day 246

mischa's not so beautiful life

current psych ward patient mischa barton is screwing up a lot of stuff (aside from her life). amidst rumors that the former oc actress's hospital stay was preceded by a three-day coke binge, the producers of her new fall show, a beautiful life (watch an extended preview above), are taking the show in a separate direction that could exist with or without mischa. plan b would keep mischa's character, sonya, involved in the show - at least in the pilot - while a separate character, jane, with a very similar story line to sonya's, is current being casted. sonya and jane are supposed to be supermodels who are starting to get a little too old and a little too pudgy to compete with the younger models just entering the scene. and they all live together. having two characters who are virtually the same could be a really interesting plot device - competition, scheming, etc - or extremely confusing (as in who is who?). filming on a beautiful life has already been pushed back a week from tomorrow's start date due to sets not being finished on time; though, i feel like they did the push back just to give barton a little extra time to pull it together. the good thing about life is that mischa isn't the only recognizable name attached - sara paxton, corbin bleu, and elle mcpherson all costar on the show. in other cw show news, jennie garth has just inked a deal to return this fall for season 2 of 90210 in the same recurring capacity as the first season. this is really good news after the new show runner said she wasn't all that interested in focusing on the original cast (which is what makes the show!). jennie's kelly will play a big role in the whole annie having (maybe) killed someone. 90210's new partner show, melrose place, also has a semi-famous face coming aboard. well, actually, they have a couple. nip/tuck's kelly carlson (kimber) will be a recurring guest star on the apartment-themed relaunch as a prostitute ring madame who lures at least one of the melrose residents - med student lauren - into working for her. carlson obviously has huge range as an actress as she plays a porn-star/entrepreneur on nip/tuck. the second face you might recognize is brooke burns (known for hosting dog eat dog). the actress will be playing the young wife of original place-er thomas calabro, who returns as michael mancini. she should be playing arm candy as she was once bruce willis' fiance.

vh1 brings divas back...sort of

after a four year hiatus of the concert series divas, which brought together the likes of the most iconic female singers of the 90s and before (like celine dion, whitney houston, and aretha franklin), the mtv-for-older people channel is brining back the special. surprisingly, though, the line-up isn't all that impressive. there hasn't really been a "diva" since the last special, mostly because that style of music has come and gone, replaced by synth beats and autotuned tracks. the 4 confirmed "divas" are leona lewis (known in america as a one-hit-wonder with "bleeding love"), adele ("chasing pavements"), kelly clarkson (the one act with more than one hit stateside), and - most surprisingly - miley cyrus. yes, tween "sensation" miley cyrus is being crowned a "diva" by vh1. the only explanation for this has to be to gain ratings and bring attention to the show that everyone has forgotten about. the cool thing about the choices is that we'll get to see the 4 women perform together multiple times. i cannot wait to see miley try to hold her own against voices like leona and adele. the show will air september 17th on vh1.

day 187

no stories

i don't really have anything to talk about today, but i thought i'd post a ton of youtube videos.  how does that work for you?  first up, the trailer for vanessa hudgen's new movie, though it seems like the studio thinks aly michalka (of aly and aj) is the bigger star - she's billed first and featured more heavily in the promo.  it actually looks semi-good; like an age appropriate almost famous meets a battle of the bands competition.  

and, if you wanted a taste of the cw's new shows, clips from them have been released.  these are most likely the same ones the network showed at their upfront presentation earlier this week.  first up, the beautiful life - mishca barton's new drama.  yay! she's working again. though, it seems like the show is going to focus more on sara paxton (that blonde you recognize from various disney projects and children's movies).  i'm surprised no clips have been released that feature corbin bleu, since this is his first project away from the mouse house.  i'm surprised that in the theme of recycling old fox shows (90210, melrose place) that the ceedub didn't choose to title this models, inc, a short lived program that was spun off from melrose.  

and, speaking of melrose place, here's clips from it.   this show doesn't look to be as polished as 90210, which isn't a good thing.  it basically looks like a soap opera for primetime, instead of a primetime soap (and, trust me, there's a difference).  for example, desperate housewives = a  primetime soap.  hopefully they'll improve it a little between now and september when the show premieres.  things that bother me about this relaunch is that it won't take place in the same universe as the current 90210, even though the original series was a spin-off.  why?  because rob estes, now the dad/principal on 90210, was an original cast member on the fox version of the show, but now plays a different character in the zipcode show.  second, jessica lucas is a main cast member on the new show, but played a different character (drug detective kimberly) on 90210 in the middle of the first season.  oh well, it will probably still hold my attention for an hour.  and spoiler alert - laura leighton (as sydney, one of two returning characters to the rebuilt place) is getting killed off in the first 10 minutes of the series.  yes, they brought back an original cast member (they even brought her back from the dead - sydney was killed off in the first go around) just to kill her.  but, leighton will still be a recurring guest star, seen in flashbacks throughout the season.  okay, now that you've read my babbling, you can see the clips.

and, finally, the cw is getting on board with the twilight trend and launching a vampire series, based on the so-called "bestselling" (i hadn't heard of them until the series was being developed) vampire diaries books.  the network dived back into the canadian/degrassi casting pool to find their star nina dobrev, who most recently starred in mtv's high school musical rip off american mall (shenae grimes, who plays annie on 90210 is also a former degrassi star). dobrev is joined by former lost star ian somerhalder as the seemingly evil vampire and by paul wesley (the robert pattinson of this series), who you might know from his army wives role as the soldier who emmalin falls in love with.  here are the clips - the show looks like it's filmed really cinematically.  probably should have been a movie, but wouldn't have survived in a post-twilight world.