BuzzSugar

Speed Read! Real World DC Premieres Tonight

TresSugar — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:30:43 PST

The latest Real World kicks off today in new host city Washington DC - BuzzSugar
The Dutch will use full-body scanners on people flying to the US – New York Times
Alleged David Letterman extorter uses Tiger Woods defense - The Daily Beast
Tiger Woods might be in rehab - Huffington Post
The Obama administration might take up immigration reform soon - LA Times
Millionaire tries to find love by advertising on a billboard - Lemondrop
France's Carla Bruni asks for pardon of cocaine smugglers and gets it - The Telegraph

"The Real World" Heads to Sydney

BuzzSugar — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:30:39 PST

For its 19th season - wow, has it been that long? - MTV's "The Real World" is heading to Sydney, Australia. Having already invaded many exotic (Key West, Hawaii) and not-so-exotic (Denver) locales in the States, the show is going abroad for the third time in its history (London and Paris were first).

I recently visited Sydney and was blown away but what an exciting, hip and beautiful city it is. In fact, the setting is almost - almost - enough to make me excited about "The Real World" again. After all, Sydney has many things to offer that should make for excellent "Real World" viewing, including:

24-hour bars.
Hot lifeguards.
Very nice, patient people who speak English.
Numerous opportunities for very bad sunburns.
Extremely confusing urban planning.
The treacherous Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb. (With luck, this will make a housemate cry.)
Giant bats with meter-wide wingspans. That's right: giant bats.

The Sydney season will start filming in a matter of weeks and is set to premiere sometime in late 2007.

Angelina Jolie on Not Living a "Shallow, Horrible Life"

Lauren Turner — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:58:59 PST

Angelina Jolie talks about living in the "real world" - UsWeekly
See Lourdes Leon's new shaved-head hairstyle - People
Did you know Matthew Perry is dating Lizzy Caplan? - Lainey Gossip
Oprah's got big Oscars plans - HuffPost Entertainment
LeAnn Rimes admits to calling the paparazzi - D-Listed
Ha! Hot celebrities who resemble modern-day cavemen - BuzzFeed
All the details on Katy Perry and Russell Brand's divorce settlement - YourTango
Lindsay Lohan and more of Wilmer Valderrama's many loves - Insider
Which Oscar nominee got mistaken for Kate Walsh? - JustJared
Vanessa Hudgens gets edgy in a see-through leather dress - Hollywood Tuna
Selena Gomez lands a big new role with Adam Sandler - Pink Is the New Blog
Madonna throws M.I.A. under the bus for her Super Bowl slipup - The Superficial
Not everyone loved Oscar nominee Midnight in Paris - The Daily Beast
Channing Tatum's hottest shirtless moments - TooFab
Khloe Kardashian is having fun with the different dad rumors - popbytes

See Steve Carell and Keira Knightley's Apocalyptic Movie Poster

BuzzSugar — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:46:24 PST

Check out the poster for Seeking a Friend For the End of the World - Moviefone
Read about the romance Justin Long is writing and starring in - NextMovie
Is Real Housewives of Miami coming back for another season? - BuddyTV
Get a peek at The Secret Circle's Valentine's episode - Zap2It
The 10 best movies of character actor Luis Guzmán - Rotten Tomatoes
Watch Michael Showalter confirm the Wet Hot American Summer sequel - HuffPostTV
Find out why Paradise Lost has been scrapped - /Film
10 movies that would be great in 3D - GeekSugar

Link Time: Kanye's Back in Paris, Coco Rocha Talks Models' Rights, and More

FabSugar — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:15:42 PST

Confirmed: Kanye West will show at Paris Fashion Week again - Fashionista
Marc Jacobs puts South Park characters on his new t-shirts - Styleite
How to look ready and rested on no sleep - The Fashion Spot
Designers and models support Obama at Runway to Win - HuffPo Style
Michael Kors's favorite design mistake (hint: it involves bodysuits) - The Daily Beast
Five chic ways to wear a chambray dress - Stylelist
How to define your signature style - Real Simple
Watch Michelle Obama wipe the White House floor with Jimmy Fallon - Jezebel
Fall in love all over again with Chanel's Valentine's Day collection - Bag Snob
The smallest traveling store in the world unpacks in NYC - Style.com
Karl Lagerfeld on staying thin, being human, and more - Fashionologie
Coco Rocha, Doutzen Kroes, and Shalom Harlow talk models' rights - The Cut

In Defense of the Chronically Late Mom

BabyCenter — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:01:11 PST

We're excited to share this post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we will be bringing you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Betsy Shaw about being late for school.

