It's the battle of the TV copycats.
We count the ways the two reality shows are identical, and how they're not.
The TV stars team up on a cover of an international smash.
Does this mean she also descends from CHiPs?
Bobbi Kristina and 'brother' spotted kissing.
Most charming family ever?
With a name like Hedlund...
We landed on the moon!!!
Because clearly their movie careers aren't working out.
The SNL spin-off is a comedy classic - and it's now on Netflix Instant!
It could air 30 years after John Belushi's death.
Will we be calling him the Nard Pup?
Personally, I like the billboard idea.
Who wouldn't sell weed to a cop in uniform?
Roasting pretentious bloggers? I'm so there.
And it's hilarious.
Sundance, beards, and strippers, oh my!
Watching Rudd explode is a surprisingly shocking experience.
Plus Paul Rudd, who has an awesome beard.
Yes! Oh god, please, yes!
Get ready for even more 'Tron' stuff.
My name THOR! Brad Thor, but still, THOR!
Joseph tweeted on Tuesday that his brother died early Monday morning.
After releasing the teaser last week, the full-length dropped today -- and it's even grittier.
Sherri Cooper and Jennifer Levin have two new shows in the works
Coogan joins Jesse Peretz comedy starring Paul Rudd
Oscar winning director to tell the life of human rights legend Jack Healey
Rudd cast in new comedy from Jesse Peretz
The Hollywood Reporter said Thursday that the Weinstein brothers had "managed to fashion a winning bid" for Miramax, but Deadline.com later reported that Disney had responded to the report saying, "No (Miramax) deal done and reports to the contrary are false."
Studio sets sets sights on two properties for film transfers
Rob Lowe is bidding farewell to his TV family on hit show 'Brothers & Sisters' after announcing he's quitting the series.
Fox 2000's dramedy 'Town House' is coming together after a long gestation period.
Travis Barker paid tribute to Adam 'DJ AM' Goldstein onstage and in heartfelt Internet messages on Saturday -- a day after his friend was found dead from a suspected drug overdose.
Quincy Jones has been left shocked and stunned by the death of Michael Jackson, calling the King of Pop "my little brother."
Jermaine Jackson has spoken to the media just yards away from where his brother Michael died on Thursday afternoon.
American Idol champ David Cook is mourning the loss of his older brother Adam, who died from a brain tumor in the early hours of Sunday.
Actress Katie Holmes is in mourning following the tragic death of her brother-in-law, according to a new report.
High School Musical 3, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers were among the big winners at the 22nd Kids' Choice Awards in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Joe Jonas is at the center of a photo scandal in which he appears to mock Asians -- just one month after fellow teen singing sensation Miley Cyrus was forced to apologize for a similar prank.
The Frog Brothers are set to reunite in the second Lost Boys sequel - Jamison Newlander will join vampire hunter Corey Feldman in the film.
The Jonas Brothers are to launch a budget sportswear clothing line for teenage girls.
'Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience' underperformed at the box offce with $12.7 million, coming in second place.
The singing siblings are set to provide the live halftime entertainment for the Dallas Cowboys matchup against the Seattle Seahawks on Thanksgiving Day
In the wake of The Dark Knight (Warner Bros) and the biggest box office weekend in movie history, two films roll out this Friday (7/25). The Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly R-rated comedy Step Brothers (Sony) is looking considerably stronger than Fox’s The X-Files: I Want To Believe (Fox).
Dance legend Fayard Nicholas has died at his home in California. He was 91.
Actor Macaulay Culkin has signed up to be a contestant on the new series of British reality show Celebrity Big Brother--and TV bosses are hoping he will reveal all about his friendship with Michael Jackson.
The half-brother of pin-up Carmen Electra has committed suicide at his home in Florida.
About 1,000 readers have canceled their subscriptions to the Los Angeles Times to protest the paper's coverage of Arnold Schwarzenegger 's alleged sexual harassment of women, Also: In America Diana Ross Val Kilmer John Draper Witherspoon 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage DaughterJohn Ritter Rob Lowe Peter Jackson The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the filmmaking duo behind the comedies Dumb & Dumber, There's Something About Mary and Osmosis Jones, have been tapped to helm The Three Stooges for Warner Bros. Also: Mike Cerrone Sex and the City Jennifer Love Hewitt Jennifer Aniston Clothes Off Our Back Bob Hope Jules Lusman Cirque du Soleil Fat Man Mike Reiss Adam Sandler Happy Madison
Filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the sibling team behind the hit comedies There's Something About Mary and Shallow Hal, are developing a TV project for Fox. Also: Gregory Peck missing Oscar statuette Nick Nolte William Marshall Ryan Pinkston David Bowie Sean P. Diddy Combs
The brother of Reese Witherspoon was arrested on charges of aggravated burgulary and sexual battery.
