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Mandy Moore Will Let Down Her Hair For Zachary Levi

BuzzSugar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:30:35 -0700

I know Mandy Moore is off the market, but how sweet does she look side by side with Zachary Levi? Unfortunately we won't get to actually see them as an item, but they'll be lending their voices to Disney's upcoming animated 3-D version of Rapunzel. Mandy will play the title role, while Zachary will play the "dashing bandit" that climbs up her locks and runs away with her.

I'm looking forward to hearing Mandy's sweet voice on the big screen, though I never pegged ~~Chuck~~ Zach for the singing type. I'm especially psyched to hear that Alan Menken will compose the music, since he's responsible for the beautiful, funny, and Oscar-worthy tunes from Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Now, the real question is: how do we just get Mandy to guest-star on Chuck?

Cute Movie Duo: Mandy Moore and the UK Office's Tim

BuzzSugar — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:30:58 -0700

They played exes in Dedication, but this time we'll get to see Mandy Moore and Martin Freeman playing a real married couple in the romantic comedy Swinging With the Finkels. All we know so far is that the two will be joined by Jonathan Silverman and Melissa George, who are playing another husband-and-wife team. And Jerry Stiller will also be in the film. The movie is being developed from writer/director Jonathan Newman's short film Sex With the Finkels, which debuted on the website Filmaka.

Martin Freeman will probably always be Tim (the precursor to Jim) on the original UK series The Office, a role that he made completely adorable. And Moore is just so cute, too. It will be funny to see these two, I'm guessing, deal with the idea of being a swinging couple. Cute and a little weird, probably.

What to Download: New Music Today

BuzzSugar — Tue, 26 May 2009 11:30:56 -0700

Tuesdays are big in entertainmentville: not only do all the new DVD releases hit Netflix, but new music also pours into stores. So I take a spin through each week's music releases and pick out some albums and tracks worthy of a download.

Something sweet: Mandy Moore's new album is titled Amanda Leigh, which is also Moore's given name. It's a title that seems to signal that perhaps these new songs are, compared to the rest of her repertoire, the most representative of who she is. Her voice remains sugar-sweet and easy on the ears, but it lacks some emotional depth, which hurts the album as a whole. But there are some strong, stand-out tracks, including "Merrimack River," "Everblue," and "Bug."

Brooklyn's calling: I'm pretty pumped for the new album from Brooklyn-based Grizzly Bear. Veckatimest is getting pretty stellar reviews, and from what I've listened to so far, it's the perfect laid-back indie-rock album for sunny Summer days and road trips (although, for what it's worth, this video literally gave me nightmares). Check out "Two Weeks," "While You Wait for the Others," and "Cheerleader."

New Mandy Moore Video Kicks Butt (and the Song Is Awesome, Too)

BuzzSugar — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:30:32 -0700

I find it easy to root for Mandy Moore. Despite her bubble gum music roots, it's been clear for some time that she's serious about finding herself as an artist. Her 2007 album, Wild Hope, was a good effort but lacked a standout single and also struck me as a little too adult contemporary for such a young, vibrant artist.

Well, if this first single from her new album is any indication, it sounds like Ms. Moore has found a way to add some sass and spunk to her pop sensibilities. The video for her song "I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week" is super cool and has Moore leaning on a wall, watching a group of martial artists kicking and bashing stuff. She looks great and even gets in on some of the butt-kicking action herself near the end.

And the song. The song! It's so adorable and catchy. I'm really impressed and can't wait to hear more from her. The album, Amanda Leigh, is due out May 26. To watch the video for yourself, read more.

Link Time! 9/25

BuzzSugar — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:30:08 -0700

Got a question for Mandy Moore? She'll be appearing on iVillage's "In the Loop" show tomorrow, so send in your questions for Mandy now!
NBC has blogs from Josh Schwartz on "Chuck," Tim Kring and Jack Coleman on "Heroes," and Kevin Falls on "Journeyman."
Perhaps you can think of a better caption than Popwatch's for this photo of Brad Pitt and his nosebleed on the set of Burn After Reading.
BuddyTV mulls why "Smallville" is advertising Supergirl so much.
Stereogum has a track from Joni Mitchell's first album in 10 years.
According to Cinematical, Rachel Weisz and Chloe Sevigny are battling it out for a role in Terminator 4.
TV Filter kept track of all the great stunts on the season premiere of "The Bachelor."
Idolator tested out Amazon's new mp3 download store.
Maya Rudolph may or may not be returning to "Saturday Night Live." TV Guide's Ausiello is still trying to sort it all out.

