Morissette in 'My Humps' spoof
TORONTO (CP) - A cutting parody of the Black Eyed Peas' party song "My Humps" has Alanis Morissette fans howling online.
A spoof music video on sites including Morissette's website and MySpace page has the Ottawa native crooning a slowed-down torch version of the chart-topper and gyrating in a variety of hootchie outfits including short-shorts, a tube top and a tight satin jacket.
The ridiculous clip is attracting cheers from fans across the blogosphere, where pop-culture junkies are delighting in the "Ironic" singer's no-holds-barred critique of the titillating track and singer Fergie's suggestive dance moves.
"The 'My Humps' video is ultra-comic GOLD!" one fan, identified as 31-year-old Julian from Decatur, Ga., writes on Morissette's MySpace page.
"Your video is freakin' hilarious. Maybe u could do Alanis-licious too." adds Kelly, a 30-year-old woman from Texas.
A spokesman for Morissette said the singer was not commenting on why she recorded the song and shot a video, but reports have suggested it was an April Fool's joke for fans.
With call-and-response lyrics including the hypnotic refrain, "My humps, my humps, my humps, my lovely lady lumps," the Black Eyed Peas hit has drawn its fair share of detractors since its release in late 2005.
Slate.com derided the track in a December 2005 posting as "horrifically bad," going on to describe it as "a stunning assemblage of awful ideas." The All Music Guide called it "one of the most embarrassing rap performances of the new millennium."
Still, its catchy melody and suggestive video won it heavy radio and television play last year, and in February "My Humps" won a Grammy for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocal.
But it's clear the song still rankles. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1.5 million people had watched Morissette's goofy cover on Youtube.com.
"HAHA! I like Alanis all over again," dannosaurus says on Youtube.com, identified on his profile as 33-year-old Dan from the United States.
"This is just perfect. Really shows how stupid those lyrics actually are."
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On the web: http://alanis.com/main.html.
Venture cut, new programs introduced to CBC-TV lineup
CBC-TV has cancelled the award-winning business news and current affairs program Venture, with staff of the venerable series learning of the decision in a meeting Wednesday afternoon.
Venture, the acclaimed performing arts series Opening Night and six other shows will not be returning to the CBC-TV schedule this fall, said Jeff Keay, CBC's head of media relations.
Other cancelled programs are:
Moving On
Country Canada
72 Hours: True Crime
Jozi-H
Hatching, Matching & Dispatching
Rumours
"They've been terrific shows. They've had terrific runs," Keay told CBC Arts Online.
"We see the TV schedule as something in a constant state of evolution," he said, adding that content that had been covered in these programs will "continue in other forms" on the network.
Keay said that for the cancelled shows produced by the CBC, the majority of the staff will be reassigned, but there would be 10 redundancies.
Staff celebrate Venture's 'great legacy'
After the announcement, the show's team headed out to a nearby pub to "drown our sorrows and celebrate the great legacy that Venture leaves," said Dianne Buckner, the show's host and one of its producers.
"We're all very, very sad," said Buckner, who joined Venture as a reporter in 1991 and succeeded Robert Scully as host in 1997.
"We're very proud of the show that we did … It was a fantastic program.”
A mainstay of CBC-TV since its debut in January 1985, Venture shone a weekly spotlight on the worlds of business and enterprise in a way that showed how they affected regular Canadians.
Over the years, the series has counted a host of high-profile media personalities among its staff, beginning with the first host, Patrick Watson, the former co-host and producer of CBC's This Hour Has Seven Days and later chair of the public broadcaster.
Other former Venture reporters and producers include media critic Antonia Zerbisias, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente and B.C. Finance Minister Carole Taylor, the well-known former journalist who also served as chair of the CBC.
Venture's latest half-hour series, Dreamers + Schemers, began airing last Sunday during a lunchtime slot on CBC Newsworld. The show will remain on the CBC-TV schedule until May 20.
New programming revealed
CBC also announced on Wednesday a handful of new additions to the TV lineup, including the star-studded new Henry VIII drama The Tudors, with Jonathan Rhys Meyers portraying the British king.
Among the programs returning to the schedule will be favourites like Marketplace, Hockey Night in Canada, and the comedy trio This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Rick Mercer Report and Royal Canadian Air Farce, as well as recent hits such as Test the Nation and Little Mosque on the Prairie.
More information about CBC-TV's upcoming lineup will be announced in late May.
In a management decision unrelated to Wednesday's programming announcement, Keay added that 31 other CBC staffers across the country involved in business and administration functions have also been declared redundant.
Apu Gets His Groove On
When is a scoop not a scoop? When someone else reported it in a newspaper nearly a fortnight before you did. Back on March 23, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that 11 7-Eleven stores around the country were going to be turned into Kwik-E-Marts to help promote The Simpsons Movie (insert your favorite D’oh joke here, everyone else is.)
Then yesterday, AICN printed an email from a reader giving the same info without acknowledging that newspapers have been reporting it for over a week. Boy, you just can’t trust anyone on the Internet these days… except for me, of course.
As far as the story itself goes, damn, I hope they do one here. Reportedly you’ll be able to buy Krusty-O’s, Buzz Cola, and Squishees. The chances are low I’ll see one anywhere but on television though, there are 4,700 7-Elevens nationwide, and this will only happen at 0.2% of them. Margaret Chabris, a spokeswoman for the retail chains parent company had a tremendous grasp of the obvious when she said “"We've done research, and research shows us that our customers like . . . movies.” I hope Margaret didn’t pay more than $5 for that research, because it’s not like splitting the atom or anything, it’s pretty much common sense.
