Remember when Oprah had that big final season of her Oprah Winfrey Show last year and everyone was all booing and hooing about how it was the end of the an era goodbye Oprah forever? Well, ha, fast forward to now and Oprah's doing the same damn thing she did on her show, guys. Same damn thing, just on the network that she owns, OWN. She owns OWN, ya dig? Anyway, because ratings on the network have not been the bestest, Winfrey has started doing her patented serious sit-down interviews with celebrities like Whitney Houston and Rihanna, earning the net good ratings, and now to recreate something else from her "old" days, she's bringing back the insane bacchanalian festival of consumerism that is "Oprah's Favorite Things." That's when she blesses her audience with heaps of free sh-t and the ladies go absolutely bonkers — like real, wig-flipping head-over-heinie nuts for this thing. People loved watching those episodes, so they're gonna do a Favorite Things special on OWN in the hopes that it will bring people to the network. Could work. Or, you know, she could always give some unsuspecting audience member their own TV network. "And here it is, your own TV network called OWN, goodbyeeeeee!!!" Oprah bellows as she runs to the window and jumps through it, never to be seen again. [Deadline]
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Eat this, Oprah: While OWN flounders, The CW is doing quite well in the old ratings department. Last night's season premiere of The Vampire Diaries did big numbers for the net, and provided a nice lead-in for the series premiere of Beauty & the Beast, that new and improved — now Linda Hamilton-free! — modern take on the tale. B&tB improved on the numbers earned by The Secret Circle in the same premiere slot last season, which could be a good sign for the show. Obviously the first week isn't a guarantee of anything, but this is a good way to start. And it should be no surprise that TVD handily beat all the networks in the females 12-17 demographic, because if you're a girl between the ages of 12 and 17 and you're not watching The Vampire Diaries then you're probably a dumb jerk weirdo and you can't sit at my lunch table. (Just kidding, you're great, don't watch The Vampire Diaries, or do, either way it's fine, do your thing.) [Entertainment Weekly]
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Um, duhhhhh. Jason Schwartzman has shockingly signed on to join the ensemble of Wes Anderson's next movie, The Grand Hotel Budapest. Schwartzman has never done a movie with Wes Anderson before so this is a huge surprise. (How long could I keep up this faux sarcastic tone before someone reached through the computer and slapped me, I wonder? Not long, probably!) No one knows what the movie is about yet, but no women have been cast yet, so maybe the Grand Hotel Budapest is, y'know, one of those hotels? Jason, I had no idea. [Vulture]
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Thankfully television will not be down a lawyer show any time soon. (Except for Made in Jersey, sorry girl.) USA has renewed its drama Suits — about lawyers in suits but also lawsuits, get it? — for a third season. So, there will be more of, uh, all that... lawyering... that they do on that show... Look, in truth I've never seen an episode of Suits, or really any other USA show. I've seen snippets, and actually yeah, I watched some of a Suits on a plane (it had no VOD, for a cross-country flight, this is an outrage, no?), but I don't really know what the shows are about. And I don't care to find out! Unless Matt Bomer's character on White Collar suddenly gets a disease that makes him allergic to clothes. In that case, bring that to my attention. [Deadline]
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Here's a new trailer for the delayed Gangster Squad and, eesh, the more we see of this movie, the less it seems enticing. All that goofy rap music and Gosling swagger and Sean Penn yelling. It's all a bit much. And trying to make it seem like Emma Stone's character, The Girl, is much of anything is a bit lame. Maybe it's a good thing this got pushed to January (though it got pushed for terrible reasons related to the Aurora shootings). People won't notice a big boof of a movie during those dreary movie months the same way they would in scrutiny-heavy awards season.
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