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Dedication: Too Weird for Its Own Good

BuzzSugar — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 06:00:00 -0700

Dedication, the directorial debut from Justin Theroux, is a weird little movie. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, Dedication gets a little too lost in its own weirdness, ultimately overwhelming what could be a sweet, unlikely love story.

At the heart of Dedication is Henry Roth (Billy Crudup), a basket case of a children's book writer who occasionally has to put heavy objects (encyclopedias or other large books, preferably) on top of himself to feel safe. The one person in the world who can tolerate his antics is his illustration partner, Rudy Holt (Tom Wilkinson), whose particular brand of tough love seems to calm Henry down. The two are working on a tough deadline for a children's book based on their character of Marty the Beaver (dreamed up, amusingly enough, in a porno theater) when Rudy dies suddenly of a brain tumor. That leaves Henry without an illustrator, not to mention without an anchor to the regular, non-neurotic world.

Enter Lucy (Mandy Moore), an illustrator plucked by editor Arthur Planck (Bob Balaban) to work with Henry. Henry spends most of his time trying to figure out just how insulting and nasty he can be to Lucy before she gives up and leaves him alone; considering she's been offered $200,000 if she gets Henry to finish the book (unbeknownst to him, of course), it will take a lot more than insults to get her to leave. It's a perfectly solid plot, but Theroux doesn't control the movie's tone enough to execute it well. To see what I mean, read more

The first half of the movie feels trippy and surreal, something straight out of a David Lynch film (an effect I doubt is coincidental - but more on that later). Henry, angry over Rudy's death, continues speaking to his dead partner in a series of dream sequences, shot with a choppy, deliberate camera effect. Crudup does a fine job of conveying Henry's various psychoses, and though much of his character is never really explained - why the books? why the OCD tendencies to rearrange the condiments at every restaurant? - he's interesting enough. One of Theroux's greatest strengths as a director is his use of music, and the soundtrack adds a lot to the story, with the disjointed sounds of Deerhoof giving an additional window into Henry's psyche and the more mellow Cat Power representing Lucy's calming presence. But in general, the effects are a little too strange to be useful; after the first couple of jolts into Henry's alternate reality where Rudy is still alive, the device felt tired.

But I still prefer the vaguely experimental tone of the movie's first half to the more standard love story it becomes in the end, because in all the trippiness, Theroux forgets to give us much reason to care about Henry or Lucy. Mandy Moore gives Lucy a good underlying toughness, but her character - who is also trying to decide whether to get back with her professor/thesis adviser (Martin Freeman) - isn't written deeply enough to understand why she'd put up with either of these guys. When the weirdness of the movie's first half starts to fall away, the story just feels empty.

Which brings me back to David Lynch. Theroux, who worked with Lynch on Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, wrote in the press notes for Dedication about how the legendary director had influenced his own style. So I suppose it's not surprising that Dedication feels like a clumsy attempt at taking elements of Lynch's films and applying them to a romantic comedy. But, well, even Lynch himself isn't famous for his great romantic comedies.

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First Look: Mandy Moore on "How I Met Your Mother"

BuzzSugar — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:26:27 -0700

I usually leave the celebrity gushing to Pop, but I have to make an exception for Mandy Moore, who I think is hilarious and best-friend-worthy and deserving of a lot more credit than she gets for her acting. I'm hopeful that her guest spot on the Sept. 24 season premiere of "How I Met Your Mother" will prove me right. Moore plays a hard-drinking, heavily tattooed bad girl whom Ted meets on his first night out on the town, and she's already got a couple of good lines just in this short clip from the episode. To watch it, read more

Photo and video courtesy of CBS

First Look: Mandy Moore, Billy Crudup in Dedication

BuzzSugar — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:20:00 -0700

There hasn't been much of a publicity push for Dedication, a strange little indie romantic dramedy starring Mandy Moore and Billy Crudup, which can sometimes be a very good sign. After all, the last two movies I saw with Moore in them (Because I Said So, License to Wed) enjoyed major marketing pushes and then turned out to be some of the year's most embarrassing disappointments. For Moore's sake, I hope Dedication is a quality movie so we can see that it's not the actress that was the problem - it was the material.

