Yesterday I posted about an ad campaign for Popchips featuring Ashton Kutcher portraying various characters on a dating website, worldwidelovers.com. In the ad, Ashton pretends to be several people of different ethnic/cultural backgrounds trying to find love.
One is an English guy with dreadlocks who apparently uses drugs. The idea there is that a. Ashton is using a British accent (how cheeky), and b. anyone with dreadlocks (read: Jamaican in spirit) smokes weed.
One is an effeminate European with a little pet dog and lots of attitude. At one point he claims to have stopped breathing to appear thinner (read: eating disorder, fashionistas must be thin).
One is a tattooed, bearded redneck, but wait... he seems to be sensitive? But that makes no sense! People with tattoos and beards must be lunkheaded neanderthals. This ad campaign is pushing some buttons, I tell ya!
Then there's Raj, a "Bollywood" producer looking for "the most delicious thing on the planet." Here's where the world seems to have stopped in it's tracks, jaws hitting the floor.
Amid all the rumours about Ashton Kutcher dating Rihanna, Ashton Kutcher dating Mila Kunis, even Ashton Kutcher dating his own step daughter, Ashton Kutcher is starring in an ad for a dating service.
In the ad, Ashton plays a Bollywood producer, an English stoner, a "Karl Lagerfeld" guy, a tattooed redneck, and then himself. All of them looking for love, all of them kind of odd.
It's supposed to be funny, and although it's more creepy than funny, what's creepier is that Ashton is associating himself with a dating website. Worldwidelovers.com, to be exact.
Except that it's not exact... as in it's a parody for Popchips, the "delicious, all-natural, healthier" chips that are "popped! Never fried, never baked." It took me a while to figure out what was going on. Popchips do turn up in the video, but only for a second, and it's when the "Lagerfeld" guy lets his dog lick a popchip before eating it himself. Gross!
Update: In the last 24 hours Kutcher and Popchips have gotten a lot of flack for the 'Raj' character, with critics calling the 'Bollywood producer' "racist and offensive". According to The Associated Press a spokeswoman for Popchips says the ad was "created to provoke a few laughs and was never intended to stereotype or offend anyone." She added that the company hopes "people can enjoy this in the spirit it was intended."
Canadian pop star Justin Bieber not only put his foot in his mouth late last week, but nearly swallowed it. When asked about a song on his new album, Believe, Bieber described it as being recorded in some "random country."
"I recorded it in a studio. Some little place," Bieber said. "They didn't know what they were doing."
The problem is that the "random country" is Indonesia, with a population of 240 million people. It has the third largest Facebook community in the world, and the fifth-biggest number of Twitter accounts.
Check out these crazy jumping penguins. Of course, this would be so much better if they were playing Van Halen's "Jump" while they were...er, jumping.
Although I have no real use for this, I'm pretty sure need it.
I'm not sure if this makes me more or less scared of flying. If they can land in winds that strong, what should I worry about a little bump here and there? On the other hand, it just goes to show how crazy pilots are. ("Me? Oh I just spend my days moving 970,000 lbs of metal at 500 mph, 30,000 ft above the ground. No biggie.")
Celebrity blowhard Rosie O'Donnell weighed in earlier this week with her two cents about Lindsay Lohan. In other words, a washed up has-been clung to the very last string of controversy she could grasp, as her own career quickly slips under the radar for the last time.
Rosie, on the Today Show, was suggesting that Lohan is not in a place in her life to be working at all, and that she should be taking time away from the Hollywood machine to take care of herself.
“I feel very sorry for (Lohan),” O'Donnell, who's last movie of note was 1996's Harriet the Spy (Remember that one?...No? Me neither.), said Tuesday. “I think she needs a lot of time away... She’s had a lot of trouble doing every single movie, including ‘SNL.' She was out and not in rehearsal. I think she’s not in a place to work."
Because Rosie was there at every day of filming for everything Lindsay has ever done, and knows the full story.
Watching this amazing run kicked in my anxiety right away. Two women longboarding the Maryhill Freeride, all downhill, at 40 mph.
About a minute in, it becomes almost tranquil. Then you realize THEY MIGHT CRASH!!! Except they don't, thank goodness. Pretty brave stuff. I will not be showing this to my 8 year old.
Props to the camera guy, who appears to be skating along with them.
So, I was going to write about how, despite denying rumours that they are dating, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have been spotted spending even more time together than most "friends" would. I wrote last week about how silly it is to assume that two people who have known each other for years are dating simply because they went to dinner together. Now it seems that the two are continuing to spend time together.
According to People.com: "The longtime friends and That '70s Show costars went on a three-day getaway to the coastal town of Carpinteria, Calif."
So who knows what's going on there. I'm not going to speculate any further, mainly because I sort of don't care...
...because in more dependable Hollywood news, there was a flash mob Carlton dance-off!
In celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the song "God Save the Queen" has become news again. Or rather the songs "God Save the Queen," as there are two, in case you didn't know.
There is a move afoot to have the Sex Pistols 1977 anti-monarchy anthem re-released at the same time as the traditional British national anthem, creating a rivalry in the charts to see which side will get to number 1 in the UK singles chart first.
30-year-old Lissa Hermans will pay tribute to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth with a charity single which will serve as an antidote to the Pistols' re-release of their song.
But not everyone celebrates the coming weekend with such joyeaux. Take this French cat, Henri, for instance. In typical French art house style, not only is the proverbial glass half empty, the milk dish of life is almost completely empty. I think he just needs some cat nip and a rubber mouse, but that's generally my solution for everything.
My kids (5 and 8) recently attended their school's dance-a-thon. When asked how it went, my son complained that they didn't play any of the songs he and his friends requested. Apparently they had asked to hear "I'm Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO, but instead got "I'm Elmo and I Know It" by...well, Elmo.
So here's a version of LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" with some major Imperial choreography to make up for it. Every kid loves Stormtroopers, right?! Right??!! Or is it just me?
