Series of 10k charity races taking place globally on August 31st, followed by huge post-race concerts

Posted by Paul Little | Thursday, August 28, 2008 @ 5:28am

Normally we don't post press releases here on ShowbizMonkeys.com (we receive so many, this would turn into a freakin' PR website!) but we do occasionally make exceptions -- whether it's something cool or something worthwhile. Well in this case, it's both!

This Sunday, August 31st, Nike is putting on the Nike+ Human Race, a massive global one-day running event. Beginning in Taiwan, a total of 25 races will take place throughout Asia, Europe, South America, and North America, culminating in Los Angeles with a huge post-race musical event headlined by Kanye West. Other concerts will be taking place worldwide featuring a variety of hit artists: superstar Moby appearing in London; Beijing-based singing duo Yu Quan in Shanghai; R&B songstress Kelly Rowland in Paris; All-American Rejects in NYC; hometown favorite Fall Out Boy in Chicago; and many more.

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Sarah and Ariana's Top Fives: Summer and Sunshine

Posted by Sarah Miller | Sunday, June 15, 2008 @ 12:16am

This issue of Top Fives is brought to you by wishful thinking and procrastination. We live in a land where summer is short-lived and sunshine is just a memory for eight or nine months of the year. Please enjoy.

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Interview: Indiana Jones costume designer Bernie Pollack

Posted by Mark McLeod | Saturday, May 17, 2008 @ 6:15pm

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is one of this summer's most anticipated blockbusters. It's been nearly 20 years since The Last Crusade, and ever since then fans have been waiting for the next installment in this classic serial. It’s been years in the making, and the product of finally finding the right script and the time when Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford were all able to get together. As the years went by and Harrison Ford continued to add another year to his age, it began to look like it just might not happen. In fact, when I spoke with producer/director Frank Marshall in 2006 a few short weeks after Firewall came out (Ford’s return to the action genre), I urged him that the window may indeed be running out. Marshall replied that he always got asked about Indy in every interview he did, and that fans should be patient.

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Interview: Tossers Tim Doirion and April Mullen talk about their new Rock Paper Scissors comedy

Posted by Mark McLeod | Friday, April 4, 2008 @ 9:47am

Let's face it, being a writer for a fairly high profile entertainment and movie website can be both stressful and fun. The fun comes with the perks of seeing movies early and for free, and getting piles of promotional swag. Theatrical one sheets, free DVDs, free t-shirts -- you name it, I get it. Who else do you know that has a pair of custom Jackass converse shoes? Okay, so I don't, as I gave them to a friend -- but I did! On the other hand, the stress comes from the all the e-mail press releases, balancing screenings, writing, and everything else that comes through my inbox. It can be a bit overwhelming. Publicists tracking me down for interview requests and just a general overload on everything movie-related can sometime make a movie the last thing I want to see. Heck, sometimes even the interviews can be stressful. What do I ask them? How will they respond to the questions? What tone will the conversation take? But sometimes, interviews can take the strangest turns and become less of an interview and more of just a discussion between two or more creative, like-minded people. When this happens, and it rarely does, it reinforces just what I got into this for, and that's my love of movies and sharing that with other people.

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Interview: The Lonely Island's Jorma Taccone and Chester Tam

Posted by Paul Little | Tuesday, March 18, 2008 @ 7:49pm

It was a cool, rainy February afternoon in Los Angeles. Hollywood was agog with buzziness over the Academy Awards, which were only a day away. With show business fully prepared to heap immeasurable praise onto itself after months of being denied that possibility due to the writers' strike, the city felt more alive than it ever has.

Feeling somewhat recovered from a cold that had made me want to forget the previous two days had even existed, I was to meet with The Lonely Island's Chester Tam -- who I had the opportunity to interview last August on the phone -- to talk in person about the writers' strike, what he was up to now that the strike was over, and find out more about Hot Rod now that it's gone through its theatrical and DVD releases. That morning, however, he informed me that he'd be bringing along a friend to join in the interview. Any friend of Chester's is a friend of mine, so I certainly had no problem with that!

