Big Brother

• The British Academy of Film and Television/Los Angeles will honor Emily Blunt as British artist of the year on Nov. 5. — Variety
• Big Brother will be watching again starting July 9. — TV.com
• Chevy Chase is joining the cast of the time-travel comedy Hot Tub Time Machine. — ComingSoon
• How to watch the Britain's Got Talent finale if you're not in the UK. — AP
• Naval captain Richard Phillips' life rights have been acquired by Columbia Pictures. — Variety
• TLC has ordered a new reality show about lavish weddings. — The Hollywood Reporter
• Seann William Scott and Adam Brody are joining Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Kevin Smith's buddy action comedy A Couple of Dicks. — ComingSoon
• Kristin Chenoweth will star in a Christmas movie for Lifetime. — Broadcasting and Cable

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• TNT has renewed Saving Grace and Raising the Bar, while HBO has OK'd a second season of True Blood. — Zap2it
• Nicole Kidman may become an action star, now that she's in talks to be in the "character-driven, treasure-hunting" action-adventure The Eighth Wonder. — Hollywood Reporter
• Fred Wolf (director of The House Bunny) will write and direct the dude road trip movie Divorced Guys, which will star David Spade. — ComingSoon
• Metallica's new album is topping the Billboard 200 list, making it the band's fifth No. 1 album. — Billboard
• Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito and Jenna Fischer are in talks to join the movie Solitary Man, which follows "a car magnate with a runaway libido." — Variety
• Kirsten Dunst will produce and star in an adaptation of the book A Jealous Ghost. — ComingSoon
• Here's who won Big Brother 10. — AP
• Stephen Colbert will debut "A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!" on Comedy Central on Nov. 23. — Billboard

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• ComingSoon reports that Harry Potter 6 will definitely be released in IMAX when it hits theaters November 21.
• ABBA drummer Ola Brunkert has died at the age of 62, writes Billboard.
• Though the current season hasn't been getting great ratings, another season of Big Brother has been slated for this summer, Reuters reports.
• CBS Films shelled out a cool $1 million for an untitled Dan Fogelman comedy script about four semi-retired baby boomers who take a trip to Las Vegas, according to Variety.
• Justine Bateman will guest-star on Desperate Housewives playing an artist living with Gaby and Carlos, TV Guide reports.




• Radiohead has launched a contest for animated, fan-made videos for any song from In Rainbows, according to the Associated Press.
• Hollywood Reporter writes that Kathy Bates and Rupert Friend have joined Michelle Pfeiffer in the French period drama Cheri.
• Ashlee Simpson's third album, Bittersweet World, will be released April 22, Billboard reports.

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• Jordin Sparks will open for Alicia Keys on her North American As I Am tour that kicks off April 19 in Hampton, Virginia, E! Online reports.
• HBO's long-awaited adaptation of David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography John Adams has a premiere date, according to Zap2It. The seven-part miniseries starring Paul Giamatti will start on Sunday, March 16.
• ComingSoon has news that the same guys who wrote Saw IV and Saw V will write the Hellraiser remake Clive Barker Presents: Hellraiser.
• French writer and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet has died today at age 85, Reuters reports. Robbe-Grillet first came to fame as a novelist who rejected conventional writing structures in a style that came to be known as the "new novel."
• Variety writes that Persepolis was screened legally in Iran, despite the fact that the way the film presents the Iranian Revolution had originally outraged the government.
• MTV will run a 22-minute sneak peek of Internet series Quarterlife prior to the show's premiere on NBC. The Futon Critic has the details.
• A national autism group is demanding an apology from CBS over a remark a contestant on Big Brother made, writes the Associated Press. The contestant who made the remark said he works for an autism foundation.
• Billboard has the news that American Idol is teaming up with iTunes to offer downloads of every performance from the top 24 contestants. Full songs will be 99 cents, while full videos of the final 12 contestants will be $1.99. Don't we get this kind of thing for free from other networks?

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Starting next week, we'll get to see how CBS' steamy summer reality hit, Big Brother, fares during the colder months. The ninth edition of the show, which kicks off on Tuesday, Feb. 12, brings us 16 new contestants to eavesdrop on several times a week.

Of course, it wouldn't be Big Brother without a twist: This time, all 16 contestants are single, and when they arrive in the house, they'll be paired up with a pre-selected "soul mate" who will be their partner throughout the game's many twists and schemes — love connection or not. They even have to sleep in the same bed, which just seems wrong to me, though I guess the whole idea of living in a house with strangers under 24-hour surveillance seems a little wrong to me, too.

The show will take over three spots on the CBS schedule: 9 p.m. Tuesdays and 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Sundays, with Wednesdays being the weekly eviction broadcast. The 24-hour live feeds will be available again this round, too, if you're into that.

Want to meet the 16 potential lovebirds? Just read more