"Grindhouse" set to terrorize holiday box office
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Americans might be marking such religious celebrations as Passover and Easter this week, but at the box office this weekend, the stage is set for bloody mayhem and broad slapstick.
The No. 1 slot is likely to go to "Grindhouse," a marathon of B-movie tropes from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, which should open in the low- to mid-$20 million range.
The Dimension Films/Weinstein Co. release is the big-buzz movie among legions of hardcore thrill-seekers. The novel packaging -- the movie is set up as a double bill, complete with trailers of coming attractions -- encompasses Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," in which Rose McGowan blasts away at nasty zombies, and Tarantino's "Death Proof," in which Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike faces off against some fast-driving chicks.
Two years ago on April 1, Rodriguez's "Sin City" opened to $29.1 million. And Tarantino's past two films, "Kill Bill-Vol. 1" in 2003 and "Kill Bill-Vol. 2" in 2004, opened to $22.1 million and $25.1 million, respectively. "Grindhouse's" biggest handicap is not its R rating but the fact that it runs more than three hours.
Sony Pictures, meanwhile, will court laughs with its this-old-house comedy "Are We Done Yet?"
The PG-rated release is both a sequel -- stars Ice Cube and Nia Long, whose characters were dating in 2005's road trip comedy "Are We There Yet?" are now married with children -- and a remake of sorts: It's loosely based on 1948's "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," with Ice Cube stepping into the Cary Grant role of a new homeowner who stumbles into a money pit.
"Are We There Yet?" attracted families and urban audiences, opening at No. 1 with $18.6 million in 2005. The sequel could do comparable business, but its three-day weekend number will likely be lower because of the movie's Wednesday opening, timed to take advantage of school vacationers.
"Done" will end up jousting with last weekend's No. 1 film, the comedy "Blades of Glory," for the second spot. "Blades" bowed at $33 million last weekend, so a 40%-50% drop would put it in the $16 million-$20 million range. It also will compete with the second weekend of Disney's animated "Meet the Robinsons."
Warner Bros. Pictures' "The Reaping," which opens Thursday, might have some resonance given the surrounding religious holidays. The R-rated horror movie stars Hilary Swank as a religious skeptic investigating what appears to be a series of biblical plagues in a Southern town. Despite the presence of the two-time Oscar winner, the movie could have difficulty climbing above the $10 million mark.
On the family front, Fox's PG-rated "Firehouse Dog," which opened Wednesday, will compete with "Robinsons" and the three-week old "TMNT."
'Christmas Story' director dies in crash
LOS ANGELES - Film director Bob Clark, best known for the holiday classic "A Christmas Story," was killed with his son Wednesday in a head-on crash with a vehicle that a drunken driver steered into the wrong lane, police and the filmmaker's assistant said.
Clark, 67, and son Ariel Hanrath-Clark, 22, were killed in the accident in Pacific Palisades, said Lyne Leavy, Clark's personal assistant.
The two men were in an Infiniti that collided head-on with a GMC Yukon around 2:30 a.m. PDT, said Lt. Paul Vernon, a police spokesman. The driver of the other car was under the influence of alcohol and was driving without a license, Vernon said.
The driver, Hector Velazquez-Nava, 24, of Los Angeles, remained hospitalized and will be booked for investigation of gross vehicular manslaughter after being treated, Vernon said. A female passenger in his car also was taken to the hospital with minor injuries and released, police said.
In Clark's most famous film, all 9-year-old Ralphie Parker wants for Christmas is an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle.
His mother, teacher and Santa Claus all warn: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."
A school bully named Scut Farkus, a leg lamp, a freezing flagpole mishap and some four-letter defiance helped the movie become a seasonal fixture with "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street."
Scott Schwartz, who played Flick in "A Christmas Story" and kept in touch with Clark, called Clark one of the "nicest, sweetest guys that you'd ever want to come in contact with."
"It's a tragic day for all of us who knew and loved Bob Clark," Schwartz said. "Bob was a fun-loving, jelly-roll kind of guy who will be sorely missed."
The director of The Christmas Story House in Cleveland, which was used for several exterior shots in the film, said Clark had been planning to visit in August.
"We were all very excited about meeting him," said executive director Steve Siedlecki. "It's very sad to think that that will never happen."
The house started a condolence book for Clark's family that fans who visit the house can sign, he said. Renovated to look like Ralphie's movie home, the house opened in November and has welcomed about 30,000 visitors.
Clark specialized in horror movies and thrillers early in his career, directing such 1970s flicks as "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," "Murder by Decree," "Breaking Point" and "Black Christmas," which was remade last year.
His breakout success came with 1981's sex farce "Porky's," a coming-of-age romp that he followed two years later with "Porky's II: The Next Day."
In 1983, "A Christmas Story" marked a career high for Clark. Darrin McGavin, Melinda Dillon and Peter Billingsley starred in the adaptation of Jean Shepard's childhood memoir of a boy in the 1940s.
The film was a modest theatrical success, but critics loved it.
In 1994, Clark directed a forgettable sequel, "It Runs in the Family," featuring Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen and Kieran Culkin in a continuation of Shepard's memoirs.
In recent years, Clark made family comedies that were savaged by critics, including "Karate Dog," "Baby Geniuses" and its sequel, "Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2."
Among Clark's other movies were Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton's "Rhinestone," Timothy Hutton's "Turk 182!", and Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd's "Loose Cannons."