I join John Moore, host of NewsTalk 1010’s “Moore in the Morning” to talk about “skibidi” and other new words recently added to the Cambridge Dictionary, a movie role for Kevin O’Leary, the POO! exhibit at the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, North East England, a headless robot and a Justin Bieber look-a-like and a $10,000 bar bill.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Justin Bieber is a teen ream for many teen girls. He gets a decidedly more adult treatment in “Pop star: Never Stop Never Stopping,” the new parody from Andy Samberg, Kiva Schaffer and Norma Tacoma a.k.a. the Lonely Island. Rated 14A for coarse language, nudity and substance abuse it may be a nightmare for hard-core Bielbers.
Samberg stars as Conner4Real, a Bieber-esque performer and former singer for boy band Style Boyz (Schaffer and Tacoma, who also co-direct). Despite the title of his big hit, “I’m So Humble,” (“I’m number one on the humble list!”) he’s a pampered pop star with an entourage—including a turtle wrangler, a weed roller, a short guy who hangs around to make Connor look taller and a movie star girlfriend (Imogen Poots)—that makes Elvis’s Memphis Mafia look restrained. When we first meet him, he’s at the top of the pops but when his sophomore album—hilariously titled Connquest—stiffs he learns who his real friends are as he struggles to stay popular.
A loving, and sublimely silly look at concert films like “Katy Perry: Part of Me” and “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” “Popstar” features real-life musicians, Nas, Akon, 50 Cent, Seal, Pink, Snoop Dogg, Usher, Questlove, DJ Khaled as talking-heads as it skewers the more ridiculous aspects of its (mostly) fictional lead character. It’s a millennial “Spinal Tap” that takes aim at the excesses of pop life—clueless social commentary, absurd catchphrases, gratuitous nudity to cultural appropriation, it’s all here—but at its poppy heart its really about friendship and family.
The scenes of satire are often ripped from the TMZ’s headlines—there’s an incident at the Anne Frank House and a costume malfunction that derails Connor’s public reputation—which feel familiar while still drawing a laugh. Better than those are the sly comments on how fame works in the Age of Kardashian. “There is no such thing as selling out,” Connor coos. “These days if you don’t sell out people think nobody’s interested.” Much of the film is as deep as one of Bieber’s teen love laments, but occasionally it hits a little harder and the laughs get a little deeper. But make no mistake this is R-rated stuff that revels in its idiotically smart humour.
The targets in “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’s” crosshairs are obvious and, frankly, easy pickings, but the film’s combination of catchy-if-ridiculous songs, appealing performances and fast-paced parody make it a chart topper.
“Zoolander 2,” the fifteen years in the making follow-up to the 2001 comedy hit, finds former “Blue Steel” supermodel Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) “out of fashion,” literally and figuratively. Following a tragic event involving his wife and his Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good, Derek stepped away from fashion and the world. He now lives the life of a “hermit crab,” complete with a long beard that obscures his “really, really, really, really, really ridiculously good looking face.”
When some of the most beautiful people in the world turn up dead, their Instagram images frozen in time in perma-duckface, Derek’s most famous facial expression, Zoolander and his past partner Hansel (Owen Wilson) are tricked into travelling to Rome to uncover who is behind this evil plot to rid the world of good looking celebrities.
In the Eternal City the dim-witted models will search for Derek’s long-lost son—whose blood may contain the secret to eternal fashionability—battle fashion criminal Mugato (Will Ferrell) and meet new high-powered fashionista All (Benedict Cumberbatch). Aiding the boys is Valentina (Penélope Cruz), a former swimsuit model troubled by her inability to “transition to print and runway work,” now working as an agent for Interpol’s Global Fashion Division.
“Zoolander 2’s” main joke isn’t the Blue Steel, the pouty-lipped move that made Zoolander a superstar, or the dim-witted antics of Derek and Hansel. No, the movie’s best joke is its commentary on how quickly the best-by date comes for modern day celebrities. The speed of popular culture has revved considerably since 2001 and what seems hip today may be passé tomorrow. Fashion is fleeting, as cameos from Anna Wintour, Tommy Hilfiger, Marc Jacobs demonstrate, but the big question is has “Zoolander 2” reached its expiration date?
I usually avoid the scatological in my reviews but suffice to say any movie whose best joke involves the morphing of the word “faces” into feces over and over, that features a hotel made of “reclaimed human waste” and subtitles itself with “No. 2” is really asking for it.
