MamaPop™

Stumbling Toward Reading Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Oh, My!

It is true and no word of a lie: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a reworking of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice by Seth Grahame-Smith, is slated to come out in May of this year.  Austen's original tale of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy's fraught courtship apparently remains intact but is now fortified with scenes of ULTRAVIOLENT ZOMBIE MAYHEM!

What Happened to Jessica Simpson?

Photos of Jessica Simpson performing at a chili cook-off in Florida have been floating around the internet for the past week prompting people to ask: "What happened to Jessica Simpson?"

The More You Know: Surprise! Pete Doherty's House Is Just As Big Of A Mess As He Is

I guess this isn't terribly surprising really, though it's certainly a bit shocking: Pete Doherty, aka our generations poor excuse for a Keith Richards, recently proved just how little sense he has by letting an MTV camera crew into his dilapadated crack house of a home. Hilarity does not ensue.

Friday Eye Candy: Sugar Lumps Edition

I don't have HBO. I wish that I did. As it happens, up here on the frozen tundra of Canadaland, we just get HBO Canada, which - although I have not tested this theory directly - is almost certainly a pale, Molson-soaked derivative of its American forebear.

And because I do not pay extra fifty-hundred Canadian dollars a month for the privilege of streaming non-American HBO to my television, I do not get to watch the new season of Flight of the Conchords. Which is a heresy of some sort, although I'm not sure what.

So it is that I am resigned to pilfering contraband Conchord clips on YouTube.

(Bear with me. The Eye Candy segment of this post is coming.)

Heath Ledger Life Insurance To Go To Daughter

A bitter dispute over Heath Ledger's life insurance policy finally settled yesterday, a year after he died, and six months after it was filed in July of 2008.

In legal papers filed in L.A. County Superior Court, a deal has been struck between ReliaStar Life Insurance Company and the lawyer representing Matilda Rose, Heath's daughter and the beneficiary of the policy.

Commercials for Good Causes Inspire Odd Reactions

Many times, celebrity endorsements are a boon for your product or your cause. But things don't always work out that way.

This Season On Lost, As Written By Someone Who Has No Freaking Idea What's Going On Anymore

If you are like me, immediately after viewing an episode of Lost, you think: Thank God for Jason's recaps on Mamapop, because I do not have a damn clue what that was all about. And then maybe you read the recap and think: Hmm, I sure wish someone would break things down even further, using lots of pictures and really, really small words.

This post is for Those People.

THE ISLAND! It's like a record, baby! Spinning right round! And the needle is skipping! SKIPPING THROUGH TIME!

Dear ScaJo: Please Stop Rendering Good Music Lifeless

"...hmmm, I wonder what musical genius I should butcher next?"

Last year, Scarlett Johansson decided she wasn't saturating the media enough, so she scored a recording contract and put out an album made solely of Tom Waits covers. The results were...less than exciting. While ScaJo's song stylings are not quite as offensive as, say, Heidi Montag's or Paris Hilton's, her versions of Waits' compositions were dull, overmixed, neutered skeletons of the originals.

But then she decided to up and do it again, this time by taking all of the oomph out of a Jeff Buckley song.

No, really, if you think I'm exaggerating, please to be comparing two versions of the same song after the jump, and tell me she hasn't rendered it utterly lifeless.

Happy Birthday Tom Selleck, King of the Chest Hair

Sixty-four years ago today the stars aligned and the heavens bestowed upon earth a man who would bring the virtue - yea, it is a virtue - of chest hair and ensconce its appeal in the collective of 70s hotness.

Looking at this photo is like looking at a satellite image of a magical forest.

Touche, Joaquin Phoenix. Touche Indeed

We all should have seen it coming. We never wanted to believe it, right? That Joaquin Phoenix had gone completely off the deep end, ending his Hollywood career, becoming a RAPPER, and suddenly bearing a disturbing likeness to Vincent Gallo - who, let's face it, NO ONE wants to look like. Was this another curse of the Phoenix clan? That like his brother River, who tragically died at the age of 23, breaking my teenage heart, Joaquin was destined to burn out, not fade away?

Well, put away your hankies, kids, cause we've been punk'd.

Academy Awards Suing Company Selling Oscar Packages

Would you Buy a $175,000 package to attend the Oscars?  I wouldn't recommend it.  Because the people who put on the Oscars are not going to be honoring those tickets.  In fact, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has filed a law suit against an Arizona-based company selling a package to attend the awards show.

The Academy accused the company, called Experience 6 and McMurry Inc., of selling "black-market" tickets, because tickets to the show cannot be transferred or sold. 

NBC Rejects Sexy 'Veggie Love' PETA Ad, Because You Can't Interrupt the Super Bowl with Pumpkin Licking

Do you like animals enough not to eat them? Do you like vegetables so much that you want to sex with them (and now that I think about it, you don't have to like vegetables at all to have sex with them, which says some pretty gloomy things about our sex lives)?

Maybe vegetarianism and veggie-pleasuring logically follow one another, but NBC doesn't care about logic.  It only cares about not having sexy women on Superbowl ads.

PETA's recent 'Veggie Love' spot, which displays women in lingerie doing what women in lingerie usually do, ie. rub pumpkins on their crotches, was deemed too racy by NBC for the Superbowl.  After the jump, read the full list of items that needed 'edits' before the spot could be deemed acceptable.  And see the video, of course.  Isn't that why you were put on Earth? To watch video clips on the web during working hours?

Smarm Your Way Out of This One, Corn Refiners

Remember a couple of months ago when I went off a little bit about the Corn Refiners' Association irritating, pro-high fructose corn syrup ads? Yeah, well, interesting twists abound...

Comedy After Bush: Whither The Laughs?

With the election over, a lot of talk has been floating back and forth about change, new days, hope, that "yes we did," etc. But as the new administration takes office, the real question still remains.

How do you make Barack Obama funny?

In The Motherhood: Why Does This Make Me Want To Hurt Myself And/Or Others?

It seems like a good idea on paper. And the cast appears to be quite talented and respectable. So why does the little I've seen of ABC's new series In The Motherhood make me feel all ookey and cringe-y inside?

Have a look for yourself, and then we'll discuss.

Is there something wrong with me? (I mean, besides the obvious things) (Shut up!) (I mean REALLY.)

John Updike, Rest In Peace

JOHN UPDIKE
March 18, 1932 - January 27, 2009

Photo in Search of a Caption: Avril Lavigne