1. HBO has released some behind-the-scenes footage from Season 2 of Game of Thrones! Watch it here, and then try to deal with the fact that you won’t get to see the full thing until April.
2. Despite some seriously hilarious reviews about how bad it is, Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 took in an estimated $139 million over the weekend, making it the fifth largest opening of all time. [via Vulture]
3. RIP: Mark Hall, the UK animator who created the cartoon series Danger Mouse, died over the weekend at the age of 75 following a short illness. [via Guardian]
4. This weekend’s Jason Segel-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live (which we reviewed here) scored the show’s best ratings so far this season. Do you think it had anything to do with that cameo by The Muppets? [via Deadline]
5. The American Music Awards were held last night, and the biggest news of the evening (other than the fact that Jennifer Lopez performed what was essentially a car commercial in what was essentially her birthday suit) was Taylor Swift’s second win as Artist of the Year. [via AP]
Bonus Buzz: Super Mario/X-Men Mash-Up
Considering the way Ke$ha and Rihanna looked at last night’s American Music Awards, it’s not like the older folks were the only people making questionable wardrobe choices. But rock ‘n roll tends to be a young person’s game, and things that look perfectly normal on teenage stars start to look a little strange when you head north of 35. Last night’s performers and presenters were a study in what happens when an attempt to balance pop relevance with aging gracefully goes horribly wrong. As a service to musicians born later than 1975, we’ve used some unfortunate images from the 2010 AMAs to assemble this helpful list of 10 things middle-aged rockers are not allowed to wear.
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If you’re like us, you didn’t expect much out of last night’s American Music Awards. They are, after all, a second-rate awards ceremony at a time when even the Grammys and the Oscars fail to provide much fodder for water-cooler conversation. But now that we’re living in a post-Kanye-interruptus world, the potential for moments of unscripted magic were enough to plant us in front of our TV sets last night. And, although Taylor Swift took home five awards without incident, it was the evening’s performances — not its winners — that wowed us.
You see, for us, last night marked a sort of changing of the pop guard, with established divas like Jennifer Lopez and Whitney Houston falling on their asses (sometimes literally) as ascending stars Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert turned in jaw-dropping production numbers. (Must be why the show logged its best ratings since 2003.) After the jump, check out Glambert’s hot, homoerotic performance and three other essential AMA moments.
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Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift scored the most nods when the American Music Awards nominations were announced today. Jackson picked up five nominations including artist of the year, favorite male artist, favorite album in both pop/rock and soul/R&B categories for his hits package Number Ones. Swift, who is also up for artist of the year, was nominated in five additional categories. Read More »
