DaveChung.com – A Guy’s Blog From Girl World

We interrupt our regularly semi-scheduled entertainment programming for anyone trying to find info about today’s earthquake in Los Angeles. According to CNN, it was a 5.8

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, with the epicenter in Chino Hills.

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According to me, it was pretty loud and pretty shaky to the point that you would look like an idiot if you were trying to run right when it happened.

Luckily, it feels like the building that I was in at the time is built for earthquakes because it was rolling like it was its job – probably because in this situation, it was its job.

Did anyone duck and cover? Or just continue sitting at your computer like me?

I spent the day today at Comic-Con 2008 in very sunny San Diego, California to take in a few panels – notably Max Payne (starring Mark Wahlberg), The Day the Earth Stood Still (Starring Keanu Reeves), and a surprise appearance by Hugh Jackman who debuted footage from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which literally just wrapped up filming.

Max Payne, which also stars Ludacris and Mila Kunis, was a pleasant surprise! Based on the popular video game, Mark Wahlberg looks and sounds a good deal like the character that he’s playing.

This definitely looks like it will be a fun shoot ‘em up style movie that will be sorely lacking in realism, but making up for it in just general fun. Kunis looks hot and does some fighting of her own, while Wahlberg praised Luda’s performance in the flick.

They showed a few clips, one where Payne dodges an unreal amount of bullets coming from automatic weapons, and a couple others that showed the lead just being a general badass, no one complained.

The early verdict? It looks better than you’d expect.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is an alien-based remake where Keanu Reeves takes the lead role as the main alien in the film. Jennifer Connelly, who looked stunning on the panel, is the other big name in the film that was probably the least impressive of the three that were shown at this panel.

It definitely looked interesting, with Keanu Reeves showing the same emotion that we’ve all come to know (and I suppose love) him for, but it paled in comparison to what was to come – a surprise appearance by Wolverine himself – Hugh Jackman!

Fresh off a plane from Australia, Jackman came to thank Comic-Con fans and the creator of Wolverine for “giving him a career.” He showed a few minutes of footage from the upcoming flick that literally just wrapped and I have to say that it looks incredible. Jackman promised that there would be a lot of “bezerker rage” in this film and the clip definitely delivered.

Since the movie is called X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it looks to be an abbreviated version of how Logan came to be – much like this summer’s huge hit Iron Man.

There were some brief glimpses of the “Weapon X” version of Wolverine, along with clips of William Stryker trying to take control of Wolverine early on.

One of the biggest and best surprises of the clip was FINALLY seeing Gambit on the big screen, who will be played by Taylor Kitsch of Friday Night Lights fame.

Kitsch is a little thicker than the Gambit that many of us grew up knowing and loving from the TV cartoon, but from the looks of the clip, it looks to be an excellent fit for that right mix of good and bad in one of the most popular X-Men.

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Most of the fans in attendance fanboy-ed out for Gambit, along with the Twilight fans who merely just screamed for Kitsch’s good looks.

This looks like it will not only be a great fit for the role, but Wolverine looks like it will be a huge hit for Marvel.

With all the strength of a vampire’s bite that could compel hundreds of fans to line up for a movie panel up to sixteen hours before it actually began, a new clip from the film based on Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling book Twilight stole Thursday’s show in Hall H at Comic-Con 2008. With the 6,500 seat auditorium filled to capacity, Twilight fans were treated to a brand new clip from the upcoming film.

The clip that was shown today started making the film start to look like what I’ve been calling it all along – the surprise box office hit of the Christmas season (maybe not in terms of overall box office, but in terms of profitability). The clip featured Edward (Robert Pattinson) in a fight with James (Cam Gigandet, better known as Volchok from The OC) in a pretty epic brawl with Bella in the middle (Kristen Stewart) that was much more intense than anything previously shown in previews and clips. Bella was thrashed about, as was James and Edward now that I think about it, and the film showed through this clip that it will have some balls beneath the love story that has made the series one of the most popular being talked about today. 

Twilight fans have long been aware of the big-screen adaptation of the ever-popular books, but the series of vampire-human romance novels based on a story between a girl named Bella and vampire named Edward seems to fly under the radar a little bit compared to “so three years ago” Harry Potter (which is a fantastic series, but it’s not nearly as “fetch” as it once was). So if you’ve missed the boat, consider this your “heads up” before the bandwagon runs out of space.