To put it more delicately, villain Mugato marvels at how “super white hot blazingly stupid” Derek is, and you’ll do the same thing about the film. Stupid can be OK if it’s funny but “Zoolander 2” leaves the laughs on the runway. Stiller’s mugging gets tired quickly and the simple, juvenile jokes were much funnier fifteen years ago when we heard them the first time. To use the movie’s own dialogue against itself, “You guys are so old-school,” says Don Atari (Kyle Mooney), “so lame.”
Stiller, who directs and co-wrote the script, jam packs every frame with with cameos in a desperate grab for relevancy. Everyone from Justin Bieber (who appearance may please non- Beliebers) to Joe Jonas and Katy Perry to Ariana Grande decorate the screen, while Susan Sarandon does a “Rocky Horror” call back and Billy Zane demonstrates that he is no longer an actor, but a pop-culture punchline. I doubt even Neil deGrasse Tyson could scientifically explain why he chose to appear in this dreck.
Fred Armisen as an eleven-year-old manager of social media tries his best to make his brief role strange-funny while Will Ferrell’s Mugatu is essentially an audition to play an alternate universe Bond villain.
The best thing about “Zoolander 2” that it is such a fashion faux pas and so desperately unfunny it’s hard to imagine Stiller and Company making a third one fifteen years from now.
The best and thew weirdest from the world of pop culture in 2013
Top Singles (click on title to watch the official video)
1. The Stars (Are Out Tonight): David Bowie
4. Hate the Taste: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
6. Get Lucky: Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams
9. Right Action: Franz Ferdinand
10. Goons (Baby, I Need It All): Mona
Top Celebrity moments/Gossip
1. Controversial Twerking! In April no one knew what “twerking” was. Unfortunately now we all do.
2. Amanda Bynes threw a bong out the window of her 36th floor apartment. It was “just a vase,” she said.
3. After calling Bruce Willis “greedy and lazy” Sylvester Stallone charged $395 per autograph at NY Comic-Con
4. Tom Cruise said Katie Holmes filed divorced because of Scientology
6. Michael Douglas admitted he didn’t get that he got throat cancer after engaging in oral sex.
7. Kat Von D not so cleverly named her new lipstick “Celebutard.” Sephora pulled the plug amid complaints from Down Syndrome Uprising, Family Member, Inclusion BC and All About Developmental Disabilities.
8. Ke$ha says she drank her urine and, “It tasted kind of like candy.”
9. Banksy stall sells art works worth up to $30,000 for $60 each in New York’s Central Park.
10. Justin Bieber’s pet Capuchin monkey, Mally, was confiscated at a German airport after the singer tried to smuggle it into the country.
Top TV moments
1. Two words: Tentacle porn. – Anthony Bourdain’s Tokyo Parts Unknown episode.
2. Zombies falling through the ceiling of a department store in The Walking Dead
3. “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive.” – Walt (Bryan Cranston) on the Breaking Bad finale
4. Orphan Black Clones!
5. Cooking lessons from Hannibal Lector on Hannibal.
6. The bisected cow on Under the Dome.
7. Nick and Jess’ first kiss on The New Girl. So passionate, Jess says the kiss made her see “through space and time for a minute.”
8. Orange is the New Black’s duct-tape sandals.
9. The “Red Wedding” massacre on Games Of Thrones. “My King has married and I owe my new Queen a wedding gift.” ― Lord Walder (David Bradley)
10. The car crash death of Downton Abbey’s Matthew in the final minute of the period drama’s 3rd season.
Top General Entertainment Stories
1. Lou Reed Dead at 71
2. James Gandolfini Dead at 51
3. Angelina Jolie announced double mastectomy
4. Paula Deen gets fired for using the N word
5. Kanye West declared himself the “number one rock star on the planet” in a BBC interview.
6. The last movie ever rented at a Blockbuster? This is the End.
7. Sinead O’Connor accused Miley Cyrus of “behaving like a prostitute and calling it feminism.”
8. Born! The Royal Baby, Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge.
9. Cory Monteith R.I.P.
10. Star Wars: Episode VII release date announced. The Force will return to theatres on December 18, 2015.
Top Online Moments
1. The prank video showing the baffled and terrified reactions of customers in a NYC coffee shop reacting to a woman with telekinesis tearing up the place.
2. Grumpy Cat vs Tommy Lee Jones meme. A side-by-side comparison of Jones at the Golden Globes and Grumpy Cat reveals that they might be long lost relatives.
3. Wisest tweet of the year: Always remember! Many of the people on the Internet telling you what’s what are not old enough to rent a car. – @KenJennings
4. M.I.A.’s Psychedelic Dance Party at the YouTube Music Awards
5. Raven-Symone came out on Twitter after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn The Defense of Marriage Act. “I can finally get married! Yay government! So proud of you.”
