason Bateman. Credit: WENN.com

TMZ reported a few weeks ago that Ashton Kutcher had an enormous double decker trailer as his home away from home on the Two and a Half Men set. As we’ve also heard, Ashton is currently the highest paid actor on television with this new, untested gig and is pulling in at least $700,000 an episode. TMZ did a follow up that Ashton’s take home was actually higher than that, from around $800,000 to $900,000 an episode. Either way, he’s making big money and he has a big ass trailer to go along with that. E! had photos of the exterior and interior of those type of trailers, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s nicer and bigger than my apartment. Ashton’s trailer is outrageous. It looks twice the size of one of those 50s diners, and the design is reminiscent of one too. E! reports that the trailer is 1,000 square feet.

Wait, this is a trailer?!

We knew the folks over at Two and a Half Men are enjoying Ashton Kutcher on set, but we didn’t know they loved him enough to fork over $8,750 a week for him.

Reports are saying that Charlie Sheen’s replacement will be staying in one of these babies while shooting the sitcom.

Let’s take a look inside!

This luxurious 1,000 square-foot Anderson Mobile Estate includes two bathrooms, a kitchen with granite counter tops, a wireless touch screen that controls heat, air conditioning, brightness and the blinds, and a conference area.

Oh did we mention there’s seven 60-inch 3-D plasma TVs, also? Yeah, we’re serious.

As if that wasn’t enough, the mobile home also includes side sections and a second floor that hydraulically emerges from the main body of the vehicle.

In case you’re wondering how much pocket change you’d have to set aside to own one of these bad boys, it’d be somewhere around $2 million.

Considering how much bank Kutcher will be making per episode, he just might make this purchase permanent.

[From E! Online]

That’s insane. At first didn’t buy those reports that Ashton was being a diva by scoring a big trailer, but now that I see the extent of it I do. It doesn’t seem like the studio would volunteer to set him up in one in those monstrous things. It’s not like they’re clamoring to get him a trailer that could double as a house.

Trailer Photos via Anderson Mobile Estates. Header photo is from a photoshoot in June, credit: Reis/Fame Pictures

Kelso is cashing in on Charlie Sheen’s crazy. According to TV Guide, Ashton Kutcher is currently the highest paid sitcom actor at $700,000 an episode. He makes double what Laurence Fishburne did, $350,000 an episode, for his stint on CSI. Kutcher’s salary is still less than Charlie Sheen was pulling, $1.2 million an episode, but it certainly remains substantial. Leads on series usually make less than $150,000. It of course remains to be seen how well Two and Half Men will perform with Ashton at the helm, but he’s cheaper than Charlie at least.

Meanwhile Details has a glowing cover story on Ashton in which they portray him as some kind of tech guru. He seems overrated to me, and I still remember his failed attempt at entering the Internet gossip sphere, his short-lived series in which he tried to punk the celebrity press, and the fact that he hired a PR company that regularly spammed blogs with ads for it. He’s just an actor on Twitter and Facebook, but I have to give him some credit for being interested in technology and following it closely. Ashton also addresses the Twitter flame war he got in with the Village Voice when they called him out for using false numbers to discuss human trafficking. He handles it better than he did before, I’ll say that.

Details: The Village Voice just called you out for citing spurious statistics in your advocacy against child prostitution. You fired back on Twitter that their online adult classifieds constituted “a digital brothel,” then encouraged Disney, Domino’s, and American Airlines to pull their advertising. Is that what you’re talking about?
Ashton Kutcher: I think that was irresponsible journalism on their part, but I don’t want to speak about the company.

Details: Okay. Generally speaking, what is it about platforms like Twitter that allows individuals to take on institutions?
Ashton Kutcher: You can’t just say shit anymore, because people have the ability to speak up. At the same time, with the Village Voice thing, I definitely have to take responsibility for misrepresenting the data. It’s forcing transparency both ways.