However, nothing about the enthusiasm in Hall H would make you think that Twilight was going to have any less impact on pop culture than the glasses-wearing wizard Potter. Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) braved the audience’s full-throttled enthusiasm with smiles on their faces, along with author Stephenie Meyer, director Catherine Hardwicke, and actors Cam Gigandet, Taylor Lautner

, Edi Gathegi, and Jacob Black. 

With what could end up being the longest Q&A session (moderated by IGN’s Eric Moro) of Comic-Con 2008, Cam Gigandet took the comic relief lead of the huge panel and helped out as the group tackled questions like “What is it like to play a super hot vampire?”

An awkward moment came when a Twilight mom asked if the fairly young actors Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner wore “boxers, briefs, or nothing,” following up the question with “Kristen [Stewart], do you know?? Just a joke…” which was met with a quick, cold look from Bella herself. But overall, every single answer (even the fact that a visibly nervous Robert Pattinson may have not completed a full sentence during the panel) was met with unreal applause from the crowd, along with exclamations like “Rob, I love you!!!” “Evil has never looked so good!!!” and many, many more.

To say the fans in attendance today love Twilight would be an understatement of the greatest kind. Will Twilight pull Harry Potter money?

No, it won’t. But to dismiss Twilight as “just another teen movie” would be a huge miss on what I believe will be one of this Christmas season’s biggest sleeper hits.

download birds of america dvdrip Remember the days when music videos actually really mattered and we were surprised when people hadn’t seen the latest video for the “phattest” track out there?

Hayden Panettiere’s “Wake Up Call” video would not meet that “phat” criteria. Keeping with the island-y beat theme made so forever popular by random reggaeton artists and more famously by Rihanna and Sean Kingston, Miss Panettiere’s first single is pretty doodoo. She does look pretty good, but it’s not that fresh faced cheerleader look that we’ve all grown to know and love.

Less dirty girl, more cheerleader – that would be a much better wake up call. I’m sure that HPanny is trying hard not to be seen as a pop princess, but a song that shows a little vocal ability and catchiness would have still be miles ahead of whatever this is.

Alas, if you ever wanted to see her partially in her undies, your wishes have been granted. 

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Having a great week this week was Courtney Galiano , who suddenly looks like she’s ready to compete with Katee and Chelsie for the top female spot in the competition after a rough week for Kherington Payne. While Courtney once looked like she could be one of the first girls to go, after some great chemistry with Gev and now Joshua, she could be this season’s surprise.

Showing Joshua’s versatility was a fantastic rumba that he and Courtney pulled off flawlessly. When watching Joshua in a routine like this, you quickly forget that he’s a hip-hop dancer who is as sick as he is. Courtney, a contemporary dancer with some moves from her experience with the New York Knicks, is no slouch herself in a performance that was one of the best on a night filled with strong performances.

Both Joshua and Courtney feel like long shots, but they have continued to impress week after week and this was no different – even when broken out from what were some very good previous pairings for both of them. This performance had passion, form, and showed just how confident both of the dancers have become dancing outside of their own styles.

It is no secret that I love Chelsie Hightower, who I quickly chose as a favorite at her leggy cha-cha filled audition. While Kherington steals a piece of my heart and Joshua and Gev

are probably my favorite two contestants in terms of personality, Chelsie has been a joy to watch all season.

Chelsie and Gev pulled off one of the few jives on the show that I’ve actually really enjoyed watching. Despite a few missed transitions, where Gev didn’t lead Chelsie correctly, causing Chelsie to just spin on her own, it was high energy and Chelsie’s trademark footwork and personality in the face were on full display for the very fun performance.

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Really, the question with Chelsie is whether her solos are going to be good enough to take her into the finale. There has been no question that she’s one of the top girls to be paired with, simply because there’s no dance that she cannot do, but her solos are definitely lacking so far compared to the other contestants.

Like Lacey Schwimmer from last season, Chelsie shows some fancy feet, but isn’t a jumping, spinning, aerial-type of girl, so her performances seem to stick out a little less – despite the fact that she’s just as skilled as any of the remaining girls. She’s definitely no lower than the Top 2 girls at this point and shows few signs of slipping, as her ability to breeze through two routines tonight with Gev not being as strong of a partner as Mark was for her shows how confident and able she is at this point.