If I were to wear a scarlet letter it would be T.

T for tardy. T for turd ball. T for totally inept mother.

We are late for school with such alarming regularity it’s embarrassing. The last time we were on time, after a mini snowstorm that excited my children enough to urge them into their snowsuits and outside at 6:30 a.m., we got to school five minutes early to find it dark and empty. Delayed opening. I was apparently the only mother who didn’t get the memo.

Calling Charlie Brown…

Being late for school brings up a vicious brew of conflicting emotion in me. On the one hand I just don’t care. Life is short. Far too short to risk traumatizing your children with a bullwhip and terrorizing morning walkers and squirrels, not to mention my own white-knuckled children, speeding our way to school like Toad on a motorcar bender each weekday morning.

On the other hand I am ashamed, deeply embarrassed, to be “that mom.” All the other moms can do it, even the single ones. Why. Can’t. I? What’s wrong with me?

I complained about this once to a woman from South Carolina who I met on my Guatemala trip and she told me her school started at 7:30. She also made it clear her kids were never late.

Never late.

Keep reading for more of Betsy's reasoning for being late.

Chelsea Handler on Reese Witherspoon's Dirty Jokes and Her Seriously Unsexy Sex Scene

Lindsay Miller — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:45:18 PST

Chelsea Handler may be worlds away from the married, slightly bored mom she plays in This Means War, but there's plenty about the part that her fans will recognize. A prime example? A decidedly unsexy sex scene Chelsea improvised that involves Cheetos, as well as a straight-talking banter with Reese's character she says is cribbed from their real-life friendship. We chatted with Chelsea at a recent press day for the film to talk about her circle of famous female friends, including Reese and Jennifer Aniston, her workaholic tendencies, and why she likes being interviewed even more than interviewing. Check out our interview and see This Means War in theaters on Valentine's Day.

The Muppets' Music Man Bret McKenzie on His Oscar Nod and Taking a Silly Job Seriously

Lindsay Miller — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:50:41 PST

Bret McKenzie is up for an exceedingly rare honor this year, with his ballad "Man or Muppet" earning one of just two nominations in the Oscars' best song category. I caught up with The Muppets' musical supervisor today at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank to chat about the awards attention and the unique experience of penning music for Kermit and company. The New Zealand native talked about fighting the temptation to use the word "motherfrogger" in his songwriting and the roundabout way he came on board The Muppets project in the first place. Bret - who previously was best known as one half of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords - also shared his hopes of bringing FOC to the big screen. Check out our conversation below:

PopSugar: It's got to be an honor to be nominated for an Oscar, but also in a year when the Academy only bothered to nominate two songs.
Bret McKenzie: They barely nominated anyone! When I found out, it sounded like there'd been a mistake, and yeah, it's a huge honor. It's great and it's really exciting, and I'm not complaining that there's only two nominees the year I'm nominated. I mean, this is the best chance I'll have of winning an Oscar, ever. It couldn't have been better, unless there was just one nomination, and then it would be a very dull ceremony . . . There's a lot of legendary musicians - tunesmiths - in that list of possible nominations. So it's all very surreal to think that I got in ahead of Elton John.

PS: And Madonna. Those two had a little rivalry going on.
BM: I know. I got nervous about what Elton John's husband was going to say about me. It's crazy, and it's great for The Muppets film, because we're all really proud of the film and it wasn't ever really going to get a best actor. Hey, Jason's good, that's not what I mean, but Kermit, Miss Piggy - they can't win these awards - and comedies don't generally get recognized at these awards ceremonies, so it's kind of cool. It's almost like the film as a whole is being recognized with this category.

For more from our chat with Bret, including what he says about his plans for a Flight of the Conchords film, coaching Jason Segel, and the pressure he felt on the project, just

