Posted by Mike

Love is in the air on Nashville Star this week — and it’s not just because, after last week’s double elimination, only one act will be going home at episode’s end. The theme this week is love songs. A week after Pearl Heart was unjustly voted off the show, are we ready to love again? Well, since Ashlee Hewitt is up first, sure.

Ashlee is singing “Cowboy Take Me Away” by Dixie Chicks, and she’s singing it to her future cowboy who might be out there watching in TV land. At the moment she says that, about a million guys in the audience think she’s talking about them. Ashlee has improved dramatically as a performer throughout the competition, now rivaling Coffey in the stage presence department. Her vocals, as Jewel notes, are refreshingly understated — and she’s just so darned cute. Hopefully her strong performance tonight makes last week’s surprising appearance in the Bottom 2 a one-time deal. Our rating: 4 stars

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Tags: NBC, Nashville Star, Recap, Video by Mike
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Posted by Mike

It’s getting closer to crunch time on Nashville Star, which means it’s time to start separating the contenders from the pretenders. In that spirit, two acts will be going home this week, based on last week’s voting results. One of them won’t even get to perform this week. Immediately, Tommy Stanley and Melissa Lawson are asked to go to the front of the stage. One of them was the top vote-getter for this week and the other is going home. If you don’t know which is which, you haven’t been watching Nashville Star this season.

Tommy’s gone, leaving Melissa to knock yet another song our of the park — which she does with Anne Murray’s “Danny’s Song.” Both Jewel and John Rich say the song started out a little low before Melissa came out soaring, but it really just seems like they wanted to offer something constructive. Jewel also questions whether Melissa’s family can handle the stress of a country music career, to which Melissa responds that they’ve been waiting 19 years for the opportunity to find out. Man, those kids sure looked young for 19 last week … Our rating: 4 stars

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Tags: NBC, Nashville Star, Recap, Video by Mike
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Posted by Mike

If you haven’t seen this commercial for Battleground Earth: Ludacris vs. Tommy Lee on Planet Green, check it out. Trust us, it’s worth 30 seconds of your time. (And anyone who thinks Tommy Lee is joking about not showering for seven days hasn’t read The Dirt.)

The show, in which rapper/actor Chris “Ludacris” Bridges goes head-to-head with Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee to see which musician can lead a more eco-friendly lifestyle, doesn’t premiere until August 3. But we interviewed Ludacris this week, and this is a sampling of what he had to say about the show:

Some people might be surprised to see you and Tommy Lee involved with Planet Green. How did you two hook up for Battleground Earth?

Ludacris: I was approached by my management team and the producers of the show to do this project. Once I read what it was about and the exciting way to learn about becoming more eco-friendly, I knew it was something that I had to do. I hadn’t really had a chance to meet Tommy until we started filming, but once we did meet we hit it right off and I knew we were going to be having a great time.

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Tags: Battleground Earth: Ludacris vs. Tommy Lee, Planet Green, Video by Mike
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Posted by Mike

Pop goes country this week on Nashville Star, which means one thing — backup dancers! Just what every self-respecting country singer needs. Speaking of country singers, two of them are asked to step to the front of the stage at the very start of the show. One of them is safe this week, the other is in the Bottom 2. Since the producers don’t even want to try and trick us, those two singers are Tommy Stanley and Gabe Garcia. Gabe ain’t Bottom 2 material, so he’ll be the first to perform this week, right after a group version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” During the song, Tommy cements his Bottom 2 status by letting out a wince-inducing sour note.

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Tags: NBC, Nashville Star, Recap, Video by Mike
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Posted by Mike

You probably already know that the Jonas Brothers movie Camp Rock premieres on Disney Channel this Friday. What you might not know, is that Demi Lovato, the Jonases’ costar in the movie — and the official “Next Big Thing” among the teen set — has signed on to star in her very own series on the network called Welcome to Mollywood. Production begins this September, with a 2008-09 season premiere expected. So there’s that.

