PopWatch Planner: Lindsay Lohan, Bane, and the rest of your week ahead
Image Credit: HBO
Stay up late to watch Katy Perry on Saturday Night Live? Did you celebrate New Years Eve early with 41 of your closest onscreen celebrity friends? That is all so eight hours ago. PopWatch is already looking ahead to the coming week of must-see water-cooler events, starting with tonights season finale of Boardwalk Empire and culminating with Saturdays much-anticipated SNL homecoming of the season.
SUNDAYBoardwalk Empire finale, 9 p.m., HBOAll the kings horses and all the kings men cant put my psyche back together after last weeks episode, which only explained everything about Jimmy (Michael Pitt). (I always suspected something was off between him and his mom, but for the show to go all Grifters was still a shock.) Tonight, season 2 concludes with Jimmy seeking a rapprochement with Nucky, whose legal complications might hinge on his own ladys heavy Irish conscience.
MONDAYFear Factor returns, 8 p.m., NBCThis is what qualifies as good news at NBC these days: Fear Factor is back! Hot young things eat live scorpions, get thrown through glass windows, and gasp have their luscious locks shaved off in a ruthless competition for 10 meeeeeeeellion dollars Wait, whats that? Its not for $10 million? Theyre subjecting themselves to this torture for a mere $50,000? Oh Yeah, Im definitely watching then.
TUESDAYRise of the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray releasedLeap on the Andy Serkis Oscar bandwagon! If you havent yet seen this slick reboot, in which a scientist (James Franco) clears the path for ape rule w! ith an e xperimental cure for Alzheimers, you missed an unparalleled performance from the reigning Olivier of motion-capture acting. Serkis might not receive Academy recognition, but his Caesar is an evolutionary leap forward in cinematic realism. Plenty of Blu-ray extras show you how he did it.
WEDNESDAYBarbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2011, 9:30 p.m., ABCYouve got to admire Barbara Walters. One week after grilling Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, shell be on the sofa tossing softballs to the Kardashians. Also deemed fascinating enough for Barbara in 2011: Donald Trump, Simon Cowell, Katy Perry, Derek Jeter, Modern Familys Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet, and Pippa Middleton. But shes yet to reveal the No. 1 Most Fascinating Person. The late Steve Jobs? Ryan Gosling? Charlie Sheen?
THURSDAYMission: Impossible Ghost Protocol opensEthan Hunt & Co. slip back into select IMAX theaters today, and if watching Incredibles director Brad Bird put Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner in the middle of some amazing stunt sequences isnt enough for you, theres also the matter of seeing the much-anticipated prologue to this Julys The Dark Knight Rises. A seven-minute clip screens before MIGP, and you know you dont want to be the last of your friends to see how Bain looks on screen.
Image Credit: Joe Scarnici/WireImage.com
THURSDAY BONUS: Lindsay Lohan on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, syndicationWith her Playboy issue on! newssta nds this Friday, Lindsay Lohan sits down with Ellen to discuss the up and downs of her past year. (The $1 million Playboy cover is the up, right?)
FRIDAYSherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows opens in theatersWere you a little surprised when surveys indicated that A Game of Shadows was the most-anticipated movie of the holiday season? Not me. Its elementary: Robert Downey Jr. can do no wrong as the ingenious but neurotic sleuth-turned-action hero, and his bromance with Jude Laws Dr. Watson is as true and quick-witted as His Girl Friday. Throw in the first major Hollywood role for the original Lisbeth Salander, Noomi Rapace, and the introduction of legendary Holmes nemesis Moriarty (Mad Mens Jared Harris) and you have one gloriously stuffed stocking.
Image Credit: Lloyd Bishop/NBC
SATURDAYJimmy Fallon hosts Saturday Night Live, 11:30 p.m., NBCHas it really been seven years since Fallon left Saturday Night Live for the movies? Its a credit to how good hes become as late-night host that you might forget or at least forgive those movies. (Taxi and Fever Pitch, for the record.) Hes returned a few times since to guest star in The Barry Gibb Talk Show, and his musical imitations (Neil Young) and duets the freakin Boss! on Late Night demonstrate he hasnt lost anything on his fastball. So which SNL characters will he resurrect? Will he sit in on Weekend Update? Will Justin Timberlake make an appearance? Most importantly, how many times he will laugh in the middle of a scene? If he doesnt, Ill be disappointed.