Kendra Wilkinson’s Birthday: Chicago Style
Kendra Wilkinson’s Birthday: Chicago Style
Continuing along with a string of birthday parties in her honor, Kendra Wilkinson was spotted partying it up at Crobar in Chicago on Saturday night (June 14).
Wearing a sexy little multi-colored strapless dress, the “Girls Next Door” starlet mingled and posed with family and friends in between a little dancing and a lot of tequila-swilling.
On her actual birthday (she turned 23-years-old on Thursday, June 12), Kendra stepped out with Hugh Hefner and her fellow “Girls Next Door” to see Warren Beatty receive AFI’s 36th Lifetime Achievement Award.
And for her LA party held earlier in the week, the blonde babe told FOX Pop Tarts that she celebrated “Kendra-style” at the Lakers game, followed by a trip to Coco de Ville.
“That night was so, so fun,” she said. “Oh, but I don’t remember much.”
Who's Been Duped on Smallville? Find Out
The Smallville season premiere is still weeks away, but my inbox has been overloaded with questions regarding L.L.—not Mr. Cool J (though we have scoop on him today) or Lindsay Lohan, mind you, but one Miss Lana Lang.
Yes, she might have been blown to smithereens in last May's season finale, but as my crack team announced in the spoiler chat on Monday, Kristin Kreuk has signed on for the upcoming season and Lana will definitely be back. So, inquiring fans want to know, how the bloody hell are the writers gonna pull off that?!
Well, Big, Fat Spoiler Alert! Let me be the first to tell you the inside storyline scoop: Lana's salvation involves cloning. Yep, you heard me right. Cloning! The Francinator and Buffy Bot had better step aside, because TV has a new Doublemint twin of freaky-deaky generation.
I'll tell you more in Monday's chat, but for now you gotta tell me in the Comments section below: Am I the only one giggling at the thought of Lana 2.0? I mean, this is Smallville, and I'm sure the writers will knock it out of the park, but I just can't shake the feeling Clana's genesis will somehow involve lonely Lex, a bottle of tequila and a little weird science.
The Best and Worst of 2007: Joel’s list
To call 2007 a stellar year of TV would be a mistake, because it was a very bleh year in many respects. Shows that had previously riveted us to our seats made missteps and mistakes. New shows were either mediocre or just unmemorable. A writers’ strike made people anxious and depressed all at once. And the aspects of the TV world that have generated low expectations continued on their merry lowbrow way (I mean, who expected Tila Tequila’s search for love to be anything but a skankfest)?
But in a year of abject mediocrity, some highlights and lowlights poked through. Like last year, I’m going to make up categories instead of doing traditional “Bests” and “Worsts.” It hurts my brain less…
GOODNESS
Best “I told you so!” show: 30 Rock. Like most people who saw last year’s pilot, I thought the show wasn’t all that good. But something about it made me continue to watch. Was it Alec Baldwin’s performance? Probably. But there was something else there, a quality that told me — and a few other patient folks — that if the show was allowed to hit its stride, it could be something special. Now that it’s being hailed as the show with the “most laughs per minute,” and winning awards left and right, I’m happy that I stuck with the show from the beginning. It’s one of the smartest shows on the air, cleverly making fun of everything from product placement to politically-correct network initiatives (I’d love to see David Schwimmer come back as Greenzo) to the war in Iraq. It’s one of the shows I’ll miss the most if the strike continues.
Best “You told me so!” show: Life. I really hated the pilot for this show. Damian Lewis’ sprung-from-prison detective Charlie Crews had too many quirks and tics, and the procedural plots were too standard-grade, to make me think the show could work in the long term. But after reading all the comments of praise that accompanied Rich’s reviews (along with my brother’s glowing reviews themselves), I decided to give the show another chance. And I’m glad I did; Crews’ tics have been toned down, and the mysteries — especially in the episode “Farthingale” — were twisty and interesting to watch. NBC picked it up for a full season; let’s hope that it comes back even if the writers don’t come back until next year.
Best finale that I could hope for, given the circumstances: Gilmore Girls. Amy Sherman-Palladino left the show after the sixth season and blew up the works on her way out. New show-runner David Rosenthal took almost two-thirds of the season cleaning up the mess, giving nothing of the old Gilmore for longtime fans to hold onto. But, the season finale — which was obviously written to double as a series finale, because the chances Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel were coming back were slim at best — tied up loose ends and settled relationships well enough to satisfy even the most ardent fan. Did Luke and Lorelai get married? No. But there was enough of a “things are going to work out” vibe as the series concluded that it left me more satisfied than I could have imagined at the beginning of the season.
Best job of living up to expectations: Pushing Daisies. Unlike 2006’s most-anticipated shows — Studio 60, The Nine — PD followed up its spectacular pilot with episodes that deftly balanced the sweet and sticky (a duet of “Birdhouse In Your Soul,” anyone?) with the dark and twisted (bodies buried in snowmen, cheating spouses, dirty medical examiners). There were a few missteps, including the revelation at the end of the last pre-strike episode, but those offenses were minor. Let’s hope Bryan Fuller finally has a hit on his hands.