The Coen Brothers will produce a Super Bowl commercial for H&R Block
The cast of Big Brother 2 celebrates the end of the show at Belly in West Hollywood
Randy Jackson, a member of the singing Jackson family, pleaded guilty Monday to committing bankruptcy fraud by failing to list a sport utility vehicle when filing his court papers.
Following is a Sounds Off article about "Band of Brothers" and Political Correctness. Mentioned names and titles are Band of Brothers HBO Independence Day Agency Collateral Damage Schwarzenegger
Historian Stephen Ambrose has praised the Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks miniseries Band of Brothers as "the most accurate depiction that Hollywood's ever done of World War II. ... It's simply superb."
Another Big Brother contestant is in hot water with the producers of the show after allegedly threatening a fellow contestant Sunday night, according to the Canadian Web site JAM! Showbiz.
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 17, 2000 -- In a plot twist that befits the stuff of Columbo, the stolen Oscars case has yielded yet another suspect. One John Harris, 55, of Los Angeles was charged Friday with one count of receiving stolen property and one count of being an accessory to grand theft, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. No big deal, right? Well, get a load of this: Harris is also the brother of Willie Fulgear, the same 61-year-old man who was rewarded $50K (and invites to the Oscars ceremony) for recovering 52 of the 55 missing statuettes in March. Apparently, detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department's Burglary-Auto Theft Division had learned that Harris had stored the loots at his L.A. home and was expecting to get paid money for doing so. No other details were released about the case. According to the Daily News report, the LAPD has begun an investigati
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 1, 2000 -- He's opinionated and brutish. He's known for countless flashes of private parts. And he's laughing all the way to the bank. Big Brother houseguest Eddie snagged 59% of the votes nationwide in the show's finale, and deserved it. His honest, gruff persona won over viewers who grew sour with the remaining houseguests' agendas (even though Josh and Curtis did make off with a pretty penny). The breakdown: Eddie -- Winner: $500,000. The cancer survivor, just 21 years old, remained the only consistent personality on the show. His steady lack of whining steered voters in his direction late in the season. Josh -- Second Place: $100,000. The consummate flirt cleaned up his act -- basically after every female was banished. The remaining houseguests expected the easygoing All-American to win, but his past exploits with Brittany may have tarnished h
News Roundup: Aug. 15
CBS's decision to move Big Brother one hour later, to 9 p.m., on Tuesday nights had little effect on its overall rating which remained a 5.9/10, but it did boost its numbers among adults 18-49 as it pulled a 4.0/12 with that key demo for the hour, versus a 3.6/13 at 8 p.m. last week.
The producers of the British version of Big Brother are planning to release a video containing excerpts from the last series that were deemed too sexually explicit to air.
Ratings for CBS's Big Brother 2 rose a bit Saturday, as the reality show pulled a 4.2 rating and a 10 share vs. a 3.6/8 a week ago.
CBS President Les Moonves on Tuesday described the reality show Big Brother as a "summer experiment" and indicated that he is not particularly disappointed with either the critical reaction to it or the show's mediocre ratings. "I'm tired of putting on Diagnosis Murder reruns in the summer.
Big Brother 2, which received a slight boost in its ratings when one of the contestants, Justin Sebik, was booted off the show after pulling a knife on another, saw its numbers sliced down again on Saturday.
HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 23, 2000 -- What’s wrong with this picture? The whole idea behind the CBS reality show "Big Brother" is to keep the contestants completely sheltered from the outside world, as viewers watch their every move on camera. Now we learn, however, that producers of the show have hired a Los Angeles shrink to counsel the sequestered ones when the going gets tough on their psyches. It makes us ask, "What up with that?" Aren’t they breaking the rules? And more importantly, should we now assume then that the rats eaten by the contestants of that other CBS show were fake? According to a Reuters news report, the counseling sessions with Dr. Augusto Britton Del Rio take place in the so-called "Red Room," where the contestants normally go to communicate through a TV camera and microphone with the "Big Brother" producers, whom they cannot see. The se
HOLLYWOOD, July 21, 2000 -- "Yes! Yes!" Doesn't exactly sound like the words of a man who's downcast because he's just lost a chance to win half a million dollars, does it? Yet that's what William, a 27-year-old youth counselor, said when he learned (on live TV) last night that he's the first of 10 people to get kicked off the cast of the CBS reality-style gameshow "Big Brother." So, why was William so glad to get out? Well, for one thing, it's boring in that house -- as the viewers have attested via the show's mediocre ratings. And William, who spent most of his two weeks in the house arguing with the other residents, said the other housemates were "too prissy." He event tried to liven things up with a prank, pretending he'd been instructed to rearrange the furniture, because "I was going crazy with the boringness." "There's only so much reading you can
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 12, 2000 -- It was the only -- and shortest -- mutiny ever staged on a TV show. Just when we thought we'd be spared another three weeks worth of "Big Brother" dullness, we find out that the big alleged walkout was quelled before it ever came to pass. The show's contestants had planned a group exodus as a sort of "screw you" gesture toward the producers. It was supposed to happen during Wednesday night's live show. But while they all agreed to quit over the weekend, they've since changed their minds, according to reports posted on the CBS Web site. Why the turnabout? Depending on what you hear and what you believe, the turnabout came about because: 1) the series' producer smoothed over the internal fallout, or 2) the contestants voluntarily changed their minds. Salon.com reported Sunday on the divide-and-conquer strategy used by CBS' walko
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 11, 2000 -- The remaining contestants on CBS’ “Big Brother” were seen on the show’s Web site over the weekend talking about staging a group walkout Wednesday. Leaving the show would abandon the housemates’ chances of winning the $500,000 top prize, which is scheduled to be handed out Sept. 30. The walkout appeared to be the brainwork of contestant George, who at one point said, “Do you know what kind of point we could make? We could go down in history as six winners.” Winners? Uh-huh. One apparent holdout, contestant Eddie, replied, “Or we could go down as the six quitters of ‘Big Brother.’” Quitters? Try losers. Oh, did I just type that? Kidding. Haha. But contestant Curtis won Eddie over by saying, “Even if you’re wrong about [earning money from other sources following a walkout], you are creating a moment in television history.