Now that we’re in the Top 10 semi-finals, we’re also in the time where it becomes a little less about partner dancing and solos become more significant as we vote for individuals instead of pairs.

download adulthood movie If we’re being honest, Joshua Allen could be the most entertaining solo dancer left in the competition – hip-hopping better than Twitch and Gev, while managing to show a lot more crowd pleasing personality than resident dance technician Will (who is great, on a side note). Even better, Joshua has rarely had the opportunity to do solos, unlike people like Comfort, whose solos are still good, but getting old by this point after we feel like we’ve seen everything that she can do. Tonight, Joshua’s solo could have been the best the competition had to offer this week, set to the music of Michael Jackson’s “Jam.”

Showing that she’s more than capable of standing on her own as one of the judges’ favorites at this point in the competition was Katee, who had the best girl’s solo on the night, closely followed by Courtney Galiano. Katee dances with an energy and passion that makes it almost feel like she’s creating a style all her own while she’s on stage. She’s quickly becoming a fan favorite and likely surpassed Kherington this week with a convenient pairing with Will, an excellent solo, and some great performances.

Katee and Will took on the Pas de Deux this week, choreographed by Desmond Richardson, who “coincidentally” is one of Will’s idols. “Coincidentally,” Will happened to also be paired with Katee, who is probably the girl who could have best pulled off this routine, possibly distantly followed by Kherington.

Pairing Katee and Will together was almost like watching Anya and Pasha dance together. The two dancers are so strong together, but they suspiciously didn’t pull hip-hop, nor krumping (Lil C was a judge), and got two routines that fit pretty well with their dance styles.

Ah well, who cares.

Apart from a little balance check from Katee, their performance of Desmond Richardson’s first-ever choreographed performance on the show was perfect, breathtaking, and made me think that I could actually watch something like this for a whole show. I enjoyed this performance far better than I did the Bollywood performance by Katee and Joshua last week.

It was a fantastic “first” for SYTYCD, but it will take a very, very strong couple to pull something like this off every again. Imagine if this had been Comfort and Twitch? That would have been a trainwreck.

As reported on Blogging So You Think You Can Dance, and Entertainment Weekly this week, Top 10 semi-finalist Jessica King opened up this week’s show by announcing that she had broken two ribs and fractured another, which opened the door for hip-hopper Comfort to be on the show for one week before she gets voted off tomorrow night if my suspicions are correct.

With Jessica out, the competition took a bit of a weird turn as couples changed partners as is customary in the Top 10 and switched into pairs that seemed a little too convenient when looking at the performances. However, I quickly forgot about how questionable a lot of these “coincidences” seemed after I was wow-ed by numerous performances tonight.

This week’s new couples were as follows:

Chelsie and Gev (the two shortest competitors left)

Twitch and Comfort (Hmm… anything else think it was obvious they would pull hip-hop?)

Kherington and Mark (two who were “outshined” by their partners)

Courtney and Joshua (nothing too fishy about this one)

Katee and Will (two best technical dancers)

Normally, I’m not one for anything close to conspiracy theories, but it would have been near impossible for Gev to dance with Katee or Kherington. The simple fact that Will got to dance a routine choreographed by one of his idols, while paired with one of the dancers who could help pull it off with him seemed more than questionable.

And while their first routine was a mess, let’s applaud the “coincidence” that was Comfort and Twitch getting to perform a hip-hop routine together. Nigel said that their routine was so good that it didn’t look choreographed and that’s exactly how I felt watching their performance. While I still don’t think it’s my favorite hip-hop routine ever on the show, I do think that it fittingly felt the most natural and looked like Twitch and Comfort were really just trying to one-up each other on stage.

There were so many great performances this week, so I’ll break this up into a couple posts. But if we’re being real here, going home tomorrow night should be Comfort and Mark. For the bottom two girls, it will likely be Kherington and Comfort, while the guys will likely be Gev and Mark

. I could also see Gev going home, but I’m hoping that Kherington gets another week to show that she can get through a show without getting winded.

As we all get ready for the last week of competition before the crowning of this season’s Top 10, here’s a preview of So You Think You Can Dance this week. The couples compete for votes particularly hard this week because this show decides who gets to go on the tour. This week’s show might surprise some with the emergence of a couple very reminiscent of Sabra and Dominic last season, Courtney G. and Gev, who continue to improve, yet fly under the radar a bit.

There are some fun surprises in this week’s show as well with the return of a couple from last season, a little Kourtni L. in the audience, a first-ever on the show, and some interesting commentary from Mia Michaels in the guest judge chair. All in all, a great show and something to look forward to for all.

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In my opinion, still the couple to beat at this point in the competition is Chelsie H. and Mark, who perform a Broadway routine, along with an Alex Da Silva Salsa routine that takes advantage of Chelsie’s Latin ballroom experience.

