Pop Culture Odds and Ends – Post BCS Championship edition

I think I was still in shock yesterday with how badly Notre Dame played against Alabama Monday night in the BCS Championship game. I was skeptical that the Irish (my team) would be able to pull it off – Alabama is a great team – but I thought that they would at least put up more of a fight. We knew that the game was over by the end of the first quarter, yet we continued to watch the game unfold. I’m just glad that Notre Dame scored a few touchdowns; losing is one thing – even in a blowout – but getting completely shut out is so much worse. It wasn’t a very exciting game to watch. When the big story coming out of the game is the announcer going on and on about the girlfriend of the Alabama QB (and to a lesser extent the QB’s mom) – to the point that ESPN apologized for it – you know that it’s not that good of a game. You’d think after years of watching the Buffalo Bills I would have been prepared for that display of terrible football, but I had higher hopes for Notre Dame. Clearly, I am not meant to root for a dominant football program on any level.

So while I get over that display Monday night, here’s your biweekly roundup of pop culture odds and ends to keep you occupied:

• Oscar nominations will be announced tomorrow! It is embarrassing how giddy I am for this.

• The Razzie nominations have been announced, recognizing the worst cinematic achievements.

• Don’t expect to see all the Bluths together in the upcoming Netflix episodes of Arrested Development.

• They are making a “sort-of” prequel to Jackie Brown (apparently without Quentin Tarantino’s involvement) that will feature a pretty good cast.

• Genie Francis (Laura Spencer, of “Luke and Laura” fame) will be returning to General Hospital.

• All My Children and One Life to Live are returning online.

• The Sin City sequel is lining up a pretty impressive cast; Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin and Christopher Meloni are now all attached.

• Listen to the Stark Children beatbox the Game of Thrones Theme Song

• Tina Fey is in talks to be the female lead for The Muppets sequel. Someone needs to make this happen!

• The Fifty Shades of Grey screenwriter expects the movie to get an NC-17 rating (having read the books, I couldn’t see how this wouldn’t be the case).

• Remember M. Night Shyamalan? He’s working on developing a miniseries for Fox and FX.

• Film.com has an infographic that breaks down how many times Tarantino has used the N-word in his films.

• Justin Bieber will be both host and musical guest for an upcoming episode of SNL.

• Speaking of the Biebs, check out this video of James Franco lip syncing to Bieber’s  song, “Girlfriend.” Is there anything Franco can’t do?

• Fox will air a block of animated programing on Saturday nights over the summer, similar to Adult Swim over at Cartoon Network.

• Uproxx has a guide on how to drink like the characters on Justified.

• Woody Allen’s newest movie has a title – Blue Jasmine.

• A musical based on the Disney film Aladdin is coming to Broadway.

• The musical based on the Barry Levinson movie Diner (great film) has been delayed until fall.

• Empire Online has a comprehensive James Bond Travel map.

• David Bowie, who turned 66 yesterday, will be releasing a new album.

• The Week has 5 “fascinating” facts about Downton Abbey. I’d say fascinating is a bit much.

• The set of Anchorman 2 was damaged by wire thieves.

• Brad Pitt is being courted to play Pontius Pilate.

• The planned reboot of In Living Color is now dead. Thank goodness.

• The Steven Soderbergh biopic on Liberace (starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon) was deemed “too gay” for theaters. It will air on HBO.

• Someone needs to have a career intervention for Adrian Brody; he’s now starring in a movie written and directed by the ShamWow! guy. You have an Oscar, man – get yourself together!

• Sarah Michelle Geller is returning to TV in a sitcom.

• I’m very excited for this – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is taking a page from The Game of Thrones and will soon have its own themed beer.  This sounds like the perfect beverage to drink while playing CharDee MacDennis.

• Don’t expect to see Michael Scott return for the final episodes of The Office.

• Good news! There will be a second season of the webseries Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Hooray!

• NBC has ordered a summer camp drama for, naturally, the summer.

• Vanity Fair has an interview with Allison Williams, one of the stars of Girls and daughter of NBC News’ Brian Williams.

• Boston Magazine has an oral history of Good Will Hunting.

• This seems like a slam dunk – Cher is teaming up with the Logo network for a pilot script.

• HBO announced the premiere dates for two interesting projects: A comedy from Christopher Guest and a WWI miniseries with Benedict Cumberbatch.

• Some guy online claims to have calculated the number of sexual partners of the characters on Friends. Joey was expected, but Phoebe was the real surprise.

• I love this – someone assembled a montage of training montages

• Anna Farris has signed on to star in Chuck Lorre’s latest CBS sitcom. I’m guessing that it won’t be very good, but will be wildly popular.

• This makes me happy – a new Vampire Weekend album is slated for the spring.

• Steven Seagal owns a bullet-proof kimono. Of course he does.

• I’m surprised the Internet didn’t implode at this rumor: J.K Rowling penning a Doctor Who story?

• Nancy Pelosi and Ice-T will appear in the 30 Rock season finale. I’m dying to know what Tina Fey plans to do with them.

• Here’s another weird pairing: Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence are doing a sitcom together.

• Watch a drum duel between Fred Armisen and ?uestlove from The Roots:

• Nicolas Cage and Ashley Tinsdale are attached to the Left Behind movie, based on the faith based novels. A previous adaptation starred Kirk Cameron. I feel like this could be the most awesomely bad movie ever made.

• Vince Gilligan offers some clues on how Breaking Bad may end.

• Downton Abbey’s Mrs. Patmore will appear on Once Upon a Time.

• Anthony Bourdain decided to live tweet an episode of Nickelodeon’s iCarly.

• HBO has been sued over an alleged cover-up over the death of horses on the show Luck.

• Jay Z will be scoring the upcoming film The Great Gatsby.

• Seth Rogen will appear on The Mindy Project.

• Flavorwire has a collection of the original pilots of popular TV shows.

• Seriously, Taylor Swift? Enough already. Try being alone for a while.

• Check out this video of Django Unchained, reimagined as a terrible sitcom.

• And finally, because I can’t stop yammering on about Tarantino apparently, College Humor has assembled every pop culture reference from his movies