read more! PS: What was the biggest unexpected challenge for you writing music for the film? I know you talked about one draft of a song where you referred to a Muppet as a piece of felt and were told you couldn't do that. BM: Yeah. Little piece of felt, and you couldn't say things like motherfrogger, even though it's very tempting. There were lots of hard parts to it. The Muppets can't sing certain notes. They can't sing too high or the voice changes and doesn't sound like the right character. There were so many weird things. I spent hours recording penguins and rats, and what's weird is that it's such a silly job, but you have to take it very seriously. So I would be in the studio for days, maybe a whole day recording penguins, and then I'm like, "I'm not happy with how the penguins are sounding! Where's penguin four?" You know, getting demanding. "We lost penguin track four! I can't hear the penguin!" PS: I was watching the movie again last night and watching Jason Segel's performance of "Man or Muppet." Did you coach him on any of his rockstar moves? Because he pretty much nailed it. BM: He nailed it. That's my favorite moment in the film. When he buckles down in the rain, that was one of my favorite shots. I was so proud of what James [Bobin, the director] and those guys achieved, because I wasn't there on set, I just saw them syncing the video, and I was like, "Wow, guys. You nailed it." What we did do in the studio, as Jason and I had a technique where I would sing a line, and he'd watch me through the window, and then he'd sing it back. So we did this thing where, I was really into the drama of it. So, I was like, "Am I a Muppppettt?" [balling his hands into fists] And he'd be like, OK, record. "Am I a Muppppettt!" So we kind of worked together to get that style. PS: Did it shatter some of your childhood illusions to have the guy that does Miss Piggy's voice come work with you [in the recording studio]? BM: Yeah. Well, it wasn't Frank Oz. The guy Eric, who does it now, yeah. That was strange. And the day that we recorded Kermit the Frog doing "Rainbow Connection" - I was sort of pinching myself, because that was probably one of the real moments for me where I realized that my world had really changed. That I'd come from New Zealand, I'd grown up with Kermit the Frog, and now I was in Hollywood in a studio recording Kermit the Frog. It felt like worlds had collided. PS: Was there pressure knowing there was already this great catalog of Muppet songs? To try to add to that or top it in some way? BM: I knew I wouldn't top "Rainbow Connection," but I was very intimidated, but the way I worked on the job was it actually started with me just writing one song, so I didn't feel the pressure of writing the whole movie. I think it would have been different if I'd been hired from the outset to do all the music. So I wrote one, then another, and gradually wrote more and more, so that helped. PS: What song did you write first? BM: The opening song. That's the one they needed, that's the one James asked me to write first. The script was probably on a second draft, and they were in preproduction, so I came in quite late. And the way they were doing it was, they got 100s of demos submitted from all sorts of songwriters, and surprisingly - even though they got some really great people to do demos - people weren't quite hitting the right tone. The Muppet tone. I'd just come off the Conchords tour and I had some time, and James asked if I was interested in doing that opening song, because he had a kind of specific thing he needed from that song. He needed it to be really Muppet-y, that song, and he had a great idea for the whole town joining in, it starting off small and becoming a big musical number, and that came together really well. PS: Is this experience maybe something you want to bring to a Flight of the Conchords movie? BM: Yeah, exactly. Having done this movie now, we're in a much better place to do a Conchords film, because James is more experienced - well, we're all more experienced. Not specifically, but James Bobin - well, we're all very keen to do another studio musical, because I really enjoyed being able to do comedy musical numbers on such a grand scale, and I think next time, I really think it will just get better and better. Because it's such a fun genre, and we've done like 50 songs for TV now, and now The Muppets movie, and I feel like we've accidentally sort of become musical comedy experts. PS: What do you imagine Bret and Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords are up to these days, in their universe? BM: In the Lower East Side? That's a good question. I reckon they probably got a regular gig now. Like, at a Chinese restaurant. Photo courtesy Disney

Sneak Peek: The Real World Las Vegas's Hard Rock Penthouse

Julia Walsh — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 03:05:00 PST

The Real World returns to Las Vegas tonight at 10 p.m. EST for its 25th season premiere - can you believe it? The days when I followed the show have long been over, but I am continually impressed with the set decoration. This season the penthouse suite of the Hard Rock Casino in Sin City will be home to the seven new strangers. It's the perfect place to go wild with prints, bright colors, bold artwork, and graphic interior architecture, and the designer got it all right. If not in Vegas, where else would you indulge in over-the-top design? Come along and check out this sneak peek of the suite!

How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: Test Your Global Parenting IQ

LilSugar — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:34:55 PST

When journalist and writer Mei-Ling Hopgood gave birth to her daughter, Sofia, in her new home of Argentina, she became acutely aware of the cultural differences that exist when it comes to child-rearing. In her new book, How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (on sale Feb. 7), Hopgood travels the globe, exploring some of the world's most unexpected and unusual approaches to parenting.

Test your global parenting IQ by matching each of the below quotes from real parents to their home country. Then tell us, which custom or approach would you be most likely to try on your own lil ones?

Take the Quiz