Details: The line between online life and real life is getting blurrier. Is that a good thing?
Ashton Kutcher: I wouldn’t bifurcate the two. I wouldn’t say you have an online life and a real life. I think technology is just mapping and organizing what already exists. If you’re an asshole offline, you’re probably an asshole online.

Details: As a celebrity, you’re used to managing the boundary between your public and private selves. Is that something we all have to do now?
Ashton Kutcher: You have to learn to negotiate it, or you can choose not to participate. It’s almost like a manifestation of God. People used to behave morally because they thought God was always watching—in some ways God today is the collective, and the collective is watching.

Details: Sounds kind of creepy. Do you think privacy is overrated?
Ashton Kutcher: I think privacy is valuable. You don’t have to share everything, and it’s healthy to occasionally hit the pause button and ask yourself if you’re oversharing. But at the end of the day, if you’re not doing anything wrong you don’t have anything to hide.

Details: What do you think is coming that will blow our minds five or ten years from now?
Ashton Kutcher: I think the big next wave will be wearable technologies. Your phone will be your true PC, and these technologies will act as your mouse and keyboard. You’ll have a high-fashion bracelet that will perform functions for you—it’ll track your health, your movement, your sleep, your activity—and by wearing a couple of rings, you’ll be able to type in the air or take pictures with your fingers. There’ll be a device that will track your eye movement, whether it’s an earpiece with a camera or a necklace that can project and record. That Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, got a lot of it right from what I’ve seen.

Details: What about old media? You’re returning to television soon, taking over for Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men. Who’s your character going to be?
Ashton Kutcher: It’s somewhere between an alien and Jesus Christ, but I can’t be more specific than that.

Details: Have you talked with Charlie about filling his old job?
Ashton Kutcher: I don’t know him. I’ve never met him in my life. But, you know, he sent me congratulations and wished me well. Via Twitter.

[From Details]

I think Ashton is off about wearable technology. His description of rings that allow you to type in the air sounds ridiculous, like it might be technically possible but I doubt that people will want to type in the air using some kind of ring. I agree that computers and smart phones will get smaller and more portable. In terms of the Minority Report comparison, remember those little spider camera things in that movie? We’re getting close to that with drone technology now, which is basically just sticking a smart phone on to a remote controlled devices.

That was really weird the way he claimed God was “the collective.” Ashton is a member of the Kabbalah cult, which is a paid-for distorted version of the Jewish mystic religion. That could be where he got that concept of God as everything and everyone. Is he saying that his moral behavior is partially due to the fact that he can so easily get busted as a celebrity? I’m probably giving him too much credit.

Ashton still seems dim to me and in no way worth $700k an episode, but it’s not like Charlie Sheen deserved over a million an episode either.

Oh in terms of that Details cover it looks ‘shopped into oblivion to me. There are no lines whatsoever on Ashton’s face. Kaiser thinks he looks hot without the beard though.

Kirstie Alley might be gracing our television screens with her trademark sneer again soon. Dateline is reporting that she’s about to get a pilot sitcom on ABC called “The Manzinis.” The concept is an updated version of Rosanne, with Alley as the wise-cracking matriarch. I’m not buying it, but I guess Alley earned enough fans and newfound fame on Dancing With the Stars to attempt to revive her acting career. She still bugs me, and I’m not likely to watch this. Here’s the news from Deadline:

Following her memorable run on Dancing With the Stars last spring, Kirstie Alley is returning to ABC as the star of a new comedy project. I’ve learned that ABC is finalizing the deals for a pilot order to The Manzanis, a multi-camera family comedy written by sitcom veterans Marco Pennette and Dave Flebotte, with Alley attached to star. ABC Studios and studio-based Brillstein Entertainment are producing. The sitcom is described as a new take on Roseanne, and stars Alley as a very opinionated wife/mother who, along with her family, the Manzanis, moves to repressed country-club town. Pennette and Flebotte are executive producing with Brillstein’s new TV president JoAnn Alfano. Also expected to executive produce are Aaron Kaplan (Good Christian Belles) and Alley’s manager Jason Weinberg.