Oh, and in case you haven’t seen it a thousand times already, here’s a Camp Rock preview clip:

Tags: Camp Rock, Disney Channel, Tube Talk, Video, Welcome to Mollywood by Mike
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Posted by Mike

He’s 48, divorced and just a shade shorter than the average Sequoia. Sound like your kind of guy? What if we told you we were talking about former Everybody Loves Raymond/current ‘Til Death star Brad Garrett? This fall, the nearly 6-foot-9-inch actor is starring in Dating Brad Garrett, a new web-exclusive series on Crackle.com. The show will feature Garrett going on dates with 10 women whose video applications were approved by an unlikely panel that includes both his ex-wife and his urologist — and you could be one of them, if you submit your video to Crackle.com.

From Crackle: Dating Brad Garrett: Why Date Him?

Tags: Tube Talk, Video by Mike
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Posted by Mike and johnnysweeptheleg

This is it. The last Lost preview of the season. Thursday night, beginning at 8pm ET/7pm CT, ABC will air an encore of “There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1″ with never-before-seen bonus footage followed by the two-hour season finale. It’s been an incredible season so far, and it promises to get even better during the final two hours. Without further ado, here’s a preview clip from the episode, plus an interesting video of Matthew Fox’s audition for the role of … Sawyer.

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Tags: ABC, Drama, Lost, Preview, Video by Mike
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Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

Today is Toby Flenderson’s last day. Obviously Michael has been looking forward to this for a long time — so much so, that he couldn’t sleep last night. The only order of business for the day is the planning of Toby’s going-away party, for which Angela has planned a buttercream cake and a slide show featuring two pictures of Toby. Not quite what Michael had in mind. He wants the kind of party you’d throw “if the devil were to explode and evil were gone forever” — like a beach blowout or toga party. Maybe even a New Orleans funeral. He’d settle for an anti-gravity machine. He’s even willing to spend his own money, which he has saved from the birthday checks his senile grandma has been sending him nine or 10 times a year lately. When Angela refuses to comply with his wishes, Phyllis usurps control of the party-planning committee.

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Tags: Comedy, NBC, Recap, The Office, Video by Mike
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Posted by Mike and johnnysweeptheleg

This week’s episode of Lost, “There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1,” is the first installment of the season’s three-part finale, which — in one of the most complicated finale schedules we can remember — airs two weeks before the two-hour presentation of Parts 2 and 3 on May 29. That’s right. Lost is going on yet another mini-hiatus, thanks to a two-hour Grey’s Anatomy season finale on May 22.

That aside, we wanted to discuss something from last week’s episode. During “Cabin Fever,” Ben suggested that he wasn’t always the “leader” of the island. So who was? How nice of you to ask. We have our own crazy little theory: It seems Richard Alpert might have been Ben’s predecessor before he took on a new role, in which he was subservient to Ben — much like Ben has now done with Locke. Looking to the future, it seems like Walt and Aaron might become the future Ben and Locke. It seems that Ben, in his own way (cough*kidnapping*cough), wanted to recruit the two of them, much like Alpert did with Ben and Locke. Maybe hearing this from Christian Shephard was why Claire was willing to leave Aaron behind — “where he needs to be” — while she hangs out with her dead dad in Jacob’s cabin. Just putting it out there.

Anyway, here are the preview clips:

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Tags: ABC, Drama, Lost, Preview, Video by Mike
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Posted by Mike and johnnysweeptheleg

ABC has been running previews for this week’s episode that contain the line, “The island takes one survivor for its own.” Does that mean that another character will be meeting an untimely end, a week after we said goodbye to Alex (not to mention three random members of Locke’s camp who were too stupid to listen to Sawyer — and the sound of gunfire — and stay inside their house)? Maybe, although it’s a pretty open-ended statement. Still, after watching the previews below, we’d be a little worried if we were Claire, Sawyer or Miles.

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Tags: ABC, Drama, Lost, Preview, Video by Mike
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