BuzzSugar

Shopping at the Buy More . . . I Mean, Visiting the Set of Chuck

BuzzSugar — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:30:00 -0700

My first instinct upon stepping into the Buy More was to reach for the brochure for the store credit card. Hey, maybe I could get even better deals at the green-and-yellow big-box store if I just got one of the store-branded pieces of plastic . . .

I pulled my hand back just in time - the brochures, like everything else, were props on the set of Chuck during my visit on the TCA press tour. But it was hard to convince myself we were on a set, not just a Best Buy or CompUSA that had given the Warner Bros. TV crew the go-ahead to film there that day. As much as the set of ER felt like a real hospital, the set of Chuck felt even more like a place I might go to pick up some new DVDs and an extra controller for my Wii.

"We went to a lot of Best Buys, a lot of CompUSAs," said Paul Marks, the Chuck producer who oversees the set. "Just so it looked as real as possible."

There aren't a lot of signs that the 17,000-square-foot store isn't real, so to hear more about it, just read more.

The walls are lined with 50 TVs of various size and screen quality, all on. Every computer is functional, as are the video games. Even the DVD racks are full of real movies - "If you have so many choices, it doesn't feel like you're favoring one thing," said executive producer Josh Schwartz. When the show was first getting started, the producers needed an entire sound stage just for shipping and receiving, painstakingly cataloging each product for three weeks. To film the season one episode where there's a shootout at the Buy More, the crew took the entire store apart, transported it wholesale to a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, and reassembled it in exactly the same layout.

Chuck embraces the geek love for Hello Kitty, with one whole end shelf dedicated to pink-and-white Sanrio products. There's also a big display for the RoboSapien and another with various guitars for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It doesn't look like it would be a soul-sucking place to work. In fact, it looks . . . kinda awesome.

"We don't want it to feel like a bummer every time you go to the Buy More," Schwartz said. "For us, we go into a Best Buy and it's really fun - there's lots of cool new stuff you can buy, there's video games, there's music. It's a fun world. That's what we wanted to reflect here."

It certainly worked for this busload of critics, who wandered around flipping through CDs, checking out the HD TV displays, and reading the rules for deployment of a Nerd Herd car. I leaned in to read the fine print on one sign, which listed a special deal where you could have your own personal Buy More nerd set up your computer, and came across this little gem: "Additional Charges May Apply. Like Felony Possession of a Really Lame Computer."

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. TV

Jennifer Hudson Makes a Big Move Back to the Big Screen

BuzzSugar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:30:38 -0800

I was a bit worried about what would become of Jennifer Hudson's film career when she followed up her tour de force performance in Dreamgirls with a role in Sex and the City, but it looks like the singer/actress is ready to sink her teeth into another juicy role. Hudson is set to play Winnie Mandela, Nelson's former wife, in the upcoming drama Winnie. The film is based on the Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob biography Winnie Mandela: A Life and will be directed by Darrell J. Roodt.

We'll get a peek into Nelson Mandela's life in next month's release of Invictus, but I might be even more curious to learn about Winnie. After taking a hiatus to work on her music, I'm interested to see if Jennifer can carry such a big role - sounds to me like she may already have another Oscar on the brain.

Are you psyched to see Jennifer return to the big screen, or do you prefer her as a singer?

Link Time! Bob Saget Gets His Own Reality Show

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:30:41 -0800

Bob Saget will investigate odd American subcultures on a new reality series for A&E - The Hollywood Reporter
Christopher Waltz talks about The Green Hornet - Vulture
Decorating ideas to steal from the set of New Moon - CasaSugar
Check out the new Alice in Wonderland posters - Rotten Tomatoes
HSM writer Peter Barsocchini is developing a new series for Nickelodeon about Summer camp. Salute your shorts redux? - PopWatch
Rob Marshall will direct Pirates of the Caribbean 4 - Worst Previews
Take a sneak peek at tonight's episode of V - MTV Movies Blog
The Magnetic Fields announce their 2010 tour - Pitchfork
Usher's new album, Raymond vs. Raymond, will drop on Dec.21 - Billboard

Rob, Kristen, and Taylor Are This Week's Entertainment

BuzzSugar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:56:22 -0800

Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner have been posing for photo ops all over town - check out Pop's favorite promo tour moments - and it wouldn't be complete without an interview with Entertainment Weekly. In the cute interview, the costars quip about everything from Rob's attachment to his signature hair to Kristen's confession that she'd like to quit smoking to Taylor's obsession with hitting the gym for New Moon. There're also tidbits about Rob and Kristen's off-screen relationship and how Robert handles fandom. They're clearly a tight-knight trio, so check out the highlights below. If you can't get enough Twilight, keep the convos going in the Twilight Saga community group, and be sure to check back next week for my own interview with Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz!

Robert Pattinson on his hair in Eclipse: I swear to you I’ve never experienced anything like this. It's every single day. In Twilight, they wanted me to have extensions down to my hips.
Kristen Stewart: He's a liar. He doesn't remember. He's remembering how they made him feel, but they were just, like, down to here [pointing to her shoulders].
Pattinson: So I told them, "Look, that's just not going to happen." I said, "It looks like this already – I'll come to set like this." I sound so stupid, but in a lot of ways the hair is 75 percent of my performance, so in the second one I said, "Listen, I need to tone down the hair. Let's make it a little more real, a little bit more . . . Method.” [Laughs] And then in the third one, I'm doing fight scenes and there's a strand going down my forehead and they're like, "We need to do it again because no one will recognize you! No one will know who it is!" I'm like, really, is my face that generic?
Stewart: They want proof that you're doing your own stunts, man!
Pattinson: I have to look like the poster at all times. Just in case they want to use any clip for the trailer. Any clip at all! There were about five people in different departments who, because of my forelock, ended up in tears.