6. Andrew Huang’s video of his rap song without using the letter “E” and it’s about NOT using the letter “E”!
7. Swedish Chef Ramsay meme. “Why did the bork bork? Because you borked the bork!”
8. “I want Drake to murder my vagina.” – Amanda Bynes on Twitter
9. Best web series: The Booth at the End starring Xander Berkelely as a mysterious man who grants wishes… for a price.
10. Homeless Army Veteran Turns Life Around in Amazing Time Lapse Video
Each time I interview someone really famous the questions start.
How’s Gwyneth’s skin? How tall is Brad Pitt? I’ve even been asked what George Clooney smells like. But ever since I hosted a Toronto press event with Justin Bieber to publicize his new movie Never Say Never on Tuesday, the question everyone has asked, and it has been dozens of people, is much more basic. “What’s he like?” everyone wants to know.
I won’t presume to be able to answer the question after only spending a few minutes backstage and 30 or so minutes on stage with the pop prodigy, but I have a few observations based on our short time together.
Firstly, he’s a high-energy kid. Backstage he was a bundle of energy. When he wasn’t tweeting or sharing funny You Tube videos with his stylist Ryan, he was chatting and joking around. “I hope you’re a good translator,” he joked to me as we walked to the stage, “because I’m going to do the whole interview in Spanish.” Then he burst into song. “Feliz Navidad…”
Onstage, luckily he stopped the Christmas carols but showed another aspect of his personality. Less than two years ago he was playing to 40 fans at a water park in Poughkeepsie, New York. Now he can sell out Madison Square Gardens in 22 minutes and he hasn’t forgotten the people who got him there—his fans.
“Where are my fans at?” he asked. “There’s a lot of fans [outside]. Can we bring those fans in? I love you guys with the cameras and stuff, but what’s the point if my fans aren’t here?”
Also, he’s as humble and normal as a pop superstar can be. When I asked him when he first felt famous he said, “I still don’t really notice it. I’m still just a regular teenage boy, living his dream and having a lot of fun.” Later I asked about household chores. “I do clean my room, especially when I’m home at my grandma’s house.”
Lastly, I learned he’s still a proud Canadian, with a taste for a particular icy cocktail not served in his new hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. “I miss Tim Hortons,” he said. “I miss Timmy’s! I miss my Ice Cap.”
So what’s my answer to the burning question, “What’s Justin Bieber like?” Well, he’s just like any other high energy, fan-lovin’ Canadian multi-millionaire 16-year-old pop superstar with a taste for chilled coffee.
Bieber with members of his entourage, at the Royal York Hotel on Tuesday.
Justin Bieber was in town Tuesday, promoting the soon-to-be-released movie about his life—all sixteen years of it. There was a press conference yesterday afternoon in the ballroom at the Royal York Hotel. Torontoist was invited, of course.
The ballroom at the Royal York would be a pretty lavish backdrop for a state dinner, let alone a publicity stunt. There are painted ceilings in there, and chandeliers. The dour, stylishly dressed writer seated next to us theorized that Bieber’s handlers had simply over-prepared, in case of an unexpectedly large turnout. But Bieber is famous on such a galactic scale, at the moment, that his publicists probably could have pulled the same or better number of media outlets if they’d held the presser in a public washroom.
Though even the public washrooms at the Royal York are really nice.
Bieber was late, and the assembled crowd of journalists began to get restless. A paper placard with his name on it was perched (somewhat needlessly, what with the galactic fame) on top of a red-velvet-fringed table on a dais at the head of the room. A reporter for TVO Kids was the first to succumb to the temptation to get her picture taken with the placard, which would have been maybe a slight breach of decorum had she not been ten years old. Then Steve Murray from the Post did the same, but he’s a satirist, and so not always taking himself seriously is kind of his job. Then half-a-dozen other reporters, none of them children or satirists, did likewise.
So yes: Even Justin Bieber’s name, printed on a folded piece of paper, has more personal charisma than most of humanity.
The first indication that His Biebness had entered the building was the arrival of his security retinue: a cadre of men built like refrigerators, wearing suits and Secret-Service-style earpieces. (They might have been employed by the hotel.)
Then, almost forty-five minutes after the scheduled start of the presser, Justin Bieber took his seat on the dais, alongside a few members of his entourage (his security guy, his stylist) and Jon Chu, who directed the Bieber movie.