Crudup plays Henry Roth, a peculiar, misanthropic and slightly unstable man who requires certain things (like sleeping with heavy objects resting on his body) to feel safe. Henry writes children's books that inform children of Santa Claus' nonexistence. When his best friend and book illustrator dies, Henry is paired with a new illustrator, the young, pretty Lucy (Moore), who possesses a quirkiness of her own. The two struggle to get along, and surely a kind of love starts to bloom between them. Amy Sedaris and Martin Freeman (the original Tim from the BBC "Office"!) also star. Dedication opens in limited release August 24, so to watch the trailer, read more

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Link Time! 8/7

BuzzSugar — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:18:36 -0700

Best Week Ever brings us the latest NSFW clip from Superbad.
Give Me My Remote can't wait to see Mandy Moore play a "vodka-swilling train wreck" on "How I Met Your Mother."
Cinematical is a little creeped out by priests in the UK falling for Universal's PR campaign for Evan Almighty.
You Ain't No Picasso captures my heart with a playlist honoring "Man vs. Wild."
The TV Addict is loving "Weeds" creator Jenji Kohan even more these days.
The Music Slut shows us which video Bjork chose in the "Innocence" video contest.
With Zachary Quinto firmly in place as Spock, Television Without Pity attempts to recast the rest of Star Trek.
Forget John McCain; according to Vulture, Ted Allen is the real Straight Talk Express.
Pretty Much Amazing thinks the US single from J. Lo's new album is better than the one the UK is getting.
TV Squad wonders if Rob Thomas of "Veronica Mars" is having a mid-career crisis with his move from "Miss/Guided" to "Big Shots."

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License To Wed: Don’t Walk Down That Aisle

BuzzSugar — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:30:00 -0700

I would love to write wonderful things about License to Wed. I wish I had things to say about the comedic timing, the brilliant acting and the warm fuzzy feeling you get from just the right amount of cheesiness in the ending. These would be the makings of a great romantic comedy, which unfortunately, License to Wed just isn't.

From the moment the movie begins, the story is rushed. The first few minutes give us a montage showing how our leading characters meet each other, fall in love and are catapulted into the hellacious chain of events that is License to Wed. John Krasinski and Mandy Moore are Ben and Sadie, the adorably average couple who find themselves trying to gain a minister’s approval with their big day just 3 weeks away. In order to get their marriage license, Reverend Frank (the obnoxious and cringe-worthy Robin Williams) puts the couple through trials that are supposed to test their compatibility and their ability to act as responsible parents and spouses. These pose problems for the couple, of course so read more

Of course, as anyone can predict, Ben’s patience is tested more than anything else. Since it was Sadie’s wish to be married by Reverend Frank, she sees nothing wrong with his absurd antics, which range from prohibiting the couple from having sex to leaving two hideous robotic babies in their care. I begrudgingly accepted this behavior from Teri Polo in Meet the Parents but coming from Sadie, it is virtually unforgivable. Not only does she candidly discuss her sex life with the Reverend while Ben watches with incredible embarrassment, but she agrees to drive her car blindfolded as a means to test her communication skills with Ben, with no reservations whatsoever. There were about 50 things in License to Wed that were pretty inconceivable, but that one takes the cake for sure.

The movie does have aspects that could have been developed a little more for the greater good. The supporting cast, which includes Christine Taylor and a handful of John's quirky co-stars from The Office are very funny, but their on-screen time is little more than teasing cameos that leave us wanting more.

As bad as this movie is, there is a glimmer of hope which can be found in Mandy and John. While there are no surprises in the way Ben and Sadie seem to mirror John and Mandy’s personalities, the characters compliment each other in a way that is at times delightful. They are both so likable and exude that air of being a couple that you want to root for. Unfortunately, my affinity for the couple only made it that much more frustrating when they were overshadowed by Robin Williams and his ridiculousness. It is refreshing to see a fairly new pair of actors on the screen, but it is wasted on a movie that never really takes off.

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.