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 14, 2000 -- Ho, hum. Another day, another "Big Brother" episode. In other words, nothing happened. The big Wednesday walkout planned by the sequestered houseguests, which would have ended the primetime CBS reality series two weeks early (a godsend, really), never came to pass. Last night's episode looked promising at first. Host Julie Chen announced, "The news of the week is the 'Big Brother' rebellion." Then Chen spoke with George the roofer and de facto leader of the TV hostages, who announced he was staying put. The other five houseguests followed suit. So, instead of a reprieve from what's turned out to be a very un-"Survivor"-like show, the TV nation had to settle with a routine phone poll to eliminate one of the six remaining contestants. Cassandra, a U.N. staffer, got the boot. So it looks like the big 'Big Brother' finale will go
HOLLYWOOD, July 19, 2000 -- It might not be the phenomenon that "Survivor" is, but CBS's other reality series, "Big Brother," is surviving and thriving nonetheless. So it should come as no surprise that the show's getting longer. "As (the housemates) are in there longer, there'll be more juicy stuff to put on the screen," a CBS insider says in today's Hollywood Reporter. And so, a live, hourlong edition of "Big Brother" will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. PDT/EDT, following (of course) "Survivor." This episode will include the weekly ritual wherein one of the housemates is bumped off the cast. Thirty-minute edited episodes of "Big Brother" will continue to air at 8 p.m. PDT/EDT all other weeknights. The show's detractors have whined about the crummy production values and the fact that nothing really happens on "Big Brother," but the folks at CBS tell Variety th
While the U.S. version of Big Brother continues to produce only mediocre ratings, and while traffic to the show's Web site has plunged following the initiation of a subscriber fee, the current British version is drawing big audiences not only for the TV show itself but also for the Web site.
CBS's Big Brother 2 saw a slight boost in its ratings Tuesday night.
Following the ejection of Justin Sebik from the Big Brother home, producer Arnold Shapiro has decided to discontinue providing beer and wine to the remaining contestants, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.
Raising new questions about how thoroughly CBS performs background checks on contestants for its reality shows, published reports said Monday that Justin Sebik, booted off Big Brother last week after he held a kitchen knife to the throat of another contestant, had been arrested five times in Bayonne, NJ--three times for simple assault.
Justin Sebik, the Big Brother contestant who was kicked out of the house for putting a kitchen knife to the throat of another contestant, Krista Stegall, was arrested in Bayonne, N.J., in 1997 on two counts of robbery but was not indicted, the Newark Star-Ledger reported on Thursday.
Although a promo for Thursday's episode of Big Brother urging viewers to "find out what everyone's talking about" began airing Wednesday night, CBS said earlier in the day that it will not show the scene that resulted in contestant Justin Sebik's being booted from the house.
Circumventing the normal eviction process, producers have permanently remove a contestant from the house of Big Brother 2, according to a statement released Wednesday by the show's producers.
George Orwell's "Big Brother Is Watching You" warning may sometimes ring true, but the reverse did not on Saturday night as the second episode of Big Brother 2 failed to attract ratings that were any larger than those for a mediocre summer rerun.
The premiere episode of the second Big Brother series attracted good but unspectacular ratings Thursday night as it earned a 6.8 rating and a 12 share in the 8 p.m. half hour and a 7.1/12 in the 8:30 p.m. half hour for an average of 6.8/12.
