September 25, 2024

Review Category : TMZ Music News

‘True Blood’ Star Joe Manganiello: Alcide’s ‘Not Taking Anybody’s Crap Anymore’

Just days before the cast of HBO's "True Blood" descended upon San Diego to sink their teeth into Comic-Con, news broke that the sexy series would return for a seventh season — no mean feat considering it recently lost one of its key players. (And, no, we're not talking about you, Russell Edgington.)

"It's really rare territory for HBO," star Joe Manganiello, who plays werewolf Alcide Herveaux, told MTV News of the renewal after executive producer Alan Ball's departure. "Usually when the showrunner stops doing the show, the show stops. I mean, you don't do 'Deadwood' without David Milch. You don't do 'Sopranos' without David Chase. We're moving on. We're powering through."

Much of that "powering through" can be credited to the smooth transition from Ball to new showrunner Brian Buckner, who's been with the series since the beginning.

"He was brought in during season one to take over the show for season two. Alan was only going to be on for one season and leave, but he was having so much fun and the show did so well that he stuck around," Manganiello explained. "So Bucky, as we call him, had to wait five seasons. So it's in good hands. He knows what he's doing."

In fact, Manganiello said he couldn't be happier with his character's new attitude since taking over as Shreveport packmaster — especially since it has meant fewer critical phone calls from his real-life father.

"I'm glad that he's not taking anybody's crap anymore," Manganiello said of Alcide. "There's only so many times you can get punched, shoved, cheated on, ...

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Jonas Brothers Give Troubled Justin Bieber Some Manly Advice

If Justin Bieber is looking for some sage advice from some slightly more seasoned pop stars, the Jonas Brothers have some words of wisdom for the singer, who has been the subject of countless tabloid rumors and speculation over the last few months.

Between the never-ending interest in his on-again, off-again relationship with Selena Gomez and that recent video of him urinating into a mop bucket in NYC, the JoBros weighed in on it all when they stopped by Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live" on Tuesday.

Joe's thoughts on the matter were pretty simple, "Boys will be boys, I guess."

The show's host, Andy Cohen, noted that the group's youngest member, Nick, 20, hasn't publicly exhibited the same types of bad boy behavior as Bieber. "I'd like to think of myself as a man, he's a ... he's a couple years younger," Nick joked about Bieber, 19. Although he did have some encouraging words for him as well.

"Here's what I'll say is that everyone has to go through a period of growth," Nick added. "I think he's in that period now. I wish the best for him 'cause I do think he's a talented person. But he just has to get through a season of growth."

During his "season of growth," Bieber is prepping the release of new music, which, according to his manager, Scooter Braun, should silence the critics and end the Bieber has teased out his lead single, over the course of the last few weeks through an ad for his latest ...

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Jay Z’s <I>Magna Carta</I> Rules <I>Billboard</I> For Second Week

You know you're a boss when your new album loses more than three-quarters of its first-week sales and still tops the charts, beating out four new titles.

That's the kind of swag Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail has, even after shedding 76 percent of its first week business and moving 129,000 copies in week two, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan. That gives the Roc Nation boss nearly 658,000 in two frames, putting him well on the way to matching the one million units given away by Samsung five days before MCHG officially hit stores.

Ride Along As An MTV Staffer Crashes The Shoot For Jay's "Picasso Baby" Video.

Either way, it was more than enough to best singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles' The Blessed Unrest (#2, 68,000) and the 24th edition of the Kidz Bop series (#3, 62,000). The other new faces in the top 10 belonged to rapper Ace Hood, who slid in at #4 with Trials & Tribulations (34,000), the soundtrack to the Disney Channel TV movie "Teen Beach" (#8, 25,000) and Cody Simpson's Surfer's Paradise (#10, 24,000).

Elsewhere in the top 10, Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience bounced up four spots to #9 as sales picked up by 33 percent to 24,000. In a switcheroo, Daft Punk dropped out of the top 10 for the first time in two months, falling five spots to #14, as sales of Random Access Memories were down 19 percent to 19,000. Also dropping out of the top 10 was Kanye West's Yeezus, which dipped 12 to #18, as sales were off ...

