A brand-spanking new feature to The Edge online, ‘The Edge Buzz’ brings you the week’s biggest and bestest music, film and T.V. news in a short, easily digestible nugget.
Music
This week both Jay-Z and Weezer frontman, Rivers Cuomo, revealed their literary ambitions. The former will release Decoded on November 16th and will see the rapper explaining how rap lyrics offer social and political thoughts and is really just like poetry. I don’t know about you, but I now have the image of Mr. Shakespeare, frilly collar and-all, belting out one of his sonnets on top of a Hummer. No? Just me then.
Cuomo, meanwhile, is set to release The Pinkerton Diaries at the end of November. It will be about Weezer’s 1996 album ‘Pinkerton’ and will include a vast array of the frontman’s e-mails, journals, letters and photos from the 1994-1997period. Sounds like a glorified scrapbook to me, but it seems like it will give fans a true sense of the band’s mentality at that time.
And finally *shuffles paper emphatically*, Sunday saw the return of the Kings of Leon to the top of the Album Chart with their fifth album, Come Around Sundown. Quite an achievement in itself, but made all the more significant as it bagged the biggest first week digital sales of any album, ever. After the overwhelming success of their previous record, Only By The Night, it looks like the next goal for the band must be galactic domination. Or, perhaps a holiday.
Film
Last week we learned that, after a turbulent year or so, The Hobbit finally has a director and his name is Peter Jackson. Thank God! And he’s already decided upon his star, his leading man, his Bilbo Baggins…Martin Freeman. Hang on. That bloke out of The Office? Indeed, the very same. Jackson praised Freeman’s versatility as an actor which has been proven most recently by his appearance as Dr. Watson in the BBC series, Sherlock. Plus, he does look a tad hobbit-like. No offence, Martin.
Liam Neeson has replaced Mel Gibson as The Hangover 2’s big cameo. This was after cast and crew were less than pleased with the decision to include Gibson in the comedy sequel. Neeson, who co-starred with Hangover star Bradley Cooper in The A-Team earlier this summer, will play a tattooist in Thailand. He can’t be accused of being type-cast then.
Steven Spielberg has signed up to direct Robopocalypse, a science fiction epic based on a Daniel H. Wilson novel that sees the human race attempt to survive a robotic uprising. Despite the naff title and unoriginal-sounding premise (Terminator series, I Robot), Spielberg has proven himself a dab hand with the genre before – Close Encounters, E.T., War of the Worlds – so it might not be the end of the world, just yet.
In other news, Lady Gaga and Elton John have recorded a duet for upcoming Disney film, Gnomeo and Juliet. Yes, you guess right. This is an animated take on the Shakespearian tragedy with little porcelain garden decorations replacing the star-crossed lovers. Gaga, Elton and Gnome romance? This could already be the strangest film of next year.
T.V.
The latest X-Factor reject was John Adeleye, one of Louis Walsh’s ‘over-28s’. He was given the boot after fluffing his lines to Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Because of You’ in the sing-off against Treyc Cohen. Also in the result’s show, Michael Bublé seemed distinctly unenthused singing catchy new single, ‘Hollywood’ which, rather ironically, denounces notions of stardom and becoming famous emphasising instead the advantages of being yourself. Added to this, Cheryl Cole mimed her way through new track ‘Promise This’, an unpromising mixture of trance beats and French lyrics (that apparently translate as plucking a bird, or something). But that wasn’t the worst of it. It’s still taking over two hours to muddle through all the live performances. An experience that makes Avatar feel like an ad break.
The Event started this week. But, as the teaser trailer asks, “What is the event?” I don’t know. I didn’t watch it. I’ve reached the point now that if anything on T.V. even remotely resembles Lost, where I invested in a season before becoming quite confused and increasingly frustrated and subsequently switched off, I’m disinclined to give it the time of day. If anyone’s seen it, and I’m wrong, I will of course do a complete u-turn and start watching it religiously. I’m a big fan of procrastination.
And finally, and finally. It would be remiss of me not to give a special mention to Ann Widdecombe, clad in a garish pink frock and overly-sequinned trousers, being hoisted high above the Strictly Come Dancing dance floor last Saturday. Quite a sight I tell you.
2 Comments
So excited about The Hobbit. Literally, if it gets put off one more time, I may cry.
Heard a rumour today that they were moving filming POSSIBLY TO ENGLAND? I may put myself forward to be cast as an extra….
I can see you as a dwarf actually!…If that does happen and the shoot does move to these shores, I’m sure the New Zealanders would be devastated, and part of the essence of the Lord of The Rings trilogy was the breathtaking scenery – it became almost another character. We’ll see what happens though.