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Interview: Heroes star Greg Grunberg on the hit NBC show, his new movie Group Sex, and his charity work

Posted by Paul Little | Thursday, March 6, 2008 @ 5:50pm

Greg Grunberg may not be a name that you can place, but you most likely know his face and his work. For years playing supporting characters -- including co-starring on his friend JJ Abrams' shows Felicity and Alias -- Grunberg finally got a starring role in the NBC series Heroes, playing Matt Parkman, the L.A. cop who could read minds. Heroes became a huge hit worldwide, which lead to his face on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and billboards.

Grunberg's newfound fame hasn't changed him, though -- he's often called the nicest guy in television. In fact, he's used his celebrity to raise money for charity with "Band from TV", the group he's set up with several other well-known television personalities. Greg was even kind enough to let me join him on the set of his new movie Group Sex, currently filming in Los Angeles, for a ShowbizMonkeys.com interview. He talked about Heroes, the new movie, his charity work, and even a bit about the new JJ Abrams-directed Star Trek.

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Sarah and Ariana's Top Fives: Movie Music

Posted by Sarah Miller | Monday, March 3, 2008 @ 3:02am

In honour of the Oscars having taken place last week, we bring you film-themed Top Fives! We realize it might have been good to post this pre-Oscars so you could download all of the wonderful movie music we have picked to get yourselves ready for the ceremony, but as usual, we’re a day late and a dollar short. Blame Sarah’s midterms.

Sarah’s taking a page from the Oscars themselves and bringing her picks for Top 5 Movie Scores, and Ariana’s introducing a new category, Top 5 Songs from a Soundtrack.

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ShowbizMonkeys.com at the 80th Annual Academy Awards

Posted by Paul Little | Sunday, February 24, 2008 @ 6:00am

ShowbizMonkeys.com is in Los Angeles this weekend covering the Oscars. But let's not kid ourselves -- we're not CNN or Entertainment Tonight or even TVGuide.com, and as such, we weren't given the same kind of access these media outlets who have been around for more than five months received. But that doesn't mean we didn't get any access. Yes, The Academy gave ShowbizMonkeys.com exterior access prior to Oscar Sunday, granting us a view of the red carpet and other areas off-limits to the general public.

So what is there to tell? Well, first of all, we'll pretend we're the Weather Channel for a minute. It's raining in L.A., and not just a little. There were moments of heavy rain on Saturday during the show preparations, but Oscar Sunday promises to be a very wet day (as I sit in my hotel room, the rain is already coming down quite hard outside). But as the tired old chiché that I'll gladly use again states: "the show must go on". Thus, there are tarps, and lots of them.

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Sarah and Ariana's Top Fives: Best of 2007

Posted by Sarah Miller | Monday, February 4, 2008 @ 12:43am

The 50th birthday of the Grammy Awards is almost upon us, and in honour of this momentous occasion we decided to come up with a list of our 50 Favourite Songs of 2007.

Just kidding. That would be ridiculous. And impossible. And would probably end in fisticuffs. Instead, we offer you our not-really-related-to-the-Grammys-at-all Grammy edition of the Top Fives!

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Classic VFX films return to Vancouver screen

Posted by Mark McLeod | Wednesday, January 30, 2008 @ 8:02pm

One of the best things about seeing a great movie is remembering back to the time and place where you first saw it. I know that for me personally, I can remember many such moviegoing experiences, like the time I first saw The Matrix during the last night of its run in the smallest theatre of a local megaplex, wishing I had gone sooner so I could see it again. I remember the first time I saw American Pie and the screening ended abruptly due to a pulled firm alarm, and having to wait 2 days to see the last 20 minutes and hear that famous line "And this one time at band camp". I can remember seeing many good or great movies and the experiences that went along with them. Hell, I even remember a number of bad ones, but when you see movies for a living you tend to notice these things.

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