Up close, the first thing that impresses itself upon one about Bieber is how small and very authentically kidlike he is. Next to the full-grown adults on the dais, he looked like a doll. And yet he had a way of taking control of the entire situation.
“Hey, where my fans at?” said Bieber. “We have so much room in here. Why don’t we bring them in here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes more sense.”
Perhaps twenty adolescent girls filed in from the hallway and took some of the seats that weren’t occupied by members of the press.
“I’m not really good at press conferences,” he continued. “I’m not really sure how this works. If you guys could inform me how this works, that would be great.”
Fans react to Bieber’s answers during the Q-and-A session.
CTV’s Richard Crouse, who was moderating the press conference, asked Bieber when it first dawned on him that he was “really famous.”
“Um, I don’t know. I still don’t really notice it. I’m still just, like, a regular teenage boy,” said the guy with a security detail and, now, a personal cheering section of twelve-to-fourteen-year-old girls. “And I mean, my fans have been here since day one, and I wouldn’t be here without them.”
The twenty girls let up a unison “Woo!”
Crouse asked if Bieber still cleans his room. “I do clean my room,” said Bieber. At another point, he spoke about living in geared-to-income housing in Stratford. But that was years ago. Like, at least two.
Bieber had a way of projecting an appealing humility. It may have been false, but the point is that he knows he needs that image—knows that it’s a defence against backlash and a key component of his appeal to the core Bieber demographic.
And he seems to know his demographic.
Talking about the movie, he said to the assembled reporters: “Some of you are probably a little surprised you liked it, right? Be honest.”
Then he singled out the dour, stylish writer sitting next to us. It was as though he’d read the room already, and had picked out the one person most likely to be hostile to the project.
“You liked it, right?” asked Bieber.
“Yeah, I enjoyed it,” said the writer.
Bieber cut him off: “You enjoyed it. It’s a good movie whether you like me or you hate me.”
Twenty minutes into the conference Bieber interrupted a lineup of journalists waiting at a microphone for their turns to ask him questions, and gave the cheering section a chance to pose one of their own. He called on a girl. She took the mic and laid out her query: “Will you marry me?”
“We get that question at least once a day,” said Bieber. “The answer is: never say never.”
Never Say Never is the title of the movie. And so in one breath he’d reassured a fan that he wasn’t beyond her reach, romantically—that he was just an ordinary teenage guy—and had also plugged the 3D theatrical extravaganza that he stars in.
The conundrum of Bieber’s fame is that, to keep it, he has to be at least nominally ordinary, otherwise the legions of fans who’ve turned him into the hottest shit on all the internets might no longer consider him boyfriend material. He needs to oscillate between extremes of celebrity and banality so quickly that all we see is a blur. The fact that he was able to do this in a room stacked with skeptical adults made him seem uncommonly smart.
Justin Bieber during a press conference for his documentary film “Never Say Never” in Toronto on February 1. (CP Images)
Justin Bieber kept the crowd waiting at the Royal York Hotel on Tuesday afternoon, but when he did show up – well, the afternoon wasn’t just for the reporters in the room, anyway.
“Whassup?” calls out the 16-year-old Canadian pop sensation – his hair a little looser than constantly photographed; his face starting to firm toward adulthood – as he appears from the wings and takes his seat 45 minutes later than scheduled for about 50 reporters and photographers. “Hey! Where are my fans at? Are those fans out there? There’s a lot of fans out there, right? But there’s, like, so much room in here.”
“Should we bring ’em in here?” someone calls out.
“You should bring ’em in,” Bieber – keeping the wardrobe simple today with a modest grey hoodie – concurs. “Yeah, yeah, yeah – that makes more sense. I love you guys behind the cameras and stuff. That’s cool, right? But what’s the point if my fans aren’t here.”
Playing up the “Rocky” theme while a score of teenage girls comes in through a lobby door, Bieber points out toward them: “Everyone give it up for my faaaaans!”
The small and tidy phenom from equally small and tidy Stratford, Ontario, is making a home-ground whistle stop on the promotional push before his 3D half-concert/half-documentary feature, “Never Say Never”, hits the cinemas big-time on February 11. Flanked on a Royal York ballroom stage riser by the closest-knit of his team – stylist Ryan Good and strapping security chief Kenny Hamilton to his right; general manager Allison Kaye and Toronto journalist and moderator Richard Crouse to his left – Bieber had been setting off squeals since just before his press conference was scheduled to begin, at 2 p.m.
Reporters looking to bookend their TV reports take turns before Bieber’s arrival by occupying the space marked for him and giddily running through intros. “Have a great Bieber day!” gushes one talking head; another pumps up the adrenaline for his thought-to-be-imminent arrival with rapid-fire effusion before being prompted, in a stunt, to get out of the chair.