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J.K. Rowling Says ‘Cuckoo’s Calling’ Revelation Was ‘Not A Marketing Ploy’

It's been a little over a week since Robert Galbraith, the critically lauded debuted crime novelist, was revealed to be a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, and while the "ex-military policeman's" book, "The Cuckoo's Calling," shot to the top of the bestseller's list, fans of the "Harry Potter" author still didn't have many answers about the ruse until now.

Rowling recently updated to FAQs section of Robert Galbraith's website with answers about the pseudonym and its public outing, as we learned last week was the result of a blabbing lawyer. The answers included explanations for Rowling's choice in pseudonym and also addressed rumors that the reveal was orchestrated by Rowling and her publisher.

"I certainly wanted to take my writing persona as far away as possible from me, so a male pseudonym seemed a good idea," Rowling wrote. "I am proud to say, though, that when I 'unmasked' myself to my editor David Shelley who had read and enjoyed 'The Cuckoo's Calling' without realizing I wrote it, one of the first things he said was 'I never would have thought a woman wrote that.' Apparently I had successfully channeled my inner bloke!"

The pseudonym "Robert Galbraith" came from Rowling's love of the first name — she considers Robert Kennedy her hero — and her inexplicable desire as child to be called "Ella Galbraith." "I've no idea why. I don't even know how I knew that the surname existed, because I can't remember ever meeting anyone with it," she wrote. "Be that as it may, the name had a fascination for me. ...

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André 3000 As Jimi Hendrix: Get Your First Official Look Right Here

Last summer, a crafty photographer managed to sneak onto the set of the Jimi Hendrix biopic and snap a few pics of André 3000 in full Hendrix garb.

Now, more than a year later, we get our first official look at Three Stacks as Hendrix, as an image from the film has been unveiled on the Toronto International Film Festival's official site. And, we gotta say, with his blown out afro and stony focus, Dre looks pretty convincing.

"All Is By My Side" will make its world premiere at TIFF in September (the fest's full schedule will be revealed on August 20), and focuses on the legendary guitarist's years in London, shortly before the release of his Are You Experienced album. Sadly, it won't feature any actual Hendrix songs, as his estate refused to grant producers the rights to his material.

Instead, the film will feature André 3000 performing covers of songs by the Beatles — Hendrix famously performed "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in a London club with members of the Fab Four in attendance — Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters and Elmore James.

Late last year, André spoke to SPIN about how the monumental task of playing Hendrix on the big screen ... and from the sound of things, the erstwhile OutKast oddball didn't shy away from spotlight. In fact, he found a kindred spirit in the late guitar great.

"In researching him, I saw a lot of the paths that he went down were the same ones that I went down ...

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Kanye West’s ‘American Psycho’ Spoof: Bret Easton Ellis Tells All!

With one text, "American Psycho" writer Bret Easton Ellis became a member of the Kanye West's clique.

He was enlisted earlier this summer by West to help reimagine a memorable scene from his famed 1991 novel in a promo video for his Yeezus track The clip re-creates one of the bloodier, more unforgettable scenes from the novel and later film, which starred Christian Bale as deranged Wall Streeter Patrick Bateman.

"I wrote it. Kanye came to me and asked me to write it so I wrote the promo. I just got a text one day... it said, 'It's Kanye, do you have time to rap?' And then suddenly my phone rang and someone said, 'Kanye got your number and he wants you to write this promo for Yeezus,' " Ellis told MTV News. "And so we went back and forth on it and he wanted it done, like, that day. So I wrote it very quickly and they shot it two or three days later."

The new short clip casts "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star and noted Patrick Bateman lookalike, Scott Disick, in the lead role alongside Kim Kardashian's bestie, Jonathan Cheban (who is in for Jared Leto's character). After a pro-Kanye monologue, "New Slaves" plays in the background as Disick hacks away at Cheban, mirroring a scene from the movie.