What truly separates this couple from the others is their ability to take on the characters that they’re playing that week. In the couple’s Broadway routine, Chelsie H. takes on the role of a strong-willed W-O-M-A-N who pushes Mark around, the opposite of the couple’s dramatic hip-hop routine a couple weeks ago. Chelsie’s footwork is truly something to watch this week and their Broadway routine is one of my favorites from a genre that is generally tough for me to like – definitely look out for the couple’s strong performances this week.

The judges are treating the leggy Chelsie H. as one of the frontrunner at this point and why not? She has done nothing but impress since her audition, where she WOWed the judges with her footwork – something that continues to be her strength throughout the competition.

Beyond the footwork, Chelsie commits to whatever role is presented to her – whether it be hip-hop, contemporary, or Broadway. From her moves to her facial expressions, Chelsie has shown no fear of any style of dance so far and that’s the attitude that will keep her in the competition well beyond the Top 10. Even more, Chelsie and Mark work extremely well together, are believable in numerous contexts, and dance as partners, not individuals.

Having a rough go at it this week from the judges was crowd favorite Twitchington – Kherington and Twitch. While the couple pull off what I believe to be the hottest Krumping routine ever on the show, their second routine was lacking the enthusiasm that made up for some synching problems in their high energy Krumping performance.

While the couple’s second routine is simply just “ok,” definitely look out for their Little C choreographed Krump that will have you rewinding your DVR a couple times just to watch how BUCK Kherington can get on stage (not to mention hot). Starting from Twitch’s HUGE leap on stage to kick things off, there is no doubt that Twitch’s energy helped Kherington pull off a Krump that would have looked ridiculous from any other couple, but Kherington’s commitment to “getting buck” during the dance is going to win over a lot more fans this week. Like Chelsie H., Kherington has proved a versatile talent on stage and she’s doing the impossible – not getting overshadowed by Twitch.

Katee and Joshua continued to perform at a high level with a Viennese Waltz and believe it or not, the show’s first-ever Bollywood routine. While nearly impossible in theory, Katee and Joshua’s ballroom routine (to Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris”) followed up Twitchington’s high energy Krump routine, but still held its own with the audience.

What everyone will be talking about this week, however, is the show’s first ever Bollywood routine by the couple. Interestingly, the performance is done with traditional Indian music, not popular music or any sort of remix to try and Americanize the style. Honestly, I thought it was going to be a trainwreck, but the only couple that I think could have pulled off this routine does so in a very big way. Bollywood will be a pleasant surprise to most, but I think it’s a genre that is not meant to be the next regular genre like Salsa or Hip-Hop on the show, and it should only be used sparingly because it could go very, very wrong with the wrong couple.

Something to look out for this week is the emergence of Courtney G. and Gev as a couple to be reckoned with. Unlike Twitchington, Chelsie/Mark, and Katee/Joshua, couples that started good and continue to be good, this couple has been forced to really step up to stay in the competition. Starting with their hip-hop routine a few routines back (anyone else not surprised that New York Knicks’ dancer Courtney got down in this performance?), the shortest couple in the competition proved that they have the potential to hang in for a big longer than anyone would have thought. Perhaps most of all, they’re likable, “MESSAGE!” will become part of your vocabulary after you watch their first promo this week.

In Mia Michaels’ words, the couple has “a great night” with two strong performances that will have you wondering if they could be one of the top couples left on the show at this point. 

While they might find themselves in the Bottom 3 again this week, simply because the Top 3 couples are so strong in the competition I can’t see Courtney or Gev being sent home by the judges this week on the sole basis of their improvement and ability to find chemistry with one another. Whether they find chemistry with new partners after reaching the Top 10, no one can really predict, but there is absolutely no reason why either of these two should go home this week.

Going home this week: Comfort/Thayne/Jessica – Toss up between the girls, any guy other than Thayne going home this week would feel like highway robbery.

In my opinion, here’s how the current couples stand after this Top 12 Week

1) Chelsie H. and Mark

2) Katee and Joshua

3) Kherington and Twitch

4) Courtney and Gev

5) Jessica and Will (solid performances from Will again, along with one good one from Jessica)

6) Comfort and Thayne (who struggled throughout this week)

Overall, here’s how I’d rank the Top 5 overall contestants

1) Chelsie H.

2) Will

3) Kherington

4) Katee

5) Twitch