CBS' reality redux Big Brother 2, which will premiere 8 p.m. Thursday, will now be featured through streaming video on the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Reuters cite industry insiders as saying the Real Networks is the object of almost-finished negotiations with CBS. Additionally, the webcast will require a subscription payment by viewers--a first for a major broadcast network. Real Networks already broadcasts international versions of the show and thus is seen as a natural to partner with CBS, despite CBS' partnership with AOL to webcast last summer's original American version.
In an effort to calm a storm of controversy that arose in Portugal after two contestants on a local version of Big Brother were seen engaging in sex on the show, the couple were married on television Thursday.
The brother of actor Bruce Willis died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer, Variety reports.
Doobie Brothers drummer Mike Hossack was critically injured in a motorcycle accident Friday night when he collided into a car.
Be afraid, very afraid.
Tom Hanks, producer/writer/director of the HBO WWII miniseries Band of Brothers--which premiered in Normandy, France, on Wednesday--admitting to Entertainment Tonight that the production may not completely win over D-day veterans:
Tom Hanks, who produced, wrote and directed segments of the upcoming HBO World War II miniseries Band of Brothers, premiered the epic on Wednesday in Normandy, France.
The live daily telecasts of the hit reality show Big Brother on the U.K.'s digital channel E4 have easily become the most censored shows in TV history, the London Daily Mirror reported Thursday. Broadcast on a 10-minute delay to allow the station to screen conversations between the contestants in a house where TV cameras are trained on them throughout the day, the telecasts frequently include long segments in which no sound is heard at all.
CBS, which will bring back Big Brother, is introducing some new changes to the reality series. According to Variety, Big Brother 2 will not only allow houseguests to vote out fellow contestants, but will introduce "luxury items"--further copying the format of CBS's Survivor. The number of contestants will increase from 10 to 12, and "immunity challenges" also will be thrown into the mix. Big Brother 2 will premiere July 5.
Suggesting that the second run of the hit British TV series Big Brother will outdo the original, the BBC reported Monday that just four days into the new run, the show's Web site is drawing more visitors than it did when the first series reached the height of its popularity -- more than one million a day. Footage from the house where ten contestants are on camera 24 hours a day is streamed live on the Internet, then edited down for broadcast on the U.K. commercial network, Channel 4. Moreover, the London Daily Sun is providing hourly updates on happenings in the Big Brother house to British cell phone users (at 35 cents a pop). A similar service is being offered by U.K. cell phone operator m-Wise to provide updates about the recently launched British version of Survivor.
For the third time in a week, protestors of Loft Story--France's version of the popular reality TV show Big Brother--gathered in front of the Paris apartment where the show is being filmed. The group numbered just a few dozen and was relatively subdued, Reuters reported. Protestors oppose the moral turpitude presented by the show, especially the heavy drinking and steamy pool scenes that titillated the large audiences of the first few episodes.
The French group Activists Against Trash TV staged a real protest in Paris against the hit version of the reality-TV show Big Brother, the BBC reports. Called Loft Story in France, the show is premised on the couplings of people in their 20s sharing an apartment. The winners - a couple - must live together for six months to claim the grand prize. The show has faced a spate of criticism, mainly for the sexual permissiveness portrayed. More than 250 people vandalized the set, dumping trash, placing signs, and throwing eggs and tomatoes at the building.
The new series of the British Big Brother will run for 21 hours a day on digital network E4, Channel 4 has announced. According to BBC News, fans will be able to spy on the house and make their weekly eviction votes through the remote control. Viewers also will be able to watch what goes on inside the house in the Internet, as they could with last year's series.
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 5, 2000 -- The producers of CBS’ reality TV show "Big Brother" are getting a dose reality themselves: a very real lawsuit. Marvin Rosenblum, a Chicago attorney who owns the film and TV rights to George Orwell’s novel "1984," says that the show’s producers intentionally created the show so that viewers would believe the show is connected to Orwell’s novel. Similar to the book, the TV series is set in a house in which contestants are being watched by video cameras placed throughout the house 24 hours a day. If Rosenblum is successful, "Big Brother" might get the big axe. Stay tuned.
STUDIO CITY, Calif., July 6, 2000 -- It would have been a beautiful headline: "Hollywood.com Crashes Set of 'Big Brother.'" But (sigh), it was just not meant to be. We admit -- shameless, fearless and acting kinda dumb -- we tried to storm the fortified, hush-hush "Big Brother" house on the CBS lot here in Southern California's San Fernando Valley and get the scoop on the cast in time for the show's Wednesday night premiere. And we also admit, our mission failed -- but not because we couldn’t get on the premises (as one might expect), rather, it was because we couldn’t find the stupid little house on that big lot. All things considered, getting past the security front gate was the easy part. We parked (on the streets) and walked past the security booth into the CBS Studio Lot (not to brag, but we did that twice). No questions were asked, and not so much as a glan