While it may have seemed like unusual casting, Disick is in Kanye's inner circle (he's dating Kourtney Kardashian) and is already Ellis-approved as a Bateman stand-in.

"I had tweeted many times about Scott Disick and 'American Psycho' and ...

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Arcade Fire’s New Album Is Not A ‘Ropera,’ James Murphy Says

Earlier this month, Arcade Fire surprised pretty much everybody when they revealed the release date of their new album — October 29 — by replying to a fan on Twitter.

And that included the guy who produced it, former LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy.

"I didn't even know that's what they did. When you work on a record you don't know any of the things around it. So when it comes out I'll just be like 'The Arcade Fire record's out ... oh, right!'" Murphy told Billboard. "It's been the food I eat and the air I breathe for a long time now. That happens with my own records. I am officially done with it, we've just been passing things back and forth, making choices on mixes."

News of Murphy's involvement on Arcade Fire's new record first surfaced in late 2012, and the band were still holed up in the DFA Studio as recently as March. And as Murphy explained, the album evolved over the course of that time ... to the point where, from the sound of things, it appears Win Butler and Co. have moved on from 2010's Grammy-winning concept album The Suburbs.

"Producing is always really hard, and you can never tell who's going to be easy to get along with ... it turned out it was really nice, and everyone was amazingly respectful of one another," Murphy said. "I'm not sure if it's a concept record like the last one. ... We don't talk about where the songs come ...

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‘Gravity’: Watch The Insanely Suspenseful New Trailer

The purpose of a trailer is usually two-fold. It should 1) give the audience an idea of what a movie is like and 2) make them want to see that movie. The new trailer for "Alfonso Cuarón's space-set suspense thriller, completes both of this objectives in one two-minute take.

"Gravity" stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts who experience a catastrophic accident during a spacewalk. Debris from a broken up satellite collides with their shuttle, sending Bullock's character, Dr. Ryan Stone, tumbling into space.

The trailer itself is essentially a clip, one long take from the film's first act. Cuarón, who also directed "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and "Children of Men," has been fond of lengthy, unbroken shots throughout his career, and as he explained to MTV News at San Diego Comic-Con, their purpose in "Gravity" is to emulate documentary footage taken from space.

As you might guess from the trailer, during a large portion of the film, Bullock is alone on the screen, almost like "Cast Away" in space, but Cuarón explained that his movie's unrelenting suspense separates it from other films with solitary characters.

"The difference with 'Cast Away' is that 'Cast Away,' which I love, is a drama," Cuarón said. "Here, the tone is more of suspense. The character is in constant danger, all the time from the get-go. In many ways, the model was more 'Duel' of Spielberg than 'Cast Away.' "

To create the sweeping long shots, like the one you see in the trailer, Cuarón and his production team had to invent ...

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Lindsay Lohan’s Sultry ‘Canyons’ Poster: Exclusive First Look!

You may not get to see Lindsay Lohan in until next month, but MTV News has an exclusive first look at the film's poster — along with behind-the-scenes details about the neo-noir film from writer Bret Easton Ellis.

In the poster, a scantily clad Lohan is pictured with her two beaus in the film, played by adult film star James Deen and "Awkward" actor Nolan Funk. The film follows the story of a group of Hollywood up-and-comers who are caught up in various love affairs, while also doing nearly anything and everything to get ahead in the City of Angels.

Ellis credits Lohan for bringing a particular something to the role of Tara, who is torn between Christian (Deen) and struggling actor, Ryan (Funk), as she tries to climb Hollywood's social ladder.

"When Lindsay came in ... she didn't change any dialogue; she just delivered it differently than I imagined it," he told MTV News. "Because I thought Tara was more vulnerable in the script, softer, definitely not as commanding or as confronted as she is when she's dealing with Christian. And, Lindsay changed that. She made it all very confronted. She doesn't take, really, any s--- from him. And she actually made it more dramatic, a little bit more, probably more gripping, than it would have been if it had been played by an actress who played out the way I had written it."

But Ellis explained that he was not nearly as confident when Lohan's name was first mentioned, before her ...

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