adam shankman

How many contestants would you like to see on 'So You Think You Can Dance' (Wed., 8PM ET on Fox). Would you like ten contestants? Twenty? A million of them?

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Brian Gaynor has scoliosis ... but that's not going to stop him from appearing on 'So You Think You Can Dance' (Thu., 8PM ET on Fox).

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It's another night of failed contestants on 'So You Think You Can Dance' (Wed., 8PM ET on Fox). Once again, there's laughter and there's tears as a new group of so-called "dancers" perform badly for our enjoyment.

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Well, it's audition time again on 'So You Think You Can Dance' (Thu., 8PM ET on Fox). Which means that -- for good or for ill -- we are once again subjected to the worst that the dance world can offer. While many great dancers appear on the show, we'd like to take a second to focus on the not so good ones.

Terrible auditions ranged from a guy who unwisely shook his butt while dressed in an 80s outfit ... to a guy who wore pieces of broccoli over his nipples (seriously). But perhaps the worst tryout was reserved for 19-year-old Daria Kopylova. She creepily did a highly sexy dance routine ... with her own father. It was such an awkward performance that finally -- mercifully -- the judges forced her to stop.

We all know that the guest judges on 'So You Think You Can Dance' can tango with the best of them, but occasionally, even the most accomplished choreographers want to trade the toe-tapping for a more verbal form of the rumba.

Following the news that former judge Mary Murphy will be ditching the judging table full-time to provide more choreography in season 7 (Murphy will still serve as a guest judge), The Wrap is now reporting that previous guest judge Mia Michaels will be stepping up to fill her spot (and her initials) alongside returning experts Nigel Lythgoe and Adam Shankman.

If you thought changing partners every week on 'So You Think You Can Dance' counts as a big shake-up, brace yourself for the latest rule changes: No Top 20 and the return of several "All Stars" from past seasons.

Over the weekend, producer Nigel Lythgoe tweeted some radical new rules for season 7, which premieres May 27: "No top 20! No choosing genres! Only one goes home each week CHANGE - Less than 4 compete in the Finale!" Previous seasons featured six finalists competing for the title of "America's Favorite Dancer."

Today, he added more shake-ups via his Twitter account: "We are forming a 'dance-pool' of your favorite dancers from previous Seasons to act as partners for this year's top 10." Lythgoe went on to explain, "the dancers will change partners each week picked from an 'All-Star Pool.' Each 'All-star' will be a specialist in specific genres of dance." Lythgoe announced he'll be hand picking the dancers for the All-Star Pool, who'll be chosen from all six seasons.

Adam Shankman is busy judging auditions for season 7 of 'So You Think You Can Dance,' but that doesn't mean he's up on the latest changes to the show. At the Hollywood premiere of 'The Last Song' last night, he was surprised to hear the news producer Nigel Lythgoe tweeted about yesterday.

"He's not filling me in!" he said. After learning two of the major new changes -- partners change every week and only one person will be eliminated each week -- he laughed, "Oh great, I love this, that I'm finding out from you!"

Shankman gave his thoughts on the new rules and his own ideas for the show, which, unfortunately, "keep getting shut down," the best city so far in the audition process and why this season will be even more competitive.

Producer Nigel Lythgoe tweeted today about the "shocking but GREAT" changes to season 7 of 'So You Think You Can Dance.' First major shake-up: Partners will change every week.

That's bad news for viewers who fell in love with pairings such as last season's Jakob Karr and Ashleigh Di Lello, but good news for younger dancers like Mollee Gray and Nathan Trasoras, who both matured considerably when split up and partnered with more experienced partners.

This week they started revealing some of the stars who'll be presenting at Sunday night's Oscar broadcast on ABC, and at the top of the list were three former Oscar winning actresses, Barbra Streisand, Charlize Theron and Kathy Bates. Also on the roster will be Queen Latifah, Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta.

Nikki Finke's Deadline.com column has a major spoiler about the opening of the show. If you don't want to know, avoid the last paragraph below.

There's an interesting angle on Barbra Streisand's appearance on the show. Speculation is that Streisand will be presenting Best Director, which insiders say is a lock for Kathryn Bigelow.

The Oscar shows have long had a problem attracting the younger crowd, or at least the part that doesn't spend every waking moment organizing the AV club's equipment cabinet. So this year they have tried to "hip it up."

The Academy has hired DJ Joel Madden to serve as the ceremony's "house DJ" for the broadcast.

Producer Adam Shankman said he wanted the show to have more of a party atmosphere. Does that mean there will be a birthday clown and a "Pin the Tail on the Fellini" game too?

[via TV Tattle]

The history of the Academy Awards telecast has been generally a pretty traditional show. You've had historic moments of bad taste like Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White, bizarre musical opening numbers from the likes of Lucie Arnaz and Liza Minnelli -- not together -- and, of course, great highs like most of the Billy Crystal musical medleys of the Best Oscar nominees.

This year if Billy were there, his medley would be about 20 minutes long to include all ten nominated movies! They'd have needed an oxygen tank in the wings to revive him after that.

But here's a wickedly wild idea that might have set the Oscars into to fierce wilderness of 'oh-my-God' TV. The Oscar producers were toying with the idea of having Sacha Baron Cohen host the show. Yep, believe it. Producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic were on NPR's 'Fresh Air' with Teri Gross, and they said when they contemplated shaking up the broadcast, they thought of 'Borat.'

In recent years, the songs nominated at the Oscars have not been particularly memorable or worth the time during the broadcast to waste on music that nobody remembers after walking out of the multiplex. This year, ironically, there is at least one very good song that was going to be an Oscar highlight, assuming the producers convinced Jeff Bridges to sing 'The Weary Kind' from 'Crazy Heart' during the March 7th broadcast. That's not going to happen now.

New Oscar producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic have decided to drop the Best Song performances, according Entertainment Weekly. Instead of singers -- either from the movie or good enough to sing the songs from the movies -- we're going to see a montage of images from the picture with the soundtrack recording.

(S06E23) For the first time in the history of So You Think You Can Dance, we have six dancers in the final performance show, which makes it even more unpredictable. It was a great night of dancing, but I'm not even going to venture a guess as to who might win, as a strong case could be made for at least five of them.

I would have liked to see tonight's episode be a two-hour showcase rather than tomorrow's finale. We could then have seen each of the dancers perform in solos, or perhaps some of the more diverse couplings and group numbers we've gotten on other finales.

Instead, we got nine dances, pairing each guy with each girl through the night. It was wall-to-wall dancing to pack it into an hour, which was a refreshing change, and we did get to see married couple Ryan and Ashleigh perform together ... and not in a ballroom routine.

(S06E20) I go into these elimination shows expecting a lot of pad and filler. But when it's a dance show, I want to see dancing; which is why I'm always a little perplexed when musical guests who don't dance show up. This week's musical guest was Snoop Dogg, and I really enjoyed it. And yes, I know that Snoop does little more than bounce and swagger.

It was that either he or the producers were smart about how to put together his stage show. Hip-hop videos are known for dancing, so why not bring that dancing to the live show? Joining Snoop on stage was Quest, a former winner of America's Best Dance Crew, as well as the dance home for three former SYTYCD contestants: Ryan, Dominic and Hok.

What about the results, though? I was surprised that even though we've switched to voting for individual dancers, it was still two couples from last night's performance show that wound up in the bottom.