Best recovery from an awful season: Scrubs. Season six of the veteran comedy was awkward and — for the first fifteen or so episodes — not particularly funny. But, starting with the musical episode, Bill Lawrence and company ended on… well, I can’t call it a strong note, since they almost threw viewers back into a J.D. / Elliot coupling, but at least the episodes were entertaining. Season seven has started off well, mainly because the zaniness factor has been ratcheted back and we’re getting reacquainted with the characters again. Opinions on the season have been decidely mixed, but after last year’s stumbles, I welcome what Lawrence has done this year. Hopefully we’ll get a final episode.
Honorable mentions: Stephen Colbert’s entire year, but especially the “WristStrong” initiative; the improvement of the new correspondents on The Daily Show; The Simpsons Movie (it’s so strongly connected to TV, I decided to include it); The Office (mostly… see below); Scott Baio is 45… and Single (it’s the best of a bad cable reality bunch); It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (especially Charlie’s “Day Man / Night Man” songs); The Riches; Chuck; Reaper (though it fell off a lot after the pilot); the “Showdown” episode of How I Met Your Mother; Drew Carey’s transformation into a damn good game show host.
BADNESS
Best reason why half-hour shows are only a half-hour: The Office’s hour-long episodes. It just seemed like most of the episodes were half-hilarious, half-filler, didn’t it? And the structure seemed to be the same: first half was like a typically-funny Office episode, but in the second half, the writers run out of comedic gas and go for the broad and silly. The fun run, the kidnapping of the pizza delivery kid, Michael driving his car into a lake: all of those plotlines could have been sliced out without anyone missing them. I was very happy when the show went back to a half-hour; I wonder how those episodes will play out in syndication?
Best reason to agree with Dr. Perry Cox: Scrubs’ cantankerous doctor hates Hugh Jackman, and after watching Viva Laughlin, I can start to understand why. What a disaster: bad acting, bad characterizations, bad writing, and a musical gimmick (stars singing along with the soundtrack) that was awkward at best. In a season where networks didn’t pull the trigger as quickly as in the past due to the strike, Laughlin got canned after two episodes (aired over two days). That tells you how bad the rest of the episodes were going to be.
Best job of forcing people to get some sleep: The WGA and the AMPTP. The first casualties of the writers’ strike were the late-night shows, who had to immediately shut down. Without a steady diet of Stewart and Colbert, Letterman and Conan, Leno and Kimmel, etc., the pickings on TV were pretty slim. Seinfeld reruns? Two and a Half Men? Family Guy? Why bother when all of that is on DVD? Local news? Too much fluff and shocked weathermen. Even without writers, the recent return of the late-night slate is a welcome sight, even though I’m not sure what it’ll do to help or hurt the writers’ cause.
Best way to make the public hate a show before it ever airs: Play promos for it repeatedly during a sporting event. FOX has been a culprit in the past — who can forget Ron Silver bellowing “Her father is the district attorney!” all through the baseball playoffs a few years back? — but TBS’ constant promotion of Frank TV during this year’s Division Series and NLCS bordered on viewer abuse. Poor Frank Caliendo… I think those three promos of him doing his Al Pacino, George W. Bush, and John Madden impressions are what his vision of hell looks like. It sure wasn’t pleasant for the rest of us.
Best way to piss off loyal viewers: Kill off your main character, make her go through limbo and profess that it’s the most unique plot ever written, then bring her back to life without any residual damages. Hook up two characters that previously said that they never saw each other “that way.” Take your strongest and most likable character and spin her off into a show that makes her look like an indecisive wimp. All of that happened this year with Grey’s Anatomy and it’s spin-off, Private Practice. Shonda Rhimes was just too in love with her characters this year to realize she was going down a bunch of bad plot roads. From what I’ve heard, she’s fixed some of what she wrought in the 2006-07 season (Izzie and George are broken up, for instance), but I wouldn’t know, since I gave up on the show — one I watched since day one — last May.
Dishonorable mentions: ESPN’s continuing destruction of Monday Night Football; Big Shots; Cavemen’s original, racial-joke-laden pilot; the news channels’ blanket coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death; the entry of Sanjaya into my consciousness even though I don’t watch American Idol; Larry King asking Jerry Seinfeld if his series was cancelled; Seinfeld’s torturous Bee Movie promotion; Michelle Ryan’s wooden acting on Bionic Woman; Viva Laughlin (it was so bad I had to mention it again).
Sienna Miller Wedding Update
Sienna Miller Wedding Update
As previously reported by the , Sienna Miller and Rhys Ifans are planning on tying the knot sometime in 2008. And it has just been revealed where they’ll hold the ceremony.
According to a source, the “Factory Girl” actress has her sights set on a private Mexican island for her big day. Isla Mujeres, located eight miles off the coast of popular vacation spot Cancun, is rumored to be the locale of the couple’s choosing.
And insider told press, “This is the perfect location for Sienna to have her big day. This particular resort is literally in the middle of nowhere, so it’s perfect if you want a private ceremony. They fell in love with Mexico the first time they went there - so it makes sense for Sienna to choose it as a location for her big day.”
As for the reception, a source reports they’re planning on having a traditional Mexican fiesta complete with Mexican food and tequila from local distilleries. No date has been officially set yet, but knowing these two, it won’t be long.