“…Awkward…!” she zings. Um… yeah. But, in its own sidelong way, gleefully par for the course.
“I’m not really good at press conferences,” Bieber says at the outset. “I haven’t really done a lot of them. So, I don’t really know how this works. You guys can inform me about how this works. That would be great.”
Crouse leads into an upbeat and fast-moving 25 minutes that feature a few questions about the making of “Never Say Never” – which not only chronicles the 10 days before a long-anticipated (and somewhat nerve-racking) sellout show at Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, but fills in the details of Bieber’s less grandiose background – and a lot of questions of a more “16” magazine variety.
The answers pretty much tell the level of the questions:
– “I think that Twitter’s such a good thing because I’m able to just be, like, interactive with my fans. I’m able to talk to them. They feel like they’re a part of me, which is really important.”
– “I’ve gotta say at first, like, a year ago, I was, like, all about Sour Patch Kids, right? They were the greatest things. But then my fans – they started bringing them to every show. Everything I was at. So, I kept eating them. Now, it’s like if I eat another Sour Patch Kid, I’m probably gonna just throw up. Now, I really like – well, in Canada, they’re Bigfoots. In America, they’re Swedish Fish. Canada’s better, obviously. Ketchup chips are good. I love them.”
– “I never wore long johns. Just sweatpants or something.”
– “I miss Tim Horton’s. I miss Timmy’s. I miss my Ice Cap. I miss seeing my friends and family. I miss my dog, Sam.”
– “Shout out to YouTube!”
The whole world of Bieber’s though, with his adoptive entertainment family keeping him company on stage and keeping him moving throughout “Never Say Never”… it can’t help but bring up the big question: Who does he trust?
“For sure,” he answers. “There’s so many people that are just new in my life. You can’t just think that someone’s going to do something wrong – because if you think like that, you’re not going to be happy in your life. You always have to expect people to do the right thing, but at the same thing you have to guard yourself and make sure you’re letting the right people in.
“All these past two years, these people have become like my family – just travelling with them every day. We’re going to fight like family and we’re going to have good times like family. Overall, at the end of the day, they’re here to make sure that I just become a good person, overall.”
“Never Say Never”, beyond showing singing and dancing sequences from last year’s My World tour, fills in the legendary blanks of Bieber’s seeming rise from nowhere. The famed YouTube clips of Bieber busking outside the Avon Theatre in Stratford and sweetly singing Ne-Yo songs as a wee neophyte on a local stage are included, but there are a few more digs deeper from the home vaults: Bieber bundled up to shovel snow, Bieber entering the Stratford Star talent contest (and finishing second), and some astounding footage of eight-year-old Bieber holding his own as a jazz drummer in a band with full-grown musicians.
There are the expected appearances by celebrities, mentors and peers. Producer LA Reid speaks of how he knew he’d heard “the Macaulay Culkin of music” when he was alerted by Scooter Braun, the aspiring (and relatively inexperienced) Atlanta manager who nabbed Bieber on YouTube faith alone. Usher, who famously took Bieber under his wing, is on-stage and off-, duetting live while also admonishing the young star for balking at health drinks designed to preserve his vocal cords.
“You’re not gonna be 16 forever,” Usher warns, like an older brother, as Bieber holds his nose backstage and downs a special concoction that he complains “tastes like dinosaur pee.”
There is talk of the famed hair, and of his allegiance to his mother Pattie Mallette and the rest of his Canadian family. But, mostly, “Never Say Never” is about the fans – be they the screaming girls in braces outside Toronto’s Air Canada Centre and Ottawa’s Scotiabank Place, or even the 40-somethings at the Royal York press conference who can’t keep their crazed enthusiasm dimmed.
“There’s gonna be haters, no matter what,” Bieber admits at the conference. “People wanna see you succeed, and then once you’re there, they want to bring you down. It’s a weird world. But that’s how it is.
“There’s people who aren’t gonna like me, and that’s just – if they watch this movie and they really get to see that I’m just a nice person, and I’m not like… A lot of people think I’m just a factory machine, and people just put me together out of recycled product. Well, I really worked hard to get here. There’s so many people that helped me.”
And, with that in mind, Bieber invites one of the fans at the press conference to ask him a question. A young girl in a purple hoodie can’t get it out fast enough.
“Will you marry me?” she asks.
“We get that question at least once a day, too,” Bieber responds. “The answer is – you know – never say never, right?”