For tons of more quotes, just read more.

EW: How are you all coping with living in a fishbowl?
Pattinson: It really depends on the mood. When I met you last year [before Twilight came out], I was doing interviews very sporadically and I never got recognized. Now it's like anywhere I go there's immediate recognition. So there's more of a responsibility . . .
Stewart: I don't mind working every day. It's just, suddenly, I have this other role. And that's really disappointing. All I'd like to do is go outside with a book and figure out what to do with the day. And if I can't do that, then I'm just going to sit in my hotel room on my balcony and chain smoke. [Pauses] I'm going to stop smoking. I'm not such a good smoker, anyway. It's not in my bones. I'm gonna drop it.
Pattinson: The three of us have been working for two years [straight]. It does feel like your day has a shape just as soon as you wake up. I just forget what it's like when you're free.
EW: Taylor, you're the only one who almost lost a shot at the sequels. Do you have a different relationship with fame because you had to fight for your job?
Lautner: No, I kept my eye on the prize 100 percent of the time. I was motivated. I wasn't even thinking about anything else.
Stewart: Thank God you got the job. I wouldn't have wanted to deal with you if you didn’t. After all those months of working out!
Lautner: I just wanted to focus on what I could control, and I worked really hard.
EW: You mean in the gym? Because I see your abs everywhere these days.
Lautner: Yeah, the gym was a major part, but I really studied the books and the character, too. And it all turned out good.
EW: Kristen, it must be nice to watch the guys' appearances get obsessed over for a change.
Stewart: Seriously, it's a trip to sit back and look at the sexual objectification of these dudes. I've never been asked to do any of this stuff.
EW: You guys are lucky. You clearly all dig each other.
Lautner: The amount of time we have to spend with each other – if I didn't like these two, it would be exhausting.
EW: Rob, you made Remember Me this summer, between sequels. Was that the set in New York, where you were knocked into a cab by hordes of fans?
Pattinson: That was completely made up. I was walking across the street, and there was one cab going about one mile an hour and it nudged my leg. The story ended up being how I got hit by a cab because of a mob of screaming fans, [but] it was 4 o'clock in the morning and there was one person there – a paparazzi. . . . And then there was another time – apparently they said on the news that I had a drug overdose. The security guy saw it on TV, and I wasn't in my room, and he was like, "Uh-oh!" It's just so weird. I wake up and my room is too messy to order room service, and so I end up eating a pack of M&M’s for breakfast – and it takes me about five hours to find it. That's my first five hours of the day. [Laughing] And then you see the news and think, "Who cares if he had a drug overdose? It would probably make him more interesting!"
EW: Kristen and Rob, why do you think people are so obsessed with the state of your off-screen relationship?
Pattinson: Good question. That's a little thing I have to think about every day.
Stewart: Maybe it's just my personality, but I'm never going to answer it. I probably would've answered it if people hadn't made such a big deal about it. But I'm not going to give the fiending an answer. I know that people are really funny about "Well, you chose to be an actor, why don’t you just f---ing give your whole life away? Can I have your firstborn child?"
EW: You don’t think just saying, for example, "Listen, we dated for a few months, it was weird, we're better off as friends" would end the speculation?
Pattinson: No way.
Stewart: People are deeply judgmental and I'm not strong enough. I would love to be like, "I don't care what anybody thinks." But I'm a very private person. And think about every hypothetical answer: "Okay, we are. We aren't. I’m a lesbian." I've thought about this a lot. There's no answer that's not going to tip you one way or the other. I'm just trying to keep something. If people started asking me if I was dating Taylor, I'd be like, "F--- off." I would answer the exact same way."

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:30:00 -0700

It's Tuesday, which means your Netflix queue is about to get a bit fresher and longer. I've gone through today's new DVD and Blu-ray releases and have some recommendations for what you should rent next.

The Proposal

This Summer's super successful rom-com, The Proposal, stars Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in a pretty predictable scheme (you know, girl proposes to boy to avoid deportation), but I enjoyed this surprisingly funny movie. I tend to like both Reynolds and Bullock in general, and their chemistry in this one is pretty irresistible. It was also an audience-pleaser, raking in enough money in ticket sales to make it one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time.

44%

Check out two more new releases when you read more.

Drag Me to Hell

Drag Me to Hell, starring Justin Long and Alison Lohman, earned props in the horror genre for its clever premise and witty dialogue. Lohman stars as Christine, a bank teller whose life takes a turn for the terrifying when she is cursed by a gypsy. Long plays her boyfriend and sidekick who tries to help her regain control and banish the spirits.

I've heard this one is more fun than scary, and it marks Sam Raimi's return to the camp-horror genre (he's behind the Evil Dead franchise) and a respite from the Spiderman movies.

92%

Land of the Lost

In Land of the Lost, Will Ferrell stars as Rick Marshall, who finds himself stuck in a parallel universe littered with dinosaurs and ape men. With his sidekicks Holly and Will, the trio takes on the adventure of a lifetime and try to find their way back home.

The Summer blockbuster didn't do too well in theaters, making some wonder whether Ferrell fatigue had set in. However, the fun casting of Danny McBride and Anna Friel as Will and Holly could make this movie watchable.

DVD extras include deleted scenes, a Danny McBride featurette, and a Devil’s Canyon Gift Shop Commercial and Tour.

26%