Pop Culture News and Notes

J.J. Abrams, co-creator of Lost and Alias and the director of Mission: Impossible 3, will direct and co-produce Star Trek XI (a working title that I’m sure they’ll change at some point), the attempt to resurrect the movie franchise. Following in the footsteps of Batman Begins, this Trek film will reboot the series by (apparently) going back to the days when the young Kirk and Spock were still cadets in Starfleet Academy (which, I presume, leaves Shatner and Nimoy out of the running to play the parts this time :-) The movie, which will go into production later this year, is scheduled to be released on Christmas Day of 2008.

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Vincent (“Big Pussy” from The Sopranos) Pastore has pulled out of Dancing with the Stars. The 60-year-old actor was overwhelmed by the physical demands of learning the dances after a week of practice and elected to withdraw and allow someone else to participate (Vincent should have called Master P before agreeing to do the show…he would have given him the “411” on how hard it was.) ABC will announce his replacement shortly.

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Announcing his gubernatorial on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno worked for Arnold so Senator John McCain decided to make the anticlimactic announcement that he was officially running for President on The Late Show with David Letterman on Wednesday night (announcing on your website, like Hillary Clinton did, being so passé…)

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Fox’s lawyers have made former American Idol contestant Matt Buckstein stop calling his online Idol shadow performances (see story here) “The Lost Idol.” Buckstein soldiers on having changed the name of his endeavor to “The Lost Country Singer”.

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More MKW Blogstuff: Bread and Roses