The Manzanis was originally developed two years ago at Brillstein under then-TV president Peter Traugott. It was a contender again this past season but ultimately didn’t go to pilot. Then about a month ago, UTA, which represents the project, approached ABC topper Paul Lee, who was open to picking up the comedy if Alley would come onboard to star. Pennette did a rewrite on the script to have the main character better reflect Alley’s voice, and the script was given to the actress, also a UTA client, who just recently read it and liked it.

[From Deadline]

Did you see Kirstie on The Late Show last reading off all the jokes that David Letterman had told about her weight? She wasn’t bad, but I was distracted by her helmet hair and bright purple dress. I didn’t watch her whole interview, but CBS had up another clip where she tried to demonstrate to Dave what NY city clubs are like by bumping and grinding against him while he stood there looking bewilidered.

The good news is that this is a pilot so it might not result in a full series pickup. No matter the status of this show, Alley isn’t going away anytime soon. I reluctantly checked her obnoxious Twitter accounta nd she mentioned that she’s also working on a book. “Wait till my book comes out.. It’s all about Mens….ya gotta love Mens…they are priceless…;)”

Alley already has a book out, 2005′s How To Lose Your Ass and Regain Your Life: Reluctant Confessions of a Big-Butted Star. Many reviewers noted that while the book was funny, the title was misleading and it didn’t have much information about her battle with her weight or any diet advice. For that you have to buy her expensive weight loss program, which bears a suspicious resemblance to the vitamins and supplements used in Scientology rituals. On the website for Kirstie’s program, Organic Liaison, (site has automatic video) she’s still claiming to be a size 6.

After I wrote all that, Kaiser pointed me to this new story in The NY Post which heavily suggests that her dance partner, Maksim, fled to Europe to get the hell away from her. They don’t outright state that the two were having an affair, but it’s implied. I just don’t see these two bumping uglies, but I could be wrong. Kirstie would definitely try.

Warning: this is extremely violent

A new sneak preview for Walking Dead Season Two, which is filming now, was released after the AMC premiere of Breaking Bad season 4 this Sunday. (I haven’t seen the new BB yet but this reminds me to get it on iTunes tonight!) The clip (above) is just of protagonist Rick smashing in some zombie’s head with a rock. The show is incredibly gritty and this video reminds me of the violence and realism on Walking Dead that can potentially haunt your dreams. I try not to watch it right before bed and I found this clip disturbing. It made my stomach flip. I like the show more for the character development and story and find the violence off-putting, but you get used to it and it sometimes seems necessary given the plot.

Spoilers for last season:
I’ve read all the Walking Dead comics* and have already seen how this next season potentially plays out. However, the last two episodes of the first TV season were unlike anything in the comics in that there was no CDC and no master computer that threatened to blow everyone up. I found that plot twist incredibly dumb and unnecessary. Why would a computer detonate an entire building with no override function? It was just asinine. It’s already been revealed by multiple people involved in the show’s production that the show will follow the comics closely in this next season.

To find out more potential (mild) spoilers for the upcoming season, highlight the text below:
In the comics, the group spends time in the countryside on a farm and we’re introduced to some new characters. There’s also a new romance for Glenn, and we get to see that on the show. The farm is definitely happening this season.

Here are four spoiler-filled links to interviews and details about the second season, which doesn’t premiere until October! They should have been on this sooner in order to rollout the new season by the end of the summer, but I doubt they anticipated how popular it would be.

I’m looking forward to Walking Dead, but the creepiness factor gets to me, especially when I see videos like this where we’re just confronted with violence without any context. When you see it as part of a whole well-told episode, it’s not as bad. I’m pretty squeamish with violence though.

If you’re in the US, you can see more clips behind the scenes on AMCtv.com

*On a side note, I never read comics until I got started with Walking Dead and now I love them. The downside is that they’re addictive and can get expensive. I use the Comixology app, which is free on the iPad and iPod, with comics that cost about $1.99 each. Other series I recommend from Comixology are Y: The Last Man, Forgetless, and Morning Glories. I never really got into the hero comics, but there are surely some excellent ones.